Help Us Build FanLax

[dislaxxic]

I guess the spell checker is tougher than originally thought, or maybe just down the list of priorities at this point.

It's no big deal at all...just a curiosity of mine...

..

[admin]

I looked into it and... LaxPower was using very old systems. As in, we'd be hard-pressed to find older systems. Today, no one makes them for these types of forums because the internet browsers do it already. 20 years ago, this was not the case. I found a couple but there for a much older version and the person who made it doesn't offer support. I think it's too risky. I apologize. But I did look into it.

[dislaxxic]

Can we fix this annoying issue?

Typing A.L.L. (without the periods) results in this weirdness: ALL

Why?

It's the "a" and the "l", only in CAPS: ALL

ALMOST

ALWAYS

..

[admin]

ALL

Thanks for the heads-up, Dis.

[admin]

Functionality where I can go to the PA High School Lacrosse Page and click on Haverford's 2016 schedule and say, "Wow, Culver beat them twice. I wonder if they went undefeated" so I click on Culver and then I click on Culver in 2015 and then etc., this is not simple to create.

1- This information is not readily available.
2- There's between 3 and 4 thousand HS teams. And that's just the HS boys. We also want to do this for the girls and D3 and...
3- And even after you collect all this information, which is not simple, we need to create the links from Haverford to Culver to Culver in 2015 to McDonogh to...

So, I've been digging and digging and then scratching my head and then digging and digging etc. and... We're making progress. Creating this took me hours, not days. This is only 2016, it doesn't have the game scores (just Ws and Ls... first person to complain about this gets a punch in the throat), and... Take a look. Here's Haverford in 2016.

[NYsectionI]

I would very much like to see this website have as many members as Laxpower.

Two questions/suggestions:

1) I suspect there is some confusion with this site in that it's called FanLax.com, but the web address is lummys.com. Is there any possibility of having the primary web address changed to Fanlax.com?

2) Is there any possibility of the ownership of Laxpower adding information about FanLax.com to their termination page that presently states:

"After more than 20 years of service to the lacrosse community, we are sorry to say LaxPower is hanging up its pads and stowing its stick on Aug 28, 2018. Nothing great can last forever, and we’d like to thank the entire community for its support"?

[admin]

NYSecI:
1 is definitely do-able. it's just a question of how we do it. with out going through all the pros and cons, in the coming weeks, if not days, i plan to create a fanlax subdirectory. this way, when people come to the site, they'll see fanlax.lummys.com/whatever/other/subfolders. we could also just create a stand alone fanlax.com website but then we'll lose all our SEO (Google and other search engines) benefits. and it'll take some time, probably after the 2019 season starts, for it to get some real traction.

2 is highly doubtful. With this said, I do have an idea but... It won't work, if it works at all, until after this coming season. bottomline, for this coming season, word'll need to spread in other ways. which, as the lacrosse world isn't that big a world, shouldn't be so hard.

3 you don't have a 3 but i'm adding a 3. the number of users at LaxPower dropped for many years. we pointed a finger at Active, especially in the final year when they created a horrible app and asked for $, but the reality was that the number of members started dropping as soon as LaxPower lost their lacrosse information monopoly. And this was well before Active made their presence felt. the market changed and LaxPower did not. In other words, you said, I want the same number of people as LaxPower. I want to change your language slightly. I also want the same number of people as LaxPower and, also, I want to reverse the downward spiraling numbers that were present before the website was shutdown. And, to do this, we need to do more than a copy-and-paste. We need to do more. SO... Two good ideas. thank you. But bring us more. e.g. Thinking out-of-the-box, What can we do re: Section I (and all of NY HS Lacrosse) that'll make FanLax the must-go-to lacrosse hang-out/party for NY HS Lacrosse fans.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

What is a lummys anyway?

[admin]

It's actually Lummy's but domain names don't have apostrophes so... Lummys. Lummy's Garage.

