We Started With a Diary. How Did It Become RTSSG Icebergs?
RTSSG Iceberg 001 — Living investigation
Opened: 13 October 2026
Status: Active — Iceberg 001 published; the Icebergs directory page is awaiting publication
Latest development: We published and updated this same story without changing its URL, and connected it to the CMS directory. Formatting and membership links have now been corrected.
Where does this stand now?
There is a new page waiting inside the RTSSG website. It has a name, RTSSG Icebergs, a black-and-yellow entrance, a picture showing a small football headline above the water and a much larger investigation underneath it, and a directory designed to fill itself with stories as they develop.
When this account was first drafted, the Icebergs landing page was saved in the Wix Editor, not yet confirmed published to the public. The directory had passed a real test, but contained no published Icebergs. At that stage, one technical problem remained especially important: could a supporter open a story, return several days later, and find that the same story had changed without its address changing?
At that stage, we had already proven that the underlying draft could change while retaining its identity. Wix also documents how to update an existing published post. We still needed to establish then that the complete experience worked for an actual reader, on an actual public URL.
That was where this Iceberg stood when it was first written. But it began in a very different place.
Why were we talking about a diary in the first place?
We were trying to answer a simple question about what Richmond people ought to see of the work happening behind RTSSG.
The public normally sees the finished product. A question is investigated, evidence is gathered, possibilities are considered, a conclusion is tested, and the completed work appears on RTSSG. That makes sense for a Members feature. Supporters pay for the meaning beneath the headline, not a transcript of every production decision.
But something disappears when only the final result is visible. The frustration of a bad lead. The moment an old photograph contradicts a familiar story. The disagreement over whether a football signing solves the original problem or merely changes the question. The argument about whether an archive article should be rewritten, merged or left alone. The moment a solution seems obvious until someone asks one more question.
The initial proposal was RTSSG Today: an open record of what P.A. and Roary had actually done that day.
The idea had warmth. P.A. suggested the words “Dear Diary” as a way to capture memorable moments in the middle of real work. A good day could contain discoveries. A bad day could contain disagreements, wrong turns and an honest record of what had not been solved.
There was a practical reason for wanting this. We were working across football investigations, historical research, RTSSG's own archives and website repairs. The activity itself was becoming a story. Why should the interesting parts vanish between the beginning and the published answer?
So far, so good. Then Roary made the first mistake.
How did five finished-looking articles become five wrong answers?
Roary began producing polished pieces. One introduced RTSSG Today. Another described progress recovering the Facebook historical material. Another covered the RTSSG Gold and A.I. Gold archive. Another explored the overlooked former players of The Quiet Roar. A fifth explained our decision that RTSSG would be “the place to go after the first headline.”
The pieces were recognisable articles. They had introductions, developments, explanations and conclusions. They described the value of the work and why it mattered.
They missed the point.
P.A. didn't want a smooth article describing an adventure after it had happened. He wanted supporters inside the actual journey. He wanted them to understand why a suggestion had been rejected, what objection had changed the plan, where an assumption had failed, and which particular question had opened the next door.
His correction was direct: “show them the journey.” He wanted “the arguments the misteps the moments of clarity etc” — not an attractive paragraph saying that arguments and breakthroughs had occurred.
There was a crucial difference. If we announced, “Today we reorganised some Richmond archives,” the reader knew an outcome. If we showed the argument about what should count as a lost story, the difficulty distinguishing old material from already-published Wix research, and the decision that followed, the reader would understand how the outcome had been reached — and where the work might still fail.
We had designed a diary about the work. P.A. was asking for a story made from the work itself.
That objection changed everything.
What did P.A. want readers to feel when they reached the end?
Not that they had read an efficient report of completed tasks.
He wanted them thinking: I need to know how this story unfolds — and how it ends.
That meant we could no longer write as though the conclusion was already known.
