Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

General slalom chatter...rant about the bad, rave about the good
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Should we continue to allow free text in the sponsor field at the time of entry.

1) Yes, leave as is
0
No votes
2) No, take the sponsor info from the ranking database
4
80%
3) As for (2) but then add another field for free text - if you select this please tell me why and what I should call the field
1
20%
 
Total votes: 5

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

Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

Post by Dee » Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:27 pm

The Sponsor field was originally added to www.canoeslalomentries.co.uk at the request of a paddler. It did, at one point, disappear from the results lists, but has since been re-instated.

However, since then, we now collect the sponsor from the ranking database and I have been asked to remove it as free input. The reason being that:
1) Some paddlers misunderstand and enter their club info, which means you see the club info twice on the results - messy and hard to prevent.
2) Sponsors added during entry are sometimes inconsistent in formatting with the same sponsor name elsewhere.
3) Taking the sponsor from the ranking db encourages paddlers to make sure that they update their bib info with their sponsor (which means it will get to the year book and be correctly formatted)

So I have been asked to add and keep a free-format field and also been asked to remove it. It just isn't possible to do both so I need more opinions.
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!

Nick Penfold
Posts: 338
Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 8:21 pm

Re: Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

Post by Nick Penfold » Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:47 pm

I'd have no problem with a free-format field if it had information useful to the race organiser (maybe for Pan Celtic entries, etc) but not if it gets carried through to start lists and results. You could label it "notes" and make it available to the organiser only.

Part of the problem, I think, is that some paddlers aren't clear what to put in, and feel they have to put something. A trawl through results will show you some silly things, like Llandysul Paddlers / Llandysul Paddlers or, worse, Green Star CC / Greenstar. That's a small nuisance. The bigger issue is that the sponsor or second club doesn't get put where it belongs, on the database.

You could set up a link in the entry form to send me a request to add a second club or sponsor.

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

Re: Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

Post by JimW » Thu Jun 27, 2019 12:49 pm

Nick Penfold wrote:
Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:47 pm
You could set up a link in the entry form to send me a request to add a second club or sponsor.
If Nick is happy to take on such requests, that would appear to be the ideal solution in terms of getting consistent info where it is needed...

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

Re: Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

Post by Dee » Thu Jun 27, 2019 2:19 pm

Nick Penfold wrote:
Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:47 pm
...
You could set up a link in the entry form to send me a request to add a second club or sponsor.
Sorry, but I hate this idea.
Some people already struggle with the entry form and extra buttons to send off information to Nick will just result in even more confusion. I'm trying hard to keep the entry form as 'clean' as possible.

I have been toying with the idea of a "My Bibs" page under "Accounts", mainly to provide the option for updating Div 4 bibs. I could put a link in there (either to Nick or appropriate bib officer or even bib system once it's up and running), but this is never going to be particularly obvious.
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!

InsertUsernameHere
Posts: 26
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2018 10:03 pm

Re: Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

Post by InsertUsernameHere » Sun Jun 30, 2019 7:58 am

I promised Dee I would just post a message saying

Noooooooo!!!

Sob sob sob

So this is the more helpful one:

As the primary user of the Sponsor field; for its non intended purpose I grant you! Can we keep something that does the function - it saves hours and hours of my life!!!!

I know the world doesn’t revolve around me - but given the function is already there it would make me sob if it was removed.

I would be happy if the box is relabelled - eg ‘ free text’ ‘event specific’ or if there was option for the event organiser to label it

I would be happy if it was something that organisers could choose to have or not.

The question about results lists - etc is one for simply slalom.

I would dearly love for it still to get pulled through to simply slalom. I would like it to be available on the results output. I don’t need it on the start list. (I would, if possible like to add the information to entries that don’t come through simple slalom)

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

Re: Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

Post by Dee » Sun Jun 30, 2019 3:35 pm

Sponsor does currently go through to SS and is displayed in results

I have considered comp specific field and this could be achieved with contents being combined with sponsor for feeding to SS

This could stop some of the issues, but my problem is the multi comp page. On that page you would get the field at all. This might not matter?
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!

paddlerparent
Posts: 95
Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2015 3:52 pm

Re: Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

Post by paddlerparent » Mon Jul 01, 2019 11:59 am

Master data for paddler is on the ranking data base, so my opinion is that all other data relating to paddler (including sponsor) goes there as

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

Re: Online Entries and the Sponsor Field - opinions please.

Post by JimW » Mon Jul 01, 2019 1:15 pm

There are different aspects to this.

Actual sponsor information that should be associated with a paddler all season (or from the time a deal is organised) needs to be consistent, and therefore should not be ultimately down to indivisual interpretation. For this I still think having such input moderated, whether via a button to send a link to Nick, or just a field in the entry page which is not automatically uploaded but requires moderation for consistency before it is displayed, is a good idea.

A free text box for other uses might also be a good idea - clearly it can be useful for championships like Pan Celtic, Interclubs, Scottish Schools, where extra information may be required by the organiser, but that information does not need to remain associated with the paddler all year. I think it makes sense that the organiser can choose to turn this on or off per event whether required or not, although I appreciate that this makes the multiple entries page much more complicated/impossible.

If we are going to have extra info pulled through to SS, I don't think combining it with say the sponsor data is a good idea because it will then appear in that column in the csv version of results which is used by the ranking database thus potentially polluting the database? I think it would require a new feature in SS for races that require it... Unless perhaps online entries adds a delimiter after which SS can ignore all data when creating the csv?

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