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Shteve0 |
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Post subject: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
 Posted: Sep 16, 2015 - 07:20 PM
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League Director
Joined: Nov 12, 2013
New Zealand
Posts: 154
Location: New Zealand
Status: Offline
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Hi guys
Figured I'd start a thread - almost a blog, of sorts - for keeping you guys up to speed with how I'm progressing against pledges.
First a reminder of my targets for the end of this year:
[*] a website for any league that wants one with relevant links to resources new and existing coaches will need
[*] a forum section for any league that wants one
[*] free, GW store legal posters that can be printed out by LCs and put up around their town or city to advertise their league
[*] access to the wealth of commissioner experience out there in the shape of a support group forum section, for example, for seeking and offering league management advice
[*] wherever possible, a thenaf.net web address for every league with an online presence, in addition to any existing affiliations, linked through to the league locator, and other methods of increasing the NAF’s visbility to league coaches in non-intrusive ways
[*] research into what can be done to support LCs getting the hardware they need to support a new or growing league: pitches, dice, dugouts, special play cards and so on |
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New Zealand NTO
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Shteve0 |
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: Sep 16, 2015 - 07:24 PM
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League Director
Joined: Nov 12, 2013
New Zealand
Posts: 154
Location: New Zealand
Status: Offline
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The poster thread is now up variously on theNAF, Ausbowl, TFF, Zlurpee and nzbbn. That still leaves a huge amount of ground to cover. For non members the TFF one is the most up to date. http://www.talkfantasyfootball.org/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=41500
The posters are currently in English, German and French, but are limited to one design.
To make the league finder link a little easier to fit on posters I took a suggestion from Sann (Comms Director) and rewrote the League landing page on thenaf.net (http://www.thenaf.net/leagues) - but I'm worried that we're still expecting people to navigate through a lot of clicks to get to the league finder, so will investigate a shorter web address for the League Locator in the near future. |
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New Zealand NTO
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Shteve0 |
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: Sep 16, 2015 - 07:32 PM
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League Director
Joined: Nov 12, 2013
New Zealand
Posts: 154
Location: New Zealand
Status: Offline
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League website wise, Mike's doing an awesome job with http://thenaf.obblm.com and has kindly agreed to keep that ticking over while I work on the naf obblm version.
The stumbling block early on was the discussion on whether or not to run an independent fork, as I originally proposed, or to integrate the changes into the core obblm code. While at least one of the obblm guys have expressed that they'd prefer the latter (and it would certainly make future updates easier to do so), it means development on the new functionality will be dependent on commits to the main obblm trunk, which relies somewhat on the time of other people's timelines and commitments.
In the end we reached an agreement that the NAF version - now called naflm - would operate as a fork of the main code, but with an open channel to allow changes to be merged with the main code at a later date.
Since then we've pulled together a loose team, consisting of me (primarily skinning), vanguard (primarily coding), dodger (primarily testing), and funnyfingers (primarily integration and automation). These guys are all volunteers whose inputs I greatly appreciate being able to call on - suffice to say though, there's plenty of work to go around, so if anyone reading this fancies chipping in either with identifying, investigating or solving issues, or with ideas for how we can improve the facility, please feel free to just sign up to github and get involved!
Open issues: https://github.com/TheNAF/naflm/issues
Live preview version: http://thenafdev.obblm.com/ |
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New Zealand NTO
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HairyPete77 |
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: Sep 17, 2015 - 08:19 AM
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Joined: Sep 05, 2012
Undisclosed
Posts: 58
Location: Undisclosed
Status: Offline
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| Steve, thank you so much for making this thread. It is a nice idea and will help to promote openness and interaction between NAF members and the elected officers. It will be really interesting to follow progress and to help where possible. Thanks as well to those volunteering on these projects already. |
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Shteve0 |
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: Oct 15, 2015 - 12:46 PM
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League Director
Joined: Nov 12, 2013
New Zealand
Posts: 154
Location: New Zealand
Status: Offline
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Update update update!
As we close in fast on my target of a launch in early November, some real big value adds are starting to show in the new software.
