When will the USFA update the website??

[lochinvar]

Yeah, yeah, I know they're all volunteers, and I know they have a lot to do, etc., etc., blah, blah, but c'mon, people!

The least we should be able to expect is TIMELY information! The schedule hasn't been updated, the listing of registered clubs within Divisions hasn't been updated, and the club links need to be weeded--a lot of them are dead!

If nothing else, date the updates so we can see that the information is old and probably not reliable. This is the Internet Age--if you're going to use it, then by-damn use it!

[edew]

Maybe we should put up a poll thread:

When will USFA update the website?

1) By October 1
2) After World Championships
3) Before the first Div I NAC
4) After the Olympics
5) After the Olympics...in Beijing

[mtarascio]

I would suggest instead of everyone discussing this to email Michael Massik, USFA Executive Director at michael.massik@usfencing.org to let him know you want some improvements.

[Event Horizon]

Originally posted by edew
Maybe we should put up a poll thread:

When will USFA update the website?

1) By October 1
2) After World Championships
3) Before the first Div I NAC
4) After the Olympics
5) After the Olympics...in Beijing

Hmmm....I vote for #2.

[Dee EffEll]

The note on the USFA web site said "may be discontinued at any time." I assumed it had been.

[oiuyt]

Could be worse. The IAFF (Irish Fencing) site hasn't been updated since May 2000. This is the same site that's supposed to be the location of their rankings lists which were scheduled to come out about a month ago for the first time.

Other than the Vet Worlds results, what information are you looking for that hasn't been posted? It's not like it's out of date or fallen into disuse or disrepair. Cut the volunteer some slack.

-B :)

[edew]

Who is on the US World Championships Team?

Updates on new clubs and removal of dead clubs.

Rev B or Rev C of the rule book.

Those kind of things.

[neevel]

The fact that it is a volunteer doing things (on donated server space) is itself the problem. I don't think you'll find too many folks on this board who would disagree with the assessment that relying on a volunteer to run the website, rather than paying someone to host and maintain it professionally, represents a false economy. The amount of labor saved by being able to implement on-line tournament registration and membership renewal would more than more than pay for itself. In fact, the hours of work freed up by not having to transcribe NAC entry data from faxes would probably be plenty enough to put into making the website much more timely and informative than it already is. I appreciate the effort that David Sapery has put in as much as anyone, but it really is time to move beyond reliance solely on volunteers.

-Dave

[Craig]

Originally posted by edew
Who is on the US World Championships Team?

Trying to get confirmation from the USFA, but here is my assessment of the 2003 team:

The list I have (based on point standings) is:

Men's Epee
Kelsey, Seth
Hansen, Eric
Thompson, Soren
(Team Only) Mattern, Cody

Women's Epee
Eim, Stephanie
Spilman, Elisabeth
James, Kamara
(Team Only) Hurley, Kelley

Men's Foil
Kellner, Dan
Tiomkin, Jonathan
Dupree, Jedediah
(Team Only) Gerberman, Steven

Women's Foil
Zimmermann, Iris
Cross, Emily
Smart, Erinn
(Team Only) Thompson, Hanna

Men's Sabre
Smart, Keeth
Lee, Ivan
Hagamen, Timothy
(Team Only) Rogers, Jason

Women's Sabre
Jacobson, Sada
Jacobson, Emily
Zagunis, Mariel
(Team Only) Becker, Christine

Of course, this may or may not be the list of athletes actually chosen to represent the US. (It's possible that some athlete's were not able to make the trip, etc.)

I'll post to a different thread once I have confirmation.

Craig

[oiuyt]

Originally posted by neevel
The fact that it is a volunteer doing things (on donated server space) is itself the problem. I don't think you'll find too many folks on this board who would disagree with the assessment that relying on a volunteer to run the website, rather than paying someone to host and maintain it professionally, represents a false economy. The amount of labor saved by being able to implement on-line tournament registration and membership renewal would more than more than pay for itself. In fact, the hours of work freed up by not having to transcribe NAC entry data from faxes would probably be plenty enough to put into making the website much more timely and informative than it already is. I appreciate the effort that David Sapery has put in as much as anyone, but it really is time to move beyond reliance solely on volunteers.

