Scott Willson
Couldn't agree more that openness and sharing data is good for everyone. Just speaking for the technical side of things, we're limited by time and privacy. The OBRA Application Programming Division is: me … after I finish my day job, get a ride in, and put my daughter to bed. We also need to ensure we don't share people's private info. And lastly, even the best ideas don't prove out in practice, and even simple ideas take longer than you expect. That's the way it goes with writing software. I know it can be frustrating and puzzling, but good ideas often aren't put into practice because they are harder than they look. Not because anyone disagrees.
Cheers,
Scott
On Feb 9, 2013, at 1:57 PM, rondot@spiritone.com wrote:
> ...and as Brooke so CLEARLY pointed out... OBRA needs to be open to other paths instead of “my way or highway” mentality of some other racing organization (usac maybe). No need playing the bully game.
> Make it work people. My Athletepath experience was about as painless as reg. with OBRA. And from the timeline of getting results posted, there must have been very few problems. I sense this is more discussion to get as many wrinkles out instead of trying to skewer different paths of registration. Right?
> ronnie
>
> From: David Saltzberg
> Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2013 10:25 AM
> To: obra@list.obra.org ; sarah.s.tisdale@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [OBRA Chat] Online registration service charge
>
> For David Douglas CX #1 we had 522 racers. 275 used the Athletepath pre-reg service. We had exactly 18 registration "problems" at the end of the day. That's 3.4% of total registrants. A vast majority of the "problems" were either 'day of' registrants or those that were new to the system (eg. they registered and bought a membership on Thursday night and raced on Saturday). It takes time to process membership and assign an OBRA number to a new racer. The burden of chasing down and correcting these registration problems usually always falls on the promoter shoulders. We gladly responded to this and handled all of the issues for that race. There wasn't an undue burden on the OBRA staff as far as I understand in this instance.
>
> We had a handful of unique problems. For example a woman racer registered the day of with her married name but she was listed in the OBRA database with her maiden name.
>
> As far as polluting or corrupting the master database, the solution is simple. Use the OBRA membership number as the key idenifier. Regardless of where the registration start list comes from (OBRA, BikeReg.com, Athletepath, or hand written) the only batch of data that should be used to create the scoring sheet should be the OBRA membership number. The current CX Roster uses this exact system to assign bib numbers in the fall. The OBRA membership number is typed into a blank table and with a simple Excel Vlookup function it grabs all of the racers pertinent data from the membership tab. There is no need to import, overlay, or co-mingle any new database info.
> We plan to use a similar system to create start lists this year.
>
> So to recap, most of the issues come from new memberships. In the past we've coordinated and worked well with OBRA officials to make sure that these people are included in a timely manner so the results are accurate. I'm not sure how this "online registration penalty" would solve the membership issue.
> I think things work well now. We just need to continue to work together to insure that use of any system doesn't create additional work.
>
> David
>
> > From: "Sarah Tisdale"
> > Date: Feb 9, 2013 8:30 AM
> > Subject: Re: [OBRA Chat] Online registration service charge
> > To: "obra"
> > Cc:
> >
> > How about charging non-OBRA registrars $N for each mistake?
> >
> > 1. Require non-OBRA registrars to provide OBRA license number for every registrant. As said above, that should make data checking a no-brainer.
> >
> > 2. Charge $5 for each mistake. Maybe give them 3 free mistakes if you're feeling generous.
> >
> > This allows non-OBRA registrars, but gives them a strong incentive to use the existing API to check their data. We don't put non-OBRA registrars out of business. OBRA gets good data.
> >
> > Problem solved?
> >
> > Sarah
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 6:58 PM, Josh Spivey wrote:
> >>
> >> I’ll admit, I’ve never registered a race as an organizer or an official, but quite a few times as a racer. What I’m suggesting is that OBRA IS, in fact, the only system to register events, but that the system itself is available to third party implementation and/or use. Again, I don’t know in what ways other people are registering racers, and getting that information to OBRA. But if a racer has an ID number, accessing accurate details about them from OBRA’s DB should be a no-brainer. This eliminates misspellings and wrong team details.
> >>
> >> Athletepath is using OBRA’s API’s I believe. And they do sometimes register races there. If they had an API to send registration details to OBRA to “hold” for the respective races (sans fee), then I’m assume they would use it. After all, they want their race reports to be accurate too. And the often aren’t because people are registered under more than one name or team.
> >>
> >> I thought that my post was jiving almost completely with your points below. Perhaps something is lost in my interpretation of what the problem is. That has happened to me before :) I was trying to be realistic to both sides and saying that if you didn’t use the system provided, you should have pay the cost for extra work for OBRA.
> >>
> >> Sorry if I spoke out of turn, or offended. I’m really trying to be helpful in thinking about how to solve this from a technology standpoint. We have ipads and laptops and smart phones and all kinds of stuff that should make this really seamless and inexpensive. In a former life, I did a few long years of database integration online. It was terribly tedious, but also very amazing to see what could be done, for free...ish .
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 2/8/13 4:59 PM, "Mike Murray" wrote:
> >>
> >>> I think this is an interesting conversation but it appears to me that it is lacking in experience in actual race registration. I can’t speak from a programming point of few but I can from other viewpoints:
> >>>
> >>> Racer - Online registration MIGHT help avoid registration lines but only if the race organizer sets things up so you don’t need to check in day-of-race or, at the very least makes the sign in process easier than the full registration process. If there is an extra monetary cost this quickly surpasses the benefit of registration ease. There is also the added risk that plans change and you don’t go to the race which would generally mean you lose your registration money. If there is a possibility that the race will fill and you can assure your spot which is an occasional benefit. If the race offers a discount for preregistration this is a benefit. The surcharge for use of the system is a cost.