Take our discussions about Kieren Briggs. The surface question concerns a ruckman and Richmond's list. But follow the reasoning and the question moves: why did Richmond need a specialist ruck? What does that say about the previous plan? What should Briggs be expected to change in 2027? And if things go wrong early, who and what comes under scrutiny?
That is not a list of unrelated angles. It is one question changing shape as each possible answer creates a new problem.
P.A. had been calling this our Iceberg method. The visible headline is only the exposed tip; the investigation goes beneath it.
Now the diary conversation had reached the same territory. Instead of reporting the investigation after the event, we could let supporters follow the investigation as it happened — including moments when the next step was unknown.
Then P.A. supplied the idea that finally made the whole thing work.
What changed when he said “living document”?
“Living document.”
Those were the words.
P.A. went further: “three days later we add to it, change it. update it.”
That settled something neither the original diary nor the five polished drafts had settled. An investigation should not disappear from view each night, replaced by tomorrow's update. A supporter should be able to return to the same story.
The opening question stays visible. The original evidence stays visible. The false starts do not get airbrushed away. But the position at the top must reflect what we know now, not merely what we thought on the day it began.
Three days later, a new development might strengthen an argument. Or destroy it. We would change the present assessment, explain why it changed, preserve the original thinking as part of the journey, and leave the next question open.
That is the heart of a living Iceberg. It has a beginning. It accumulates genuine developments. It may branch into another question. Eventually it may have an ending — or an honest explanation of why the evidence will not yield one.
Once we understood that, even the name RTSSG Today was becoming too small. Today was only a moment in a much longer story.
After a naming discussion, P.A. chose two words: RTSSG Icebergs.
And then he issued the instruction that brought us from philosophy to machinery: “okay so lets change it. then decide what we neeed.”
What happened when an idea had to become an actual website?
The first real change was behind the scenes. The newly created RTSSG Today Blog category was renamed in place as RTSSG Icebergs. We did not create a second category to compete with it.
We then had to decide how a supporter would find the evolving investigations. Simply pointing people to a chronological Blog archive would show stories, but not necessarily explain which investigations were active, which had changed recently or where each stood.
So we separated two jobs.
The Wix Blog would hold each complete, continuing Iceberg. That was where the account of the arguments, evidence and changes would live.
A Wix CMS collection would hold only the directory information: headline, story status, present position, last meaningful update and the permanent link to the full account. That is how an older Iceberg could move back to the top of the page after genuine new work, without pretending it was a new story.
P.A. opened the Classic Wix Editor and built the front door manually. The new RTSSG Icebergs menu item took its place immediately after RTSSG Public. He placed a four-card repeater, connected it to the CMS and linked the card elements one by one.
This wasn't an effortless demonstration. We moved through unfamiliar menus and controls. At one point the surrounding section was selected when we needed the repeater. At another, a colour dropdown had opened when we actually needed the text-content connection. Those were small errors, but they mattered: we could not know whether the system worked simply because four attractive cards appeared on the screen.
We connected the headline, the status, the present position, the update date and each card's Read More link. Then we changed the sort order from the story's creation date to Last Meaningful Update — newest first.
That sorting decision sounds tiny. It expresses the whole philosophy. An investigation that began six months ago should be able to return to the front when the facts change today.
Did the cards actually work, or did they only look connected?
We tested them.
A temporary CMS record was inserted under an unmistakable name: TEST ONLY — RTSSG Icebergs connection. It contained a test status, title, present-position text and update date.
P.A. opened Wix Preview and sent back the result. Instead of four copied sample cards, one real database-driven card appeared. Its headline, status, description and date were coming from the CMS.
That was our first genuine technical breakthrough. We had moved from the appearance of a directory to proof that the directory responded to real information.
We removed the temporary record after the test. There was no reason to pretend it was an investigation.
But it raised the harder question. Showing a card is not the same as proving that a story can keep growing under one identity.
So we tested that separately.
