- Allow searches for Las Vegas only. - Allow search with a keyword that would match anywhere in the description.
Having a section called something like "Post Tournament Comments" would be very useful. This section would be within each calendar posting just as there is a "detail" section for each calendar posting now. The posting members name should be shown for the "Post Tournament Comments" as an aid for other members to decide on it's reliability. Also, each member's comment should be limited to about 500 letters to avoid excessive rambling. The idea would be for members to comment on a tournament after it was held. This way one would have a easily accessible means to research a given tournament to decide if it's worth attending in the future. At the present time post tournament comments are made on the Forum which tend to get lost in a short period of time.
Just some thoughts - Zweeky's idea for Vegas-only listings - excellent. Many times when I'm headed there for a big event, I'd like to be able to see the smaller events (for tune-ups!) without scrolling through the California and Arizona listings, too. Fredguy's idea - Well, maybe. Problem is that everyone has their own idea of what makes a great tournament. Toolman's idea - great stuff but the problem there would be getting people to post to it. There's damn few tourney results here anymore as it is. My idea - Allow filtering out invitationals that most of us apparently gutter-dwelling scum aren't allowed to enter, anyway.
That's already implemented. Filter by 'Event Status'. Some consideration was given a while ago to the idea of adding a catch-all location, suitable for the few tournaments that we get in Europe. The casino specifics would have to be incorporated into the event description.
I don't agree "There's damn few tourney results here anymore as it is". I attended 3 tournaments in the last 2 weeks (all open) that I posted to the Calendar as soon as I found out about them. Then there's the IP and probably a few others in that 2 week period. So there are results to be reported but only if members are willing to share information rather than selfishly, or maybe "lazily" is the word, keep it to themselves. I agree that a "post tournament" category will not be fully utilized - but it would be useful nonetheless if the members just take few minutes to comment on the tournaments they do attend. It's just too bad that we have the existing Calendar on this site, which is unique and very useful, but so few members post the tournaments they know are taking place. Over the past several years, I've been trying to get more members to post to the Calendar but my efforts have been in vain. So the Calendar is growing less useful as time progresses since fewer members are posting to it. Perhaps Ken's best move would be to eliminate the Calendar rather than try to improve something that less and less members post to.
I would like to consider methods to enforce some calendar updating for those who browse the results. Every so often on calendar accesses, I could pop up a random casino listing and ask that the user contact the casino to verify that the events listed are still held, or perhaps that current events are not listed. The process would need to have a "Not right now" button, but at some point users would use up their ability to defer the process. Thoughts?
Eliminate the Calendar? toolman, please withdraw your suggestion to eliminate the event calendar due to your thought that less tournament posts by members have been made recently thus the calendar is not usefull. The calendar is usefull for bjt.com members even if not all inclusive with every tournament available, elimination of the calendar would be like killing the hen to make chicken soup if she started laying only 1 egg every 2 or 3 days. Incomplete tournament (calendar listings) is better than none. I also think Ken's suggestion each calendar event poster be held personally responsible to update his/her original listing is counter productive and will result in fewer member tournament calendar listings. Few in my opinion will continue to volunteer tournament information if they feel publically responsible for future lack of updates. Anyone interested in a tournament listed on the event calendar should be personally responsible to follow up in their individual best interest not depend and hold others responsible to keep them informed of changes not included in the original event calendar post. Making the tournament poster personally responsible to verify the original information is still correct without changes at a later date will certainly eliminate many tournaments being posted in the bjt.com event calandar.
Oops. Thanks, Colin. Guess I hadn't noticed that filtering feature. Mea culpa. That's true, Toolman, and you do a yeoman's work of posting what you have discovered, So does Rookie and a few others. I'd post 'em if I ever heard about 'em, but the only ones I ever hear about, other than by checking the calendar here, are through snail-mail and somebody's always got those posted before I get 'em in the mail. I do like the idea very much but am simply worried that few will take the time to write results and/or a review, even a short one. One addition to the idea might be to simply post a link to another thread that discusses the tournament, as we've seen here for recent events at LV Hilton and at Meskwaki. Enforcing some kind of participation to retain calendar access is a great idea but I'm not sure that method is the answer. What's going to prevent someone from simply making up a new user account to start the clock all over again? Monitoring IP addresses would stop that dodging, but would be a huge pain in the Administrator's arse. There's an answer to the situation somewhere, hopefully somebody smarter than me will think of it. :laugh:
My comment was not meant to be taken seriously rather it was meant to be a sarcastic comment since so many members like the Calendar but those same members don't ever post to it for the benefit of all members. Depending on my mood, I at times get frustrated with the lack of member participation in the Calendar. To quote a sentence from my last post: "It's just too bad that we have the existing Calendar on this site, which is unique and very useful, but so few members post the tournaments they know are taking place.". My comment was not directed to any particular member but rather to all members in general. For example, the dates for the next $100,000 BJT at the LV Hilton was known to all who attended the Oct., 2009 BJT. I purposely waited about a week before I posted it (the Mar., 2010 BJT) to the Calendar to see if anyone would post it. Nobody posted although the dates were well known. Also, the LV Hilton has a $30,000 BJT in Jan., 2010 that is still not on the Calendar although it was announced through their mailings well over a month ago. Again, I purposely did not post it to see if anyone else would, which of course, they did not. Surly, I am not the only one this site that gets their mailings. So let's get back to the purpose of this thread - improving the Calendar.