- Funnyfingers has introduced a change that allows permalinking to league pages. This not only allows league commissioners to link interested parties directly to their league page, but also means we can start to implement an improvement way of navigating through to individual leagues, which I'll be working on next.
- We've confirmed that permalinked pages retain their skins for navigation, and I've built the first custom skin for inclusion with the launch. I expect more will follow after the initial launch.
- I've also updated the icons and community rosters to reflect the most available version of the rosters we'll include. Next step is that funnyfingers is working on a method for league commissioners to be able to select which of the small number of included, optional community rosters they wish to recognise as legal (and therefore selectable) in their league. This is an exciting proposition and one that will be explored a little more in a NAF announcement just as soon as we've 100% confirmed it's workable!
- Vanguard is working on a few tweaks to Doubleskulls' League Preference Administration panel before go-live. This panel allows a league commissioner to manage the important aspects of their league's rules, direct forum link, introduction, name, even skin, and best of all which seasons/competitions are featured in the tables on the league's main page!
- Rythos42 has been working on a mobile (cellphone) mode for managing and viewing your team on the go. I'll incorporate links to that from the user menu in the reboot.
As ever... open issues: https://github.com/TheNAF/naflm/issues
Live preview version: http://thenafdev.obblm.com/
Suggestions and requests can be submitted by anyone, and if you think you might be able to help of have a contribution idea of your own, please get involved! 
Thanks once more to everyone who's contributed their skills, time, energy and brainpower to this cause so far, it's really coming together nicely and your contributions have been invaluable. And last but not least, my congratulations and go out to Rythos42 as he departs on his honeymoon. That he found time in the run up to his wedding not only to contribute the mobile code but also dig into a particularly cryptic announcement bug is seriously going above and beyond the call of duty. Wishing you a long, healthy and happy marriage, Craig! |
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New Zealand NTO
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: Nov 05, 2015 - 11:34 PM
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League Director
Joined: Nov 12, 2013
New Zealand
Posts: 154
Location: New Zealand
Status: Offline
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If you've been following this (and if you haven't, why not?!) or if you've approached me directly to wish-list changes, you'll recall that this weekend was pencilled in for the launch of the new version of NAF league hosting. The good news is that the launch is immensely close, and that with a couple of issues to iron out we're not too far from being able to offer a very cool first look at the functionality that the relaunch will bring. Unfortunately, very close is not quite as close as I'd like in terms of kicking things off formally, despite my best efforts over lunch hours, evenings and weekends this last month or so; and so my excitement at the imminent reveal is tinged with a small dose of regret that things aren't quite up to speed in time to offer an announcement on the issue to those attending the world cup.
Nevertheless, I'm confident enough that progress allows me to put a firm marker in the ground and say that, next weekend, the beta of the new naf league hosting will launch in parallel to the existing setup, allowing coaches and commissioners to switch over to the beta and get to play with the tools live with their existing league software. In line with that launch I'll discuss the changes we've made, those that are still teething, and what's coming up in future.
To all of you attending the world cup this weekend, have an amazing time, and thank you for containing to support the NAF and events that carry its banner |
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New Zealand NTO
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Shteve0 |
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: Nov 13, 2015 - 02:52 PM
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League Director
Joined: Nov 12, 2013
New Zealand
Posts: 154
Location: New Zealand
Status: Offline
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And we're up!
http://thenafdev.obblm.com/ offers a beta version of the naflm software with various improvements loaded as standard. For the next month or so I'll focus on fixes and fine tuning of the functionality already included in this version. Bugs, errors, issues etc should be either PMed to me on the NAF forum, TFF or Ausbowl; posted in this thread; or submitted to the github error log at https://github.com/TheNAF/naflm/issues.
The NAF dev site is now a live, functioning alternative portal for coaches using existing NAF hosting. In this version users are offered:
- US style league conferences!
- direct links to league sites!
- a new menu structure!
- links to each of the rosters including three new community rosters (check with your local commissioner before entering them into a league!)
- a new league menu with revamped league tables!
- a revamped way of managing your league preferences... no more back end coding for the admins!
- a location based method of navigating to leagues!
- a revamped, faster way of creating and maintaining teams!
- two all new skins!
- a simple mobile interface!
And coming soon...