-Dave

Whether or not the website is administered by a volunteer has little to no bearing on whether or not online event registration and membership renewal is possible. That could EASILY be outsourced. The issue is the insurance company which has repeatedly stated that they will not allow the liability waivers to be completed by click through online. They want a physical signature or a fascimile of one. Without that they won't cover the USFA. That makes it a non-starter until the issue is resolved.

Whether or not the USFA should pay for more dedicated web maintance is, and should be, considered a completely separate issue. It's POSSIBLE that an argument can be made that having a more up-to-date website (or more frequent updates, or whatever) will result in more money coming into the USFA than would go out paying for such services, but absent the obvious economy that you've mentioned which isn't actually available, I certainly don't think that the claim is obviously true and would tend to believe that it is actually false. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, there are clearly non-financial benefits to a completely current up to the second website. What level of service is desired and how much the cost of such is needs to be estimated and weighed, but I wouldn't be at all surprised that my decision, if it were up to me, which it isn't, would be the same as what we have now. Or at least something very similar as I'd likely try to make sure at least someone at national office also had access to the servers and enough HTML ability (or access to the right WYSIWYG products) to be able to add a few updates when David Sapery isn't available.

-B :)

[edew]

With regards to insurance, if you don't sign that portion of the entry form, what happens (I believe; I've never not signed it, being the anally-retentive guy that I am) is that you get your confirmation letter with a footnote requesting that you sign the form when you get to the tournament.

So the solution is that USFA can still do the online registration, and as a method to check people in at the competition, the fencer is required to sign an insurance card/check-in card.

Each card has a bar-code, fencer's name, signature field, date field, blah-blah-blah.

Each card is then fed through a bar-code reader and voila! The list of fencers who are actually present and checked in are accounted for and then sent directly to the seeding portion of the tournament program! What a concept! Kill two neck-dragging albatrosses with one stone-ground wood pulp. You sign the card to waive all liability, your card is then deposited in the hopper of all accounted for fencers (with bar-code and all), and tournament gets seeded. Reduce the number of people in the bout committee that can possibly add errors into the whole process.

Oh sweet mother of mercy, what could possibly be wrong with that!?!

[JEC]

We have discussed previously suggestions on how to improve USFA tournaments (NACs, JO's, Summer Nationals).

http://www.fencing101.com/vb/showthr...&threadid=7244

[CarlKnoch]

Couldn't the USFA have us all sign a liability waiver as a part of the membership process? They would then know that if you are a USFA member, you have signed the waiver of liability! That being done, there would be nothing wrong with online registration!

[JEC]

You could still add a disclaimer box that you need to click to ratify that your signature of the USFA competitive membership also applied to the current event. Add some of those verifying "words" that have to read for your form to be valid, etc.

[MikeHarm]

Here is my solution:

Change the wording of the waiver form. Have a version for people who wish to renew online that would be binding for more than one season, so it carries on wether you renew the membership a particular year or not.

Use that and the initial membership form to set up an account for the fencer on the site which you can use to renew as often as you'd like online/register for events/buy USFA gear etc.

That would solve all the issues I think.

[Philistine]

Originally posted by MikeHarm
Here is my solution:

Change the wording of the waiver form. Have a version for people who wish to renew online that would be binding for more than one season, so it carries on wether you renew the membership a particular year or not.

Use that and the initial membership form to set up an account for the fencer on the site which you can use to renew as often as you'd like online/register for events/buy USFA gear etc.

That would solve all the issues I think.

As I understand it, the problem here isn't one of ability or capability of getting the waivers, instead it is a requirement of the insurance company.

Insurance companies are notoriously conservative where it comes to minutia relating to things which can possibly limit their liability. To be fair to them, it would be difficult to get a coherent policy allowing on-line waivers due to the fact that national competitions change states frequently and state laws are likely to be different with regard to "continuing" waivers and similar issues.

Insurance companies don't care whether their requirements cause extra expense and bother for members, unless the requirements are so onerous that the insured is likely to go to a different company with less onerous requirements.

All that being said, there wouldn't seem to be a problem with allowing online registration so long as there was a physical signature required at the actual tournament.

