Making friends over the Internet can be a dubious proposition at best. You never know if the person you’re talking to is the nice individual they seem or a psychopathic stalker waiting for you to slip up and let out a few personal details. This is especially tough on a sports-oriented board, where passions run high for the teams in question and a single seemingly innocuous comment can inspire highly flammable reactions from the other people who read and respond to it.
There are exceptions however, and there are places on the Internet where you can go to discuss sports that keep the language relatively clean and the folks are mighty friendly and welcoming. One of those sites, VolTalk.com, held a Meet-and-Greet of its members last Friday at Calhoun’s at Fort Loudon Dam and Marina in Lenoir City, to allow those members who had traveled into Knoxville for the UT vs. Florida game a chance to meet in person some of the folks they have been hobnobbing Vol sports with on the internet. Present at the Meet-and-Greet were most of the site’s administrators and a large contingent of users who came to enjoy the great food and ambience at the tables on the deck right beside the marina. In between courses the conversation flowed rapid-fire as the members used the opportunity to catch up on details about one another and cement the friendships that were started online. After the ravenous fans had emptied the kitchen, they retired to the cozier corner near the bar where the television played the Marshall vs. Central Florida game and continued to turn the electronic network that had brought them together into a personal one.
Almost five hours later, the group dispersed to their homes and hotels, then met once again Saturday morning to tailgate and share food, friendship, fun and shelter from the rain before making their way down to Neyland Stadium for the big game. The soaking weather seemed to put no damper on their spirits, Vol and Gator alike, and all agreed the experience was one they’d readily repeat when the next opportunity arose.
VolTalk is a project that was started by Randall DeFleron from his home in Slocomb, Alabama. He was inspired by the lack of places on the internet that were available to the average computer-using Volunteer fan that didn’t charge money for exclusive content or special access, or splash large and obtrusive banner advertisements across the screen each time a page would load. His philosophy was to offer a site that would be oriented
towards the user instead of a faceless site administrator or a stable of advertisers.
In the few months it has been open, VolTalk has become wildly popular, with over 1.25 million page impressions, or “hits,” since it went online. The folks that frequent this site are overwhelmingly the type of people that treat one another with respect and have formed a core of users that hang together like an extended family reaching all across the nation, and in some cases the world.
Though primarily focused on the University of Tennessee, the site is a home base for fans of many teams, including Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Miami, Ole Miss, UCLA, Nebraska, and many more. One truly outstanding attribute of this site is the way that the fans of so many different teams all like and respect one another. Some members log on from as far away as China, but all of them consider VolTalk to be their “home” online, and keep the atmosphere open and friendly for anyone who visits and is willing to do the same. If you are looking for a place online to enjoy a serious sports discussion with people who will make you feel welcome, by all means stop by VolTalk.com, put up your feet, and sit a spell.

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