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maptalk - standing the test of time

mark Posted: 18 September 2014, 1:52 AM   I think the maptalk events page should be removed asap. It is already out of date. eg. Otago Champs are not on the 1st November. Events should be on ONZ. Forums should be on maptalk.   Michael Posted: 18 September 2014, 5:16 AM   What we did was to maintain both calendars until some problems with ONZ were overcome. Then to remove any specific particulars from the Maptalk listings and put ONZ in the "website" field. Clearly there are people who won't move until they have to, I think we'll want to run like this until the end of the year. It would have been good if a project manager had suggested something like this.   onemanfanclub Posted: 18 September 2014, 11:12 AM   people seem to be fixed on the idea that an event calendar here and an event calendar on the ONZ site would be two different listings requiring separate maintenance. remind us again Rolf where the event listing on OWaikato's website comes from? There's the answer, Fraser-willing.   Rolf Posted: 18 September 2014, 12:50 PM   remind you. OK.. here... http://www.orienteering.org.nz/events/ Actually onemanfanclub, feed not currently setup for OW site. Issue at OW end!   Jamie Posted: 18 September 2014, 4:45 PM   Don't put it on Fraser Rolf that's bullshit. He can do whatever he wants, he doesn't owe anyone anything. ONZ has achieved nothing out of this apart from muscling in on Maptalk.   Erin Posted: 22 September 2014, 1:59 PM   Interesting thread, interesting views ... A few comments on the website development. When we went into the website development process, a notice was sent to all clubs and communicated by other means seeking input on the website and what it should do etc. Whoever wanted could input. Various feedback was received and I went through all this, incorporated it where we could in the spec and provided a response to all feedback received. It’s always a bit of judgment on what functionality to include/not include etc. and in the end we won’t all agree. You can’t include what everyone wants as it would cost a fortune. Most of what we did include was based on input from the community and talking to others who may not be on Maptalk, are new to orienteering etc. The main thing was try and build a site that can change and grow as the community’s needs change in future. We won’t have got it all right but the goal was to have flexibility, and also to try and present a modern, engaging site that could be the hub of the orienteering community in NZ. Websites simply do better if they are accessed by lots of different people, and have lots of fresh and different content. Orienteering is not big enough to disperse itself over lots of fragmented sites. While I think Fraser etc. have done an awesome job with Maptalk it would be great to have the events where all the orienteering community collates together. The location of the forum is an interesting one and in the end the community will decide. It would be interesting to know whether Maptalk’s traffic and contributions are growing or not – Fraser? Again we really wanted to try and make the Orienteering NZ website a hub with as much user generated content as possible (we don’t exactly employ a team of professional content developers and need to rely on community for this). It was really to try and bring as much together as possible. The comment about the tone of some posts is a good one. Current industry thinking is to try and be as open as possible and encourage constructive feedback. It’s better to deal with it upfront and people should have the right to have their say. However if people feel the need to make personal vindictive attacks against individuals online then organisations should have the right to remove these (this is how the Warriors approach their social media posts for example). As a relatively new and rather casual orienteer (compared to other contributors and nothing compared to Brent’s so called high standards!) I can tell you that what is most appealing to people who are new to the sport is coming across an active, engaged, positive online community that is easy to find all in one place. That was our goal. Seeing a lot of content with the odd complaint makes it all seem more current and relevant than a site that just has the odd post by a more distant national body. My views and sorry for rant. :-)   fraser Posted: 22 September 2014, 3:29 PM   Just to be clear I have no intention of trying to compete with ONZ events page. As others have suggested by the end of the year this should not be a problem. I assume when clubs start listing their events for next year they will do it primarily on ONZ events. I will not be deleting any events which other people have added to the site and if clubs only want to maintain their listings in one place for the remainder of the year then they are welcome to remove it from maptalk themselves.   