[Cooter]

2 is highly doubtful. With this said, I do have an idea but... It won't work, if it works at all, until after this coming season. bottomline, for this coming season, word'll need to spread in other ways. which, as the lacrosse world isn't that big a world, shouldn't be so hard.

3 you don't have a 3 but i'm adding a 3. the number of users at LaxPower dropped for many years. we pointed a finger at Active, especially in the final year when they created a horrible app and asked for $, but the reality was that the number of members started dropping as soon as LaxPower lost their lacrosse information monopoly. And this was well before Active made their presence felt. the market changed and LaxPower did not. In other words, you said, I want the same number of people as LaxPower. I want to change your language slightly. I also want the same number of people as LaxPower and, also, I want to reverse the downward spiraling numbers that were present before the website was shutdown. And, to do this, we need to do more than a copy-and-paste. We need to do more. SO... Two good ideas. thank you. But bring us more. e.g. Thinking out-of-the-box, What can we do re: Section I (and all of NY HS Lacrosse) that'll make FanLax the must-go-to lacrosse hang-out/party for NY HS Lacrosse fans.

I thought another thing that happened with laxpower forum was the moderation became a lot more tight. Often posts got deleted. I don't say this is a bad thing, but some of the fun of the early days of laxpower forum was talking "crap".
I realize that one does not wish to sink much money into such a forum, but you might look into placing a small advertisement on prominent lacrosse sites during the season. Of course, there are various free places, like other forums, you could try.

One of the top features of a forum like this is bringing together the fans of a lot of teams. If I just wish to discuss UMd lacrosse, I can create a lacrosse thread on a general UMd forum, and of course, UVA and Syracuse have their own lacrosse forums, so I think getting more general threads that involve fans from many teams is important, and posters need to contribute on them.

For example, not much of a contribution on the 2019 Faceoff rankings thread; the knowledgeable, long-time fans from laxpower need to get involved more on these threads. One needs to get where D1 lacrosse fans start thinking, "I need to see what the fans on fanlax think of these rankings."

[admin]

Cooter, agreed on all fronts. (1) When the party first changed location, many people were expressing the same moderation sentiment. Moderation became personal, too tight, etc. The odds are extremely slim that this will happen here. At the same time, the forum won't be the wild west. In the early goings here, there was some rowdiness (which was actually appreciated so we could figure out where we should draw lines) and... I think we're in a good place. Bottomline, for sure talk crap. The general rule is do what you'd do on a lacrosse field. And, if you cross a line, not the end of the world. Just time in the penalty box. 1 Minute Penalty (for unsportsman-like conduct or whatever) = 2 Days. Again, I think we're in a good place. (2) Ads, posts, articles, etc. All good ideas and all possible. Bottomline, we most certainly will have a presence outside of the walls of FanLax. That's one aspect of LP that I'm confident that we can improve upon. LP never embraced social media. FanLax can improve upon this. When the site is more buttoned-up and as we approach the season. (3) This is definitely an aspect that I think about. At the least, we can have a terps thread within the D1 Men's forum, etc. Basically, the same as LP. But we can do more (if we want). And at least we should think about it so that we're choosing the least as opposed to falling into it due to apathy. So... The Forum is the forum. I have some thoughts about how to better integrate the FanLax website with the FanLax Forum but... The forum is the forum. I'm working on the website. Already have a bunch of good content. (One thing I liked about LP was that it was like a Lacrosse Museum. Lots of great info and archives. We have a lot of that stuff already. And we're adding more. e.g. Halfway done with capturing all the boys HS games from 2001-2018 with the links to the opponents of each HS, etc. (The HS schedules are monsters. 4,00 teams playing 10 games each, etc. Not simple. But we're getting there.) Already have the college stuff. Men and women, D1, D2, D3, NJCAA, NAIA, etc.) But, for obvious reasons, this is all historical data. So my thoughts are with relation to historical and current (in-season) data. e.g. MIAA HS Boys. Or Syracuse. i created these two but... I'd prefer if MIAA, SU, etc. fans managed these pages. (It's easy for me to give post-ers full access to these pages without them having access to the entire website.) This is UMD's current page. Obviously a work-in-progress at this point. So post-ers will be able to create a good page for their favorite team, conference, etc. and... The Forum is limited in terms of making a good looking chart or whatever. With a webpage, you can do so much more. Whatever the person wants to post. (4) Lastly, "I need to see what the fans on fanlax think of these rankings."... 100%. For what it's worth, I've looked at the LaxPower Forum archives and our current forum numbers are very similar to LP's during December of 2017. Bottomline, December is slow and, all but guaranteed, February will be very different. 99% of my thoughts are 'it's fine that we are where we are as long as we're ready for February.' But, December aside, 100%. At LP, by far, the best thing about the website was the forum and the posts within it yet, the forum was positioned backstage. that doesn't make sense to me. I have several ideas how to remedy this but... I want to move the forum to frontstage. e.g. If there's a good post or thread, this should be expressed on the homepage. For that matter, this should be expressed on a completely different website/forum/page via a social media post. I feel strongly that the post-ers, though obviously not all, are as strong if not stronger than any lacrosse pundit. And, if this is the case, why not treat the post-ers accordingly. Anyway, some thoughts, I've typed too much, thank you for letting me think out loud and... It's good to see you, Cooter. The party wouldn't be the same without you.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Keep in mind, LP wasn’t built in a day, and it evolved, then devolved and died.

