Welcome! UteFans.net is the longest running sports fan site for University of Utah sports. Some of the very best information about University of Utah athletics has come from this site, along with some of its funniest moments. In fact, from Twitter to Facebook to other message boards - most of those people got their sports message board origins here and kept their usernames (Please note: you’ll have to recreate your account on the new platform - old logins were not transferred over).
The purpose of this board is to not take away from those other mediums, but hopefully unite us all together again and make this forum the premier place (and P5 worthy) message board for all Ute Fans around the world.
A bit of history
Chris Evans, UFN's founder, sadly passed away in February 2017. In the events that lead to that unfortunate tragedy and related health issues the board fell into disrepair and at one point stopped functioning completely. That led to a few loyal members of UFN taking the reins of the site in an attempt to restore the community that was once so vital to Utah sports. You can visit the old site archive at legacy.utefans.net if you are looking for an old post.It was eventually determined that the old code developed for the original site was beyond repair, and so we’ve migrated to this new platform. With that we are providing many important enhancements based off of feedback from a lot of people, and from a desire to make this place the best it can be.
A new sherrif is in town
We'll be honest, one of the biggest complaints that we've had over the years is the relative lawlessness that is UF.N. We feel that other social media platforms have emerged since the beginnings of this site have suitably replaced the need for obnoxious and bad behavior, so if you feel that need this site isn't for you anymore... may we suggest Twitter. While we still want the fun that comes from a free flow of thoughts and opinions, we also want this to be a place that is fun for everyone, and not just a select few. That means the following changes:-
Politics and religion will not be in public view and will be available to only those who have earned the right to be in there and have donated to the maintenance of the site. There is also the expectation that people will remain respectful in these categories.
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People can form private groups where they invite their own participants and can have their own conversations about things they would like, hopefully keeping the arguing to a minimum.
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People will be expected to be respectful to everyone, particularly players, coaches and their families.
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NSFW content will not be allowed to be embedded directly in posts. This is a family site.
New features are being added all the time, but some highlights worth noting:
- Now mobile-friendly (its almost embarrassing to note this, but the old UFN was definitely not)
- Easy to format posts and uploading images
- Easy to embed links that automatically provide preview snippets on most sites
- Easy to embed video from YouTube etc.
- Easy login with Facebook, Google and Twitter
- Email notifications and (coming soon) respond by email
- Live alerts when someone responds to you, and the ability to get notifications through your browser
- Searchable posts
- Merit based posting system - it tamps down the trolls and also encourages positive interaction and participation - your positive interactions earn you the ability to do more on the site and enter new categories.
- An open-source code set that is constantly being updated and improved with new features so we don’t have to make a decades jump in tech next time.
- Akismet spambot filtering
- Google Perspective integration - this is machine learning to help filter out toxic posts and posters
- Integrated chat (once logged in see the bottom right corner bullhorn)
- Last but not least - Hippos still live during rivalry week
There are lots of plug-ins available that we’ll be investigating and implementing if they improve the experience. Invite your friends and let’s make this community the fan site the University of Utah deserves!
Here is a quick video of some of our favorite new features:
