British Orienteering website

[Spookster]

I'm also slightly concerned that the contact details for the club/British Orienteering link have been assumed to be those for the public/club link and emails/mobile numbers etc have been published, potentially without knowledge/consent.

I'm fairly sure I haven't given permission for my phone number and email address to be published

10 out of 10 for the site having a fresh new look, but 2 out of 10 for accuracy of data - it seems to be littered with mistakes.

[Haze]

yup my personal trainer is certainly not my dad! ( he calls the sport BORINGTEERING for goodness sake! )

[greywolf]

distracted wrote:
At least this is a step in the right direction and Joe Bloggs could now, relatively easily, find their local club.


except that the map isn't clickable, and there isn't a "Go" button for the dropdown list for the regional association, so Joe Bloggs either has to follow the links to the Regional Associations sites and get club names from there, or select a regional association from the dropdown list, and then put the cursor in the (empty) Clubname/abbreviation box, then hit Return. At least TD4 on website navigation...

and the "there are no active clubs in this county" is just plain stupid

[johnloguk]

To play devil's advocate just for a moment, I suppose BOF are hoping that clubs will get back to them asap with corrections for their pages. Maybe BOF should have sent a questionnaire round all clubs beforehand asking the answers to "do you have a"; newsletter, club kit and other things that BOF doesn't know automatically. But would all clubs have replied, or would questionnaire apathy set in like it usually does?

Maybe I'm being too kind ? I suggest we all get back to BOF with our corrections, rather than just talk amongst ourselves about them, and hopefully everything will be accurate pretty soon. That is so long as someone from every club committee does visit the BOF website, or Nopesport, regularly, but I suspect they don't

[NeilC]

Maybe BOF should have sent a questionnaire round all clubs beforehand asking the answers to "do you have a"; newsletter, club kit and other things that BOF doesn't know automatically. But would all clubs have replied, or would questionnaire apathy set in like it usually does?

They did and I suspect a poor response may be why some of the data are missing.

[johnloguk]

Cheers Neil, I suspected as much but wasn't sure

[greywolf]

They did and I suspect a poor response may be why some of the data are missing.

that'll be why Southdowns apparently don't do training or coaching and don't have a newsletter or club kit then?

and have you tried putting SO in the Club Name/Abbreviation box? it finds every club with SO in the name ie. SYO, HAVOC, SN etc etc

[awk]

They did and I suspect a poor response may be why some of the data are missing.

In which case you say the info is not available, not that the club doesn't do or hasn't got these things. That sends out a far worse message to those who aren't aware that these are teething issues. GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).

[distracted]

and have you tried putting SO in the Club Name/Abbreviation box? it finds every club with SO in the name ie. SYO, HAVOC, SN etc etc

And that is why people shouldn't use club acronyms by default, and the full name should be more common. How often do you see the Scandi clubs, or most of the rest of Europe for that point, using them? Is it just laziness on our part, or do we do it deliberately to confuse everyone with no knowledge of them? I know certain clubs/persons now expand the acronyms in the results - can this become more common please?

and yes - the most effective way to get the clubs information correct, or to correct any other errors for that matter, will be for people to take the initiative!

[awk]

And that is why people shouldn't use club acronyms by default, and the full name should be more common.

Except that the website encourages you to use the abbreviation in the prompt, and is meant to be friendly to both newcomer and regular user. I'm still not quite certain why inputting NOC turns up BASOC, with membership fees for all 12 associations it seems. Interesting.

My opinion FWIW is that I'll have to reserve judgement: I need time to experience the website, take on board the efforts to improve, and readjust to things that initially appear unattractive and initially niggle. For instance, two things that jump screaming to attention are the limitation of useful text to a narrow strip down the middle, uncomfortable on the reading eye and involving more scrolling than I am already happy with, and the illegibility of the menu buttons down the left hand side, even on a 17" screen. I have to say, though, that in this respect I'm a bit of an old fogey, and prefer publications designed to be read, not just looked at.

But 4 weeks before the results pages are reinstated??

[greywolf]

I'm still not quite certain why inputting NOC turns up BASOC,

BadeNOCh and Strathspey OC, innit

BASOC, with membership fees for all 12 associations it seems.

but it's free to join the club!

[distracted]

But 4 weeks before the results pages are reinstated??

I would think that the integration of events with entries and results will be a significant improvement on the current system, and hence worth a further 4 week wait! Many results didn't appear on the old system anyway; this new structure might improve on that, and perhaps will also lead to a decent results archive. The number of results, even from a couple of years ago, that have disappeared because clubs change their website hosting/address and do not port the old content is not insignificant...

[Jon Brooke]

Starting with +ve, I think the overall look is very good...

but I hope they've got a big budget for teething / updating / maintenance.

My guess is that someone (or probably some people) have proof read the text in a word file or document, but not looked at it on the website.

For example in the "newcomer's guide - going to an event" section they've put this:

Once you have found a suitable event on the fixtures list (found in the “Event Information ” section in "Find an Event" )you need to locate the venue.

When maybe they could have just put this:

Once you have found a suitable event on the fixtures list you need to locate the venue.

[distracted]

After finally getting into the "My account" section using the 4th and final possible combination for my password - note: do not send people passwords in sans-serif fonts where capital 'I' and small 'l' (probably other combinations too) cannot be distinguished... - there still seem to be a few bugs, and want to check it's not just me!

So, has anyone else found that they can't update details, or change username/password because of some strange "family membership" error? Also, has anyone discovered whether there's the option to add a second club anywhere, or add/edit ecard numbers? btw, BOF have been contacted about both issues.

[andy]

after weeks of putting it off due to a holiday and now my dissertation being due I was planning on fixing the few issues with the 6 day ranking points next week. I can see the rankings but can't see anywhere to be able to update them, any ideas?