This place has the potential to be far better.

[Matnum PI]

I think FanLax will never be better than LP. If for no other reason, because the good deeds of the dead get exaggerated over time. But I think FanLax can fill a need and can be a really good asset for the lacrosse world. If nothing else, I think FanLax can be smarter and more fun than the others. But we'll see...

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

I think FanLax will never be better than LP. If for no other reason, because the good deeds of the dead get exaggerated over time. But I think FanLax can fill a need and can be a really good asset for the lacrosse world. If nothing else, I think FanLax can be smarter and more fun than the others. But we'll see...

You need a business model. For years, damn near a decade, LP didn’t have one.

Second, I absolutely do think this place can be more fun and definitely better.

There were deep problems within LP. There’s a reason why it died.

Correction: many major reasons. Many self-inflicted.

Some know bits and pieces. Others have blind spots to the whole mess.

Anyway, when I have more time, I’ll try to explain further.

W

[DMac]

WOMBAT wrote
There were deep problems within LP. There’s a reason why it died.

Correction: many major reasons. Many self-inflicted.

Please, with all of your insight, what, pray tell, can you enlighten us all with? Here, maybe I can help you get started,
LP died for one reason and one reason only - Active pulled the plug after their aborted and ill-conceived money grab of a mobile app failed miserably. This was totally predictable as they did ZERO customer research before proceeding - they thought they could gouge everyone like they did for the mobile swimming app (which was a totally different market, application and business model), you can take it from there.
For someone who found LP and its gestapo like Moderates to be such a distasteful place to hang out, you just can't let the place go, can you? You hung out there for an awfully long time for someone who finds nothing but fault with the place. Which reminds me, don't forget to mention yourself on your list of "deep problems", as you ranked number one in most complaints received from your fellow Hop posters as being a distraction and adding nothing to the thread. Just lettin' ya know. Pretty hard to not notice none of that behavior going on here...interesting, particularly when coming from LP's harshest critic.
Also hard to not notice nary a word from you about your long time friend (well, used to be friend anyway) Lax Fi's passing. Odd. Well, odd to some/many maybe, but not to me. Seems as if your harsh words and criticisms ended that relationship the same way you're ending it with LP (a little insight from me). Your MO, I guess.
Looking forward to all of your words of advice as to how to best, and properly, run FanLax. Couldn't find a more a more dedicated and trustworthy person to help it along.
Good luck, and best wishes.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

WOMBAT wrote
There were deep problems within LP. There’s a reason why it died.

Correction: many major reasons. Many self-inflicted.

