Office Time

Cutter's Log – Stardate 1102.01.90
Current Song – Don't Sleep in the Subway (Petula Clark)


I have decided to cancel an assignment of mine to cover a Volleyball Tournament today so that I can do a website evaulation.

Action on the message boards has triggered a look at the way we do things. I am taking the entire day to look at statistics, improvements, weaknesses, and such in order to make the website a successful one. In addition, I have a couple of columns in the backburner that I would like to get written, plus the Week 3 Observations piece.

Normally, Saturday is my day off of the Shell station so that I can cover something. But this retooling is more urgent to the well-being of NISB than covering an additional sporting event.

It is 10:00 a.m., and in the next few hours I will be leaving this typing space on my screen to come up with improvements, and all that.



10:12 a.m. - I am also uploading video of the Newman/Morrison Football game I covered last night as I do all of this. My brother Danny just woke up and is probably going to want the computer. He'll have to wait.

10:16 a.m. - During the game I received three additional comments from people regarding the cleanup effort I have put forth on the NISB Message Board. This increases the total to somewhere over 15. If that many people had a problem with it, then the banter was really that annoying. Who knows who else I'll meet that will tell me the same thing.

10:23 a.m. - A closer look into what caused the mess on the Message Board has been isolated to a couple of particular small areas: Winnebago, Boylan, Hononegah, Harlem, Guilford, Auburn, Rockford Lutheran, Rockford Christian, Rockford Christian Life, and South Beloit. Another video has been uploaded. With the banter being as high as it was, the likelyhood of traffic picking up from those areas is great. In order to maintain the well-being of the Message Board, however, we can't afford to bring in these people.

10:47 a.m. - Another video uploaded. What I mean by “not affording to bring in people” means not talking up the website in these areas. I had thought of suspending content coverage of these schools until the fall playoffs, or until the situation is cleaned up and reinstating them on a case-by-case basis. Normally when I post a story to the website, I'll post a link to the story on the Message Boards either on an existing topic or a seperate topic. We can still cover these things, but just for those who frequent the non-boards part of the website.

10:55 a.m. - I look at it as trying to spread the word of NISB around to other parts of the coverage area. I have determined that the tone of the topics of greater question have shyed people from elsewhere away from the boards. Since these topics have been sort of deflated, I figured it is time to try to corral these bases back up again. I had been centering website coverage around popular bases of the message board, but will take a break from that motive.

11:03 a.m. - So what other bases have seen an increase of traffic? While not naming them on here, in the meantime I'll think of them.

4:18 p.m. - So instead of thinking about my bases, I took a long nap. I just woke up now. It's hot outside and it's hot in my room. But I did think about these improvement points. I'll try to cover more things in these areas, and let some areas take care of itself.

4:20 p.m. - Now comes trying to fix the structure of the Message Board.

5:25 p.m. - Not too long ago I put up the “Info Center” on the Message Board. This thing at the bottom of the page includes a lit of people who are online at the current time and those who have logged on in the past 24 hours. During a past quelling of a banter, I informed people that it's best to do your bashing of people via private message. Hopefully this will show people if the person they want to talk with is online or not. It also tells me if there are new members on the Board.

5:29 p.m. - I have just made a change in the registration process. Prior to today, new members could simply register and log on when they are done. Now, with me or ging have to manually approve new accounts, and the new member has to force-activate his or her account via e-mail. This accomplishes two things: 1) to crack down on spammers and 2) prevents the user from entering a fake e-mail address. If you are stupid enough to not be truthful in your profile information, then you probably shouldn't be posting on the board anyway.

5:36 p.m. - The NISB Message Board rules have been printed out and put on my desk for retooling. Obviously the latest board action is causing me to make some changes to these rules. I have in my mind a new intro to the board rules, as the current intro is outdated. Most of the revisions are of outdated items, more powers caused by recent admin decisions, and ways to protest message board users and the high school sports scene from any devestating backlash they may receive. However, I won't work on that right now. I would like to find more ways to improve the website.

5:47 p.m. - Now the the more popular topics on the message board. I have received a lot of comments lately about our scoreboard updates on the football forum. They like knowing not only the final scores of the games, but how these scores came to be.

5:50 p.m. - As I've stated in the “changes to the forum” topic, the problem is that the opinions of these particular fans are the problem and need to be toned down. They simply can't think of these things because the fallout is most likely detrimental to the kids. Oh, and the Newman/Morrison videos are almost ready.

5:52 p.m. - Anyway, back to the scoreboard talk. With the new registration restrictions, it will be harder to have new posters post updates to the scoreboard. This is because I am at a game and have yet to approve the account. So on Fridays from 3:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, I'll try to disable the account-approval function so that people can start posting quickly. These new members will still need to force-activate their account via email before they can post. It's just a matter of trying to remember to do this before I leave for a game.

5:55 p.m. - I have been having internet issues on my cell phone, which is why I couldn't post updates on the Newman/Morrison game on the website. I had a problem earlier in the season of not being able to update scores from the game I'm covering in a timely manner, but I fixed that issue. That way, I can still try to post updates and talk back and forth with any of the website contributors that are also covering games.

6:02 p.m. - One more video to go before releasing all of them on the website. Two videos are from the sophomore game. Yes, SOPHOMORE video. In your face!

6:03 p.m. - An idea from a while back was to update the NISB homepage before leaving to a football game. The “top bar” (the most recent story link) would be a link to the Week's scoreboard on the message boards, as well as a topic of updates from the NISB Game of the Week. This will help bring more people to the Weekly scoreboard. However, I have worried about coverage balance in the past and feel this may put football over the edge and leave a wider gap between football and volleyball. One poster had put up a weekly volleyball scoreboard, which I thought was a great idea ... but that kind of faded a little. Of all of this, I think I would have to be doing more workshop work before a game than preparing for the game itself.

6:08 p.m. - You heard it here first: NISB Game of the Week for Week 4 will be Peotone at Sandwich. I figured it was time to give Bill the NISB football spotlight.

6:10 p.m. - Perhaps 10 videos is too much. It's 6:10 on Saturday evening and they aren't even up yet. But what does this mean for SOPHOMORE VIDEO? It'll still exist. It's too bad I don't have software to stitch these videos together. Something to look into.

6:12 p.m. - Nah ... 10 videos is just fine.

6:14 p.m. - When I get the car up and running once more, I'm thinking of a flyer tour of the said areas of traffic increase. Which, by the way, I need a new poll question and a new news item for the FYI Blog. Hopefully I get done with this.

6:20 p.m. - Videos are up. Success!

6:29 p.m. - I think I may have caused confusion when naming those schools. Talk about these schools is still okay for the message board, but I will just simply stay away from them until the time is right and people can behave.

6:42 p.m. - Okay, I think I'll tend to the revision of the Message Board rules.

9:44 p.m. - Finished revising the Message Board Rules. It actually took a couple of hours, and I spent an hour watching rememberance items. Along the way I considered the flyer tour I want to go throughout the area of recent pickup. This version of the Message Board rules is somewhat longer and goes in depth regarding specific banned discussions. Over the next few days I'll start to release this version to the board so that people will understand them.

5:28 a.m. - Okay, so I was going to post this whole thing in my blog after finishing the last paragraph, but never got around to doing it. Here we go now.

Have a good day.