Most of the Skins fans who want to discuss football intelligently probably don't come here, to be honest. Hell, a lot of them don't go to ES for that matter lol...it's usually done in smaller groups and in person...message boards tend to be the internet version of talk radio, where the most outrageous tend to call in the most (or in this case, post the most often). And let's face it, rival fans' message boards will be full of people slamming your team with the most ludicrious comments and "facts", both about your team and about you as fans. In order to jump right in and try to start an intelligent football convo you have to be the type who doesn't care if your rivals are insulting your team and your fellow brethren. How often does that actually happen? Most fans give a ****.
When I first joined up here I only did so in order to read the threads...I think at the time you couldn't read any threads unless you were a member, and yeah, I wanted to see what you guys were saying back in 2005 after the 14-13 game as well as after the 35-7 game, I won't lie lol. I rarely want to talk Cowboys football, though, so that's why I only had like 15 posts in 4 years on here (at least until this thread lol). I never came here and I rarely felt the need to. When I feel the need to discuss your team, I talk Cowboys football with the Dallas fans over on ES who (for the most part) seem less interested in responding to my posts with things like "run along, little boy" or bringing up Super Bowl win totals lol (Cowboys fans on ES actually say they cringe when they hear a fellow Boys' fan use that lame nugget as a retort), and they seem more interested in simply trying to prove me wrong...which is damn cool in my eyes.
Pull out the stats, illlustrate your point and perceptions, let me do the same, and we'll poke holes in each other's arguments. That's called "healthy debate". Things like making fun of usernames, juvenile insults and relying on things like "Pukes" and "Foreskins", though, makes "intelligent" football fans look elsewhere. It's something all message boards have to deal with, though...