Fan sites explained

A few points to remember

Sometimes a few people will miss what most people can see straight away when they visit a fan site. Here is a brief explanation of how they work, in case this topic comes up in a forum as it seems to a few times a year. This will use BB Chaos as an example.

Opinions versus media reports

The commentator here at this site does write his own commentary diary during each series, obviously (it is his opinions expressed there and there is no denying that). It is based on what he sees on the show as well as what people are saying in forums and of course what the media is saying. Often he will say: "according to media reports today" or "according to News Limited today" by way of an example. Obviously there will always be one or two readers that miss that part. So you WILL find the use of direct and indirect source crediting here. There is no need to spell out where it all came from because people are not that dumb that they cannot read the forum posts, magazines, newspapers and the like themselves.

If we dig up an exclusive, as we have done before, then it is our right to claim so. But if we posted links to every online news source, plus page numbers of articles or scans of them in print media, and video of news reports on TV, plus forum posts everywhere, then it would clutter the site up - just to please a few that are ignorant of where the information comes from. It would become very superfluous to do that. It is best not to insult the intelligence of readers by pointing all of these out when they have seen it, or will see it with their own eyes. Most experienced Internet users know that the sources are the newsgroups, online articles, radio, television, magazines and newspapers, and of course what people see on the show. There is no denying this so it is not a secret - it is just common knowledge to almost everyone (except a few obviously).

Journalists?

As for professionalism on this site (some mistake it for a professional news service), one would be seriously mistaken if they expect any fan site to be remotely professional, yet it is amazing that a few inexperienced kiddies are not aware of how fan sites devoted to any topic actually work. Fan sites are a community of fans sharing information about what they have seen or heard and that is it. Even the real professionals get it wrong often, as Media Watch points out. So do not, under any circumstances, expect professionalism from people that are not journalists, anymore than you would from the real journalists. There is no award-winning journalism on any fan site because they are merely for entertainment purposes only and nothing more.

Sure, there are some informative articles and the like on BB Chaos, but the writers are not journalists, nor would they want to be (because we have more freedom of speech here). The writers are just fans sharing information based on what has occurred on BB here in Oz and overseas. You will find that even the official BB Oz site's writers often make mistakes so go figure.

The difference between fact and expectations

When BB Chaos speculates about what to expect, then that is based on BB in other countries, which we know that BB Oz will copy (like the twins twist). Many of these do actually occur on BB Oz but a bit of speculation about what to expect should never be misconstrued as fact, unless the word "confirmed" is used. BB Chaos always talks about rumoured events or gossip as well. This is blatantly evident on the site, from the BB Chaos logo that states so, as well as in the news updates where such words (like "rumours" and "gossip") are clearly used. It is obvious that there is some confusion between what BB Chaos does and what other BB Oz sites do. We are an article and commentary driven site, not a forum driven one with less scope for information like nearly all of them out there.

Summary

Most people only bother with the official BB Oz site anyway during each series because the fan sites offer very little in the way of information and multimedia that could ever come close to competing with the official site. Fan sites serve a small niche market for those that want a few quick updates of news and gossip and then some theory articles or forum interaction or the like. People should not take fan sites seriously though because they are only for entertainment purposes. It is just a TV show that BB Chaos and all other BB Oz fan sites are devoted to. It is not that important on the scale of things in life so one should never take them that seriously. We all have a life and it doesn't actually revolve around this show which is an addiction for only three months a year when it airs.

Unfortunately, we occasionally have to remind a few inexperienced Internet users of that because some just don't take the time to read properly so their criticisms are flawed.