Special Report - Mississauga North Stars

SPECIAL REPORT : Site Data

This discusses information needed by the webmaster to create and maintain a North Stars team site which is similar to the 2009/2010 Atom team and 2010/2011 Minor Peewee sites.

Introduction

A lot of information is needed to create and maintain the site. The webmaster tries to gather as much information as possible by himself, to minimize the burden on his contacts — the primary contact often being the team’s coach or manager — but the contacts must still supply much information.

Information gathered by the webmaster includes: regular schedules and results (from the GTHL Games Centre); playoff schedules and results (again from the Games Centre); tournament schedules and results (for any tournament which posts them on a website); maps to arenas and other locations; and sponsor logos and websites. Many results, however, are posted after long delays, and results posted may initially be wrong, so it may be better for a volunteer to eMail scores to the webmaster right after each game.

Information typically supplied by the team’s contact(s) is generally of three types:

Information needed to create a site
Information needed to maintain a site
Photos

The contacts may find it helpful to use a checklist to guide them in gathering the needed information.

To Create a Site

Contacts

One person should take on the responsibility of sending the webmaster most of the information to be posted on the site. This person is typically a coach or manager.

Someone should take on the responsibility of sending the webmaster game scores. This person may be a coach or manager, but it may be better for someone else to do it, to relieve some of the coach’s or manager’s burden. Note : the webmaster can get game and playoff scores from the GTHL Games Centre, however, scores are often not posted there is a timely manner.

Someone — or several someones — should take on the responsibility of taking photos during games and / or tournaments. Team photographers should have digital cameras and know how to use them to full effect. Those who take action shots should have telephoto or zoom lenses — not digital zoom — because action shots are typically distance shots in which parts of the photos must be blown up, and a good lens is needed to ensure adequate picture quality.

Passwords

A team site has a password protected page named Confidential which has contact information that should be known only to staff, parents, and players. Coaches can choose the username and password needed to access this page, and must give this information to anyone who should be allowed to access the page.

A team site also has password protected Administrative pages: for details see “What are the administrative pages?”. Coaches can again choose the username and password needed to access these pages. Only one or two people authorized to use the administrative functions should know this username and password. Note : the username and password must not be the same as those for the Confidential page.

News Alerts

Someone who is authorized to access the administrative pages can post an urgent message on the site. This message, called a News Alert, goes on the site right away, without the webmaster being involved.

The News Alert appears in the News column on the team site’s News page, in distinctive colours which will immediately attract the attention of anyone going to the News page.

This is discussed in detail in “SPECIAL REPORT : News Alerts”.

Calendar Options

Coaches or managers may specify certain aspects of how information extracted rom the calendar is presented:

News Period : game results normally appear for the last 10 days in the News page’s News column; this number may be changed.
Upcoming Events Period : upcoming events normally appear for the next 10 days in the News page’s Upcoming Events column; this number may be changed.
Missing Game Result Notice : normally, if no game result has been reported to the webmaster within 3 days of the game’s completion, this is noted in the News page’s News column; the number of days may be changed.
Score Format : game results normally appear in the format OurScore―TheirScore, e.g. as 4―3 if your team won 4 to 3, and as 3―4 if your team lost by the same margin; this can be changed to the format HighScore―LowScore, e.g. as 4―3 if the winner had a score of 4 and the loser a score of 3.

The webmaster needs these types of information to create a new team site:

Messages and Documents
Information About People
Information About Sponsors
Information About Tournaments

Messages and Documents

The following should be provided:

Sponsorship Letter(s). There may be two letters: a form letter which may be given to any potential sponsor; and/or a customizable letter which must be edited for a particular potential sponsor. The letter(s) should be provided as early as possible to improve the odds of attracting sponsors.
Message for Sponsors (to appear on the Sponsors page). If no message is provided, the webmaster will create one from the Sponsorship Letter or the previous year’s message.

The following may also, optionally, be provided:

Vision Statement. If the first news format is used (see sidebar), the Vision Statement appears near the top of the Team page; otherwise it appears on the News page.
Mission Statement. If the first news format is used (see sidebar), the Mission Statement appears near the top of the Team page; otherwise it appears on the News page.
Message from the Coach. This welcomes parents and players to the team for the coming season, and will be put at the bottom of the Team page.
Team Budget. This would be put on the password protected Confidential page.

Other messages or documents of interest to the team may also be provided.

Information About People

Staff

These are needed about the coach, assistant coaches, manager, and any other team staff:

Names.
Uniform numbers.
Headshots: see discussion of photos, below).
Phone numbers, to be posted on the Contacts page.
Phone numbers, to be posted on the Confidential page (to be password protected).
Email addresses, to be posted on the Confidential page (to be password protected).

Parents

This is needed about the parents:

Names.
Phone numbers, to be posted on the Confidential page (to be password protected). For each number, indicate whether it is a home, cell, or work number.
Email addresses, to be posted on the Confidential page (to be password protected). For each address, indicate whether it is a home or work address.

Players

This is needed about the players:

Names.
Uniform numbers.
Headshots, to be posted on the Confidential page (to be password protected): See discussion of photos, below.

In addition, it is necessary to know how player names should be listed on the Team page, normally one of these choices:

First names only.
First names and initials of last names.
Full names.

