CANADA FOOTBAG

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 10 Nov 2004 22:12

it's an A, and i think you mean jonzy's lonely town of kelowna. agreed though, i wouldn't dump the hackrifice website, but i would with out a doubt be more than willing to write/ moderate/ film/ etc. for an all canada website.

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 10 Nov 2004 22:37

Biographies on all the freestylers in Canada would be so hard though Erik. I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of people willing to do it but there are those who are lazy, busy, or whatever, and don't participate. It may be easier just to get a club bio with only a few specs on the players.

As to how we can represent these clubs, that's a tough question. I like the map and coloured dot idea - interactive would be awesome if possible. You can click on a dot and it gives you the club, number of players, status of the club (if it's an active club or something?), contact information and from there you can either choose to get more specifics on the club (player names, local kicking times, etc etc) or if you want to see info on another.

Who would host the videos though? With so many players/clubs, there'd have to be a huge amount of space available - unless each club has like a premeir video showcasing it's players and each player's talent within a few minutes?

ianek · Post by **ianek** » 10 Nov 2004 22:42

Noah Dubreuil : no one in montreal know that guy, Sebastien see him once and it was about 6 years ago.

world's in Montreal : 96, 98 and 04

mosher · Post by **mosher** » 10 Nov 2004 23:06

Erik Chan wrote:Hey pay attention -- there's a SCENE in Toronto

I'm not quite sure what a footbag Canada site would entail. I mean I wouldn't abandon Hackrifice -- I would like to be a part of both. What could be unique about a footbag Canada site from a footbag Ontario or Winnipeg footbag site? Let's list ideas:

-biographies of ALL players
-video collections from ALL Canadian sites (and of ALL Canadian players)
-links to Canadian shredsites
-(we could claim Modified because Jer lives Toronto and it's a Canadian forum) -- that's mostly a joke...

What would seperate sections for each province contain? I think the coolest part about a footbag Canada site would be the uniting of all Canadian freestyers -- seperating the site doesn't really help accomplish that purpose. It would be neat to have a map of Canada, though. There could be lit up dots of cities to represent freestyler population. There could be different coloured city dots for different levels of freestyler population (Ie: Brantford and Montreal would be RED, while Byrin's lonely town and Kelowna would be, like...white.)

Ideas, ideas, ideas...

One reason why http://www.footbag.ca doesn't represent us very well: at the "Canadian Open" players were expected to shred on GRASS...

EDIT: I rewrote "seperate", like, 10 times -- is it "E" or "A"?? Neither looks right!!!...
EDIT 2: We could also have a Canadian BAP section/list! Yeah! Who do we GOT? Noah (Dubrielle(?)), Eli, Yacine, Sebastien, Allan, Jorden, Nick, Dylan...there's more, isn't there? Soon-to-be Caro. Did Jubal Hume actually decline BAP?...Or was he just against it? We could also have spots on Worlds in Canada. 3's the count, yes? Montreal (98?), Vancouver(00?), Montreal(04)?

Start to finish that was the most exciting post I have read in a seriously long time.

Every bit of it made me tingle.

The map thing? SUPERB! you could roll over a dot and have a list of known players in that town/region/whatever and then have each name be a link to their bio or whatever. If a dot is just a town that has shredders in it it can be one colour and a club can be a different dot. simple!

I think this will be a HUGE step in unifying us! heh, at all competitions we should wear TEAM CANADA gear and represent hardcore!

I mean, I thought Team Japan looked stunning in their shirts. So professional and.. composed. The czechs have country shirts and look how good they are doing!

Darnit guys (and gals of course!) lets do this!

I want to do moderating and helping stuff too!

Sign me up BIG TIME!

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 10 Nov 2004 23:38

B_Man wrote:Who would host the videos though? With so many players/clubs, there'd have to be a huge amount of space available - unless each club has like a premeir video showcasing it's players and each player's talent within a few minutes?

I'm pretty sure Adam said something along the lines of " (3$ a month for unlimited EVERYTHING)." ;p

I like the tshirt idea, too! Imagine how many tournaments Allan must be the only Canadian at. I understand he travels a lot. Andrew met him in Europe and they were the only two Canadians. I met him in Colorado and we were the only two Canadians. Go team Canada! A big jumpstart would be an actual Canadian Open. Canada is vast (and 99% of that is empty prairie) a Canadian Open tournament should be central. Ontario would be so ideal, but that is FAR for westcoasters. Who would be up to the challenge of organizing such an event?

