Mailin manager closing after labor day

redlinederby Monday, 8/27/2012
Site manager

After much thought, I've decided to close the mail-in manager part of the new calendar while I go back to the drawing board on it. This only applies to the mail-in manager tools. The event calendar will remain accessible and open for posting, so please continue to post club events and even new mail-ins that link to the forum.

After considering feedback and using the tools for myself for the Truck mailin, it's clear that the app missed the mark bit. I'm going back to the drawing board with it and will hopefully be better second time around.

Thanks to everyone that tried using the tools and for providing feedback.


Discussion

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WorpeX 8/28/12

What was wrong with it? I didn't really see any glaring issues besides not knowing who is participating (if you aren't the host) and I accidentally deleted the email with the address to send cars to, so that was kind of annoying. haha.

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redlinederby 8/28/12
Site manager

Most notably was the inability to support a mail-in series that travels across multiple dates. However, there were a lot of little things I missed and as I used it more I found a lot of places where it just wasn't nice to use and was confusing. Plus I think it needs more of a "tutorial" when it comes to mail-in tournaments, some sort of walkthrough rather than a big form with lots of fields.

I also didn't offer any way to input car results, I only accounted for player results and I think that was a little short-sided. When I was building it I wasn't quite sure what the relationship between the forum and the calendar would be and I've thought a lot more about that and taken a lot more notes as you guys have been running them here on the boards.

Believe me, I think these tools are needed...I still don't know how you guys organize stuff on the message boards but whatever works and is fun. I think the calendar/tools are needed to open mail-in tournaments to new people that aren't regulars on the board.

I threw a dart and I missed the target...no big deal. Just gotta little rethinking to do...but like I said, the calendar of events will remain open and active, just the mail-in stuff will go on hiatus.

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redlinederby 9/4/12
Site manager

Just a quick notice that the Mail-in Tournament tools on the racing calendar have been decommissioned until further notice.

You can still post events to the calendar, just not mail-in tournaments, so please continue to post events on the calendar so if nothing else it can become a one-stop-shop for racing events, whether they be live or mail-in.

If you are hosting a new mail-in tournament, my suggestion would be to post here in the forum first and then add it to the calendar with a link back to the forum so people can ask questions, discuss, etc. Kind of an extra step, I know, but since the forum is completely separate from the stuff I create myself, there's no real alternative.

Otherwise, thanks again to those that tried the mail-in tools when they were up and during testing. It was a good idea that just failed to do what we needed. I clearly didn't do enough research up front and even after it was launched was full of holes that I should have caught. The mail-in tools may not get another look for quite some time but when they do, it will be better.

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