Voice of the Customer for officiating.com

[jumpmaster]

The company I work for has launched an initiative called Lean Six Sigma. One of the components of the LSS program is listening to the customer in order to drive your business.

There have been numerous complaints about the officiating.com site and the caliber of the articles.

So here is my request:
a) if you are a current subscriber, what can we do to make officiating.com a better value?

b) if you are not a subscriber, but were at one time, why did you allow your subscription to expire? What does it take to get you back?

c) if you are not a subscriber, why not?

Please identify yourself as a catagory A, B or C.

thanks in advance.

[LDUB]

I am A.

I have posted advise for Carl in the past.

Things to fix:

1. Rollie is terrible. He needs to improve his articles, or he needs to stop writing. Ives wants to turn this forum into eteamz. JM is bland and boreing. It is a good thing you have Tee.

2. Every other article is by Rollie (which might be okay if he didn't suck). 4 out of the last 5 (Yes Carl, I am sure it is 4 out of the last 5, check it out yourself) are by Wierlanders.

3. Carl needs to apply some sort of standards to the articles put on the site. Many of Rollie's are terrible. But I can't blame Carl for not having standards, for if he did, he would only have one writer.

4. Since Carl should be rejecting almost, no all, of Rollie's articles, he will need something to fill the void. He needs more writers, or he needs to put out more himself.

5. There are many many different types of articles which could be on the website. Any type of interview or umpiring news would be great.

6. Many ex-writers say that they hated writing for Carl. He was always hounding them for more articles, and it takes forever to get paid.

7. Rich has just said that he does not want to be associated with the current writers except for Tee.

In summary, Rollie is terrible. Officiating.com need more writers. But why would anyone agree to write when they know the will be associted with the current writers, have to deal with Carl, and not get paid for months? Officiating.com has many problems.

[umpduck11]

I fit into catagory "A".
After a quick analysis of the July baseball articles,
I have found the following:

(1)Officiating.com has released 16 articles in total.

(2) Rich Ives and Blaine Gallant wrote one article
each.

(3) Tee accounted for three of the July writings.

(4) Two articles were rule-change releases by our
friends at the National Federation.

(5)Roland totaled seven articles alone.

Tossing out the two Fed articles brings the July
count to 14 articles.A full 50% of these are
attributable to one author.That figure in itself
is disappointing,particularly given the quality
of those writings.I gave up on trying to read any
article written by Roland,mainly because I could
find no relevance in them.I just never have been
able to connect salads,George Carlin books,or the
United States Marine Corp to officiating baseball.
Until either new authors start writing, or people who make sense(Tee,Blaine)write more often,it will not get better.Sometimes
I believe certain people write just to take up space.
If an article isn't in some way informative,or at
least helpful,it isn't worth the effort to read.
Just one man's humble opinion......
Chuck Maske

Edited to add my name,so as not to seem to
be hiding behind a nickname.




[Edited by umpduck11 on Jul 26th, 2005 at 10:19 PM]

[DG]

I am a subscriber. I renewed in early July, when my subscription ran out.

I would rather get more articles than less. Some of Roland's I don't agree with. I don't always agree with some of the other writers either. I don't agree with everything I read in the editorials of the newspaper either. I think that allowing a runner to maliciously crash a catcher in major league baseball is stupid. I don't like the DH rule. I don't like artificial turf. I am still trying to figure out why aluminum bats are allowed. And, I can't figure out why some tournaments would require an umpire to wear a dark blue shirt on a 95 degree day.

I would like to see officiating.com bring a new JEA to press. That's all I ask.

[LDUB]

Originally posted by DG
I would rather get more articles than less.

Carl explained this, Officiating.com always puts out X number of articles a week. The more Rollie writes, the less we will see articles from other writers. Carl does not put out the articles as soon as they come in. They are scheduled evenly.

Carl said that he is writing an article explaining how Officiating.com works. I think it is sad that he has let the website get so bad that he has to write articles trying to defend it.

[cowbyfan1]

I guess I'm stupid because I am still trying to figure out what the size of the infield has to do with me being a better umpire.

Also not knowing the rules needing to be called is not a USSSA thing. Last 5 tourneys I've called have had differences in what was discussed before hand and what was on the field, except for 1 and that was a Super Series national tourney. TD had a meeting for the umpires and todl them how it would be. Not always possible to do but would be nice to do.

[Edited by cowbyfan1 on Jul 27th, 2005 at 03:11 AM]

[Striker991]

I am in group "b".

I stopped subscribing because most of the information I receive through other means: forums, training, other umpires, and official communications.

Although that is the main reason, I am also distressed at the attitude of the people involved with the paid site toward small diamond umpires. It would seem to me that you would want to cultivate those people and help them to develop into proficient umpires for the organizations they currently work for and assist them to progress into a higher level, both as an umpire and the games they are calling. These are the people that will end up benefitting the most from a site like this and will eventually be contributors themselves, helping newbies because they remember where they started and in what areas they struggled the most.

What would bring me back would be a higher standard of quality in the articles (I agree with the person that said newer umpires may assume that if it is written in a paid article on Officiating.com, it must be valuable and correct), a change of attitude that values ALL umpires of ALL levels and organizations, and information in articles that is hard to find elsewhere (comparisons of methods, mechanics, interpretations, and organizations, etc.).

I think a great idea would be a comments section (HIGHLY MODERATED) attached to each article, so people would be able to express their opinions and viewpoints regarding the article (in a VERY RESPECTFUL MANNER).

Just my two cents...

Greg Owens

[Tim C]

I think you are throwing a lot of people under the bus.

I really think I am the "ONLY" person invloved in the paid side of the site that treats Little League Baseball (and untrained LL umpires) poorly.