I'm always really envious of the Czechs and their shirts!!!!!!

Spadrick · Post by **Spadrick** » 11 Nov 2004 05:28

Okay. Its early morning for me, and I am half asleap... Let me go get some coffee.

Allright. Coffee has been achieved. Lets get down to the business at hand.

B_Man wrote:Biographies on all the freestylers in Canada would be so hard though Erik.

A: Not true. Biographies would be better described as player profiles. Profiles are just another entry into the database. Profiles would hold some optional information, and mandatory (and automatic) link designation to the players stats, articles, movies, pictures, clubpage, club website and other member related information. For an example of a great profile system, check out http://profiles.takingitglobal.org/Spadrick

B_Man wrote:As to how we can represent these clubs, that's a tough question. I like the map and coloured dot idea - interactive would be awesome if possible.

A: I gave much thought to this. Hackrifice has a website, we could leave that be, and we could leave .Hack//BFA up and running. Simply linking the current sites to profiles that are aligned to the club in question. I would also like to start a service, creating simple but elegant (designerly) websites for clubs in Canada. I have proven my skill, but what most people don't see, is that I can compost a website template, cut it up and stick it into HTML and get it online in a matter of hours, it truly is no sweat off my back to provide a service such as this, and I would love to see Canadians on the web. The map and colored dot idea was going to be implemented in Footbag Ontario, but that went south when I found that moderating the site alone is a job in itself. However, I have given it much thought, and through the useage of flash and actionscript tied to our member database with PHP, it is entirely possible. I may ask Damon if he could help out with that project, but we will see where that goes shortly.

B_Man wrote:Who would host the videos though? With so many players/clubs, there'd have to be a huge amount of space available - unless each club has like a premeir video showcasing it's players and each player's talent within a few minutes?

A: Footbag Canada would host the video. I can get as much space as needed and as much bandwidth as needed for 3$/month. This isn't something we need to worry about now. Getting the site organized and brainstorming like we are right now is what is needed. I like your talent video though. Awesome idea!

Erik Chan wrote:we could claim Modified because Jer lives Toronto and it's a Canadian forum

A: Jer might allow me to integrate modified. However, this would mean that we would need "border control" and modified already has a majority of American and overseas players on it. It would be easier to create our own board in phpBB2 and EasyBB.

My ideas on the subject are numerous, and I don't want to overwhelm you with my vision, but here goes;

1. Home page that reflects our Canadian theme. We need color scheme! RED AND WHITE ALL THE WAY is what I say. Any other ideas? This page would display recent posts, recent articles, member of the week/month, trick of the week/month, top 5 videos, a span of current events in Canada. Any other ideas for a front page?

2. Canadian Forums. We don't want to copy modified, but with a national site like canadianfootbag.com would need to duplicate sections in order to make a great forum for us. Such as General Footbag, Advanced Freestyle, etc. Anyone want to suggest a few topic headers here?

3. Canadian e-Zine. I have alot of experience creating online and electronic magazines, which you can download and view in .pdf, get in your email inbox if you have html turned on, and also just on the website itself. We could do it quarterly, bi monthly, monthly, seasonal, bi anually, or yearly. People from all over Canada could submit stories, news articles, trick tips, photos, tournament and event information and much more. This would be pretty huge if everyone got involved. Think of how it would work for the average subscriber. There is no cost to subscribe, shredders could download it and print it off and have a quality footbag magazine to take with them wherever they went, or, members with access to a great printer (work, school or otherwise) could become a distributor and give the magazines out to people playing hacky sack. Use it as advertising as well. *sigh* So many possibilities are opened up when people get involved.

*coffee break*

4. Articles Database. Okay, so I gather that not many people like to write. But some do! An article database could hold articles written about footbag in the media. For example, Scott Radley of the Hamilton Spectator wrote an article about Jorden Moir after worlds, I asked him if I could post it on my sites and the consensus was a resounding "Yes". Keeping a database of this information would be useful for shredders everywhere. We could also write our own articles, and use them for the mag, or other stuff. The possibilities are endless. How about articles on how to start a club in your area? Or how to host an event?

5. Regional sections. We could have a section for each province and territory.

Erik Chan wrote:What would seperate sections for each province contain?

Each section would show all members for that region, all clubs for that region, and all events for that region. As well as host statistics for each, such as a percentage counter, to see where your region stands in the grand scale of Canadian Shred Scene. This section could also contain a unique "White Board" section so that members would be able to plan and organize events for their region online in a simulcast environment, automatically keep minutes and more.