--Philistine

[oiuyt]

Problem with signatures at the event: Who here remembers all of the extra hassle involved with the Disney waivers last fall? Do we really want to have an extra step like that added to every NAC? Sorting out the extra waivers that needed to be handed in, signed, at the event, or gotten signed at the event DEFINATELY caused a massive slowdown in the check-in process.
Second issue (mentioned previously, probably in the thread JEC linked to) is that what happens when that cadet fencer shows up at a NAC and realizes that s/he forgot to get mommy/daddy (who didn't go on the trip) to sign the waiver? SOL, that fencer just wasted cross-country airfare. At least with the current system the fencer finds out 3 weeks earlier and can get it taken care of.

MikeHarm- Not a possibility. The insurance rep that spoke at Coaches College was VERY clear that they don't consider waivers that are over a year old to have any value. That's based on their experiences with caselaw and what courts consider to be current.

CarlKnock- Also a question asked of the insurance rep. They insist that they need both the general waiver and event specific waivers. Just having signed the waiver as a member doesn't mean the USFA doesn't need you to sign a waiver for each and every NAC (this also means that you can't just sign one per year and let it carry over for the rest of the season's NACs).

JEC- verifying words are great for proving that what is filling out a form isn't an automated program of some sort. They do absolutely nothing for proving that the person doing the click through signing is the parent/legal guardian of the fencer and not just the (underage) fencer saving time and not bothering mommy/daddy while registering. The insurance company sees this as a risk, and something they're not willing to cover. Personally I think it's somewhat stupid, it's just as easy for the kid to forge the signature before faxing the entry, but hey, the insurance company gets to set their rules, the USFA needs to follow them.

Philistine says it exactly correctly. Yes there are all kinds of solutions that would work fairly well. Until the insurance company agrees to one of them, all the good ideas in the world are useless. It's MUCH easier for the insurance company to find ways of preventing change and staying with what they KNOW the risks of (thanks to hundreds of years of caselaw). Being accomidating is RARELY worth taking on added risk as far as the insurance company is concerned. This is even more true when no other company is willing to do so either. Why be the trend setter and open your company to massively expensive lawsuits for what appears to be little to no gain (after all, the customers of the insurance company NEED insurance. Self-insuring is NOT an option in nearly every case).

-B :)

[edew]

But Brad, there's no extra step. Currently, you have to wait in line and get your name checked off. In some prior season, they handed you a 3x5 card that you handed to your referee at the start of the first bout. That was a decent idea although I'm not sure whether the referees understood what to do with it.

Right now, you must be present at the check-in table, show your USFA card (presumably), and see that they marked your name off (they could mistakenly mark the name right below or right above yours). Here, the only "extra" step is that you have to sign the waiver/check-in card. That's not a difficult problem.

In fact, I might consider doing something like that for our RYCs.

[oiuyt]

Granted it's not an extra step, and SHOULDN'T add significant extra time. I just know that my feel from Orlando was that it was significantly confused and consumed noticable extra time. Perhaps that was just because it was a one-time thing and that with practice fencers would get better at doing so effeciently. Still doesn't remove the problem of minors that aren't accompanied by a parent and don't have the form pre-filled out (or have lost it, or left it at the hotel, or....).

Send a note to Michael Massik. Give details on how the system would work and why it's better than what we have now. Would I appreciate being able to do online registration? Better believe it. Is this the best way of doing it given the current stance from the insurance company? So far as I can tell. Is the minors issue a stopper? I don't know. Is ther another reason that hasn't occurred to me that is the reason the USFA hasn't already gone to this? I don't know. Hopefully if you ask they'll tell you what the problem(s) with the idea are. If they do I'm sure we'd appreciate a report back here.

I feel your suggestion is the only one offered so far that has a chance. But perhaps I'm just not creative enough/informed enough to see the flaw.

-B :)

[edew]

(Reply to Craig's list of US world championship team members.)

Craig, I believe that all four fencers in each weapon fence in the individuals, but the fourth that you list will be the "bench-warmer" in the team event.

I spoke with Steve Gerberman and he said he'll be fencing. And as I recall from previous years, Tim Chang and Alex Wood (2001 and 2002 members, and fourth in the MF squad) fenced as well.