RE: Calender Enhancement Radio buttons for standard rules and variants would be nice. (DAS/H17/INS/RS4/NRSA) Ratings and comments would be great specially for weeklies and monthlies. Maybe a "who's attending" feature for one-time / major events.
List events that are more than a month away (up to 6 months?). That could be beneficial when arranging travel, time off work, the wife's approval, etc. I'm one of the "guilty" ones that toolman makes reference to about LV Hiltons March 2010 event and I'm also aware of a tourney at Ho Chunk (Baraboo, WI) on Dec. 6th but didn't add either one because they won't appear on the event calendar until a month before the events. Could be a lame excuse because I think they would show up under "recent updates" and as long as I'm using excuses, let me say that I work 50+ hours per week and have many other things "on my plate" at present. I see the calendar as a valuable tool and I'm glad to see this much interest in seeking improvement to it! Billy C
Use up ability to defer? What would the penalty be? Im already scared! I understand your point tho, because the weekly and monthly calendar of repeating events is a disater. I dont even use it. But, IMO using strong arm enfrocement is a reason to not post the event.
one month only on calendar List events that are more than a month away (up to 6 months?). That could be beneficial when arranging travel, time off work, the wife's approval, etc. Billy C The default is one month, however you can change the ending date to any date in the future you choose and hit refresh. You will then get events up to a year in advance, or longer if they have been posted.
I'm not quite sure of what you are trying to accomplish. I'll assume you are referring to the posting of repeating events such as weekly or monthly. I don't think putting pressure on a poster is a good idea. As others have already said, this would probably deter postings. My first thought is that most posters do not even know an "end date" category exists. That's is why they often only change the tournament name to "CANCELED". As you know that does nothing - the tournament continues to be listed. So the first thing to do is make the poster aware of the "end date" feature. I wrote a post about that about a year or so ago which was generally ignored so good luck on that one. Now for my second thought. Repeating events, with a few exceptions, do not last a full year. Most casinos cancel them out as the turnout decreases over time. So I would suggest that the poster must enter an "end date" and that "end date" cannot be greater than 1 year from the date of the post. If no "end date" is entered then the computer would automatically, with notification to the poster on the update screen, enter an "end date" of 1 year from the date of the original post if the poster does not enter an "end date". As the months go by, a poster can change the "end date" but never be allowed to go past 1 year from the date of the update. When an "end date" draws near - say 3 weeks - a PM would automatically be generated to the last poster of the event telling him/her that the tournament is about to be dropped from the Calendar unless an update is made. But under no circumstances should a "demand" be placed on the poster.
Calendar Definitely need a Vegas only section. Would benefit generally from using smaller, more specific, geographies; 'Southwest' covers a lot of territory, and you end up having to filter through lots of events you don't have an interset in. Calendar also seems to have a lot of duplication, where several people list the same event, if that could be kept down somehow.
Re: Calander Enhancements This feature would be mainly for weeklies and maybe monthlies but ... a regestration time and a start time would be helpful. It would be great if the event calender would then sort them by start times. That way if there are 2 tournaments on the same day we can calculate the probability of making to them both.
Clear the mechanism I was looking thru the weekly events and obviously its so cluttered with canceled games its almost worthless. Im wondering if it would be a good idea to completely erase all the calendar and start over. Maybe the monthly games as well.
I don't think erasing the entire Calendar of weekly and/or monthly tournaments is the solution. The solution is for ALL MEMBERS to participate in cleaning up the Calendar. The Calendar was set up for members to update and maintain the Calendar. That is something that is not being done so we end up with inaccurate information. So if each member, while browsing the weekly/monthly events, would just update the Calendar if inaccuracies are known then everyone benefits. It only takes a few minutes to make an edit - just click on "edit this event" at the bottom of the detail listing of the event and go from there. If a weekly/monthly event no longer exists, it's as simple as editing the event by entering a "Final Event Date" that is one day prior to the date one is doing the editing. The event will then no longer show up when the "Calendar Of Events" is accessed. It's that simple - it really is. I wrote a post explaining, in detail, how to do this. Here is the link: http://www.blackjacktournaments.com/bb/showthread.php?t=4534
