Orienteering websites - event listings

[redkite]

Cool,
and useful. Keep up the good work.

Perhaps you could give BOF a few ideas of what a user friendly site should be.

[mat-d]

Yeah someone else has been working on that one...

been up for ages!!

http://www.robs-home.org.uk/oevents/

[Angry Haggis]

Yeah someone else has been working on that one...

been up for ages!!

http://www.robs-home.org.uk/oevents/

Ah - didn't know about that one! I might pinch some of his ideas for enhancements to mine. There's some nice stuff on there (such as the event additions form, cookies to store your own location, and an RSS feed) that I am planning to add soon.

[Supersaint]

I'd really like to hear your input both on the Saxons site and for future developments for the SE site.

The new Saxons site is SO much better than the old one. I remember the old one giving me headaches whenevr i looked at it with those purple stars everywhere.

But apart from being a massive improvement on the old one, it's one of the best ones i've seen. Nice easy links to past and future events, very easy to find what you're looking for by having links at the top of the page as well as in the main section. Having the Google map link will defintely be a good thing as it helps those who've never been to an area before (as the Blean event is).

Not too sure about the log-in part though (i know it's not working at the moment). Why would people need to sign in?

Ian

[mharky]

Angry Haggis, your one is great, good effort.

[Mrs H.]

That's fantastic AH! I'll give it a plug in the next club magazine if that's OK?

[mharky]

did you just say "working", "pro" and "BOF website" in the same sentence???

[Angry Haggis]

That's fantastic AH! I'll give it a plug in the next club magazine if that's OK?

By all means. You might want to mention Rob Williams' one too.

[Carnage Head]

That's a great site, Angry Haggis. I'm always amazed by IT whizzkids. You did it totally voluntarily? Wow. Get BOF on board.

What an amazing way of 'getting things done' this forum is - the opposite of 'death by committee'.

[Angry Haggis]

[snip] Get BOF on board.

What an amazing way of 'getting things done' this forum is - the opposite of 'death by committee'.

Hmm - BOF's response:

I have become aware of your Unofficial Orienteering Fixtures website and
have some considerable concern. It would appear that you have accessed
both a BOF programme (encrypted and password protected I believe) and
BOF Data (password protected from within the programme) without
permission. The concern I mention is in two parts. 1 Data Protection:-
Individual organisers have given us their personal details such as
e-mail addresses in good faith secure in the knowledge that BOF is
registered with the Data Protection Commissioner and will only use their
e-mails for purposes for which they have provided permission. Our fear
is that finding them published elsewhere without permission may cause
them to withdraw the permission that they have given us making the whole
sport poorer because of the lack of contact details provided on the
Official Orienteering Fixtures List. 2 (and to my mind considerably more
serious) Insurance:- You have offered clubs the opportunity to add
events to your list. Our fear is that individuals may be under the
impression that these events are registered with BOF when they may not
be and that Clubs fail to register their events with BOF. Unregistered
events are not covered by the BOF Civil Liability Insurance and should
an incident occur at one of these events the competitors would not be
covered and individual organisers would be personally liable. This would
certainly not be a good advert for the sport.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the situation with you in
order to find an amicable solution as much for you as for us because I
believe you personally could be in serious trouble over the holding and
publication of personal data.
Regards
[BOF]
PS Are you aware that the dates of many of the events you list are
wrong?

[Adventure Racer]

Are they serious? Surely you've got all your data straight off the official fixtures list http://freespace.virgin.net/pat.martin/fixtures.htm? Where on earth else do they think you've got it from? And where exactly are all those e-mail addresses? Have they actually looked at your site?

p.s. Great Site - hope you don't get closed down! Lots of useful info like closing dates being highlighted - will help me enter events in advance where I need to! As they say garbage in garbage out - I note the Chasers event on Sunday seems to be in the middle of Wales(should be SK, not SJ I think).

[Mrs H.]

That is a breath-takingly bad piece of man-management even by BOF's standards.
A.H. when did you receive this and who has signed it?
As A. R. says where is the data infringement when everything is already in the public domain. strikes me this is more about protecting BOF Central's indispensibility than an interest in providing a service to orienteers.

You are not the only one to be snubbed by BOF Central when trying to develop the sport.

I hope those days are over and am optimistic that the "New Regime" will have a more enlightened and encouraging attitude to the efforts of its members. That is why I would like to know when you received that communication and from who!

[PeterW]

What a piece of pomposity from BOF. It seems to encapsulate most of what's wrong with the organisation. Their correct reply should have been:

I've seen your innovative and useful fixtures website and BOF would very much like to discuss how we can work together to improve the quality of fixtures information avalable to orienteers. This has been highlighted in the recent report on BOF communications as an urgent need - and BOF is very keen to make fixtures information easily available to as many people as possible.

There are a couple of minor bureaucratic issues relating to the formal registration of events on the fixtures list and to using organisers' contact details, but I'm sure these can be sorted out quickly.

We look forward to working with you.

[Bill]

I don't think you should go into an anti-BOF tirade too quickly. Any IT professional reading this will know there are some valid points about Data Protection which puts a legal responsibility on organisations to register when they hold personal data. The wording may be a little extreme but there is an offer to discuss it.

[Wattok]

All this discussion/jabs at BOF shouldn't take away from the fact that at the end of the day BOF should be providing this sort of service. Surely if they did it then there wouldn't be any data issues etc.

Maybe they have a grand scheme and are just messing with us then are going release it with a flourish(then again maybe not).