pete s Posted: 22 September 2014, 4:00 PM   First of all, thanks Jamie for conducting yourself in such a way as to motivate Erin away from nappy changing for a moment - that takes some doing! :-) I think if you knew the amount of hours (well over 100), and incredible effort Erin put into engaging and consulting people on the website, you'd maybe have a different view than the one you are projecting now. You are not criticising ONZ Jamie, you are criticising a pretty passionate and hard working volunteer that did her best and actually got something up and running which whilst not perfect, can still be a fantastic platform for the sport going forward. Many of the issues mentioend are actually about users, and isn't all about the platform. Not to say its perfect, and actually feedack is needed for it to develop and improve - but maybe frame the feedback in a way that respects the very significant effort that volunteers put in, and ensure the feedback is specific, helpful, future focused and constructive. Now, best get back to the nappy changing that has been neglected tonight... :-)   pcbrent Posted: 23 September 2014, 1:59 AM   That's what I like about Maptalk, you can say what you actually think, without fear of anyone taking offence.   pete s Posted: 23 September 2014, 6:15 AM   That's called rolling Brent...   pete s Posted: 23 September 2014, 6:17 AM   That's called trolling Brent...   pcbrent Posted: 23 September 2014, 7:17 AM   Its called Tongue-in-Cheek Pete   nick Posted: 26 September 2014, 9:29 AM   I like the new ONZ website. Granted, I still find the structure of the news/blogs/forum section a bit new & confusing. IMO probably the weakest component of the site. And for what its worth, I'd prefer to keep our dirty laundry contained to maptalk. What I like most about the ONZ site is, two things: 1) We finally have an attractive, functional online presence for our sport. 2) The change from "ancient" to "awesome" demonstrates how ONZ can achieve great outcomes running on basically goodwill alone. *This* is the ONZ model we are stuck with until we find enough cash to professionalise our administration*: O community tells ONZ they want/need XYZ Project. ONZ convenes a project team - read, orienteers willing to volunteer their time - who undertake the work of research, consultation, planning, execution, etc... The fact that "we" pulled this off gives me hope that we can build our back-room capacity sufficiently to escape the poverty-trap that befalls many small sports in NZ. So, thanks again to ONZ for finally facing up to the website problem, and particularly to Erin & the team who gave their time to make it happen. Equally, and for the same reason, thanks to Fraser for giving us maptalk for all these years. And for Jamie & Brent's enjoyment: I reckon that when orienteers snipe at ONZ about proactive efforts like this, they're actively discouraging the volunteerism that our sport needs to progress, ie: you're shooting us all in the foot, ie: you're being a dick. *fat chance   Jamie Posted: 26 September 2014, 1:12 PM   The ONZ process to produce a new website was a time consuming failure that missed opportunities to make the most of major events eg World Cup. The VP then convinced his partner to get it sorted, which she did. The solution has a nice shell, but wasn't well planned in terms of the likely content that was going to be available. This is evidenced now by what is on the site.... I'm not sniping I'm stating the obvious. A sport ain't going to go anywhere when people get defensive. If someone wanted to tell me a map I had drawn recently is shit I wouldn't be pointing out that I spent hours carrying around a baby in the rain, bashing through bush etc, I would be thinking about whether my map is shit. Hopefully, I'll stand corrected in a couple of years when the website is successful.   Paul I Posted: 26 September 2014, 5:18 PM   Carrying around a baby while mapping would more than likely result in a shit map. Never neglect the nappy you good people. At the moment, for me at least, the ONZ is nice but I would imagine some of the dribble that comes out of my mouth at times probably isn't a good look on a forum that is fairly prominent and official looking. I quite like the British Nopesport forum set out where you have to search out to read threads rather than your comments be out there for all to critique. I'm a bit shy. There's even a banter thread which if we had one I'm sure would be excellent fun and get things moving. In the meantime unless there is a paradigm shift I see maptalk the easier place to chat about geeky O stuff. I do applaud the effort though and hope things further develop and my habits are changed.