I wanted the few of us who still use the website and forum to take some time to think about how we can improve the website, which in turn really helps build a community, improve turnout, and makes everyone a lot freakin’ happier.
So, some thoughts:
Stats:
Yikes. It’s been down for a long while now and no real sign that it’s coming back.
The stats were great, because it drew people to the games and the forum, where people would talk about everything else in baseball, too. Plus, recapping the games through the Player (and goat) of the Game was a lot of fun.
So what to do?
Before Nick completed his awesome stat system, we used a much similar approach. After each game, Nick, Scott, or myself, would take the game’s stats and plug them into an excel sheet and a box score (or Nick/Scott would make a boxscore which I would then add to the stats). This was simply uploaded to the website as an excel file or, later, an image.
Why can’t we do that again? Who would be willing to help out with this? I am more than willing to help out a lot, but maybe not EVERY week!
More on Stats:
The record book is OLD. Not only are we well past the smaller field days, but the overall talent is much better. I would now be fine archiving the old stats and creating, in essence, a “modern era.”
Maybe Starting in July, stats should start anew, with records et. al. I think that this would even help newer players want to come around more often (as people like to accumulate stats) but currently don’t have a hope of catching up to some people, much less trying to duplicate Will’s 19 RBI game, or whatever.
Open Resignation:
I know we got attacked hard by the spammers, but I think we should take another crack at just letting people join whenever. I would be happy to help Jason delete spammers. Maybe we could have a soft rule that required people to post something about baseball within a week of joining before they got booted.
But the forum should be a great way to loop people in more.
Photos:
Who’s got a camera? We should take some photos at some of the upcoming games.
That’s all. Thoughts?
Bringing the website and stats back to life
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Southpaw Slim
- Kenesaw Mountain Landis
- Posts: 610
- Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2005 7:36 pm
- Location: Oakland, CA
- Contact:
Well...
Those are all good points, and have been on my mind a lot.
As for the boxscores, uploading an excel spreadsheet wouldn't be too hard. We could also just scan the scoresheet and post it as is.
To address the absence of stats, you make a good point. I accept full responsibility for dragging my heels while looking for a new host. Here's what needs to happen for Defstar to get back online:
1. Need to recover my old hard drive for the configuration files. I did email a copy of the backup files to Scott before my computer crashed, so they exist in the ether somewhere.
2. a) Need to find a host that supports MySQL 4.0 and PHP 5.0, OR
2. b) Need to modify the code to support the latest version of both. This is logically the best solution, but takes the most time to find and troubleshoot all the code. There are about a dozen scripts that need to be looked through, and some are over 30 pages long when typed at 8pt. That's the sole hurdle keeping me from wanting to undergo the transformation.
3. Need to direct traffic to the correct host. This is the easy part, but it's necessary so I thought I'd state it.
This "modern era" you speak of could easily be displayed by quarantining all DeFremery stats from the record books. It was precisely that task that I had undertaken when the whole shebang went "poof." (That's the technical term, btw.) The most important stat-related task is just to get the whole system back online ASAP. I have a new power source for my old desktop. If it corrects the current problem, the only thing standing in my way is connectivity to the Internet. At last attempt, I was able to get the stats online, but only for 30 seconds before my connection was throttled to zero. I blame Comcast. I know they have watchdog software to keep servers from running on their lines. The best thing is, once again, to find (and possibly pay) a webserver (a monthly fee) to host the site. I've had a couple of offers from various baseball participants, but I need to update the code before it can run on those servers. As is, I might be able to get it back up in time for the next season (July-Dec). Once again, it all comes back to my resistance to bring the files themselves up to the "modern era." It's probably about 50 hours of work to scour all the code and bring it up to standards.
Regarding forum registration, I agree that an open forum would not be the worst thing, but I'm also not the one going through every thread to delete spam. If every post written by a certain user can be deleted at once, it might not be too much trouble to weed out the abusers every week. That's Jason's territory, though, and it's ultimately his decision to make.
I'll make sure to put my camera by the door for next week's game. It takes decent action pictures, and 15 second video clips at an extremely shitty resolution (something like 240*180).
Don't forget, everyone, that we're trying to establish mid-week practices every Wednesday at Bushrod (61st and Shattuck in Berkeley).
As for the boxscores, uploading an excel spreadsheet wouldn't be too hard. We could also just scan the scoresheet and post it as is.
To address the absence of stats, you make a good point. I accept full responsibility for dragging my heels while looking for a new host. Here's what needs to happen for Defstar to get back online:
1. Need to recover my old hard drive for the configuration files. I did email a copy of the backup files to Scott before my computer crashed, so they exist in the ether somewhere.
2. a) Need to find a host that supports MySQL 4.0 and PHP 5.0, OR
2. b) Need to modify the code to support the latest version of both. This is logically the best solution, but takes the most time to find and troubleshoot all the code. There are about a dozen scripts that need to be looked through, and some are over 30 pages long when typed at 8pt. That's the sole hurdle keeping me from wanting to undergo the transformation.
3. Need to direct traffic to the correct host. This is the easy part, but it's necessary so I thought I'd state it.
This "modern era" you speak of could easily be displayed by quarantining all DeFremery stats from the record books. It was precisely that task that I had undertaken when the whole shebang went "poof." (That's the technical term, btw.) The most important stat-related task is just to get the whole system back online ASAP. I have a new power source for my old desktop. If it corrects the current problem, the only thing standing in my way is connectivity to the Internet. At last attempt, I was able to get the stats online, but only for 30 seconds before my connection was throttled to zero. I blame Comcast. I know they have watchdog software to keep servers from running on their lines. The best thing is, once again, to find (and possibly pay) a webserver (a monthly fee) to host the site. I've had a couple of offers from various baseball participants, but I need to update the code before it can run on those servers. As is, I might be able to get it back up in time for the next season (July-Dec). Once again, it all comes back to my resistance to bring the files themselves up to the "modern era." It's probably about 50 hours of work to scour all the code and bring it up to standards.
