IPSC Canada Match Calendar

hungrybeagle

hungrybeagle

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I threw together a Match Calendar for the IPSC Canada website. It's not complete, but is still the testing stages. If you'd like to try it out, or have any suggestions/feedback, please let me know.

The match calendar is at http://calendar.hungrybeagle.com/match.php

To edit the calendar, go to http://calendar.hungrybeagle.com/matchinfo/matchedit.php

You can use the username "user" and the password "test"

The idea is to have a representative from each club be given a username and password so that they can add/edit/delete matches for their club.
 
Why reinvent the wheel.

Damian (Omen) has spent countless hrs with the same calendar and has had it in place now for a number of years. It works 100% and as well he is improving it as we speak. He has every province listed all you have to do is register your match, and you as a member of IPSC Canada have to register to view it. The calendar works well and IPSC NB appreciates the work Damian has volunteered to the sport, and will continue to utilize services.

Don't get me wrong I'm not slamming your efforts at all. But just it is aready here.

Cheers
BMW
 
Never having attended a match where Omen's system was being used, or putting on a match where I would want to have people squad themselves, I've never used Omen's online squadding system. I tried looking at it once, and I got stalled creating an account because I didn't know the IPSC Canada password. I see that it's no longer required so I'll have a look once my ID is validated. :)

The idea for an IPSC Canada match calendar started from a request I saw on Gunnutz, from someone asking if there were any matches in some province because they were traveling there for a short trip. I spoke with the guy maintaining the IPSC Canada website to see if there was any interest in putting up a calendar on the IPSC Canada site, similar to what we host on our IPSCBC site.

I never thought of using Omen's site strictly as a match calendar, because you need a password to login and view all the matches. Something a bit more public to service the needs of people that are not currently IPSC members was what I had in mind.
 
I wonder if Omen's system can be improved, so it would allow to see upcoming matches without registering (and may even publish ics calendar and an rss feed for computer geeks) and only require registration to sign up for the match
 
I'm sure it can. Probably the reason he hasn't set it up to do so is because nobody has asked him to. 99.9$ of the time, it's not a matter of "can it be done". It's a matter of getting feedback from people that say what they want improved/added.

Except for maybe the RSS feed. :)
 
What about RSS feed? If you don't like it, how about posting updates about new matches on Twitter? That actually will be much more reliable then current email notification. :D
 
Not for a match system, but for some other stuff specifically related to IPSCBC website stuff. :)

As for the Twitter thing....why would a Twitter update/RSS feed be better than an email notification? I would think that those go to your email anyway.
 
I don't know why, but notifications from Omen's system arrive several hours later and by that time match is often already full. I wonder if that is deliberate. With twitter you can also configure notification on SMS, so it is instantaneous.
 
Hey,

a) HB's site is a calendar - I think it would be pretty neat to see all matches in the country in one place, why not, sort of like the ipsc.org calendar, but for all matches, not just level 3+. My system is for match signup - that's all... So matches there don't really need to appear until they are open for signup - could be days or weeks before the match date. I'd prefer to focus on the signup and match coordination (workers, shooters, etc); there could be links on HB's site to my site, for actual signup, the two aren't competitors, they can work together to satisfy two related (but different) needs. We already have that in Ont, via the ipsc-ont site (with links to ipsc-matches). I don't think you'll have much luck getting MDs to create those values in multiple places (like ipsc-ont, ipsc-matches, and yours), but you could automate the process, and just screen scrape from provincial calendars into your master, Canada-wide one.

b) (not to hijack the thread, just addressing points mentioned above) - I made a point of not making the notifications real-time, because I saw that MDs would frequently open/close/open/close the same match a few times before settling down - I didn't want to issue multiple emails/smses/etc, I felt that would annoy people. So it's done in batch mode, at the end of the day. Currently at 4am, but I just switched that to just after midnight, so the emails will go out then. So no, they are not real-time, you get an email at midnight, telling you which matches were opened during the day that's just ending...
This seemed like a reasonable compromise at the time... The system was, at the time, aimed at the average Ont ipsc shooters, who's an email/internet user, but not always on the cutting edge of electronics toys and real-time, instant connection communication.. (I wanted to give everyone a chance to be able to see themselves what's open, what's available, who's shooting where/when, so people who want to shoot together or avoid someone can make all those decisions themselves, without needing to bother the MD; I wanted to attract people to the idea, and not worry about throwing in extra jazzy bits, which while might be neat to have, don't add to the core functionality of the site ) :) I guess I could make it real-time, with an extra notification to the MD so (s)he knows emails will go out - i.e. be sure you mean to open the match...

