Suggestions To Improve Your Team Links

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 8:54 am

Okay, last week I had a good conversation with the folks at STATS about improving and expanding one part of our game site: The user link. The way we have your MY TEAMS area now is a mess for those folks who do multiple events/sports with us and right now there is nothing you can learn about another member by clicking on his team name. I want to change all of that.

Ultimately, I'd love to see you folks almost have your own MY SPACE section, but I know that is well down the road. But in reality it would be cool to allow you to put as much or as little personal information in an area for all to see along with historical data about you when it comes to your participation in the NFBC and the NFFC. That way when you find out what league you are in and who your competitors are, you'll be able to learn more about them and make this more of a "local" league flavor.

So here's the first steps we are taking here and then I want you to provide more suggestions so that I can take them to STATS:

1. We are doing a quick re-design of the NFBC home page to create the left-hand navigational links more similar to the NFFC site. Right now they are just jumbled and inconsistent as we added new links as our event expanded. By next week, the links will be categorized, the satellite info will be separate from the live events and the Online Championship will be on its own as well. We'll have separate links for the $125, $250, $500 and $1000 satellite leagues and the Registration page will be categorized and organized better.

2. Next up we are creating a new splash page to send newcomers to in order to understand everything we are offering. We can't do that on the NFBC page alone, so we'll have a page before that to explain everything. We hope that this initial page will explain the three baseball events we are offering this year: Live drafts and auctions; private online satellite leagues; and the 12-team NFBC Online Championship. If we can explain those perfectly on the splash page, then the NFBC home page will be easier to use.

3. As part of that redesign, we will improve your user page. The first thing we'll do is create tabs for your MY TEAMS page, allowing you to just tab your list of 2009 NFBC teams, 2008 NFBC teams, 2008 NFFC teams, etc. That has obviously been needed for some time and will be done now. We'll also automatically create a history of your NFBC and NFFC teams that will be displayed when teams click on GREG AMBROSIUS, for instance. I don't have all of the details for what will be displayed or what you can decide to display, but STATS has told me that they have all past history and it can be displayed. We'll also create an area where you can add some user profile information, but again I don't know how much at this point.

4. Down the road, I'd love to expand that user profile to include downloadable photos and more. It's time to find out more about each member and have this historical data easily accessible for all to see and we're going to get that done.

Okay, that's part of the plan. As I stated at the end of the season, we are working more closely with STATS and earlier this year to get us set up the way we want for this season and many seasons to come. I like the arrangement we've put together and STATS is more than willing to help us improve the site. NBC Sports is also providing staffers to help with the redesign of the splash page.

So here's your chance: Send suggestions to me via e-mail at [email protected] or post them here and I'll forward to STATS. We have several projects to finish first, but any and all suggestions will be considered for 2009. Those changes will also be done on our football site and in 2009-10 we are planning for a basketball site here and possibly one or two more sports. So this could be a lot of fun.

Thanks all and I look forward to the thoughts and the suggestions. It's a down economy, so we want to do our best to make this worth your time, money and effort to play with us.

751542 · Post by **751542** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:06 am

when doing free agent bids is it possible to have a link on free agent page for "start new bid"??? i have found when loading conditional bids or bids period that u have to hit reload and start over to start a new player bid. just a thought.....another idea could be that the stat program recognizes the last player bid on as a position player or p and when you go to make a conditional bid it would keep you in either utility or pitcher page(picky but saves time)...thanks for atleast considering quicker and more efficient ways to improve the bidding process!!!!

Walla Walla · Post by **Walla Walla** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 4:02 pm

I know I'll get heat for this. But! Let's forget about the my face pages and just get the stats stright everyday first time out. The last week of this last season was uncalled for!!! Greg just pound home the messege to STATS. Get it right!!!

We'll be happy with that.

Don't shoot me Greg.

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:13 pm

It is too bad you can't look at drafts or teams from years ago. If STATS still has that stuff it would be a cool thing to make accessible. Not sure if that is the type of stuff they plan to put up but it would be good.

I always wonder why the complete overall standings aren't available for anyone to link to from the home page. Friends of players and new message board people who don't yet have a team may occasionally want to see how different teams are faring and it would be an easy way to make the event seem more like a public championship rather than a private event.

Would also be a plus to be able to sort the overalls by total offense and total pitching. And a search function for owners would be good so that you don't have to sort through 400 teams to find out what place someone is in. It can be very time consuming to check up on your friends!

