Sorry for the delay in updating the Predictions League website this week, in the very early hours of Saturday morning our daughter Eden was born and, needless to say, she has been taking up rather a lot of our time.
I am working my way through the updates 10 minutes or so at a time, and will get everything sorted asap!
Cheers!!
Matt C.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Forum Poll
Have added a little poll on the right. I have, for a long time, wanted to put a forum on the website so that people can chat and gloat and generally speak to other competitors, but I've encountered issues along the way, most notably:
- I am not enough of a nerd to be able to write one from scratch myself. Actually that's not strictly true, I am enough of a nerd, and I THINK I could do a basic one, but I simply don't have the time.
- The best open-source (ie free) boards available out there, of which PHPBB is by far and away the best in my opinion, have their own registration component of the board and it appears very difficult to integrate it with the existing Predictions League. I wouldn't say it was impossible, but at the moment, I simply don't seem to have the time to figure it out.
So I'm left with two options for implementing the PHPBB on the Predictions League website.
1. Implement it as it is, and allow people to post messages without registering. I am not keen on this option because:
- It means people can post using other people's ScreenName
- It means people can post anonymously, and that in itself is an invitation to abuse
2. Implement it forcing people to register seperately for the forum. This has the following issues:
- Firstly, it will rely on trusting people to only register in their own name, and using their own Screen Name (which I think should be obligatory)
- Secondly it means that someone wanting to come to the website to submit predictions for the week, and post a message on the forum, will have to log in twice.
Anyway, I've set up a poll for this on the blog to get an idea what people think, but of course, feel free to comment on this. You should be able to comment without registering, but if I don't know who you are, I can't easily reply.
I will be interested to know what people think anyway.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Ideas for the competition and the website
Here's the place to post if you want to make suggestions for new features on the website, or new rules/ideas for the game itself.
The last change made was the introduction of the PL Cup competition which came in about 8 years ago (there have been 16 competitions so far). Personally I have always thought it was (is) a great addition and a perfect compliment to the League competition.
WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
1. I'm looking for ideas regarding the layout of the website, I HATE frames and am working on a new site which doesn't have them, they really really really really p*** me off! Sorry for the digression there, I am always fiddling about with the look of the website (when I should be fiddling about with the content), so any (budding) graphic designers out there, drop me a note.
2. I'm looking for new features to add to the site. As part of the above mentioned project, I am also working on implementing much more detailed statistics. From being able to view previous week's league table (which was a hastily and clunkily added recent addition) to displaying a list of stats based on what has been predicted for matches so far on the home page. I see this as cycling through the 10 fixtures showing averages of home and away scores, or perhaps numbers of '2-1' and '1-1' etc etc scores.
OTHER IDEAS / COMPETITION IDEAS
I'm also looking for ideas for improving the competition itself. It hasn't changed much, as I mentioned above. One thing which has been pointed out a couple of times, was the unfairness of the scoring system in relation to draws. What I mean is, if you predict someone to win 2-1, and they actually win 3-1, you get 5 points for getting the right result, plus a bonus 2 points for getting one of the team's scores right. Whereas if you predict a 1-1 draw and it's a 2-2 draw, you just get the five points, with no chance of making up any extra points. I think, generally, it's harder to predict a draw, so perhaps you should automatically get 7 points if you get a draw, but the wrong score. Or maybe 6? Or maybe it's OK as it is? Have a think about that one.....
On the past, people have discussed the likes of a form of Champions League competition, whereby depending on how well you finished in one competition, you could go forward into it to run concurrently with the next one, but there are problems with this; people, for whatever reason, may drop out of the league, how do we score points for this, do we actually run it predicting Champions League matches, or in addition to the league, which means points scored will count for League, PL Cup and Champions League some weeks. Actually, the more I think about this, the more of an administrative nightmare it seems to be.....what do you think?
The last change made was the introduction of the PL Cup competition which came in about 8 years ago (there have been 16 competitions so far). Personally I have always thought it was (is) a great addition and a perfect compliment to the League competition.
WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
1. I'm looking for ideas regarding the layout of the website, I HATE frames and am working on a new site which doesn't have them, they really really really really p*** me off! Sorry for the digression there, I am always fiddling about with the look of the website (when I should be fiddling about with the content), so any (budding) graphic designers out there, drop me a note.
2. I'm looking for new features to add to the site. As part of the above mentioned project, I am also working on implementing much more detailed statistics. From being able to view previous week's league table (which was a hastily and clunkily added recent addition) to displaying a list of stats based on what has been predicted for matches so far on the home page. I see this as cycling through the 10 fixtures showing averages of home and away scores, or perhaps numbers of '2-1' and '1-1' etc etc scores.