I think Carl has been quite free with knowledge and thoughts about LL baseball.

I really can't think of anyone (other than Peter's attack on all 'kid athletics') that fall into this situation.

All writers on the paid site are considered an independent contractor and are given the right to comment freely.

It seems that I would want to support that.

T

[His High Holiness]

Originally posted by Tim C
I think you are throwing a lot of people under the bus.

I really think I am the "ONLY" person invloved in the paid side of the site that treats Little League Baseball (and untrained LL umpires) poorly.

I think Carl has been quite free with knowledge and thoughts about LL baseball.

I really can't think of anyone (other than Peter's attack on all 'kid athletics') that fall into this situation.

T

I agree. The only two authors that have gone after youth sports in a major way are Tee and I. Tee goes after the umpires and I go after the concept of highly competitive youth sports. I believe that I have written a half dozen articles this year on all subjects, not just youth sports and Tee is not too much ahead of that. That is like condemning a newspaper because of the content of the op-ed page.

Balance this out with the much more numerous posts in support of youth programs from Rich Ives, Hickey, Carl, or Roland etc. We are outnumbered at least 5 or 10-1.





[Edited by His High Holiness on Jul 27th, 2005 at 04:14 PM]

[mcrowder]

I am category C.

Why have I never subscribed? I've read the beginnings of nearly every article published (I get an email with the first part of them), and nearly never feel like I wish I could read the rest. Were the articles useful? I don't know - the blurbs you give for free often don't even tell you what the article is about. In reading other comments here, I suspect they aren't. I've read some of Roland's posts, and if his articles are of similar quality, the man simply shouldn't be advising ANYONE on how to umpire. Might as well ask dude and dumbdrum to write.

Besides ... I already get enough misinformation via my subscription to Referee magazine.

[JRutledge]

C for me.

I just never see anything that is on this site that is so convincing I need to learn from. I spend enough money with the many associations I belong to learn what to do and what not to do. I do not need to read an article to tell me how to officiate. It also does not help that many of the people that write the articles do not hold themselves in what I feel is a positive light (I will leave it at that). I also am a NASO member and I read Referee Magazine all the time. I am not going to say that everything I read there is perfect, but the people there seemed to be more in tune with officiating. I also do not read the sports specific sections in Referee Magazine to learn how to officiate there either. I do read mostly the general articles in that Magazine and I do not see much of a value to subscribe to what I would see as overkill in information. I have stated before I can learn more from the guys I work with or attending association meetings with. I am not sure everyone has that same confidence in their local groups, but I do.

Peace

[TBBlue]

I'm a C.

I simply can't justify the $$$ for one writer that I would read. Even with the coupons for the store which would basically be for a BRD, I can't justify it. I can't comment on the writers other than the reviews here, which aren't very good. I have read Tee in the past. Solid, entertaining writer. I have read HHH and Childress in the past. Same comment for these gentlemen. If there were a solid rotation (say 6, 7 or more)of baseball writers of this caliber, I would be inclined to subscribe.

I don't have any interest in officiating other sports, so those articles would be a waste for me as well, no matter how talented the writers are.

[Dave Hensley]

I'm Category B. I declined to renew when my subscription ran out. I just prefer the give-and-take dialogue that occurs on discussion forums, compared to the "ivory tower" posture that is adopted (by necessity) by "expert" writers.

I also think the quality of writing is adversely affected by the pressure to produce X number of articles per week, month, etc. Since I personally know a number of current and former officiating.com writers, I know that the "publish or perish" syndrome is something they all had in common as a significant downside to the association with the webzine.

Don't know how I'd "fix" any of that, but those are my impressions.

[jicecone]

I have been an A ever since I first learned about the site. may just be when it started.

I have been a Childress believer, (not Guru) since reading some of the first books he published and probably all the others too. Why?

Because when I started, they were the most down to earth books for someone with no formal training, clinics or camps.
I could easily relate to what was being said and what to do on the field. It worked for me because, I became better at what I did on the field and I was getting better games because of it.

Now, does that mean that that I whorship everthing Carl says or writes, NO. (Sorry Carl) I take the relavant material and see if it can help me to become better at officiating this game of Baseball.

I apply this same approach to what is written in all the articles on this site and even the material that appears in this forum. And sorry guys, when I compare Rollies material to some of the stuff written here, he has you beat hands down. Furthermore, the man has big enough baseballs to write and publish the articles. That in itself, would be a feat for me.

Personnaly, you have to be quite narrow minded if you let the writings of one individual make your decisions for you.

I don't spend a lot of time on other sites (even though I probably spend too much time on this one) but, I do belong to other venues that offer similar material, for another sport. I find this site to be as good, if not better. I have enjoyed my membership and in fact just renewed it for $50.00 of more resources and reference material.

Can the site be better? Hell everything can be better. But for the buck, I have enjoyed what has been offered to date and thats my story and Im sticking to it.

[chuckfan1]

Category A
I enjoy reading the articles that offer up situations, mechanics, plays etc.
Im still relatively new (4th year just completed), and can say I've learned a great deal on the site. Its one component that has helped me advance to JC in 4 years.
Good to see Tee contributing articles. I've never agreed with his view of Little League ball, and his all-too-often-not needed smart aleck comments, but when he does offer up his experiences, all should lend an ear.
Keep the articles coming dealing with rules and their interpetations. Ditto with articles on mechanics, situations, etc. One of the best learning tools, is from the "been there, done that" category.
And have to agree on the "Roland" factor. Quanity does not equal quality. I too, have stopped checking to see what the rest of the ariticle entails. I tried to give him a shot, but after several articles, they just dont offer anything (to me). The "Un born, pre born, something born" article is the best example.
Overall, Im happy with the site, and would re-up.