Would a cross-league scheduling platform interest you?

[Rymdkejsaren]

There's some talk going around about the different online BB leagues having some kind of unified organisation. Obviously, world domination is the final goal, but the first thing on the table would be a single platform used for scheduling matches for all leagues.

 

Now, I'd like to know how many coaches (who play in multiple leagues) would find that useful.

 

This is just speculation for now, but your answers to the poll might inform how and if to proceed.

[Pidpad]

Do we assume that all leagues will keep their current structure?

BB3 and the rebuy system might change that depending on what options we get. (What can be turned on/off, will the ingame league options actually be useful and other fun things)

[Tys123]

If you schedule everything in the same place what makes the leagues different?

[Ratamo]

20 minutes ago, Tys123 said:

If you schedule everything in the same place what makes the leagues different?

Different rulesets, different matchday rhythm, different league format. Also not every league has own sidecompetitions 

[Rymdkejsaren]

On 4/12/2021 at 10:03 PM, Tys123 said:

If you schedule everything in the same place what makes the leagues different?

 

My main concern too is that our community is a lot more than just the matches being played, and that's not something we want to compromise.

[Borke]

Just theorizing a bit, here. If I were to dream up the ultimate BB scheduling application, I'd design it as a service that can be easily implemented into the platforms that the many different leagues use (so it needs to have Discord implementation as a bot, forum integration as code that can just be put on a separate page on a forum, etc.). Then coaches can schedule their matches from within the league's usual environment, nobody is required to leave the OCC forum, for example, to schedule their OCC match. But you still benefit from the fact that all "appointments" are stored in the same database and can be viewed as one encompassing "diary" - either for the individual coach to see which matches they have scheduled in the coming week, or for the interested third party, who wants to know for example when the OCC Championship division matches are scheduled, so they can follow the excitement of the Championship battle.

 

I think that writing such a BB scheduling application would be a considerable task. Quite considerable indeed. I'm not going to hold my breath for it.

[Galenth]

I cannot vote anymore as I saw the results a few days ago, just dropping my opinion here: I am playing in OCC because it feels as a safe place, where (almost) all people are nice. Other leagues I have experienced are not like this. I would not like the two groups to mixup.

[Rymdkejsaren]

38 minutes ago, Galenth said:

I cannot vote anymore as I saw the results a few days ago, just dropping my opinion here: I am playing in OCC because it feels as a safe place, where (almost) all people are nice. Other leagues I have experienced are not like this. I would not like the two groups to mixup.

 

The whole idea would definitely be based on that we keep our own space, and that whatever platform is used is for scheduling only.

 

And like Borke says, we would really want it to plug into our forums in some way. But yeah, that doesn't seem like an easily achievable thing. But we figured it's a good idea to gauge interest first, at any rate. I'm thinking it's not a tool that would benefit a particularly large number of people. So yeah, it would be awesome if it we could have a solution that's fully integrated with the game and all leagues and their specific platforms, but that's a lot of work to fix something that I'm not convinced is broken.

[Galenth]

15 minutes ago, Rymdkejsaren said:

 

The whole idea would definitely be based on that we keep our own space, and that whatever platform is used is for scheduling only.

 

And like Borke says, we would really want it to plug into our forums in some way. But yeah, that doesn't seem like an easily achievable thing. But we figured it's a good idea to gauge interest first, at any rate. I'm thinking it's not a tool that would benefit a particularly large number of people. So yeah, it would be awesome if it we could have a solution that's fully integrated with the game and all leagues and their specific platforms, but that's a lot of work to fix something that I'm not convinced is broken.

 

It certainly would take a lot of coding effort, and I agree it would prove useful to very few coaches.

 

If there are people kind enough to donate to the OCC their coding hours I would invest them elsewhere, like in leaderboards. Nothing broke my work productivity like the previous ones :)

[Rymdkejsaren]

That's my feeling on priority, as well.

[the Sage]

6 hours ago, Borke said:

Just theorizing a bit, here. If I were to dream up the ultimate BB scheduling application, I'd design it as a service that can be easily implemented into the platforms that the many different leagues use (so it needs to have Discord implementation as a bot, forum integration as code that can just be put on a separate page on a forum, etc.). Then coaches can schedule their matches from within the league's usual environment, nobody is required to leave the OCC forum, for example, to schedule their OCC match. But you still benefit from the fact that all "appointments" are stored in the same database and can be viewed as one encompassing "diary" - either for the individual coach to see which matches they have scheduled in the coming week, or for the interested third party, who wants to know for example when the OCC Championship division matches are scheduled, so they can follow the excitement of the Championship battle.

