Tragedy has fallen upon Powersoccer. Well, that is a slight overstatement but still: “the horror, oh, the horror” and “unbearable” are the two words that spring automatically to mind.

Internet is all about “me” nowadays. I have a blog, I have a facebook account, I twitter, I have a myspace account where everybody can hear me sing so badly even your entirely deaf grandma notices something peculiar in the air. I even youtube silly dance movements from time to time. Thus, the internet is all about “me”. Apart from the egocentric and narcissist air of many of those online possibilities, an interesting change in the field of journalism is notable. With the easy access by everybody to everything – uploading audiovisual or written content – a new type of journalism has entered the building: citizen-journalism. Many blogs and even proper website offer a platform for citizen-journalists: some discuss the life in their small community – Mary Jones her kitten was bitten by the Wiener Dog of Mister Atkinson – yet others take on large issues like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or the environmental changes. Pictures of war are in most cases taken by citizens on the ground and no longer by the war photographers who, at best, are “embedded” with the Allied troops. Road bombs in Iraq are spread through cell phone captures. Soccer games are recorded with digital cameras and, despite their lack of visual quality, uploaded and viewed by many people. Citizen-journalists have exposed many of the flaws of any system and have become hefty competition for journalists working for a newspaper, magazine or the audiovisual media. Sometimes the latter are just too late. Sometimes the latter don’t dispose of the sources citizen-journalists have (you prefer talking to your friend which you know will not abuse your story than talking to a journalist you haven’t even met and quite frankly doesn’t even care about your position). Sometimes the latter work through a “political” or at least politicized agenda and they always work with a rope tied around their neck: will I make the next day as a reporter? Or put more accurately: will I make the next day as reporter if I publish this damaging report? In most cases, many of these damaging reports are filed in the closet and at best appear in the memoires of a good old reporter…
Powersoccer jumped on the wagon of citizen-journalism quite soon. A powersoccer extra website had regular and interesting reports on the powersoccer community, ranging from interviews with relevant actors (a master assistant, a league winner, a crew member) over detailed analyses on gameplay or new features to overviews of the weekly news (who won this or that cup, who got to level 99, who got hired as admin). Together with the badge makers over at psgoodies, Powersoccer had a quite active “civil society” wherein the best of Powersoccer was brought together.
All of those websites were linked on the page of Powersoccer itself where users could either click on them or read the article on the website as can be seen below…

Alas, the community links are no more. The new site allows a lot but apparently not a user input. The “community links” as they were so majestically labelled have been scrapped. On our way to a autocratic system or, as we suspect, just forgotten?

The message is clear and simple. Bring back the community links AND improve their position. Make them known to everybody by either creating a tab under news (and differentiate between crew news and user news) or under the infamous “connect” tab. In any case: “We Want The powersoccer extra articles back on the site”. Hence we petition crew to do so.