BOF fixtures list loophole

[andypat]

I've just noticed that Clyde's regional Urban event at Erskine on 2 April 2011 clashes with NOC Nottingham Urban event on the same date.

Not a particular issue geographically of course but one we were hoping to avoid as Clyde have asked to be considered for the Nopesport Urban league for this event and we took some care in picking the date to try and avoid any clash with a pre-existing event- even went to the extent of contacting the organisers of last years Carlisle event to make sure we didnt clash with this.

How did we miss the NOC event?

Well - apparently the NOC event is registered for 2 April but the event type is TBC on the website (presumably it will be urban!). We've missed this by using the facility to search for urban events on the BOF website to keep an eye on any issues. If the event type is TBC (rather than Urban/sprint/cross country etc) it doesnt show up on event type specific searches.

I suppose this is a plea to whoever deals with the registration for events for BOF to make it compulsory for the event type to be stated when an event is registered. Otherwise this seems to render the search facility by event type on the website useless as any event without a type allocated is invisible.

I'm not sure what to do about this now other than wait and see whether the Urban league guys fancy a change from Nottingham - we could change the date for our Erskine event, but it would only be relevant if this would make a difference to the Nopesport league guys.

[gowrie]

2nd April is a Sprint event at Nottingham University. The Nottingham Urban is 5th June. Hope this helps. Aware that BO website does not make this clear yet, but have asked appropriate person to rectify this.

[andypat]

Cheers gowrie - phew! Apart from anything else I quite fancied coming down to Nottingham next year.

[roadrunner]

Perhaps when you search for a particular type of event, the search should also include TBCs?

[greywolf]

is there anybody charged with tidying up the BOF website fixtures list and making sure it's actually worth using, or is the information stored there entirely at the mercy of club entries secretaries?

search for "National" events and in the first 11 you'll find one Regional event and 6 with no information at all... Now I know that Southdowns are hosting the Sprint & Middle Champs, and that the JK is in Nornireland, and both have their own websites... but presumably the main point having a fixtures list on the BOF website is to serve those who don't already know who's hosting these events... and if the information held for major events which are (you would hope) planned way in advance is so patchy, then why would anybody ever trust the BOF website info for a local event?

[NeilC]

Now I know that Southdowns are hosting the Sprint & Middle Champs, and that the JK is in Nornireland, and both have their own websites... but

I e-mailed both the chair of BOF Fixtures and the event managers with the required information about Sprint/Middle Champs (http://www.bsbm2011.org.uk) but had no luck with either the information being uploaded or instructions on how to do this. Trying other routes now.

[Clive Coles]

It would be easy just to say ~ Got it in one

is the information stored there entirely at the mercy of club entries secretaries?

The fixtures secretaries do have the facilities ~ sadly some to prefer treat the BOF system as purely a registration facility and rely on their club web sites to publicise their events.

To be fair there are some frustrating anomolies with the current set-up and maintenance facilities which contrive to discourage the timely set up of the full Fixture record on the BOF web site. This thread mentioned just one. The event type is not set-up when the record is first registered. I believe it should be.

If you remember that this needs to be done you are also required to set up an organiser at the same time as you update the event type. In our case we often have no idea who the organiser will be when the event is first registered. I just enter myself to keep the computer system happy though I know other fixture secretaries prefer to wait until a proper organiser has agreed to act.

If you want your event to be visable on both the event diary and the event map facilities you also need to set up a postcode for the fixture as the search facilities for these facilities cannot locate a fixture unless the postcode is recorded. At the time of an initial event registration the postcode of the event car park may not be known. The map itself may not even have been registered with BOF if you are developing a new area.

it would be unfair therefore to blame the lack of visibility of future events on club fixture secretaries. They are working with a rather cumbersome and frankly over-engineered Fixtures system ~ I am not surprised that some leave it to the eleventh hour before updating their fixture record with the final details.

I gather however a major re-delivery of the Fixtures software is due before the end of the year to allow fixtures to be set up under the new 4-tier event structure. Perhaps some of these anomolies will have been rectified.

[Angry Haggis]

Slightly off-topic:

I would love for the BOF fixtures site to provide an API (XML?), so I can pull details of my own club's event back into my club's website. This way, events could be registered in one place, instead of having to register in three places (club website, regional association list, BOF list), often by different people. That one place most logically should be the BOF fixtures list, it would mean the data would become definitive to all concerned.

