Hey all,
There's going to be a change how matches are opened for signup, coming up in the next couple/few/several weeks.
At the moment, the match administrators can open matches at any time, and within an hour an email goes out to everyone, informing them that the signup is open, and people signup as and when they can.
This is going to change. Let me be the first to say that I realize and admit that what I am doing here is going backwards, technologically, but this system is about IPSC shooting, not about using the latest techie gadgets and how to exploit them.
The point is to make sure that people with the latest and greatest electronic toys don't have a priority signup advantage over those who are stuck at work during the days, and might not have access to email or web.
I have no interest in trying to hunt down and close every loophole and every advantage those with IT/Web smarts have over "regular" users when it comes to creating means and tools to make it easier for them to signup (hell, I've done it myself, on the USPSA signup website), but there are some major ones I think I can address.
Matches will all be opened for sign up at a specific time (currently thinking 10PM EST), and several hours earlier (currently thinking 5PM EST) an email will be sent out, telling people which (if any) matches will be coming available that evening. Then at 10pm, everyone can come in and try and signup.
Yes, this will still mean that it'll be first-come-first-serve, yes, I expect that the system will greatly slow down during those times.
I also expect that the great rush of people coming in to signup at the same time will mean it'll be more difficult for people to arrange to squad together.
I also expect that some people will try to signup for a squad only to be told it's already full (between the time they saw the opening and clicked on submit, someone else took that spot).
Those are all aspects of a busy website, where the demand is greater than the supply. If 200 people want to signup for a match with 50 slots, well, 150 people will be disappointed, and that's got nothing to do with ipsc-matches.net ; what I am doing here, having chatted with both shooters and match administrators, is leveling the playing field, and removing (some of) the advantage of those with email and web access 24/7, re ipsc match signup.
One advice I can offer to those signing up is this: when coming in, at 10pm, with everyone, if there is a slot available, just click on the "Join this squad" button right away - don't waste time changing the division and the PF drop down boxes!! ONCE you are IN the squad, you can update those, without risking losing your slot. If you try to set that before you join, those 3 seconds give someone else the time to jump into that slot ahead of you...
In fact, I'll probably add a default division and default PF to the user profile, so it'll always default to that anyway (current it just defaults to Open/Major, just the way it sorts internally).
The way the signup page looks might change, I might remove the join-the-squad buttons until the match is actually open for signup. So you'll be able to hit refresh after 10pm, see the page, and join whatever squads you want.
Just thinking ahead, I think I'll see how it'll work for the first few ones, and work on fixing any bugs/issues/etc...
let me say this: the first few times we do this, YES, It will be FRUSTRATING for everyone trying to get in at the same time.... Maybe this won't work, maybe we'll crash the webserver, who knows, but I've heard that there are ipsc shooters who are leaving the sport because they can never signup for matches - by the time they get home in the evening, all the matches which opened during the day are already full. At least here, everyone will have the same level of frustration and (dis)advantage
Cheers,
There's going to be a change how matches are opened for signup, coming up in the next couple/few/several weeks.
At the moment, the match administrators can open matches at any time, and within an hour an email goes out to everyone, informing them that the signup is open, and people signup as and when they can.
This is going to change. Let me be the first to say that I realize and admit that what I am doing here is going backwards, technologically, but this system is about IPSC shooting, not about using the latest techie gadgets and how to exploit them.
The point is to make sure that people with the latest and greatest electronic toys don't have a priority signup advantage over those who are stuck at work during the days, and might not have access to email or web.
I have no interest in trying to hunt down and close every loophole and every advantage those with IT/Web smarts have over "regular" users when it comes to creating means and tools to make it easier for them to signup (hell, I've done it myself, on the USPSA signup website), but there are some major ones I think I can address.
Matches will all be opened for sign up at a specific time (currently thinking 10PM EST), and several hours earlier (currently thinking 5PM EST) an email will be sent out, telling people which (if any) matches will be coming available that evening. Then at 10pm, everyone can come in and try and signup.
Yes, this will still mean that it'll be first-come-first-serve, yes, I expect that the system will greatly slow down during those times.
I also expect that the great rush of people coming in to signup at the same time will mean it'll be more difficult for people to arrange to squad together.
I also expect that some people will try to signup for a squad only to be told it's already full (between the time they saw the opening and clicked on submit, someone else took that spot).
Those are all aspects of a busy website, where the demand is greater than the supply. If 200 people want to signup for a match with 50 slots, well, 150 people will be disappointed, and that's got nothing to do with ipsc-matches.net ; what I am doing here, having chatted with both shooters and match administrators, is leveling the playing field, and removing (some of) the advantage of those with email and web access 24/7, re ipsc match signup.
One advice I can offer to those signing up is this: when coming in, at 10pm, with everyone, if there is a slot available, just click on the "Join this squad" button right away - don't waste time changing the division and the PF drop down boxes!! ONCE you are IN the squad, you can update those, without risking losing your slot. If you try to set that before you join, those 3 seconds give someone else the time to jump into that slot ahead of you...
In fact, I'll probably add a default division and default PF to the user profile, so it'll always default to that anyway (current it just defaults to Open/Major, just the way it sorts internally).
The way the signup page looks might change, I might remove the join-the-squad buttons until the match is actually open for signup. So you'll be able to hit refresh after 10pm, see the page, and join whatever squads you want.
Just thinking ahead, I think I'll see how it'll work for the first few ones, and work on fixing any bugs/issues/etc...
let me say this: the first few times we do this, YES, It will be FRUSTRATING for everyone trying to get in at the same time.... Maybe this won't work, maybe we'll crash the webserver, who knows, but I've heard that there are ipsc shooters who are leaving the sport because they can never signup for matches - by the time they get home in the evening, all the matches which opened during the day are already full. At least here, everyone will have the same level of frustration and (dis)advantage
Cheers,
im up at 4am for work and i dont have any trouble about staying up till 10pm to sign up for a match i want to shoot its not as if your staying up every night late