6. Branding! We need a logo, colors and general identity. You may have seen the Footbag Ontario sigs proliferating on modified. These are just one example of how we can band together. Some people like them, and some people dont. I am working on a less intrusive way to display your "gang colors". This branding would compost itself in videos we produce for the site, banners and advertising for the site, t-shirt logos and more. Corporate identity is number 1 in my books, and if you have any thoughts on it, let me know.

7. Help me. For god sakes, help me. There has been good response here regarding people wanting to help me out with this, but I feel that it is going to take more then that. I need people to brainstorm these ideas up, cause I am officially refusing to go this one alone as I have with my other sites. Working together, we can have this up and running in a MONTH. One month is all it would take. How badly do you want to see this?

Here is a breakdown of the costs associated with setting this up.
- Domain Name: $10.95/Year
- Hosting: $2.95/Month ($35.40/Year)

Total/Year: $46.35

Please post your thoughts. My fingers hurt.

~ Dex

Anz · Post by **Anz** » 11 Nov 2004 08:52

whoa!

props on writing that with all the quotes and other shit.

Well I didn't read it nearly at all, but it must be good...

Spadrick · Post by **Spadrick** » 11 Nov 2004 09:04

*sigh*

I wish people would stay on topic.

Chris Hanratty · Post by **Chris Hanratty** » 11 Nov 2004 10:24

Erik Chan wrote:I think in order of numbers it's probably Ontario, Quebec, BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia?...

You're probably right about Nova Scotia numbers being last. There's me, Cole, Colin (serial thrilla), Sergey (ling) and a small handfull of others who are freestylers, but I don't think they are really into it as much as everyone else. Which is unfortunate.

Great idea though, I'd love to see it happen and help in any way possible.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 11 Nov 2004 13:06

yeah, Red and White is a given, and maybe for the smaller provincial sections use the provincial colors. Quebec would use blue and white, manitoba black and gold, etc. but at the same time, i'm not sure it's a good idea to split us up...

Spadrick wrote:Hackrifice has a website, we could leave that be

the hackrifice website, although it's in a rough state right now, will always be up. As much as being a canadian shredder is important to me, my roots are with hackrifice, as yours are with BFA.

biographies don't seem like they would be too hard to come up with. make a basic template and send it out in an e-mail. bada bing bada boom. the example adam gave is a good one.

i really really like the map, dots, and pull down menu idea. that's sick. the color coding could get rather complex though. i think it should be left rather simple, possibly 3 colors, BAP, Clubs, Players.

i wouldn't want modified to be part of it. modified has done well ON IT'S OWN. to just take it would be stupid. i would much rather see one of our own. as to some other sections, i think a chill out room, for non footbag talk, is a given, also regional sub forums, and right from the get go, a net section. this is something i think is important. the world mens singles net champion is canadian, and this is something that i feel is undercelebrated (<--is that even a word?). any way, canada has some wicked wicked net players, and i think it's good they get some recognition.

The canadian e-zine is an awesome awesome idea. i think i would be able to submit better articles if it was bi-monthly or even longer between publishing. i have access to a great printer, and i would be willing to make copies and hand them out, or drop 20 of them in one of those "free paper" racks and other geurilla distribution methods. i love to write, so i'll surely be dropping articles on what ever i can. at the moment i feel rather limited to what i can as not a whole lot is happening around here, but i mean if every one can find enough to write one article on the we'll have a good base to work from.

yeah branding is important! i agree, you have to get your name out there, and that's the best way to do it. i like to draw, but when it comes to using the computer for that, i'm pretty useless, so i don't think that's something i could help with.

any way, i'm down to help with what i can, but i have a very limited knowledge of computers, so coding and designing is not gonna be my thing... but i would like to see this up.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 11 Nov 2004 13:10

I don't think we should have our own forum -- I like Modified and I like that everybody is on Modified. Something we could have is a simple comments system or something for feedback on the site -- I think a forum is going too far and too many forums on the internet will just break us apart rather than bring us together.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 11 Nov 2004 13:20

why not have one? practically every country has one of their own, the czechs, the french, the aussies, the kiwi's, why not the canucks?

james · Post by **james** » 11 Nov 2004 13:29

I agree with Erik, we do not need more forums. I can communicate with the largest amount of freestylers in the world through this forum including people from Montreal or anywhere else in Canada. When there are more forums they get stale faster. It's easier to work with one.