[ October 26, 2008, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: bjoak ]

DOUGHBOYS · Post by **DOUGHBOYS** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 6:39 pm

I know we can get them elsewhere but, I'd like the "Player Stats" to be all-encompassing with sabr stats as well as the "over the counter" stats. The five categories are good for the rankings, but we should get more from STATS when it comes to players stats category. This feature may help new customers and vets stay on this site longer as well.

ToddZ · Post by **ToddZ** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:31 am

Originally posted by DOUGHBOYS:

I know we can get them elsewhere but, I'd like the "Player Stats" to be all-encompassing with sabr stats as well as the "over the counter" stats. The five categories are good for the rankings, but we should get more from STATS when it comes to players stats category. This feature may help new customers and vets stay on this site longer as well. One warning here. It depends what you mean by SABR stats. Once you start getting into things like GB/FB/LD stuff, this is subjective and differs from each provider. The primary provider used by most Internet sites is Baseball Info Solutions (the company that publishes the Bill James Handbook). This is just a warning more to explain why some there may be differences in certain SABR stats is all.

[ October 27, 2008, 08:32 AM: Message edited by: ToddZ ]

DOUGHBOYS · Post by **DOUGHBOYS** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:43 am

True, those types of stats are subjective and will differ. They will be similar though, no matter the source, and be helpful especially to players new to the NFBC.

Mr Dalrae · Post by **Mr Dalrae** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:44 am

Reading bjoak's idea gave me one.Would it be possible to come up with prizes for the best overall pitching team and hitting team in the main event?The prize could be as simple as a free jersey,some other type merchandise or of course monetary.Just another way for someone to win or keep interest,especially if you have no shot in your own league or the overall standings.

'

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:38 am

Originally posted by RoundTrippers:

when doing free agent bids is it possible to have a link on free agent page for "start new bid"??? i have found when loading conditional bids or bids period that u have to hit reload and start over to start a new player bid.From STATS: For this, you do not need to refresh the page. All he needs to do is click on "cancel" to start a new bid.

another idea could be that the stat program recognizes the last player bid on as a position player or p and when you go to make a conditional bid it would keep you in either utility or pitcher page(picky but saves time).[/quote]

From STATS: We can look into the 2nd request to see if that's doable.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:44 am

Originally posted by Walla Walla:

I know I'll get heat for this. But! Let's forget about the my face pages and just get the stats stright everyday first time out. The last week of this last season was uncalled for!!! Greg just pound home the messege to STATS. Get it right!!!

We'll be happy with that.

Don't shoot me Greg.

I think we all wish the Monday and Tuesday of Week 27 had gone better and STATS knows that. It was unfortunate that the extra regular-season games became a headache for all users as this wasn't the first time in NFBC history that we had to extend the season. The programming miscue never should have happened.

That being said, we're not going to stop trying to improve the site while also making sure everything goes well during the season. We greatly improved the free agent bidding process last year, we've made Sunday's more manageable for folks who compete in multiple leagues, we pushed the start time of FAAB back to a more reasonable hour and now we think we can improve the experience even more with a better user page. Heck, the Walla Walla link may become so popular that you'll be able to sell advertising on there John. Think big.

You're a defending champ.

No problem on the dig on STATS. They had it coming after our rough finish in 2008, but I'm confident that we have a plan in place for several years of improvements between our two companies.

751542 · Post by **751542** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:10 am

thanks for looking into my suggestions...just ANOTHER example why the NFFC/NFBC/NFBBC/NFHL(soon to come...hockey) and NFGC(golf too) is the BEST!!!!!!! maybe we can come up with more leagues and website improvments over "some coronas" this weekend!!!

Crazy Like a Fox · Post by **Crazy Like a Fox** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 8:27 pm

Originally posted by Mr Dalrae:

Reading bjoak's idea gave me one.Would it be possible to come up with prizes for the best overall pitching team and hitting team in the main event?The prize could be as simple as a free jersey,some other type merchandise or of course monetary.Just another way for someone to win or keep interest,especially if you have no shot in your own league or the overall standings.

' Not a bad idea but I think you have to be real careful there. If you make the prize big enough, you might have a problem with some idiot trying to load up on just pitching or hitting to try and win that prize. What that would do is offset the whole league and possibly kill the chances for anyone in that particular league to win the Main. I'm sure the Main Event folks would agree.

JEagle · Post by **JEagle** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 3:57 am

not sure if this is the right thread but I hate the live scoring page. I would like to be able to just click on each team and it brings up their lineup right away. CBS sportsline has the best live scoring page...stats should try and model their page after it

JamesH · Post by **JamesH** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 3:36 am

Maybe you could have one main site with a link to all of the different sports in which you offer championships. One message board with forums for each sport would be desirable as well.