The pause on Oregon football has been beyond frustrating to us fans, but there is excitement as it returns. This website, FishDuck, is now following a similar pattern, but will have a much longer pause than Our Beloved Ducks. In short, this is the last article on our current schedule, and we will not be publishing every day any longer.
Mr. FishDuck will write a couple of articles a month for fun and to initiate discussion, and will create an article for football GameDays during the season for discussion as we did last year.
Charles…what is GOING ON?
This is not permanent, but a pause of some months. FishDuck will be back, with the full package of features I wrote of in the past. But I cannot offer them now.
After nine years of both my career and FishDuck … I no longer wish to work the 60 to 70 hour weeks that are required to maintain both demanding vocations. I have been doing Charitable Planned Giving as part of my investment practice over the last 20 years, and wish to focus upon that for the next 10-15 years. I have set up millions of dollars in Planned Gifts (gifts that take effect after death), and enjoy working with institutions and donors immensely. I need to allocate nearly all of my current time to that endeavor to establish a new business process.
Fans in retirement can set up Planned Gifts that improve their finances while helping future generations.
There are significant new tools and legislative changes that are exciting and enable the retired to have even more options to benefit while sharing a bit of their estate with their favorite charities. I need to do a complete re-boot of my process and workshop to help charities and donors be aware of these impactful strategies. Thus it has been getting to the point where I simply do not have the time for the massive upgrade to the site and to my career at the same time. Consider it a partial sabbatical from FishDuck after thousands of articles and thousands of dollars (and hours!) in the nine years of the site.
Mr. FishDuck….you’ve done this BEFORE!
In the past I have tried to “quit” the site, but offering my ponderings has become part of my DNA. Thus, I cannot, nor will I ever step away. Years from now I will have a laptop on my belly in the nursing home as I enjoy trading thoughts with all of you as we have done so often in the comments to articles. I must take this pause. The daily articles will be back, but not for quite a while.
I will not turn FishDuck over to anyone else to manage for the interim, because as the writers and editors know … I am fussy about how things are done. (Some call it anal.)
Reflect on the SUCCESSES
The site is currently in the Top 1% in the world among all active websites for pages read in a month again (as confirmed by Alexa, an Amazon company, and Google Analytics) as you helped create this. So many of you who have read our articles and offered feedback and comments is what has made this small, niche site a web powerhouse. Truly, we are the 3-Star who ends up in the Pro Bowl because of the readers, and the friendships created across the nation I value beyond words. I love our community …
All of this has been done with an all-volunteer staff publishing only one article a day! The quality of FishDuck editors helping us is stunning, and they do it in addition to their own demanding professions, while helping our younger writers improve. It has humbled me so many times over the years; the quality of the site is because of them, and I cannot thank the editors enough.
In 2016 … Trolls came in many forms.
What the readers and FishDuck have achieved is amazing, and together we have blazed some new trails in the process. We have established that you can have spirited debate, while keeping it civil and respectful through our rigorous rules governing commenting conduct. Our comment section has been a massive beta-test, a huge learning effort undertaken before the Our Beloved Ducks forum is released along with all the other new features. (When we return in a big way later.)
In the end after all the tons of hours haggling with people, learning the Tricks of the Trolls and experimenting, we are now at a very low comment deletion rate of only 6/10ths of a percent of all comments written. That’s impressive. You’re impressive. I’ve learned from you and want to express my appreciation to you for the unique community you have helped create at FishDuck. We’ve generated an incredible culture here at FishDuck; this site is unique because you have been a part of it.
Thank you.
Mr. FishDuck….I LIKE the Civil Discussion and want to CONTINUE Commenting on Oregon Sports!
That is what I’ve enjoyed the most as well; writing my articles and bantering with all of you has been my Green Refuge, and that would be tough to stop. So a solution we are working on is setting the default as having the most recent comments (below each article) appearing at the top of all the comments, as we had in the Disqus system before.
This means that no matter how old an article is–if a new recruit announces his verbal today (for example and you want to discuss it) then you write your comment below the last article published and your posted comment will appear at the top of the comments of that article and we can all discuss him as well as any topic that comes up. (Look for this to begin on Sunday)
We were so fortunate to have photographers capture the action with beautiful backgrounds and such artistry!
If the site is unable to place newest comments at the top automatically as a default-you can do it yourself in two clicks. At the top of the comments is a drop-down menu arrow that when you click gives you three options, and then click on “Newest.” Bingo! This will put the newest comment at the top no matter how old the article is, thus our delightful civil discussions can continue regardless of the age of the article!
It is not a perfect solution, (a forum would be better) but it is effectively what we’ve been doing in daily articles already, and can function just fine for our Oregon Sports Community. It does not matter how old the article is; your comment about something current will be at the top of all the comments and then the community can respond. Do know that a couple of fellow Duck-Buddies are going to be watching the comments carefully when I am working during the day to continue our enforced decorum that protects everyone from The Trolls.
Stay in Touch!
The site will still be here, so do register for our newsletter to be notified when Mr. FishDuck has a new article, and he will also be sharing some spicier thoughts in these newsletters that cannot be published in the public sphere. (I know … I have not sent any newsletters in years, but during this respite I will be.)
It will be a unusual football season, but isn’t everything these days? Even with the extended FishDuck pause, I can truly say that The Best is Yet to Be!
“Oh how we love to ponder Our Beloved Ducks!”
Charles Fischer (Mr. FishDuck)
Eugene, Oregon
Top Photo from Video
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Charles Fischer has been an intense fan of the Ducks, a season ticket holder at Autzen Stadium for 38 years and has written reports on football boards for over 26 years. Known as “FishDuck” on those boards, he is acknowledged for providing intense detail in his scrimmage reports, and in his Xs and Os play analyses. He is single, has a daughter Christine, and resides in Eugene Oregon where he was a Financial Advisor for 36 years.
He now focuses full-time on Charitable Planned Giving Workshops for churches and non-profit organizations in addition to managing his two Oregon Football Websites, of FishDuck.com and the Our Beloved Ducks forum. He is a busy man!
He does not profess to be a coach or analyst, but simply a “hack” that enjoys sharing what he has learned and invites others to correct or add to this body of Oregon Football! See More…