c) for security, privacy/etc reasons, webserver load, etc, I don't want to have my system be a userid-less thing... So I'd be quite happy to cooperate with something a master match calendar.. I'm more interested in adding more functionality and usability in the 'match signup' area, rather than growing the system to expand into other areas - so if someone wants to built something there, they have my full support and cooperation...

d) Re ipsc-canada userid/password - I'm happy to setup the provincial userids/passwords too, that's how it's intended to work (and how it works in Ont), but I'd need to know the user/password for provinces other than Ont, and they might not want to tell me those, since I'm in Ont (it doesn't have to be official, some shooter can tell me, and I'll set it up). But everyone here is supposed to know the ipsc-canada values, so that's a good backup, for anyone in any CAN-* region...
 
Thanks for explanation, omen. See some comments and ideas below

omen said:
a) HB's site is a calendar - I think it would be pretty neat to see all matches in the country in one place, why not, sort of like the ipsc.org calendar, but for all matches, not just level 3+. My system is for match signup - that's all... So matches there don't really need to appear until they are open for signup - could be days or weeks before the match date. I'd prefer to focus on the signup and match coordination (workers, shooters, etc); there could be links on HB's site to my site, for actual signup, the two aren't competitors, they can work together to satisfy two related (but different) needs. We already have that in Ont, via the ipsc-ont site (with links to ipsc-matches). I don't think you'll have much luck getting MDs to create those values in multiple places (like ipsc-ont, ipsc-matches, and yours), but you could automate the process, and just screen scrape from provincial calendars into your master, Canada-wide one.
Click to expand...

You just admitted that MDs may not want to submit their match to several multiple systems, and then they have to enter the shooter names again when they will be doing the match scores. Ideally we need an unified system with several integrated modules, so different people could work on modules that interesting to them.

omen said:
b) (not to hijack the thread, just addressing points mentioned above) - I made a point of not making the notifications real-time, because I saw that MDs would frequently open/close/open/close the same match a few times before settling down - I didn't want to issue multiple emails/smses/etc, I felt that would annoy people. So it's done in batch mode, at the end of the day. Currently at 4am, but I just switched that to just after midnight, so the emails will go out then. So no, they are not real-time, you get an email at midnight, telling you which matches were opened during the day that's just ending...
This seemed like a reasonable compromise at the time... The system was, at the time, aimed at the average Ont ipsc shooters, who's an email/internet user, but not always on the cutting edge of electronics toys and real-time, instant connection communication.. (I wanted to give everyone a chance to be able to see themselves what's open, what's available, who's shooting where/when, so people who want to shoot together or avoid someone can make all those decisions themselves, without needing to bother the MD; I wanted to attract people to the idea, and not worry about throwing in extra jazzy bits, which while might be neat to have, don't add to the core functionality of the site ) :) I guess I could make it real-time, with an extra notification to the MD so (s)he knows emails will go out - i.e. be sure you mean to open the match...
Click to expand...

The problem with current approach is that people get notifications by other means, e.g. directly from the match director or from the fellow shooters who visited the web site at the right time. So, by the time you get email notification match is often already full.

One way to get around opening/closing matches several times is to hold off with notification for 15..20 minutes after match is open. Hopefully the MD will make his mind by then and in this case it won't matter what time of the day match was made open.

omen said:
c) for security, privacy/etc reasons, webserver load, etc, I don't want to have my system be a userid-less thing... So I'd be quite happy to cooperate with something a master match calendar.. I'm more interested in adding more functionality and usability in the 'match signup' area, rather than growing the system to expand into other areas - so if someone wants to built something there, they have my full support and cooperation...
Click to expand...