OTHER IDEAS / COMPETITION IDEAS
I'm also looking for ideas for improving the competition itself. It hasn't changed much, as I mentioned above. One thing which has been pointed out a couple of times, was the unfairness of the scoring system in relation to draws. What I mean is, if you predict someone to win 2-1, and they actually win 3-1, you get 5 points for getting the right result, plus a bonus 2 points for getting one of the team's scores right. Whereas if you predict a 1-1 draw and it's a 2-2 draw, you just get the five points, with no chance of making up any extra points. I think, generally, it's harder to predict a draw, so perhaps you should automatically get 7 points if you get a draw, but the wrong score. Or maybe 6? Or maybe it's OK as it is? Have a think about that one.....
On the past, people have discussed the likes of a form of Champions League competition, whereby depending on how well you finished in one competition, you could go forward into it to run concurrently with the next one, but there are problems with this; people, for whatever reason, may drop out of the league, how do we score points for this, do we actually run it predicting Champions League matches, or in addition to the league, which means points scored will count for League, PL Cup and Champions League some weeks. Actually, the more I think about this, the more of an administrative nightmare it seems to be.....what do you think?
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Weekend 1 updated
OK, well that's weekend one updated. 76 people this time round, though one person does appear to have re-registered, so I'll need to sort that out this week.
Most important issue for this week (in other words, Monday lunchtime) is to pay the last few people who need paying from the last competition and to catch up on the accounts - I think some people still owe me money.....
If anyone's reading this, I will have to try and think of a way to make it slightly more interesting.
Most important issue for this week (in other words, Monday lunchtime) is to pay the last few people who need paying from the last competition and to catch up on the accounts - I think some people still owe me money.....
If anyone's reading this, I will have to try and think of a way to make it slightly more interesting.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Weekend 1 - A New Competition
Dear all,
welcome to the start of the new Predictions League competition. This is your weekly reminder to submit your predictions for Weekend 1, if you haven't already done so.
Formalities attended to, a few extras.....
1. It's not too late for anyone new to register. I will leave the button on the homepage for a couple of weeks. Otherwise, feel free to drop me a line if you want me to enroll someone.
2. Sorry to Chelsea/Tottenham fans that the match isn't on the list. When I originally drew up the fixtures for this competition, the BBC website (my source) had the match being played on Monday, and by the time I'd realised it was Saturday, it was too late!
3. To those of you who I haven't sent payment, and confirmation email for the last competition, many apologies, I will be doing the last few payments in the next couple of days. Work, and home committments have caused me many time problems!
4. A new arrival at the Predictions League HQ is due around the end of February. Needless to say I'm expecting my attention to be a little diverted during this time, and website updates may be a little later than normal (ie may not be done on Sunday evenings). Please forgive me, I will try and keep you informed either on the site itself or on the Predictions League Blog which I have set up (link http://thepredictionsleague.blogspot.com/). There'll also be a link to it on the website in the next couple of days.
As always, if you have any thoughts, comments, suggestions etc, please don't hesitate to email me, or add comments on the blog itself.
Cheers!!
welcome to the start of the new Predictions League competition. This is your weekly reminder to submit your predictions for Weekend 1, if you haven't already done so.
Formalities attended to, a few extras.....
1. It's not too late for anyone new to register. I will leave the button on the homepage for a couple of weeks. Otherwise, feel free to drop me a line if you want me to enroll someone.
2. Sorry to Chelsea/Tottenham fans that the match isn't on the list. When I originally drew up the fixtures for this competition, the BBC website (my source) had the match being played on Monday, and by the time I'd realised it was Saturday, it was too late!
3. To those of you who I haven't sent payment, and confirmation email for the last competition, many apologies, I will be doing the last few payments in the next couple of days. Work, and home committments have caused me many time problems!
4. A new arrival at the Predictions League HQ is due around the end of February. Needless to say I'm expecting my attention to be a little diverted during this time, and website updates may be a little later than normal (ie may not be done on Sunday evenings). Please forgive me, I will try and keep you informed either on the site itself or on the Predictions League Blog which I have set up (link http://thepredictionsleague.blogspot.com/). There'll also be a link to it on the website in the next couple of days.
As always, if you have any thoughts, comments, suggestions etc, please don't hesitate to email me, or add comments on the blog itself.
Cheers!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)