Post your ideas here:

Mine:

1 Keep the 1 month discard
2 Monthly trophy for winner not just the 4 seasonal cups, sponsored by different shop every month (or any business associated w GTC or GTC member)
3 More interactive website as proposed by Nebbs (please explain)

With the interactivity, I was thinking about stealing erm getting creative inspiration from Seabreeze and Facebook, amongst other things... These include:

* Thumbs for sessions, with a flag to report a suspicious looking result, that automatically sends a track request email to the sailor.
* If enough green thumbs (or 'like' buttons are clicked) then the session would be sent straight to the 'pool room', a region of the site where special tracks are posted. For example, Kato's massive 24 hour marathon would be a good candidate for this.
* Front page shows first few words of the first session for the team on that day, this means that it's easier to recognise a specific session
* Ability to have 'friends', so if they post, you will somehow be notified of this so you don't miss a session by one of your friends
* Backend admin changes as well so that team captains have more control over their team (ability to send password notifications, move team members between teams), also perhaps have a 'country coordinator' who can create teams and perhaps do some advertisements for the country

I'd be interested to hear some feedback or other ideas you creative sailors might have

Great work for 2010 guys!

For 2011 I would it be possible to have the gear, wind speed and direction included in the auto-upload from GPSSS as text in the footer of the session notes?

Team captain control over adding/moving members is a good idea, would deleted members still have their stats on record?

The thumbs for sessions idea is OK but I hope it won't replace the supportive comments which are very encouraging.

I would like to see PB's incorporated into the scoring system.
It is a great way for lesser sailors to contribute to the team, makes them try harder, and makes sailing more fun!
Perhaps you could subtract a fraction of a point from the team score for each PB?

Love the "Pool Room" idea!

A personal messaging system would be good.

Great ideas Hardie and Ben - fully supportive of them all.

My 2 cents:
1. The ability to select only latest sessions from any given country. It's been incredible that the rest of the world have taken the GPSTC on so enthusiastically although during some months (usually Northern hemisphere's summer) you can miss your team's posting due to the sheer volume of posts.
2. Everyone posts their session via KA72 so if there is any query anyone can download that session for independant checking (it is also nice to download someone's super session and have a look in awe of someone hitting +45 knots etc). Yes I know that there's no sheep stations involved but this puts everyone on a level playing field. Should KA72 give wildly differing results to users own software then it could be adjudicated by the team captain and /or GPSTC appointed tech crew and amended as necessary.

Keep up the excellent work guys and looking forward to the bigger and better GPSTC for 2011.
Merry xmas too.

The site is very clever, and is great due to the simplicity and efficiency. Whateer you do, keep it simple.

1. Show the PBs upon the sesion post. I generally find them only after the posting then edit the post.
2. I wouldn't mind seeing a number of visits (like the forums). It attracts people to the more interesting postings, (to complement the PB indicator)
3. Invite the international competitors to contribute ideas through their forums.

Could a feature be developed around peak speed that indicates where your peak speed is at relative to history?

So let me explain better, if you posted 31 knots for the first time the site would tell you Fred Haywood won the Windrush speed trials in 1980 doing 31knots on a 10m neilpryde prototype. it gives more context to the speed and makes it feel like an achievement and provides education around speed history better than PB. Then we could issue a Fred Haywood certificate PDF for fun in 1980 style.

Cheers Russ

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sausage said...

Great ideas Hardie and Ben - fully supportive of them all.

My 2 cents:
1. The ability to select only latest sessions from any given country. It's been incredible that the rest of the world have taken the GPSTC on so enthusiastically although during some months (usually Northern hemisphere's summer) you can miss your team's posting due to the sheer volume of posts.
2. Everyone posts their session via KA72 so if there is any query anyone can download that session for independant checking (it is also nice to download someone's super session and have a look in awe of someone hitting +45 knots etc). Yes I know that there's no sheep stations involved but this puts everyone on a level playing field. Should KA72 give wildly differing results to users own software then it could be adjudicated by the team captain and /or GPSTC appointed tech crew and amended as necessary.

Keep up the excellent work guys and looking forward to the bigger and better GPSTC for 2011.
Merry xmas too.

