DDP 2020 Planning

[Spade_Cooley 9,601]

The floor is open...

[Grim Up North 3,766]

...msc

[Grim Up North 3,766]

I'm not totally certain if this thread is set up for improvement suggestions for 2020 or with your impending retirement is for a discussion of how it is going to be run. 

 

Anyhow I don't have any suggestions for improvements, it's brilliant, so I'll waffle on about what might happen following your retirement to keep it going. 

 

It's a big job for one person (even though one person has done for last number of years).

 

I think though if it is going to be split up into different roles then it would be good Spade if you could set out all the tasks and who does them now (for example the pen pics) and what skills are required and how long each of them take - not exactly but some idea if it is 10 hours in January or half an hour once a month or daily or whatever.

 

I'm sure there are lots of people on here who would be willing to help in some way but it has to be practical and there has to be someone at the head of affairs directing. For example lots of the IT stuff might have to be done by one person and a lot of the spreadsheet functionality might melt a lot of people's brains.

 

As an aside I think the DDP is a good enough product that I would be willing to make an annual donation if outsourcing was an option for some of the tasks but others might not feel that way.

 

Cheers, GUN

[maryportfuncity 10,673]

2 minutes ago, Grim Up North said:

I'm not totally certain if this thread is set up for improvement suggestions for 2020 or with your impending retirement is for a discussion of how it is going to be run. 

 

Anyhow I don't have any suggestions for improvements, it's brilliant, so I'll waffle on about what might happen following your retirement to keep it going. 

 

It's a big job for one person (even though one person has done for last number of years).

 

I think though if it is going to be split up into different roles then it would be good Spade if you could set out all the tasks and who does them now (for example the pen pics) and what skills are required and how long each of them take - not exactly but some idea if it is 10 hours in January or half an hour once a month or daily or whatever.

 

I'm sure there are lots of people on here who would be willing to help in some way but it has to be practical and there has to be someone at the head of affairs directing. For example lots of the IT stuff might have to be done by one person and a lot of the spreadsheet functionality might melt a lot of people's brains.

 

As an aside I think the DDP is a good enough product that I would be willing to make an annual donation if outsourcing was an option for some of the tasks but others might not feel that way.

 

Cheers, GUN

 

 

Actually a very pertinent point made above about the "product." There's loads of media work out there by way of websites etc that counts as product and requires way less maintenance than the DDP.

 

That said, in these sensitive times of troll explosions and reputation guarding the whole issue of crowdfunding sponsorship or similar is a massive hostage to fortune. Seriously, to give you a reality check I got caught up in a conversation recently about the difficulty of a company that works with kids trying to snag some decorations for a bar area at a celebratory event for parents. Basically, if you're in the alcohol business you don't want any association with kids. So who - exactly - might want to put their head into the public domain and fund a dead pool?

 

 

[gcreptile 11,037]

Very personal opinions:

 

A Brit should still lead, i.e. have the keys of the whole thing.

The tasks should be spread across several people.

I am one of those, probably quite a few of the active posters here, with these OCD-like tendencies for lists and the general ordering of data, who would enjoy contributing data, pictures, or maybe even write a few obituaries (of the famous-beyond-the-UK variety).

[Clorox Bleachman 2,471]

Tell us more. If money/hardware come into the equation then I'm afraid I'm useless. Would love to contribute through other means, though.

[msc 18,512]

 

 

1. Anyone been sounded out/sounded out Spade about taking over so far? If so, what was their thoughts?

2. How feasible is changing the role of Host from Solo to a rolling collective? So 1 year, say, someone reads the emails, turns them into stuff which can be data entried, someone else (or several?) deals with data entry and so on.

3. What jobs actually need doing, how long do they take, what is the computing know how needed?

 

51 minutes ago, Grim Up North said:

I'm sure there are lots of people on here who would be willing to help in some way but it has to be practical and there has to be someone at the head of affairs directing. For example lots of the IT stuff might have to be done by one person and a lot of the spreadsheet functionality might melt a lot of people's brains.

 

Agreed with this. Skiving the uni Excel course on a technicality seemed like a good idea at the time! [Also IRL I have a friend who manages our website for me!]

 

Willing to be delegated manageable tasks to help out, unable to be the person delegating the tasks.

[Grim Up North 3,766]

I presume the main intensive effort, but await Spade's input, is in the entry phase and site set up.

 

I was comparing this in my mind with a Fantasy Football League entry in a newspaper where they might have 200,000 entries and the differences.

 

I think the main system benefit (other than money) that a newspaper FFL has over the DDP is that the choices are fixed so the system can be set to receive 11 options from a set list of choices.

 

Whereas the DDP everyone is searching for unique hits and obscure people so the capture of the data is more complex. 

 

So the key might be finding a fixed way for people to enter that is then uploaded into the main database with minimal input from the host.

 

I'm guessing that this has been considered before so again will await Spade's input.

[Spade_Cooley 9,601]

Just as an FYI: I'm not avoiding the points here, I'm just covering sickness leave at work and also have backpain myself so I'm not that coherent right now. Will expand and inform on some points mentioned upthread over the weekend.

[maryportfuncity 10,673]

34 minutes ago, Spade_Cooley said:

Just as an FYI: I'm not avoiding the points here, I'm just covering sickness leave at work and also have backpain myself so I'm not that coherent right now. Will expand and inform on some points mentioned upthread over the weekend.