Sponsor Logos

If the sponsor has a website, I can often get the logo from the site, though sometimes the site’s logo is too small, or too poor in quality.

If I can’t get a good logo from a sponsor’s site, I would prefer to be given an image file with a high resolution logo in a non-lossy format — such as EPS, TIFF, or truecolour PNG — or (less desireably) as a JPEG file saved with minimum compression.

Failing that, I would like something with a printed logo which I can scan, e.g. letterhead: but the image must not be printed on paper with a matte surface.

Note that it is my policy to make logos for the team site which are all about the same size, so that no sponsor will appear to be favoured.

Tournament Logos

Tournament logos present the same kinds of issues as sponsor’s logos, except that (a) tournament logos are usually much easier to find; and (b) the logos I make for the team site are larger than sponsors’s logos, normally four times the area.

Information About Sponsors

For each sponsor:

Name.
Address of website (if any).
Logo (if any). If the sponsor has a website, the webmaster will try to get the logo from the site. If this isn’t possible, the logo should be provided as a high-quality image file, or printed.

Information About Tournaments

For each tournament:

Start and end dates.
Name of tournament.
Address of tournament web page(s), if any. The webmaster will try to find the address from the name and dates provided, but sometimes this isn’t enough.
Tournament details. Sometimes available on tournament web pages, this includes:
- List of teams playing, organized by division of the teams are divided into divisions.
- Schedule.
- Hotel information (when appropriate).
- Maps provided by the tournament organizer.
The webmaster will try to find these details on the tournament’s website, but often the details aren’t posted on a website, but instead are emailed to the coach or manager by the tournament organizer prior to the tournament.

Sometimes news articles are published about teams which do especially well in tournaments, especially in Mississauga.com. When this happens, tell the webmaster: he will provide a link to the article on the tournament page, and quote the article on the Archive page..

To Maintain a Site

The webmaster needs this information to maintain a team site:

Conflicts & Incongruities

Sometimes the schedule may have conflicts: for example, a practice and a game may be scheduled at the same time. The schedule may also have suspicious incongruities: for example, a game may be scheduled during normal work hours.

To help people recognize such issues, this site offers a report of apparent conflicts and incongruities: coaches or managers should check this report regularly and deal with any which are real problems; for details, see “How can I check for possible problems in a team’s schedule?”.

In addition, if there is a conflict in the game schedule, the conflicts are red-flagged on the team site’s Games page.

Practices : dates, times, and locations of practices.
Games : dates, times, and locations of games.
Scores : results of games. A volunteer should be responsible for finding out what the result of each game is and informing the webmaster. Note : scores of regular games appear on the GTHL site, however, they often aren’t posted in a timely manner; this is why it is better for a volunteer to provide the scores.
Special Events : any other event which should appear in the calendar, for example, uniform fittings.
News Items : any news which should be posted on the News page.

Note : the webmaster will collect as much of this information as possible from other sites. For example, the webmaster will get the regular game schedule from the GTHL site.

Important Note : it is critical that the webmaster be notified of any changes in the information.

Photos

Making Photos

To make good web images I prefer good images to start with, which means good size, colour, and format. If I start with a flawed image, it will take more time to process it, the images I make may be poorer, and pages with the image will load more slowly.

Image Size

I prefer to start with images at least 3 times larger than web images I make, e.g, start with a 288 x 384 pixel photo (after I crop it) to make a 96 x 128 headshot.

Image Colour

I prefer colours which are close to correct. I fix many colour problems, but if I must guess colours, I may guess wrong.

Image Format

File formats are either lossless (quality not lost when a file is saved), or lossy (quality lost when a file is saved). With lossy formats like JPEG, degradation is worse when saved at higher compression levels, and worsens if loaded and saved again.

A digital camera can take quality photos, but the quality drops a lot if a photo is saved as a JPEG file with high compression. It is best to give me photos in a non-lossy format, or as JPEG files with minimum compression.

There are several types of photos which may appear on the team site. They include:

Headshots : these are head and shoulder photos of staff and players. For example:

Headshots of staff appear on several pages available to the general public, e.g. the Team and Contacts pages, and also on the Confidential page. Headshots of players appear only on the password protected Confidential page.
Action Shots : these are optional photos of players in action. For example:

Carefully selected action shots will be put in the photo album on the Photos page. Some of these may appear on other pages: for example, it is common to have a page with an action shot picked randomly from a set of action shots.
Team Photos : there should be at least one photo of the staff and players. For example:

It is nice to have a team photo after any tournament in which the team has done well: such photos would go on their respective tournament pages, and may go into the photo album.
Award Photos : these are optional photos of trophies, medals, and other awards.

These should be taken with a plain contrasting background so that details of the award are clear. Note : it is hard to take good photos of many awards, since shiny parts of the awards tend to reflect and take on the colours of nearby objects. It is possible to reliably take good photos of awards, but it requires equipment — a “white box” — which most people don’t have.

Several points should be noted about these photos:

Protecting the Players : when a photo of a player appears on a page available to the general public, the player won’t be identified; if any player must be identified, the photo will be put on a password protected page.
Photo Quality : photos must be of high quality, and image files sent to the webmaster must be sent in a format which maximizes photo quality. For example, if the image file is a JPEG file, it shouldn’t be saved using an option which reduces the size of the image file, since reducing the size of the file is achieved by degrading photo quality.