I also completely agree with the above, grid reference and event type should be mandatory, and the different event types should be more clearly defined so that (for example) street-Os and sprints don't appear in the urban category.) Automated emails from BOF to fixtures secretaries advising them of incomplete event details would also be another win.

[Nimby]

Also if you select "cross country" as the event type you'll miss several "normal" events that have been registered as "long".

[Clive Coles]

Quite agree Haggis ~ the BOF Fixture record should be the prime source of information which is drawn from by webmasters when compiling bespoke fixture pages for their sites.

Fixture Secretaries, Webmasters and event organisers are rarely the same person and, with the best will in the world, communication of changes (or updates) between these 3 people is not always good. So the information on BOF, Regional, and Club web sites get out of step.

There is of course resistance to change because many club web pages are far better, more focused and informative than BOF's pages. That's the strength of our reliance on a Club web site and paper event flyers.

But.... every Club website is bespoke, different and, for newcomers, the variety of presentation styles and navigational options can be inhibiting. That's where the use of BOF facilities scores ~ for all it's faults, it's consistant across the country.

We just somehow need to convince clubs that it's important to show up to date details on the BOF fixture database. There are too many data elements which display TBC.

[Sunlit Forres]

I don't see why it's such a problem. Yes, there are anomolies that need sorting but there's no reason why fixtures secs can't simply update the BOF site with the most up-to-date info as and when the event fine detail is decided or confirmed.

In the absence of a club fixtures sec, I do all the registration for our club and it really isn't a hassle. It's a pain that the system insists on an organiser, but I just put myself down until some other mug steps forward. I don't see why other clubs can't do the same as it provides such easy publicity, not only on the web but also in other media such as Compass Sport and the SOA magazine who both take their data from the BOF fixtures list.

[EddieH]

Clive Coles writes "There is of course resistance to change because many club web pages are far better, more focused and informative than BOF's pages."

Precisely. The BOT site may be good in theory, but there is little evidence tha it works in pracice. In reality all the numerous fields are of little inerest to many fixtures sectretaries who simply ignore them.

A vast reduction in fields would be IMO desirable. What we want is date venue (doesn't need to be too exact), level, type AND URL of the club websie where the details are stored.

Afer all the BOF list is surely for filtering what is of interest. Once interested, simply click on the link - that's what I do and I guess that's pretty normal.

[Clive Coles]

Tend to agree Eddie ~ that's what i was meaning by the statement that the solution is "over-engineered".

I, for example, have never seen any use for the age class course matrix ~ it doesn't appear to drive any process. Not sure who it is designed to help. Experienced orienteers know what to expect from an age class competition; we don't need a matrix to tell us. The matrix concept is however probably useful for colour coded Level C & level D competitions

My guess is that one of the reasons the database required so many fields was that the "grand design" envisaged it was needed to support on-line event entry. This of course has never been implemented. I hope it has died a death as the products such as Fabien seem to fit the bill quite well. We don't have money to burn on unnecessary software. But you never know it may still be in the development programme, for restarting once the 4-tier changes have been implemented.

[SeanC]

Just had a look at a few events for the next few weeks. Nearly all fields on the "details" page are filled in, typically 3 or so fields out of 15ish are "TBC". For events where most fields are TBC the "details" button is not visible.

I don't think it needs drastic pruning. A few fields could be trimmed. Maybe 20% or so. Presumably "TBC" is default text for fields that need a value, so this default text could be changed to "see club website" or "contact club for more info". That seems fair enough. If you have a dog and there is no information on event details seems a good idea to ask to check.

It would be nice to see a mailer to automatically send event details as the SEOA mailer does.... Maybe even this should be standard for all members (with an opt out when they join)? It would be good to help the new and infrequent orienteers who are less likely to find their way round the websites.

[PG]

As a club fixtures secretary, I’m still not completely aware of which fields are really important.

Is it postcode or grid reference which drives the geographical search (or either)?
I think I need a map, organiser and controller for an event to count as registered for insurance purposes. Is that right?
Which other fields can be used for searching?

Ideally the list of “my” events that I am presented with when I log in as a fixtures secretary and click on Events would have indicators for each event to tell me the status: whether it is “registered”, “geographic searchable” and “fully searchable”.