> >>>
> >>> Race organizer – Online simplifies accounting, produces fewer checks that have to be dealt with and gives you an idea of how many participants you will have. This is more important for a race with a large number of participants and less important for a smaller race. It may also let you collect some money prior to the race which is always good. Entry fees can be set to push participants towards preregistration but at the cost of losing day-of-race registration.
> >>>
> >>> Official – Life gets a whole lot easier if you have a clean list of who is actually at the race. Even better if this comes in a digital form so that it can be fed into the various computer scoring processes without data entry time. Often officials will not get a clean list, or even any list. Many times it will be a hand written sheet. Generally this will not arrive until the race is already in progress when you have lots to do anyhow.
> >>>
> >>> I think that what Candi was pointing out with her initial proposal was primarily from the official’s point of view. If the race organizer uses the OBRA registration system then the official can down load the registration list which is accurate, or at least in concordance with the information in the OBRA membership database (name spelled the same, team same as database, correct age, category, etc.) It comes out in a format that can be loaded into the scoring processes easier. If another registration system is used then it ends up being pretty much as though there was only day-of-race registration. The officials get a printed list that will require data entry. Even if it comes in a digital format it will require reworking to input it scoring tools. There will be errors introduced during the non-OBRA registration and then more with the at site data entry. The data entry and error correction may make it so that the official has a much longer day and then time spent for several days afterwards correcting these errors.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Mike Murray
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> From: obra-bounces@list.obra.org [mailto:obra-bounces@list.obra.org] On Behalf Of Josh Spivey
> >>> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2013 17:59
> >>> To: Scott Willson; obra@list.obra.org
> >>> Subject: Re: [OBRA Chat] Online registration service charge
> >>>
> >>> If OBRA provides the only registration solution, it should be open to promoters to use directly. If it’s pen and paper, that costs money every time. If that money is invested in a technology solution, it should pay for itself over time. It feels just like credit card processing to me. You enter some info, the information has to go to Visa at some point, and then a “good” or “bad” is returned. You do pay a fee for these transactions. Most places absorb the fee (which is another point I might bring up about OBRA registration), in the price of the product. Others are transparent about the cost.
> >>>
> >>> A technology solution that routes registration details directly to OBRA and back, via a gateway, seems obvious. If the promoter is taking registrations on the day of the race, they should have an easy way to provide those details online to OBRA. If they are taking registrations via online source, those details should be directly fed to OBRA, via the gateway and returned. If the user is already an OBRA member, all OBRA should need is their ID number. Promoters simply send the ID (similar to a credit card gateway), and blammo! There should be no need for any details that are not necessary to be transmitted to the promoter. OBRA takes the ID number, then accesses the details in their private database, sends back only the details that are necessary for the promoter’s spreadsheet of racers. What the promoter does with those details, either hand writes them, or uses the details to populate their own database is up to the promoter.
> >>>
> >>> OBRA could provide a registration form that promoters could use on their site. Or if promoters wanted to make the form sexier, they could pay for it to be developed using OBRA’s API’s. Probably not more than a day’s work for a qualified person. If OBRA chose to charge a fee for the use of this system to help offset the cost of it’s development, it would not seem unreasonable. But this cost could be part of overall race fees paid to OBRA.
> >>>
> >>> I realize that OBRA is a small overall venture, so I’m not suggesting huge investments in stuff like this. There may already be Ruby libraries that would allow this to come together fairly seamlessly. There are some security concerns with the data, but nothing that can’t be overcome I’m sure.
> >>>
> >>> Sorry. That’s more than the 2 cents worth I planned on giving.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 2/7/13 4:49 PM, "Scott Willson" wrote:
> >>> OBRA does provide API access to public information. Examples:
> >>>
> >>> http://obra.org/people.json?name=mike+murray
> >>>
> >>> http://obra.org/people/60/2012
> >>> http://obra.org/people/60/2012.json
> >>> http://obra.org/people/60/2012.xml
> >>>
> >>> http://obra.org/events/20130/results
> >>> http://obra.org/events/20130/results.json
> >>> http://obra.org/events/20130/results.xml
> >>>
> >>> https://obra.org/teams/925/2012
> >>> https://obra.org/teams/925/2012.json
> >>> https://obra.org/teams/925/2012.xml
> >>>
> >>> https://obra.org/events.json
> >>>
> >>> The API is focused on results, rather than registration:
> >>> Coding the API is volunteer effort (open source, though! http://racingonrails.rocketsurgeryllc.com) and volunteers have been interested in results
> >>> Any registration company would need to pay developers to write custom code to integrate with OBRA
> >>> We have to respect OBRA member's privacy, so we can't share things like phone number and address that would be useful to another registration service
> >>>
> >>> I haven't publicized this part of the site much, sorry!
> >>>
> >>> Scott
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Feb 6, 2013, at 8:05 PM, Steve Westberg wrote:
> >>> Personally, I like some of the other registration systems as they provide other information that OBRA does not. Many of them also help to publicize events which hopefully leads to more riders and more exposure for OBRA. More riders having more fun...
> >>>
> >>> Isn't more work for everyone caused by day-of registrations? I know of more than a few races that have more than half of the racers sign up the day of the race. Maybe to make things easier for OBRA officials we should eliminate day-of registrations...(Candi - just kidding - but saying it to make a point).
> >>>
> >>> Regardless of what is done in this area, I would hope that OBRA would seek first to work together as partners with the other registration providers to improve information exchange. I am sure that most providers would see OBRA as a valued customer and would welcome the opportunity to help find solutions.
> >>>
> >>> Making unilateral decisions without involving partners sounds like what another group is trying to do to us...
> >>>
> >>> Thanks.
> >>>
> >>> Steve Westberg, CPA CHC MBA
> >>>
> >>> ________________________________
> >>>
> >>>
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