On another note, the Canadian scene must make itself known and united, we are a force to be reckoned with.

Team CANADA represent!!

edit: this post was edited in ways you will never know

Spadrick · Post by **Spadrick** » 11 Nov 2004 13:33

hacksterbator wrote:yeah, Red and White is a given, and maybe for the smaller provincial sections use the provincial colors. Quebec would use blue and white, manitoba black and gold, etc. but at the same time, i'm not sure it's a good idea to split us up...

It wouldn't be splitting us up, we would be unified under one banner, and separated into squads! Squads have their own colors under one color!

=)

Thanks for the great feedback Andrew. And Erik, man, if we are going to have a community site, we are going to need a forum.

What about blogs? If we gave everyone a blog, people could comment on each individual post that person makes. It wouldn't hardly be as organized as a forum would, but then we wouldn't need one.

Thoughts?

Post by **Allan** » 11 Nov 2004 14:16

Spadrick wrote: What about blogs?

Weblogs are cool. I think this thing should be entirely focussed on the weblog idea with really simple profiles for members with a link to their footbag.org profiles and media galleries to leverage all the work that's already been done there.

What software would you use to do this Adam?

Spadrick · Post by **Spadrick** » 11 Nov 2004 14:43

AllanHaggett wrote:What software would you use to do this Adam?

Notepad.

I'm pretty L337.

Blogs are good and easy, but I do not agree with outsourcing the player profiles. Profiles should be integrated and custom. The players profile would showcase all of his or her activity on the site, and truth be told, .orgs profiles aren't the cream of the crop.

Atom · Post by **Atom** » 11 Nov 2004 15:15

I think if there was a forum, it should be minimal and closely related to canadian footbag. so just the usual stuff: new tricks, new gear, new vids, tips and advice, personal blogs, and one sub topic for the abstract footbag posts, muscle strains, stretching techniques, questions on anything off topic with the other topics. I know some people LOVE to discuss things other than footbag, but with a click of the button you could be here and posting up a storm of non footbag posts.

Post by **Allan** » 11 Nov 2004 15:31

Spadrick wrote:
AllanHaggett wrote:What software would you use to do this Adam?
Notepad.

I meant what kind of CMS software you'd use... do you mean to say you'd try to make this a static web site out of pure HTML?? Are you insane?

Spadrick wrote: I'm pretty L337.

No offense, but the very fact that you're running windows (apparently) makes you decidedly not L337

Spadrick wrote:Blogs are good and easy, but I do not agree with outsourcing the player profiles.

I think it's insane and a huge waste of time re-creating what's been done so well elsewhere. This, to me, is also about tying the site back in with the global footbag community instead of isolating ourselves with our own little project.

Spadrick wrote:Profiles should be integrated and custom. The players profile would showcase all of his or her activity on the site,

I'm not saying we shouldn't have profiles. I'm saying that we should tie those profiles into footbag.org.

Spadrick wrote:and truth be told, .orgs profiles aren't the cream of the crop.

Well, this is a comment for another thread, really, but what are you talking about? The .org profiles are some of the best on the web and only getting better. What would you do better with them?

If you're talking about the design issue, whatever. All the information is there and it's all tied together in the right ways (in ways that most people fail to understand). I'm not sure you really understand what footbag.org is and why it is so valuable. It's not some pasted together HTML web site. It's a mothership application.

On the down-lo, footbag.org is about to get a major facelift with new features (one that will revolutionize Footbag).

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 11 Nov 2004 16:19

I think what Adam meant about the footbag.org profiles is that, while they do have all the contact information of all the players, the actual writeups are generally something along the lines of, "I like footbag". I think what we're thinking of is more along the lines of full stats and stuff like in my stats questionairre thread as well as videos and the contact information that footbag.org has.

I don't think we should bicker amongst ourselves -- that's regressing from the purpose of this topic.

Post by **Allan** » 11 Nov 2004 16:30

Erik Chan wrote:I think what we're thinking of is more along the lines of full stats and stuff like in my stats questionairre thread as well as videos and the contact information that footbag.org has.

All I'm really asking for is a link in the profile's (in whatever form they take) to people .org profiles as well.

Erik Chan wrote:I don't think we should bicker amongst ourselves -- that's regressing from the purpose of this topic.

I ain't even tryin' to bicker

I'm sorry if I came across (as usual) as being argumentative. I'm just puttin' my idea's out there. I'm not trying to own the project. I think it's a great idea and I'd love the opportunity for my opionions to be heard and perhaps considered. That's all