State of the NAFtion

[Darkson]

Just to point out, I don't think there more cheating in leagues, id prefer it held and verified on the site just so that if by chance I ran into a fellow bb player on holiday (or whatever) it would be easy to download a copy of any roster to play a game. Not even worried about it being ranked.

Or the NAF changes its spiel to show its for tournament players only.

[sann0638]

So for example by using OBBLM? Certainly one of the previously mentioned ideas was to have OBBLM on the NAF website.

[Woolfe]

So ask for help. This IS volunteer work, no one expects you to do everything yourselves. Ask for help and delegate.

Not my job, I'm not elected!

I am sure that was meant tongue in cheek. But seriously does anyone else look at that and think "there's the problem".
If it's not your job, and it's not getting done, then whose job is it?
For someone who is unelected, you're actions have given me more information about the NAF than I have seen in the few years I have been playing. There is a significant disconnect there.

As I said I am a league player. I don't play tournies. So maybe that is the reason I haven't heard much about the NAF. But if the NAF wants to be more than that, then they need to get their message out. Sure relying on NTO's (NAF tournie organiser I assumed?) is one thing. But the NAF need to be more active in the community, build up the good will and it will be self sustaining. If I knew good stuff about the NAF from the point of view of League and BB in general, then any new player I spoke to, I would say "go check out the NAF".


Are people seriously talking about cheating. Wow, great way to build a community. Fark...

How do you deal with cheating in tournies, cause it's not going to be much different for leagues.

Bloody hell.

And as to the thread on the Website change. WTF so obviously its been in the works. Why the heck would you keep something like that secret when it is obviously a sore point for some people. If the NAF had been communicating, then whenever someone complained about the website, a member who had read the comms could simple state "They are currently working on the web site, they are in XXX phase at the moment"
And again, "This announcement is being made on the NAF, TFF, Facebook and Twitter - if you see it and think it is appropriate to do so, please copy and paste to your local forum." I know it is damn near impossible to know every BB community out there, but if you have NTO's and you know well established forums, why aren't you just getting the message out there yourselves? Momentum only happens when someone gets the ball moving.

I am probably coming across negative as hell. I apologise for that, it is just insane to me that a community that has dedicated people at a local level, is having so much trouble at a greater level.

Define the NAF - is it all BB or is it Tournies

START COMMUNICATING, not just to members, but to all the BB world. I don't think that horse will ever be dead...

[Darkson]

I assume ombbl would work - I've never used it as I never got a reply back from them.

But as an example, check out Yakromunda. While its not designed for it (I assume), I can in theory play a game with any other member there, as all the gang sheets are hosted on the site.
Something similar for Blood Bowl would be great.

[sann0638]

And as to the thread on the Website change. WTF so obviously its been in the works. Why the heck would you keep something like that secret when it is obviously a sore point for some people.

This is a good point worth answering, and I think the realistic answer is that a new website has been suggested for a few years, and we wanted to make sure it was viable before going public, rather than promising and not delivering. I didn't know it was coming in its current form before I started this mega-thread.

And again, "This announcement is being made on the NAF, TFF, Facebook and Twitter - if you see it and think it is appropriate to do so, please copy and paste to your local forum." I know it is damn near impossible to know every BB community out there, but if you have NTO's and you know well established forums, why aren't you just getting the message out there yourselves? Momentum only happens when someone gets the ball moving.

Once the new website is live (in 48 hours time), the message will be spread far and wide. Not worth asking all the NTOs (National Tournament Organisers) to do that at this stage.

[Shteve0]

I assume ombbl would work - I've never used it as I never got a reply back from them.

But as an example, check out Yakromunda. While its not designed for it (I assume), I can in theory play a game with any other member there, as all the gang sheets are hosted on the site.
Something similar for Blood Bowl would be great.

For an international league concept as has been raised in this thread, it would indeed be workable within obblm; that said, you'd have to set it up the entire worldwide facility as a single league with multiple divisions; administration would be a bit of a headache, and some complications might occur with interdivisional games allocating points and/or SPPs in the home leagues, but yeah, it's possible.

As to you not being able to sign up for hosting previously, if it's any consolation, funnyfingers' obblm hosting is shortly to expand into a new service where you can sign up directly (no intervention from the owner required) and set up of the league is an automated process - we (the existing NZCBBL) will be migrating to the service once live due to a parallel project I'm working on with integrating the phpBB forum software (free forum hosts rarely allow code manipulation or plugins, both of which I'm keen to support). Since the obblm hosting offer is not my project I don't want to disclose too many details, but the expanded and streamlined package is theoretically just around the corner, and looks likely to be very affordable indeed.

In the meantime, if you or others have your own web hosting, note that the obblm software itself is free to download and relatively simple to get set up.

