Panic Buying or Plain Daft

General slalom chatter...rant about the bad, rave about the good
Dee
Posts: 1444
Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 8:34 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by Dee » Wed Jan 23, 2019 1:24 pm

djberriman wrote:
Wed Jan 23, 2019 1:15 pm
I guess the only real way to prevent such things is to restrict the number of 'active' entries in Prem and Div 1. This is a system used by other sports.

Thus lets for example take a figure of say 10 (or 5 doubles). You can enter up to that maximum and then have to wait until you have raced (or cancelled) an event before you can make your next entry. I think we did discuss this at the ACM. Postal entries would have to be vetted which would be fairly simple and quick (as they are minimal).
Except - restricting on line in that way would probably result in more postal entries as competitors try to slip through.

I'd rather see open dates spread through the year. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if some people want to stay up until silly o'clock. What surprises me is that no-one has complained that the system slowed down. It did a bit, as our hosting environment isn't really designed for that onslaught - the rest of the year it's rare to have more than 3/4 people on system at any one time. We could of course provide more 'oomph' (at a cost), but I'd love to hear from the mid-nighters whether the system felt much slower than usual (albeit this would be entirely subjective)
Kit Washer, Entry Clerk, Chauffeur, Reluctant Organiser, Online Entry Advocate .....
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!

djberriman
Posts: 806
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:19 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by djberriman » Wed Jan 23, 2019 1:33 pm

The problem with that is when for instance you want to book tully in August knowing you are going and want to book a weeks camping for the training before etc or those whose work restricts the number of events they can enter, thus they want to enter the few they can get to.

For instance I've entered Washburn Div 1 already as it is the only one I can get to.....

Given postal entries can now be counted on one hand its fairly obvious if people are trying to beat the system and as postal entries are entered onto the online system by the organiser it would simply refuse them and they are binned.

Dee
Posts: 1444
Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 8:34 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by Dee » Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:04 pm

So if someone is on the waiting list for a comp does that count as one of their "ten"? If not and then a place becomes available, do they have to cancel one of their other entries in order to get the place or do they get given eleven?
Do you count officials entries?
...

This would be much more complex than it sounds!

I also don't think it would make that much difference. The only races 'full' by the morning were
1) An officials race (Tees?)
2) The practice slots for the Pinkston Div 1 - and the only reason that happened is people ignored the request to only book one slot and booked four or even eight, so once it was all sorted out then all the div 1s did get a slot.

Plus - if you look at prem paddlers ten races would pretty much be it.
Kit Washer, Entry Clerk, Chauffeur, Reluctant Organiser, Online Entry Advocate .....
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!

Dee
Posts: 1444
Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 8:34 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by Dee » Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:09 pm

PS Apart from the 750odd entries between midnight and 1am. In the first day we took nearly 3200 entries. Over 2100 of these were Div 1s, but we even had 70 Div 3 paddlers!
Kit Washer, Entry Clerk, Chauffeur, Reluctant Organiser, Online Entry Advocate .....
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!

Dee
Posts: 1444
Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 8:34 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by Dee » Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:11 pm

PPS . Not thinking of very late open dates, but making some 1st Feb and some 1st March could help.
The system does actually default open dates of later slaloms to a later open date, but many organisers change it to 15 Jan anyway, so I guess they all want to open on the dot!
Kit Washer, Entry Clerk, Chauffeur, Reluctant Organiser, Online Entry Advocate .....
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by JimW » Wed Jan 23, 2019 10:03 pm

As an organiser of an event that only just gets enough entries each year, I'm keen to open entries as early as possible to give people the most chance to enter that I can. I wonder how many entries I have now?

Mike Mitchell
Posts: 180
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:44 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by Mike Mitchell » Wed Jan 23, 2019 10:59 pm

I think the system is fine.
I dont do Jan Sales or Black Fridays and I didn't get up in the middle of the Night.

I just entered every race for the Year Two days after they came on line.
So I now have the season planed.

Provided a miracle douse not happen and I get promoted.

WindsorCC
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2016 8:22 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by WindsorCC » Thu Jan 24, 2019 5:05 pm

As far as I'm aware none of the races later in the year are yet full, even now a couple of weeks after the opening date, so it doesn't seem like it's a problem?

Dee
Posts: 1444
Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 8:34 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by Dee » Thu Jan 24, 2019 6:15 pm

WindsorCC wrote:
Thu Jan 24, 2019 5:05 pm
As far as I'm aware none of the races later in the year are yet full, even now a couple of weeks after the opening date, so it doesn't seem like it's a problem?
I don't think there is a problem with availability so why did the slalom community want to stress-test the system :? :?
Kit Washer, Entry Clerk, Chauffeur, Reluctant Organiser, Online Entry Advocate .....
Anything I post under this user is my personal opinion; I am not posting as a member of the Slalom Committee!

Mike Mitchell
Posts: 180
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:44 pm

Re: Panic Buying or Plain Daft

Post by Mike Mitchell » Thu Jan 24, 2019 10:40 pm

Dee wrote:
Thu Jan 24, 2019 6:15 pm
WindsorCC wrote:
Thu Jan 24, 2019 5:05 pm
As far as I'm aware none of the races later in the year are yet full, even now a couple of weeks after the opening date, so it doesn't seem like it's a problem?
I don't think there is a problem with availability so why did the slalom community want to stress-test the system :? :?
[/quote
Probably becouse most paddlers did not understand or realise that the PU rules have changed, so they carried on and got there entry in early.

Post Reply