- more skins! some of which will make your eyes bleed less than this one does!
- a revamped league scheduling tool!
- more options to customise your league, including skin and language selector!
Many thanks to DoubleSkulls for his work on the original modules that many of these changes are based around, to funnyfingers for putting up with all my inane questions and complaints, and to rythos42 and mfranchetti/vanguard for their work on various aspects of the code. |
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New Zealand NTO
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HairyPete77 |
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: Nov 15, 2015 - 08:24 AM
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Joined: Sep 05, 2012
Undisclosed
Posts: 58
Location: Undisclosed
Status: Offline
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| Steve, thanks for these updates. Great progress by you and the team. |
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Shteve0 |
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: Nov 15, 2015 - 11:19 AM
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League Director
Joined: Nov 12, 2013
New Zealand
Posts: 154
Location: New Zealand
Status: Offline
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Cheers man, good to know someone's reading 
I should also add in my thanks here to Whatball and the team at fumbbl for their generosity in allowing us to use their player icons in the team roster views. These thanks in particular will be added to the general acknowledgements in various sections of the site in the next couple of days |
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New Zealand NTO
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Shteve0 |
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Post subject: RE: (Interactive) League Director pledge progress!
Posted: May 26, 2016 - 07:28 PM
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League Director
Joined: Nov 12, 2013
New Zealand
Posts: 154
Location: New Zealand
Status: Offline
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Hi all
Today over on thenaf.net I've announced that June 30 will see the official release of the OBBLM update we've been squirrelling away on. This release is the culmination of a year's work by a number of volunteers and represents a fantastic addition to the NAF's suite of services. Read more about the release here: http://www.thenaf.net/2016/05/naflm-milestone-1-0-to-launch-on-30-june-2016/
As that release will come year in to my role, and represents so much of what I set out to achieve at the outset of my campaign, now's also a good time for me to take stock on what it is the role needs over the next year. In doing so I think it's fair to say that with the planned 30 June upgrade to the NAF's league hosting, we have in place an excellent platform to support the 32 leagues we already host, and hopefully transition more to make use of the service, especially looking towards the forthcoming boxed game release. While the posters haven't taken off quite as I'd hoped, I think they still represent a useful tool. And while the forum section pledges haven't quite seen the light of day yet, those discussions have been had with the rest of the committee and made it into the requirements for the NAF's future website.
Over the next year though, I think we all hope - no, expect! - to see a wave of new and returning players, and looking to engage with and sustain that support should be the first priority of the League Director role. In particular I believe that, having delivered what I believe to be a significant step forward in the league software support on the NAF's behalf, the time is right for me personally to step down from the role and pass the opportunity on to somebody who feels better equipped to take on the task of working more directly with the new wave of players, and potentially with representatives of the GW store network, to help initiate, publicise and sustain potentially hundreds of new and returning leagues. I think at this point I've achieved most of what I set out to do, but feel ill-equipped personally to take up the next phase of the role to best effect, and as such I've submitted my resignation to the committee to allow plenty of time for the recruitment of a successor, and for them to implement their ideas and plans ready for the new release. I will of course continue to support the NAF (and my replacement as League Director) through the ongoing NAFLM project, as a (hopefully occasionally useful) casual member of the tech team, and as the NZ RCO.
Just quickly, I'd also like to take a moment to thank everyone who's provided their support in the last year or so; be it at committee, through the RCO structure, in the various tech teams, or beyond. You're too numerous to name individually, but you know who you are, and it's been a privilege working with each of you.
Cheers all
Steve |
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New Zealand NTO
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Geggster |
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Post subject:
Posted: May 29, 2016 - 02:08 AM
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NAF Treasurer
Joined: Feb 11, 2003
Posts: 170
Status: Offline
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Thanks, Steve,
For your incredible amount of work on the project and your time on the committee.
All the best with your ongoing work and new projects. |
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NAF Treasurer
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Beppe |
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Post subject:
Posted: Jun 08, 2016 - 05:58 AM
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Former President
Joined: Nov 06, 2003
Italy
Posts: 229
Location: Italy
Status: Offline
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| Thank you so much Steve: it has been a pleasure to work with you |
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