[Olaf the Stout]

Pippy and Olaf, regarding ranking degrading due to time: fair enough. I just wanted to point out though that I don't propose any particular flavour of ranking formula as the ONLY method of pulling a ranking from the NAF DB.

Rather, my emphasis is really just on recreating the DB with enough metadata to provide a vast range of contextual parameters going forward. The way I see it, the fundamental deficiency with the NAF DB is simply it's inability to sort between apples and bananas because it has no information with which to perceive a difference. Every data set is given equal weight even though most BB communities have their own favoured parameters. You just can't mix this up and weigh everything equally without creating a ton of noise in the system for anyone who wants to make the slightest criteria for discrimination (i.e. Dennis' example of LRB5 Khemri).

Only care about overall best strict LRB6 performance? There's a filter for that. Only want to see who is the most successful LRB5 Khemri coach of all time? There's a filter for that too (my hunch is Gken ).

I just figured a view using decay or annual-only rankings as the default parameters would be a nice way to dangle a carrot in front of coaches who are on the fence regarding attending more tournies. But sure, you could just as easily use something more conservative as your default ranking (i.e best all-time LRB6 rankings). At the very least, a yearly recap of prolific achievements is much easier to accomplish when someone like Mike is given the ability to quickly filter down to annual stats only.

What can NAF do with this? It's really up to their imagination. Maybe a simple post celebrating the best in 2013, or even a nice bit of swag (challenge coin!) for the annual top coach of each race? Heck you can even counter the UK-centric bias of the current leaderboard and make annual rankings based on ELO points gained per game! Ta-da. Suddenly someone from North America or Australia will have a shot at the leaderboard if the NAF sees fit to throw us this carrot.

Sadly, the only thing that is absolutely certain about the current DB is that meta-data from past tournaments regarding even variant rule sets is simply not available. You'd have to audit every record and probably re-enter tournament results with the meta-data we all now want to use to sort for criteria that appeal to us.

I think this is a really good middle ground suggestion. Have the all-time ranking, which would function much like it does now, but also have a best coach in a calendar year award, or a best coach for each race in a calendar year.

That gives recognition to those people that performed well in the last 12 months.

Olaf the Stout

[Shteve0]

I think this is a really good middle ground suggestion. Have the all-time ranking, which would function much like it does now, but also have a best coach in a calendar year award, or a best coach for each race in a calendar year.

That gives recognition to those people that performed well in the last 12 months.

Olaf the Stout

Agreed. Making it regional would be a nice touch, too.

[Pug]

Easy enough with a filter?

[Long_Bomb]

Having just read the comments from Woolfe I'm a bit concerned about the way we as a community are acting towards those who give up their time to support us within the NAF. This is not aimed at a particular individual but is a general comment for everyone who uses this forum.

It seems that after doing something the community has been asking for (updating the website), which must have taken quite a bit of time and effort, the responce from the community is "Why the hell didn't you tell us sooner?".

If all we do is complain even when things are being done then I can't blame them for not making the effort in the future. The NAF is run by volunteers and they may have responcibilities, but so do we and part of that is supporting them.

I would just like to say thank you to the NAF Committee for all of the things they do including all the day to day stuff that most of us take for granted or don't even know happens.

[Lychanthrope]

Having just read the comments from Woolfe I'm a bit concerned about the way we as a community are acting towards those who give up their time to support us within the NAF. This is not aimed at a particular individual but is a general comment for everyone who uses this forum.

It seems that after doing something the community has been asking for (updating the website), which must have taken quite a bit of time and effort, the responce from the community is "Why the hell didn't you tell us sooner?".

If all we do is complain even when things are being done then I can't blame them for not making the effort in the future. The NAF is run by volunteers and they may have responcibilities, but so do we and part of that is supporting them.

I would just like to say thank you to the NAF Committee for all of the things they do including all the day to day stuff that most of us take for granted or don't even know happens.

+1

[Darkson]

Part of the problem, other than this has been promised for years (at least 2 runs in office) is the continual lack of communication, not just on this project but overall. I understand there are things that, for various reasons, can't be discussed in detail, but when nothing is said...

Joe is trying to crow in the website thread about elected officials keeping election promises, and yes, it looks like they have on this one, but they also promised better communication, and have failed miserably on that.

[Winged_Human]

As I suggested earlier, quarterly reports on projects could solve this issue, but no one seemed to notice my post. *shruggs*

[Colin]

I keep wondering why this is being discussed so heavily over here and not on the NAF site where it should be??

[lunchmoney]

I keep wondering why this is being discussed so heavily over here and not on the NAF site where it should be??

For me, as mentioned before, I cant access the NAF at work, due to crappy office filters thinking it's some sort of sports/gaming site. Whereas TFF is not blocked, despite having football in the url!
I cant answer for anyone else, though