Ron Pilo / Website
 

Hey guys, I am a 2nd year ref down in the Baton Rouge/New Orleans area and would like you guys to take a look at my association website. I just finished putting it together and up and would like you guys to take a look at it and give me suggestions for additional information, or things to be added. Maybe compare it to your site and let me know what I may be missing. THe site is http://www.braboa.org . Feel free to critique it, remember I am looking to improve our site as well as our association.
Thanks

Looks excellent to me. Here's ours, if anyone is interested: http://www.wioa.org

Do you guys have any problems having the members personal information available to the public? Our guys were pretty firm about that info being password protected..

The topic has not yet come up as it's a pretty new website. I do not want my information listed. I'm not on the site because I paid my dues late!

I would recommend passwording that part of the site. I'm guessing most of our guys don't even know their information is out there.

Our member information is password protected. Having membership info on the web site is very useful. If you happen to get assigned to work with someone who paid late, joined late or was reinstated after the roster book was published you can get their phone number from the updated membership area (which is necessary so you "can call your co-official" - that is for our assignment sec. if he reads this board :D).

We also have a disussion board on our site. You have to use your complete name for your login and the info supplied when you register for the board is checked against the membership roster, if it does not match your login is deleted. That enables us to ask members of the BOD questions, and "air our dirty laundry" without fear of a coach or fan getting involved.


[Edited by LarryS on Nov 21st, 2002 at 03:16 PM]

We have password protected ours and it seems to make them happy. I have the site directly linked to this board for our users to ask and get answers on questions. What is the link to your site so I can take a look at it?

Forgot our address...

http://www.fwboa.com

Personally, I don't like frames, java, or flash because not all browsers deal with them well (or at all) or may have them disabled. For example, the java applets you use for your menu don't work in my linux/netscape but work fine in windows/IE. And of course, IE is not available on linux. It's one of the first issues I had to deal with...making pages compatible with different browers (mostly netscape and IE) and different versions of each browser (the last 2-3 versions).

In writing my association's site, I used server-side includes to have the same menu, header, and footer to be visible in all pages. To the browser, it comes out as a simple html page. There is different content available depending on who is logged in (public, coaches/ADs, members, commissioner, officers, evaluation chairman, administrators)

Have a look at it: <A href=http://www.pboa.org>Portland Basketball Officials Website</A>
:)

The public can only see about 1/3 of the site. Once a member is logged in, the menu adds several items. Check out the schools page with links to three mapservers. The games, roster and school information content is database driven. Each of them are cross linked to the other. From your games, you can get to your partner's data (email, phone, etc.) or you can get to the school's data (address, map, etc.) You can find out who is working the game before/after you. You can submit evaluations online (which get immediately emailed to the evaluation committee and the official).

Updates to the master database are just dropped into place and are immediatly reflected on the web. With 342 members and 210 schools, that is really needed.

Menu items added beyond the publicly visible items:

Member/Coach/AD Menu
* Member Photo Album
* Member Ethics Guidelines

Member-only Menu
* Member Roster
* My Games
* Prob/Assoc Evaluation
* Regular Evaluation
* Ejection Form
* PIL Sportsmanship Form
* Game Situations
* Commish's Notes
* Events
* Board Members
* Committees
* Bylaws
* Constitution
* Game Fees
* Edit Registration

Limited-Access Menu
* Email To All Members
* Upload New Database
* Evaluation Game Table
* Reconcile Roster
* Count Members

[Edited by Camron Rust on Nov 21st, 2002 at 06:20 PM]

My two cents. In our site we put the comment forms behind the password. With the form open, you could get blizted with people sending you garbage you have to deal with.

Post your site?
 

Kelvin, could you post your sites address? I would like to take a look for future ideas?
Thanks

Hi Ridgeben. At first I thought it was just cool to get the website up. Now, the site looks a lot more professional. And yes, I think the guys are happy to have the personal info password protected.

Hi Ridgeben. At first I thought it was just cool to get the website up. Now, the site looks a lot more professional. And yes, I think the guys are happy to have the personal info password protected.

Well I am glad to hear that it is getting used. If you have any suggestions for items you would like to see on the site feel free to let me know.
Ben

Portland Site
 

The Portland site is very good, I am looking to move our site that way but there are some older habits that are tough to break. I am not sure that we are ready to give out assignments via the web just yet. But eventually we will get there. Thanks for the info.

Re: Portland Site
 

We don't actually asign the games that way. We still get a paper copy to sign and return. It's a backup and convienient way to contact your partners. It may someday move to that. Not enough validation to trust it as the official assigments, yet. Plus, you would still have to support paper for those without computers.

Website
 

Here's one that all officials should join, and guess what? It's free! The name is Basketball Officials United, and it's the heartbeat to the officials in the New York City area.http://groups.aol.com/Bsktblloffcl

Re: Portland Site
 

We use the web to assign rec games and will probably move to using it for scholastic also. We use Internet Sports Official's Calendar & Scheduling (ISOCS) and it works pretty good. The URL is: http://www.isocs.com

Coach's point of view: I understand the need for password protection. I am part of a foundation that supports our high school. We are in the process of getting an alumni website on-line, and it will be protected.

BUT, speaking from experience, I hope you don't exclude coaches and fans entirely from your officiating sites. I know the relationship between coaches and refs can be antagonistic, to say the least, but this site has been very helpful for me. Its one of the few ways officials get to spread "their message".

Coaches
 

The only thing my site does is keep officials phone numbers and address away from coaches. We have the rest of the site available to all, including board members names and contact information. We are trying to avoid the 11:30pm Friday night phone call from a disgruntled coach, if you know what I mean. Eventually we will have our site send game assignments to those who are internet savy enough and want them via email. Are there any associations out there that send game assignments via the web yet?

I've been asking if we can get schedules stored in the password protected area that our members can access. That way, I figure that it would be easy for me to see who was calling the games at the local HS so I could go watch. Also, I could see where the official's that I admire were working and decide if I could get there to see them work.

Schedules
 

Another problem that I see coming up would be that there are some younger or less talented officials that do not get many games. If you post the schedule of games and a guy that gets one game sees another guy getting 10 games you may run into some conflicts. Do most associations have that information public for all refs to see?

At our association meetings we get the entire schedule for a two week period. On the schedule are all the games, names, etc... You can sit at home and do the math on who is getting what games and how many.

In general I think the schedule is pretty equally divided.

Ron Pilo
 

Ron I run the site http://www.braboa.org for the Baton Rouge area and I would like to put up your pregame conference/game management handout. I got the info from post: http://www.officialforum.com/thread/6462
Do you mind if I borrow your material to enhance our site?
Ben

Re: Schedules
 

You've hit the real issue. When I wrote our website, the first pass made all games visible to all members. After much discussion, it was decided (with my agreement) that it was only trouble waiting to happen. To few are a good enough judge of their own abilities when comparing themselves to others.

On the website, a member can see all of their own games plus whoever is working before/after them.

The full schedule is available in paper form at the meetings. If someone wants to compare schedules, they can do it, they just have to put out the effort.

If an official wants to know where a certain ref is working so they can watch, they are welcomed to call the commisioner or the ref directly and ask.