Please, with all of your insight, what, pray tell, can you enlighten us all with? Here maybe I can help you get started,
LP dies for one reason and one reason only - Active pulled the plug after their aborted and ill-conceived money grab of a mobile app failed miserably. This was totally predictable as they did ZERO customer research before proceeding - they thought they could gouge everyone like they did for the mobile swimming app (which was a totally different market, application and business model), you can take it from there.
For someone who found LP and its gestapo like Moderates to be such a distasteful place to hang out, you just can't let the place go, can you? You hung out there for an awfully long time for someone who finds nothing but fault with the place. Which reminds me, don't forget to mention yourself on your list of "deep problems", as you ranked number one in most complaints received from your fellow Hop posters as being a distraction and adding nothing to the thread. Just lettin' ya know. Pretty hard to not notice none of that behavior going on here...interesting, particularly when coming from LP's harshest critic.
Also hard to not notice nary a word from you about your long time friend (well, used to be friend anyway) Lax Fi's passing. Odd. Well, odd to some/many maybe, but not to me. Seems as if your harsh words and criticisms ended that relationship the same way you're ending it with LP (a little insight from me). Your MO, I guess.
Looking forward to all of your words of advice as to how to best, and properly, run FanLax. Couldn't find a more a more dedicated and trustworthy person to help it along.
Good luck, and best wishes.

You’re full of it Dmac.

I’ve been highly complimentary of what lots of folks did, and have stated so repeatedly, throughout the years.

Like to know what I’ve been doing this week?

For one, compiling a list of LaxFi’s usernames.

I had all 20+ of them.

But why don’t YOU go cuss out another bot, and start throwing fits at me including going so low that you’d bring Bob up.

[DMac]

WOMBAT wrote
There were deep problems within LP. There’s a reason why it died.

Correction: many major reasons. Many self-inflicted.

Please, with all of your insight, what, pray tell, can you enlighten us all with? Here maybe I can help you get started,
LP dies for one reason and one reason only - Active pulled the plug after their aborted and ill-conceived money grab of a mobile app failed miserably. This was totally predictable as they did ZERO customer research before proceeding - they thought they could gouge everyone like they did for the mobile swimming app (which was a totally different market, application and business model), you can take it from there.
For someone who found LP and its gestapo like Moderates to be such a distasteful place to hang out, you just can't let the place go, can you? You hung out there for an awfully long time for someone who finds nothing but fault with the place. Which reminds me, don't forget to mention yourself on your list of "deep problems", as you ranked number one in most complaints received from your fellow Hop posters as being a distraction and adding nothing to the thread. Just lettin' ya know. Pretty hard to not notice none of that behavior going on here...interesting, particularly when coming from LP's harshest critic.
Also hard to not notice nary a word from you about your long time friend (well, used to be friend anyway) Lax Fi's passing. Odd. Well, odd to some/many maybe, but not to me. Seems as if your harsh words and criticisms ended that relationship the same way you're ending it with LP (a little insight from me). Your MO, I guess.
Looking forward to all of your words of advice as to how to best, and properly, run FanLax. Couldn't find a more a more dedicated and trustworthy person to help it along.
Good luck, and best wishes.

You’re full of it Dmac.
Perhaps. Not regarding the topic at hand though.
I’ve been highly complimentary of what lots of folks did, and have stated so repeatedly, throughout the years.
Throughout the years doesn't include the years I hung around there. Look no further than your initial posts right here when you were singing hallelujah while letting us all know what an evil lot the Moderators at LP were, and how poorly the place was run. Didn't sound too complimentary to me despite the fun and informative little playground they created where a whole lot of good folks hung out for quite a long time.
Like to know what I’ve been doing this week?

For one, compiling a list of LaxFi’s usernames.

I had all 20+ of them.
Had? I think you're a little heavy with the 20+ but maybe I'll be proven wrong when you post the list.

But why don’t YOU go cuss out another bot, and start throwing fits at me including going so low that you’d bring Bob up.