The suggestion was not to make entire site userid-less, make list of matches visible without the password. There should be no harm in that and request userid only when you want to see the match squads, etc.

omen said:
d) Re ipsc-canada userid/password - I'm happy to setup the provincial userids/passwords too, that's how it's intended to work (and how it works in Ont), but I'd need to know the user/password for provinces other than Ont, and they might not want to tell me those, since I'm in Ont (it doesn't have to be official, some shooter can tell me, and I'll set it up). But everyone here is supposed to know the ipsc-canada values, so that's a good backup, for anyone in any CAN-* region...
Click to expand...

What is that ipsc-canada userid/password everyone is talking about? As far as I can see there is no protected areas at the ipsc-canada site. Am I missing something?

As for sharing the password. Instead of giving you user/password they could give you md5 of their user/password, so you won't know the password but still could validate it.
 
It just occurred to me that one can simple create a public Google calendar and just publish the link to that calendar. Then most of sharing/collaborating functionality we'll get for free, including automatic synchronization of the calendar with handheld devices, notifications and bunch of other stuff.

I can create something that would screen-scrape ipsc-ontario site and push entries into the Google calendar. Though it is somewhat retarded. :D
 
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euxx said:
As for sharing the password. Instead of giving you user/password they could give you md5 of their user/password, so you won't know the password but still could validate it.
Click to expand...

Hahaha, so what's going to happen? People are going to enter the MD5 of the passwords, to get their accounts created :) ??? A 32 digits hex number? No? Of course not... (and if you think that'll work, sorry, that's totally unrealistic based on my experience so far - maybe your experience is different). So what will happen?... Ahhh... so they'll enter their userid and password, then I will convert that to md5, and then say "yeah or nah"... But if the md5 matches, then I now HAVE the userid and password, don't I?? So what's the point of the MD5...

Anyhow, sorry, but we are moving sooo far away from the basics, this discussion isn't really on point anymore. I'm just waiting for someone to start talking about a single sign-on system, between all the ipsc websites in Canada :)

I think it would be great to have one place which will list the matches in Canada, but I very much doubt that MDs (especially in provinces where the matches are already listed on the provincial site) will enter it in that system, especially if it's not really going to get them any extra shooters (level 1 or 2 matches across the provinces are not likely to attract out of province shooters) - this opinion is based on my personal conversations with multiple MDs across the few years that my system has been used by them. You might disagree, and you might be proven right, but that's what I've seen and heard - MDs, from the comments I've heard, really like the system because it really frees them from a lot of things they had to do manually before - they get more functionality for much less work. THe joy of reducing their workload is real, they do a LOT already... I think that a lot of them will tune you out if you ask them to do something new/extra (even a small thing), which offers them virtually no immediate/visible benefit ) ... BUT: An automated way of collecting that info into one point (Google, or custom, or whatever) would be great - if HB wants to do something like that, that would be awesome...
Or euxx - you offered to help, that'd be a perfect project for you - scrape all of the provincials' websites' calendars into one place, and make it visible on twitter, rss, google calendar, email/sms notifications, etc...
 
euxx said:
It just occurred to me that one can simple create a public Google calendar and just publish the link to that calendar. Then most of sharing/collaborating functionality we'll get for free, including automatic synchronization of the calendar with handheld devices, notifications and bunch of other stuff.

I can create something that would screen-scrape ipsc-ontario site and push entries into the Google calendar. Though it is somewhat retarded. :D
Click to expand...

I suggested Google Calendar to HB a week ago (FYI Google Calendar can be embedded into another website, see the link at the end of this post). I personally don't see the point in building something and then having to maintain it when something better with far more functionality already exists for free but maybe that's just me. Google Calendar has a lot of great functionality not mentioned above, including being able to click on an event to get more info, full integration with Google Maps (i.e. link it to the GPS coordinates of the range), etc., built in security levels that can be administered, etc. etc. etc. It's what we use for the Mountain View Marksman's Association website, http://www.mvmarksmans.com/calendar.html go back to October to see some IPSC Alberta matches.
 
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