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Varsity Blue

Visit the new Varsity Blue at http://www.umvarsityblue.com!

About a Board

The new Recruiting Board is up, so I thought I should go over some of the new features.

When Tim and I were discussing what would be ideal, we started thinking something that was basically a message board with each prospect getting his own thread. The only problem there was formatting the information and making it look nice and convey the information quickly. And then there are the issues of maintenance and moderation inherent in message boards.

It seemed like a hybrid would be the best solution, so now you can comment on each and everyone of the recruits individually. Any info or articles, rumors you've heard, an opinion/gut feeling you have, anything that could give a more rounded picture of the prospect can be posted there. You have to register, but that is really quick and no personal information is required (the registration link is at the bottom of the board as well as under the comments section- Tim). This helps prevents spambots from doing what they do and gives troll another hurdle.

I hope everyone will contribute so we can have a super complete, informative source for the 2009 class.

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“About a Board”

  1. Blogger pz Says:

    This is an absolutely fantastic idea / compilation.

    I can't figure out how to post just yet (likely browser-related), but great job.

  2. Blogger Max Says:

    It looks excellent.

    However, I think it could be even further improved if all recruits with new information were listed in bold text in the main board. Upon navigating to these recruits' threads, their names would then be listed in standard text on the main board. This would be, of course, on a user-to-user basis. Not sure if that's understandable, but I'm sure you're familiar with the Recruiting Planet system, which employs the feature I'm trying to describe.

    I have no idea how complex or labor-intensive it would be to employ this feature in the board, but I think it would be a fantastic addition if feasible.

  3. Blogger Tim Says:

    phillip,

    Make sure you registered a username at the bottom of the board, then you should be able to add your own comments.

    Max,

    I understand what you're saying (have only prospects with news you haven't seen in bold), but am not sure how easy that would be to accomplish, since Paul coded essentially the whole thing by hand.

    As the kinks get worked out, we'll try to add that feature.

  4. Anonymous Anonymous Says:

    Awesome work guys! This site just gets better and better every week. The reporting/writing/updates are top notch.

    I check back every few hours to read the new posts. Keep up the good work.

  5. Blogger Paul Says:

    I forgot to post this in the original, but I wrote about more of the technical stuff and challenges here.

    One of the things that has been giving me problems is some way of showing updates. I haven't really been able to find a way to do it on a per user basis. What if there was something that showed what had been updated in the last 24 or 48 hours?

    There could also be some sort of ticker with the most recently updated players. I don't know. I'll probably demo a few different things in the coming days/weeks.

  6. Blogger pz Says:

    I did get logged in yesterday and again today (pz is the handle), but I still can't post.

    When I click on a player's name, a white pop-in comes up and grays out the board, but its just a white box with "close or ESC key" in the upper right corner. No other fields or anything where I'm able to type.

    I'm blaming it on lame IE6 on my work computer. Ugh.

  7. Anonymous Anonymous Says:

    the one problem that i have with your board is that it doesnt include a column about the prospects interest in michigan and the other schools in contention