+1 except for using KA72. Nothing against KA72 but there are times when internet access is very slow and connecting to one site is bad enough.

Agree with Windxtasy that a PM system would be a good addition.

Like the gear spec idea, not sure how practical it is though from Nebb's point of view.

1 The Ability to only view Aussie sessions in the front page would be great
2 Make the image Gallery more prominent, perhaps a randomly featured photo slideshow somewhere on the front page
3 Keep the 1 month discard
4 A method of notifying whenever a teammate posts, perhaps a sound as I get frustrated on days I sail elsewhere to the rest of the team and spend half the night sitting in front of the computer waiting for everyone else to post

great work nebs and hardie,
What about an "away" game? ie bonus points for sailors/ teams who try out other teams spots. Might make for some interesting cross border raids!

I like a lot of the ideas so far.

Here is mine: more stats on a rider's banner - an extension of the total distance idea. Something like this:





Rider's total dist and PBs on the left and number of team contributions and PBs for that particular session on the right

Top job Nebbs and Hardie

Nic nack Paddymac that's a great idea. So the sailors PB's are listed next to total kms and (correct me if I've misinterpreted) if he/she is in the top two speeds of that session for any of the categories he/she receives attribution per category. I like it.

Also, just tried to do the numbers on maybe increasing the minimum numbers of sailors required from 2 to 3 to post a valid team session but it disadvantages the smaller teams and if a split rule was introduced where larger teams (say >20) needed 3 but smaller team s only needed two, this would disadvantage the larger teams. So just ignore my ramblings.

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Gaz45 said...

sausage said...

2. Everyone posts their session via KA72 ...................................

+1 except for using KA72. Nothing against KA72 but there are times when internet access is very slow and connecting to one site is bad enough.

Agree with Windxtasy that a PM system would be a good addition.

Gaz,
Once KA72 uploads to the GPSTC site you can shut down KA72 link and only be connected to one site. No need keeping KA72 open if it slows up your connection but it doesn't do an auto reload so it shouldn't be affecting download speed anyway.

So far I like...
1. Monthly trophy, although some teams will need bigger shelves.
2. I like the idea of PB scoring but not sure how it'd work, might give younger teams the thrill of a monthly trophy
3. All sessions to go through KA72 but with team captains checking PB's. If the KA72's site is slow how can we help or can GPSTC use KA72 software under licence.
4. Number of session visits, good to see what's topical as PB's don't always indicate an interesting session (I'm thinking those TSS driving around snow drifts to get to a spot with photos). Speaking of which, it would be good to know if anyone does see your posted photos & video.
5. Team mates session notification.
6. What Paddymac said, I do a lot of Pb checking to see if someone has had a good personal session or see if their Pb is a nice jump.

Also,
1. Is there a way to keep just photos in the image gallery as it's clogged with Google tracks, and yeh I post lots of tracks too.
2. Keep front page simple with maybe just the rankings, news and maybe as someone said a slideshow, keep the sessions on another page so they don't disappear so quick.
3. Encourage more profile photos.
4. If not already, is there a way to check back an all our personal data, not just the best 5 of each division. I'd like to work out my PB's for the dam, beach and reef etc.

Great work guys

Good night

I'd like to be able to see sessions that have gone off the bottom of the front page - a second page (or more) would be good.

We're going to be keeping you busy here Nebs. Sorry, but it will help a great site get even better.

Theres nothing wrong with the way it is now BUT -

The ideas I like are:

Only show sessions that match the filter selected (country or international) on the front page. The Sessions link up the top already gives the whole month of sessions.

When a PB is improved still show on the old session that this was a PB at the time (perhaps a different color?). This might be too difficult to do.

I like the idea of more information against each sailors name (I sometimes cant remember my own top speeds and have to go check them, let alone anyone elses).

What about number of posts this year as well ? (you know you want to see it Mark !)

Could we show if a score is in the top 5 for this sailor (ie (PB) bold for a PB as it is now, (pb2) not bold for your second best ever (pb3) etc.... - would draw attention to when someone has come within a ****teenth of a PB but not quite got it. Perhaps with different colors.