 

I think that writing such a BB scheduling application would be a considerable task. Quite considerable indeed. I'm not going to hold my breath for it.

 

Yes, doing that as a hobby project is not an option. I'd pay good money to be able to get all my BB3 scheduling and league management into one site/app though.

[the Sage]

1 hour ago, Galenth said:

 

It certainly would take a lot of coding effort, and I agree it would prove useful to very few coaches.

 

If there are people kind enough to donate to the OCC their coding hours I would invest them elsewhere, like in leaderboards. Nothing broke my work productivity like the previous ones :)

 

I disagree on the very few, given the outcomes of the poll so far.
"donate to the OCC" instead of "focus on the league community".

Everyone has their islands and is convinced the other islands suck. It makes me a bit sad.

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by the Sage

[Suido]

12 hours ago, the Sage said:

Everyone has their islands and is convinced the other islands suck

I don't think that's a fair assessment. 

 

Different leagues cater to different people - turn length, regularity of games, division/playoff structure, etc. 

 

Not playing in a league =\= thinking it sucks.

[Galenth]

14 hours ago, the Sage said:

 

I disagree on the very few, given the outcomes of the poll so far.
"donate to the OCC" instead of "focus on the league community".

Everyone has their islands and is convinced the other islands suck. It makes me a bit sad.

 

 

I'd politely point out that 24/200 coaches is not what I would classify as a lot.

 

I've spent a few years on other islands. I thanked them for having me, but I am pretty sure I am allowed to say they were not for me.

[Rymdkejsaren]

On 4/15/2021 at 6:17 PM, the Sage said:

"donate to the OCC" instead of "focus on the league community".

 

The donations go towards the costs of running the webpage and the forum license. We get plenty of donations (thanks OCCrs!) but we've never ever been in the seat where we've had money to spare once we paid the running costs.

 

I don't think this is a particularly good argument for when you want everything to be about the greater community. While I definitely think some initiatives there could make things a lot easier for a lot of admins and coaches, bigger isn't better by default. Lots of people only play in one league. Some choose the OCC, others choose other leagues. We're not in a competition for who can steal the most coaches.

 

On 4/15/2021 at 6:17 PM, the Sage said:

Everyone has their islands and is convinced the other islands suck. It makes me a bit sad.

 

This isn't even remotely true. Some people think like that. Lots of other people enjoy several different leagues, often because they are different, both in format and in community. And if your goal is to create connections between the communities, then this isn't the way, in my opinion.

 

[Nurdell]

While it would be interesting - what you'd come up with, I voted against the idea.

 

Because right now, all it takes to play in multiple leagues is - writing a simple message 'I can play from here to there, Except for X time'. It's not complicated for 2,5 leagues, I'd imagine it's not terrible even for 4-5 leagues.

If there is some kind of calendar on the side of the forum page, that you mark all your free time in - Some will use it, some will not. It'll detract from the live talk. (even one forum message is still a social interaction, if you know what I mean) And time-fu panda would still be needed anyway.

But it's just an opinion of a dude with a lot of free time.

[Khornight]

<cough> discord <cough>

long version with less of an attempt at humour.
Broadly imho,  the leagues that happily encourage discord scheduling are going to be pro this, and the ones who've built their own websites are probably going to have admins against this.

There is kind of a buy in cost for all the big leagues who've spent money and time on websites and dbs.
 

And I don't really see the cost value for leagues that are currently working in discord.

Like loads of people may chip in a bit, but compared to actual cost of programming its not going to be much.

Then as a user how many people would be uncomfortable with their information being on a third part app that is small enough to be dodgy?

 

edit I did vote yes though, as I would like discord organising to be more a part of occ, as that is the current solution to one platform for multiple league...

@Nurdell, I can tell you that of the 12 leagues I'm in, only 3 have separate places to organise, and those three I tend to try to organise on discord first and usually post the results of discord chats to the "official" place (if at all). Every where else is based in discord.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Khornight

[Gallows Bait]

If I didn't schedule here would I be here? Scheduling is vital to giving coaches a reason to come to the site and pay attention. Putting everything in another place will just lead to more people not knowing wtf is going on because people are by and large lazy and stupid.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Gallows Bait

[cjblackburn]

As someone who is running a different league I have some concerns here. I am sure that this is both going to be done entirely in the right spirit and I am reasonably confident that my forum based league would be able to use it. However my concern is cut off points for smaller leagues if it doesn’t work with all current and future social media platforms. I have arranged matches on forums, individual websites, discord, steam and Facebook. So whilst I am broadly in favour of any tool to help the community I think that some people somewhere are going to be left outside of this and how big a proportion that is would effect my support. If it for example doesn’t include my TT league on Facebook then it would have limited use for me as I would still be in effect combining multiple leagues across different platforms. As for Discord after a certain size it works until there is a problem then it’s a mess to check things for coaches and especially admins.