Regarding forum registration, I agree that an open forum would not be the worst thing, but I'm also not the one going through every thread to delete spam. If every post written by a certain user can be deleted at once, it might not be too much trouble to weed out the abusers every week. That's Jason's territory, though, and it's ultimately his decision to make.
I'll make sure to put my camera by the door for next week's game. It takes decent action pictures, and 15 second video clips at an extremely shitty resolution (something like 240*180).
Don't forget, everyone, that we're trying to establish mid-week practices every Wednesday at Bushrod (61st and Shattuck in Berkeley).
I intended to write something to remind everybody of my superior prowess.
So, my question to you Nick is, 'do we really need Defstar?' It was really helpful and fun for a time, but for all of the technical issues and work it takes to run it, I do not see much of an advantage to using it.
So, I really think we should go the route of the excel sheet.
We wouldn't need to do anything other than start counting from zero.
AntMo: I think you have a great idea. I would offer to do this, but because I take the bus and must leave home so early, it would be best if someone else took that on. I have never used twitter, so I am wondering how easy it is to upload an e-mail contact list.
Another idea that had been thrown around was to use e-vites to get an idea of who planned on showing up, and who the "maybes" were. This would help us know who to call when we are "just short" for a game. I know Scott was worried about hackers, but I don't think that's a very big risk.
One other thing--I think we should do a better job of planning out games up to two months in advance. I don't know if there is any reason that we shouldn't know ahead of time when the live and challenge games would be. I know that fields come in and out of use, but Nicholl is nearly always available whenever we want to use it, so at least 50% of the games can be charted.
And someone should get a hold of Jason
So, I really think we should go the route of the excel sheet.
We wouldn't need to do anything other than start counting from zero.
AntMo: I think you have a great idea. I would offer to do this, but because I take the bus and must leave home so early, it would be best if someone else took that on. I have never used twitter, so I am wondering how easy it is to upload an e-mail contact list.
Another idea that had been thrown around was to use e-vites to get an idea of who planned on showing up, and who the "maybes" were. This would help us know who to call when we are "just short" for a game. I know Scott was worried about hackers, but I don't think that's a very big risk.
One other thing--I think we should do a better job of planning out games up to two months in advance. I don't know if there is any reason that we shouldn't know ahead of time when the live and challenge games would be. I know that fields come in and out of use, but Nicholl is nearly always available whenever we want to use it, so at least 50% of the games can be charted.
And someone should get a hold of Jason
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Baseball=Life
- Baseball Deity
- Posts: 1031
- Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:16 pm
- Location: SF, CA
On registration
About registration: I'm closing it again at the end of the day Sunday 6/21/09. Let people know at the game that if they want to join the forum, they should do it by 11 pm Sunday night.
After that point, they can give their:
* email address
* preferred username
to me OR Peter (who can create new users) either via email or in person (or on the phone or via carrier pigeon or whatever). Peter or I would then just create the account with a temporary password (a relatively strong one with letters and numbers) and email the person their new username and password and ask them to log in and change the password.
Here's the thing with keeping registration open: Even if the spammer's account never gets activated (which an admin has to do simply by clicking on the link in the account creation email), it takes way too much time to delete their accounts. You have to go to the memberlist, copy the username, paste it into the user admin box, hit the button, scroll to the bottom of the page, check the "Delete this user" box, and hit submit again.
Sure, it doesn't sound like much, but do it 25 times in a row and you'll want to close registration too.
After that point, they can give their:
* email address
* preferred username
to me OR Peter (who can create new users) either via email or in person (or on the phone or via carrier pigeon or whatever). Peter or I would then just create the account with a temporary password (a relatively strong one with letters and numbers) and email the person their new username and password and ask them to log in and change the password.
Here's the thing with keeping registration open: Even if the spammer's account never gets activated (which an admin has to do simply by clicking on the link in the account creation email), it takes way too much time to delete their accounts. You have to go to the memberlist, copy the username, paste it into the user admin box, hit the button, scroll to the bottom of the page, check the "Delete this user" box, and hit submit again.
Sure, it doesn't sound like much, but do it 25 times in a row and you'll want to close registration too.
I meant to put something here that reminded everyone that this forum exists
p.s.
I am glad to see activity on here, though.
I meant to put something here that reminded everyone that this forum exists
As far as forum registration goes, you could just leave it open and instead create a closed section of the forums which only people in a specific usergroup can join. Then you wouldn't have to deal with creating accounts for people, you'd only have to add them to the usergroup.
As for stats...
I'd help with keeping and uploading stats, but due to a commitment I usually have to leave games early thus rendering me without the access to scoresheets. Perhaps I can just help with creating a spreadsheet to keep avarages and such? Not sure. I'll help whatever way I can.
And the thing about wiping old records... you just want to destroy my 8 hit game, don't you? DON'T YOU!?
/cry
As for stats...
I'd help with keeping and uploading stats, but due to a commitment I usually have to leave games early thus rendering me without the access to scoresheets. Perhaps I can just help with creating a spreadsheet to keep avarages and such? Not sure. I'll help whatever way I can.
And the thing about wiping old records... you just want to destroy my 8 hit game, don't you? DON'T YOU!?
/cry
Rules:
1. I am always right.
2. If I am ever wrong, read rule number 1.
1. I am always right.
2. If I am ever wrong, read rule number 1.