I sometimes wonder if my score made any difference to the teams standing, could there be a summary after you post of any affect it had, ie my normal posts it wouldn bother showing but sometimes it might display "team ranking for the month changed from x to y". If that ever popped up it would be a nice surprise ;-)

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Windxtasy said...

I'd like to be able to see sessions that have gone off the bottom of the front page - a second page (or more) would be good.

We're going to be keeping you busy here Nebs. Sorry, but it will help a great site get even better.

I think you get what you want if you click on the "Sessions" menu / heading at the top.

Just wondering whether we could also incorporate total distance for each team per month, year and overall? Not part of the comp, but be interesting to see the team miles to date somewhere and perhaps have a chart or table that ranks them. A bit like the Global Corporate Challenge, where people use GPS's to clock up (walk) miles for their team and in doing so work their way around the world.

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AUS02 said...

Just wondering whether we could also incorporate total distance for each team per month, year and overall? Not part of the comp, but be interesting to see the team miles to date somewhere and perhaps have a chart or table that ranks them. A bit like the Global Corporate Challenge, where people use GPS's to clock up (walk) miles for their team and in doing so work their way around the world.

Now that is a bloody good idea Even have Ben (who is just itching to do some mods to the system) plot a world sailing course, then each teams progress on that course as the K's get added, can see how far they have travelled, and who is in contention with each progressively. Yep, I know it will be a full on race to the end for some teams, but it would be worth the fun for each local teams to contend with each other.

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hardpole said...

Windxtasy said...

I'd like to be able to see sessions that have gone off the bottom of the front page - a second page (or more) would be good.

We're going to be keeping you busy here Nebs. Sorry, but it will help a great site get even better.

I think you get what you want if you click on the "Sessions" menu / heading at the top.

ah yes, it does. Thanks.
The reason I didn't realise that is because when you hover over 'sessions' the only thing that pops up in the drop down menu is 'image gallery'.

As long as I don't have to sail naked I'm happy (as would the greater community be as well)

Bit embarrassed by Hardz regularly whoopin me so much this year

I like all the suggestions.The GTC can only get better from here

I for one would like to see apples being compared to apples meaning all posts have to go through KA72 so everyones data goes through the same software. Besides its easier to then post to the GTC

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Bender said...

I like all the suggestions.The GTC can only get better from here

I for one would like to see apples being compared to apples meaning all posts have to go through KA72 so everyones data goes through the same software. Besides its easier to then post to the GTC

I think Gaz's comment about slow internet is valid as there is a difference between typing in the 5 numbers on GPS and uploading the whole track to KA72 for analysis. I know last summer I did some posts from a mobile phone after doing the calculationg in realspeed "offline". But lately I have been lazy and used KA72 to post, but thats only because my Realspeed license is on the wrong laptop

Sorry you asked, now!

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lao shi said...

Sorry you asked, now!

Will they all be ready for January, if not why not

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hardpole said...

Will they all be ready for January, if not why not

Yep should all be ready for January...



... 2012 [}:)]


Thanks for the feedback, please keep it coming.

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mineral1 said...
Now that is a bloody good idea Even have Ben (who is just itching to do some mods to the system) plot a world sailing course, then each teams progress on that course as the K's get added, can see how far they have travelled, and who is in contention with each progressively. Yep, I know it will be a full on race to the end for some teams, but it would be worth the fun for each local teams to contend with each other.

Great idea, must be cos your on holidays.

I like the 4 trophies, the month one might get a bit pricy and the one month discard worked well this year. We don,t use the KA72 site that much as most of us use realspeed and GPSSS to check the tracks, plus most of mine are a little large . This little comp that we all started is still proving to be a lot of fun and i,m looking forward to a clean slate next month to do it all again.

What would be a good idea: in the Individual Ranking section to have a Month filter like the (Team Ranking section has)
So you can see how you are performing against other sailors for that month.

I like the Pool Room idea.

Will we be able to download the tracks so we can sit and marvel at a 26K hour or a 25K Alpha?

My missus already reckons I ogle GPS tracks like porn, wait til I can start ogling other peoples

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Pointman said...


My missus already reckons I ogle GPS tracks like porn, wait til I can start ogling other peoples

Same - my wife says she cant wait to find me ogling real porn like a normal person rather than windsurfing..