[cjblackburn]

9 minutes ago, Gallows Bait said:

If I didn't schedule here would I be here? Scheduling is vital to giving coaches a reason to come to the site and pay attention. Putting everything in another place will just lead to more people not knowing wtf is going on because people are by and large lazy and stupid.

I will have you know I’m stupid and lazy.

[Rymdkejsaren]

59 minutes ago, cjblackburn said:

As someone who is running a different league I have some concerns here. I am sure that this is both going to be done entirely in the right spirit and I am reasonably confident that my forum based league would be able to use it. However my concern is cut off points for smaller leagues if it doesn’t work with all current and future social media platforms. I have arranged matches on forums, individual websites, discord, steam and Facebook. So whilst I am broadly in favour of any tool to help the community I think that some people somewhere are going to be left outside of this and how big a proportion that is would effect my support. If it for example doesn’t include my TT league on Facebook then it would have limited use for me as I would still be in effect combining multiple leagues across different platforms. As for Discord after a certain size it works until there is a problem then it’s a mess to check things for coaches and especially admins.

 

The ideal would be for it to plug into basically any platform people use, but like people have said, that's a huge project.

 

Also, if you are running a league and want to get in on the talks, the Sage is looking for a single representative for any league larger than 17 coaches (a completely arbitrary number, but basically, anything more than just you and your mates). So you can contact him for access to the Discord. Best do it via Discord though, he doesn't come here a lot. the Sage#8381

 

Same goes for anyone else running a league. We'll use this to do other things than just this idea, so come along.

 

[Tys123]

If I had to chose between organising a game on discord or on a website then I would take the website as the folder structure makes it so much easier to find everything.

[MrPingwin]

Sounds to me like a solution looking for a problem.

 

I'm not currently playing in multiple leagues but when I was, it wasn't a problem to go to the appropriate thread on each site. Doing it all from a third party website saves almost no time. You open the OCC site, find your match thread and check for updates, and then it takes a few seconds more to go to the AnotherBBL site so you can look at your match thread for that league.

 

If you have enough spare time to be playing in so many leagues that the above starts to take a significant amount of time, then you also have enough spare time to be looking at a few different league websites.

As the person who deals with the techy stuff for another big league (I built the site, and developed replay parsing tools),  I'd be questioning precisely what benefit there is to justify the amount of work involved to integrate such a system into the site for that league. I don't mind doing the work if it is worthwhile but I don't see this as worthwhile.

[Rymdkejsaren]

I would like to say that this isn't something the OCC admins thought needed doing. It comes from the outside, and we currently have no plans to change anything. We have no problem with our current way of scheduling. But I found it interesting to see what the community thought, and like I've also said, knowing roughly how many of our coaches also play in other leagues can inform other decisions in the future.

 

Lots of leagues have moved fully to Discord. We don't see a reason to. This discussion has made me think we could offer a bit more support for scheduling via our Discord server, but these forums will remain the main OCC hub for the foreseeable future. Discord is a good complement for more direct contact with admins or between coaches, but running everything from there would remove a large part of what makes OCC what it is. And I believe it would make the job of keeping up harder for our tier admins, and that's not a change I will ever favour.

 

I think forums have multiple of advantages over Discord. Personally, I find chat servers great for hanging out chatting about random fairly harmless stuff, but terrible for organising things or holding any kind of structured debate or serious discussing. Everything disappears quickly, particularly if a lot of people are talking, and as it's live, people tend to self-moderate a lot less. And catching up with a conversation can be an absolute nightmare. Here, each discussion has its own thread, and people can catch up and write at their own pace.

 

Any cross-league scheduling platform would basically have to be able to interact with our forums quite directly for us to be interested. But if something powerful is built, we're not completely resistant to change. Just very reluctant to change what works.  

[Luke4444]

big league like ( OCC & rebbl ) can'T use discord for scheduling . too much a mess to admin if they have a lot of message in the thread. Forum is better but that'S not avoid the possibility for 2 coaches that are on discord to schedule their game anyway on it. 

The difference between the league is the interaction between the players and the discord chat some have more than other and it'S ok I like a more calm league where you just schedule and play and also like the discord chat drama. I play in many league and the fact that many league are jealous or dislike eachother don'T make me very optimistic that a scheduling overall thing will be done but that will be a good thing to be in touch of everything in the beautiful  bloodbowl family that we live in .

Edited April 17, 2021 by Luke4444