CCLA Web Site

[oaklandlax]

I would have to say that our league web site is total junk! I thought with the amount of dues each team pays, we would have someone take care of it.

If I had any computer skills, I would be the 1st to step up, but I don’t.

Can’t someone in our league take charge?

With the CCLA growing and teams getting better, I think it’s only far to have a web site that shows great organization of our league.

Just get it going, and teams will have to update it!

I know in prior years our league site was great. Last year it started to slip and this year we are not even doing anything.

Don’t mean to sound impolite, just a little frustrated.

Mike from Pitt has done a great job getting our stuff for the MDIA site, we just need to get the CCLA site going.

[Neighbours]

I would do it if I had better knowledge of PHP and some of the more advanced programming languages. If I could redo the site from scratch and make it a HTML-based site, then I'd be all over it.

[oaklandlax]

Is there a way to change the format?

I also see that there has been 100 people looking at this post, and just one reply.

JP can you point us in the right direction?
Maybe other coaches or players can help out.

[John Paul]

I'm not on the CCLA Board anymore. I know Mike Messina has looked into the site this year, but I don't where it's gone from there. You need to contact Grant Neeley for any CCLA issues.

[oaklandlax]

Thanks JP, but you must agree that we need to improve our site.

[Troy Hood]

Gentlemen:

The GRLC was faced with a similar issue this fall. We explored the option of going with Daryl Fernquist at FernWeb not unlike several other MDIA conferences.

I can understand the arguement for being different, but, I can honestly say that Daryl does terrific work for a fair price. When you want something addressed, it gets handled. Have a look at our site, the WCLL site, and the PNCLL site for references.

Our membership does the data entry. I've found it to be very simple to use and the stats update instantly.

I know I'm starting to sound like a commercial for Daryl, but I can honestly say that we are pleased with the solution that he's been able to provide to our website problems.

Regards,

[Chris Larson]

I can second that Troy. I think the entire UMLL membership is very pleased with Daryl's product.

CL

[Mike Messina]

As I see it, here is how the CCLA website stands. Please correct me or add opinions if neccesary. It would benefit all of us.

I agree that the CCLA site needs to be used a a tool for both our conference and our league as this is to some extent a website lacrosse league. It should be fully updated and able to relay information about our players and conference to anyone interested. To that end...

1. What exactly is our need?
The CCLA site should be a tool to disseminate information including(by importance, in my opinion)
-team and conference contact information
-schedules
-conference general info(including basic entry parameters and championship info, important dates, fees, penalties, etc.)
-standings and statistics
-extraneous fun stuff(school info, fun facts, awards, archives)
While this information is important right now, there exists a possibility at least that the conference may not need to continue posting this information in the future based on USL-MDIA involvement and plans.
Having a complete site now could cost substantial money with the cost magnified if the site is not needed after this season. To sum up, there is clearly short term need but long term need is unclear.

2. What are our options?
-Updating our current site-
Unfortunately, the site is designed in a difficult code or i would have already updated what i could. This limits our capacity to update 'on the fly'
I have prepared updates and our current webmaster is working on tying our conference site to the USLIA.com database. (this would provide less data entry as compared to other conferences) Right now, the biggest problem with this option is that only about half of the CCLA teams have set up or entered data into the USLIA.com database and schedules would be dependent on some OOC teams. Secondary to that is that this work can be complex and is mainly pro-bono (Thanks, Matt.)
-complete site redesign and data transfer-
We can have the site designed by a third party. It would probably be relatively quick and could be similar in style and 'coolness' to other sites. The problem here is cost. Quick professional results do cost money. I have gathered approximate information about the cost of other conferences sites and have solicitated 2 other estimates for html or flash based sites from professional web design companies. I have also been offered help for our site from other CCLA people. A secondary problem here is that each team would again need to enter or submit data in some way for the new site (Again not every team has done that for USLIA.com yet)

My Best Conclusion
Based all that i have learned about site design and hosting etc, I think that it would be most beneficial for the CCLA to keep our current site albeit with updated content (from USLIA.com, hopefully). I would also strongly encourage all teams to please take advantage of the USLIA.com database for the time being as it has become an invaluable resource. Doing this would save time and money in the short term. For the long term, i would suggest deciding on a future course of action based on plans of the USL-MDIA. Our future site should fall in line with whatever they decide and hopefully tie into that database (or even shared across databases). I would also like to recommend that, based on the relative importance of the website, a position be ammended to the bylaws separate from the secretary whose responsibilities include either first hand or administrative conference compiling and updating of records and web material. Again, just my opinions.

Sorry for the length. This is sort of the tip of the iceberg-please PM or call me to hear more.

[oaklandlax]

I have to agree with Mike, lets just try to get this going for this year, after the year we should look into something else.

Thanks Troy and Chris for the info. I would like to look into this more.

[Sonny]

I have prepared updates and our current webmaster is working on tying our conference site to the USLIA.com database. (this would provide less data entry as compared to other conferences) Right now, the biggest problem with this option is that only about half of the CCLA teams have set up or entered data into the USLIA.com database and schedules would be dependent on some OOC teams. Secondary to that is that this work can be complex and is mainly pro-bono (Thanks, Matt.)

Good suggestion. I'm going to suggest that the SELC do the same thing this upcoming off-season. (i.e. tie their exising conference site to the USLIA.com database). Would reduce data entry/confusion and duplicate web sites.

[John Paul]

As Mike said, a lot will depend on what we end up doing with the national website (uslmdia.org, not uslia.com). For this year, we just made it administrative to handle applications, rosters and eligibility. We've discussed what the public face of the site will look like and accomplish, and a lot of that will happen over the summer. It's possible that site will have a game reporting / report feature. Since it's being developed by Daryl Fernquist, and most of the conferences already have Daryl's database features active, it might end up making sense to incorporate conference websites into the national structure. It would seamlessly tie everyone together and remove one step in data collection for coaches. We'd want to do it in a way that would still allow the conferences to manage most of their own content, however. In the long run this plan would save money for conferences and lessen the amount of data entry many coaches have to do. We also will be integrating a bit more with the US Lacrosse website in the near future. We're discussing how that will happen with them. Whatever we end up doing with the national website, we are not going to be trying to compete with what Sonny does on this website. We'll do what we feel is necessary for the MDIA, both administratively and publicly. We'll leave things like the forum and most of the news reporting to the experts. If we can integrate between the two, in whatever areas make sense to do so, we'll do that.

Mike's right. For this year conferences like ours should probably just make what we have work as best we can without investing too much. Next year will probably bring a much better system.

[mholtz]

Next week, or possibly tomorrow, I am going to link the CCLA web site stats into the USLIA database. This will make is so that information added to the uslia.com site will be automatically added to the CCLA site.

I have been swamped launching the new uslia.com, and with MSU's season, but I hope to have this done soon. It will be back in form very soon.

[mholtz]

Quick update on this.

I have the schedules merging now. If you put your games into the USLIA site, they should be on the ccla site.

more to come as I do more work.

[mholtz]

ok... rosters are merged now too.

Next is goals.

[John Paul]

Thanks Matt, for all you are doing for the CCLA site and the USLIA.com site. Remember guys, Matt has a job and is coaching at MSU, plus he did most of the redesign and programming of the new USLIA.com site.