BFD, I cussed out a bot. Almost made it into the penalty box for it too.....Moderator and all that, ya know.
Throwing fits at you? These kind of words coming from the guy who says all those those Mods at LP could dish it out but can't take it? Figured you'd be more of a what goes around comes around kind of guy.
"Going so low"? I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Bob from the time of his diagnoses til the end. Including when he was getting his last six hour double dose of chemo. Was glad to be his entertainment for a couple of those hours while he was hooked up to the drip. Sounded pretty good and upbeat. Not the next time though, I heard the voice I'm all too familiar with as one who has experienced the ordeal he went through a couple of times with family members (including a mighty young one). The nurse took the phone away from him to end that call, guess she figured talking on the phone was a bit too strenuous for him at that point. I wouldn't be surprised if I were the last LPer he spoke with.
"So low"? Not so much, I think it's more like one of those reaping what you sow kind of deals.

[admin]

Active's app money grab before shutting off the lights were the last events. But these events were not what caused the demise of LP. LP was dying a slow death for many years. In terms of HS Boys Schedules, HS Girl's Schedules, College Schedules including D1, D2, D3, NJCAA, NAIA, etc. as well as the corresponding Forum numbers, the decline in team participation as well as forumites started over a decade ago and the numbers are not subtle. The app money grab was Active's last ditch effort to recoup some of their investment.

[WOMBAT, Mod Emeritus]

Active's app money grab before shutting off the lights were the last events. But these events were not what caused the demise of LP. LP was dying a slow death for many years. In terms of HS Boys Schedules, HS Girl's Schedules, College Schedules including D1, D2, D3, NJCAA, NAIA, etc. as well as the corresponding Forum numbers, the decline in team participation as well as forumites started over a decade ago and the numbers are not subtle. The app money grab was Active's last ditch effort to recoup some of their investment.

Admin,

I’ll take up the conversation with you by PM since I now have the absolute lowest form of ankle-biter nipping at me whenever I post.

Some people can’t handle some discussions, obviously.

Blown away by DMac. God’s apparent gift to FL. Bringing up Bob.

Can you put him on a LONG timeout for a little introspection?

I have done nothing to deserve the crap thrown at me by him over the past several months.

W

[DMac]

Active's app money grab before shutting off the lights were the last events. But these events were not what caused the demise of LP. LP was dying a slow death for many years. In terms of HS Boys Schedules, HS Girl's Schedules, College Schedules including D1, D2, D3, NJCAA, NAIA, etc. as well as the corresponding Forum numbers, the decline in team participation as well as forumites started over a decade ago and the numbers are not subtle. The app money grab was Active's last ditch effort to recoup some of their investment.

Admin,

I’ll take up the conversation with you by PM since I now have the absolute lowest form of ankle-biter nipping at me whenever I post.
What's the deal with that? Am pretty sure you're the one who wanted PMs to be put up for public reading. I've got that right, right? Put everyone's undies out on the line, dirty ones and all.

There are lower forms than ankle biters, but you knew that.
Some people can’t handle some discussions, obviously.
Yes, obviously.

Blown away by DMac. God’s apparent gift to FL. Bringing up Bob.
I the gift? I'm not the savior who is going to take FL from the oppressive environment, run by a bunch of folks who can dish it out but can't take it, that was LP. Pretty sure you're the one who is going to do that.

I'm okay with bringing Bob up, really don't think he'd mind at all.
Can you put him on a LONG timeout for a little introspection?
This is confusing. Completely contradictory to what you espouse...having been treated so harshly, and unfairly, and all.
I have done nothing to deserve the crap thrown at me by him over the past several months.
Figure there are some folks at LP who feel the same?
W

Probably be better if these kind of pizzin contests were restricted to PMs, eh?
You wouldn't see this going on at LP, which seems pretty reasonable and sensible to me.
Guess that feels oppressive and unfair to others though.
I'm all done with this now, feel free to tell everyone what a poorly run place LP was, and what a bunch of jerk-s ran the place, with no interference from me.