An unpublished Wix Blog draft was created in the Icebergs category with an opening paragraph. We retrieved its content. Then we added a second dated development to that same draft and retrieved it again.
Both paragraphs remained. The draft ID had not changed. It was still unpublished.
The test draft was moved to the trash when the check was complete.
That proved we could revise a continuing document without generating a new draft every time. It did not yet prove the public URL would survive a real published revision. That remained on our list for the first approved live Iceberg.
There is a difference between a tested capability and a promise. We wanted that difference visible.
Why did even the iceberg picture become another investigation?
Once the machinery worked, we needed to explain the idea to somebody arriving cold.
The first image was essentially a stock photograph of an iceberg. It showed an iceberg. That was the problem.
P.A. wanted a person who knew nothing of our conversations to understand the meaning immediately. A generic iceberg could not tell them why the tip was the headline or why the deeper work mattered.
Roary generated a more elaborate illustration, then another. P.A. kept challenging the result: if people would not understand it, it was not good enough. The eventual image gave the visible tip a newspaper headline and turned the submerged mass into chambers of Evidence, History, Context, Tactics, People, Consequences, What It Means and Where Next?
Then P.A. spotted another fault. The signs underneath needed to be bigger.
They were enlarged.
The image went onto the page, but the right side was cropped. We adjusted it until the entire underwater story was visible. Then we discovered that the social-sharing preview on Facebook cropped the top of the same picture, removing the very headline that explained the metaphor.
We went back into Wix Photo Studio. P.A. extended the image sideways, rather than cutting away the information we were trying to show. Wix generated the additional scenery. The new wide preview finally kept both the newspaper at the top and the investigation underneath.
An image-setting exercise had become a small version of the whole Iceberg method: an answer that seemed finished kept revealing another question.
What have we actually solved, and what hasn't been settled?
We have established a dedicated RTSSG Icebergs page in the editor, positioned it in the navigation, tested the connected directory, tested same-draft editing, checked its mobile layout, set the page to Everyone, and prepared the search and social-sharing descriptions and artwork.
That is substantial progress, but it is not the same as opening a finished public library.
At the time of the first draft there were no genuine published Icebergs in the directory, and the custom page had not been confirmed live for outside readers. We had not yet performed the decisive real-world test: publish one approved Iceberg, capture its actual public URL, return later with new evidence, update the same published post, and confirm the address and original chronology survive.
And perhaps that is the right place for our first Iceberg to stop tonight.
It began as a daily diary. It became an argument about what counts as a story. That produced the idea of a living document. The idea demanded a database, a publication method, a front door and actual tests. Each of those exposed smaller problems that we had to solve instead of ignoring.
What does that mean for RTSSG Members? Not that they have magically received more features tonight. It means the machinery is taking shape for a public window onto how Richmond investigations are made, challenged and corrected. That value will only become real when supporters can read and revisit honest stories, and when we maintain them with the same evidence discipline as the Members work.
What happens next?
Our immediate next job was to publish the first approved real Iceberg, connect its actual Wix URL to the directory, and verify that somebody outside the Editor could open it without logging in. Publication and same-URL revision have since succeeded; the Icebergs landing page still needs its public launch and visitor-side check.
When those things happen, they belong here, inside this document, not in a disconnected announcement pretending the work had always been complete.
We know where this story started.
We do not yet know precisely how it ends.
And this time, we're going to show the workings.
What changed when Iceberg 001 was published on 13 October 2026?
P.A. approved public publication, and Wix confirmed Iceberg 001 as a published Blog post with the same post identifier and a real Blog URL. We subsequently updated that very same published post and verified its URL remained unchanged, then inserted and verified its directory record in the RTSSG Icebergs CMS. That is a concrete test of the living-document promise, not a placeholder. The custom Icebergs landing page, however, was still saved in the Wix Editor and awaiting public publication and a visitor-side Read More check. Our work was no longer just an idea: the story, its ongoing revision, and its directory link were real.
Comments