 

 

That sickness leave

 

Are they - perchance - REALLY ill and also obitable?

 

Just askin' ahead of the MMMDP.

[Spade_Cooley 9,601]

Right, let's do this....

 

On 01/05/2019 at 12:28, Grim Up North said:

I'm not totally certain if this thread is set up for improvement suggestions for 2020 or with your impending retirement is for a discussion of how it is going to be run. 

 

The latter, but I'm happy to hear any suggestions for the former.

 

On 01/05/2019 at 12:28, Grim Up North said:

It's a big job for one person (even though one person has done for last number of years).

  

I think though if it is going to be split up into different roles then it would be good Spade if you could set out all the tasks and who does them now (for example the pen pics) and what skills are required and how long each of them take - not exactly but some idea if it is 10 hours in January or half an hour once a month or daily or whatever.

 

I'm sure there are lots of people on here who would be willing to help in some way but it has to be practical and there has to be someone at the head of affairs directing. For example lots of the IT stuff might have to be done by one person and a lot of the spreadsheet functionality might melt a lot of people's brains.

 

As an aside I think the DDP is a good enough product that I would be willing to make an annual donation if outsourcing was an option for some of the tasks but others might not feel that way.

 

Yeah, this is where I'm leaning to as it stands. We have had the DDP run by a duopoly before - and although that was before my time, from what I understand it ran well enough.

 

So the question is what does a gamerunner do throughout the year? As it stands, I suppose the gamerunner's job is split into two main parts: setting the game up and running it.

 

Setting the game up entails:

• Writing up updated rules
• Sending out invitation, "game starts on January 1st" emails
• Responding to people to let them know their entries have been received
• Checking entries for duplicates/already dead people
• Entering entries into (currently a spreadsheet that has numerous possible places for error)
• Entering entries also involves adding new players to a separate database, along with updating running statistics
• Processing the game to generate the first full team lists/lists of celebrities
• Writing pen portraits/DoBs
• Finding pen pics

 

Running the game entails

• Checking to see who's dead
• Updating (as it stands) spreadsheets and processing them
• Uploading the resulting HTML files to the site
• Writing frontpage obits
• List of the Lost/Missed/News/Theme Team league stuff (all manual)
• Correcting errors
• Dealing with any other queries throughout the year
• And, although I've not had this yet, one of DDP's bains: emails from people included in the game asking to be taken down.

 

I think that's everything.

[Spade_Cooley 9,601]

On 01/05/2019 at 12:28, Grim Up North said:

As an aside I think the DDP is a good enough product that I would be willing to make an annual donation if outsourcing was an option for some of the tasks but others might not feel that way.

Full-blown outsourcing is probably not the lick, but one thing that saved me multiple times earlier this year when I was getting the game set up was using Updesk or Fiverr just for things like the logo and spreadsheet formatting issues. Admittedly, our current logo is shit but I'm not paying for another.

 

On 01/05/2019 at 12:57, gcreptile said:

A Brit should still lead, i.e. have the keys of the whole thing.

The tasks should be spread across several people.

I am one of those, probably quite a few of the active posters here, with these OCD-like tendencies for lists and the general ordering of data, who would enjoy contributing data, pictures, or maybe even write a few obituaries (of the famous-beyond-the-UK variety).

 

I think, at the end of the day, it has to be a Brit running the thing: it is a British deadpool after all, and we will always favour the obituaries of an Allo Allo castmember over a World Series--winning pitcher. The tasks across several people is where I assume it will end up, but unfortunately a lot of the "hard" work (the day-to-day stuff, the first rush of spreadsheet entering) kind of has to be one person's work: it's not like we're going to email each other Excel documents and go "I'm up to number 239, your turn".

 

On 01/05/2019 at 13:27, msc said:

 

 

1. Anyone been sounded out/sounded out Spade about taking over so far? If so, what was their thoughts?

2. How feasible is changing the role of Host from Solo to a rolling collective? So 1 year, say, someone reads the emails, turns them into stuff which can be data entried, someone else (or several?) deals with data entry and so on.

3. What jobs actually need doing, how long do they take, what is the computing know how needed?

 

 

Agreed with this. Skiving the uni Excel course on a technicality seemed like a good idea at the time! [Also IRL I have a friend who manages our website for me!]

 

Willing to be delegated manageable tasks to help out, unable to be the person delegating the tasks.

 

1. Nobody, I kinda didn't want to "force" but nobody seems overly eager to be the man at the helm. I can name people on-site who I think would make a decent gamerunner, but I don't want to put pressure on anybody.

2. I think this is where we'll end up, and it's doable, but it will need a Man In Charge.

3. See upthread. Computing knowhow level.... intermediate? TMIB knew a lot more than I did as far as backends go, my internet knowledge is all front-end stuff (I work in the media not IT). Make-up not bone structure.

[Spade_Cooley 9,601]

On 01/05/2019 at 14:05, Grim Up North said:

I presume the main intensive effort, but await Spade's input, is in the entry phase and site set up.

 

I was comparing this in my mind with a Fantasy Football League entry in a newspaper where they might have 200,000 entries and the differences.

 

I think the main system benefit (other than money) that a newspaper FFL has over the DDP is that the choices are fixed so the system can be set to receive 11 options from a set list of choices.

 

Whereas the DDP everyone is searching for unique hits and obscure people so the capture of the data is more complex. 

 

So the key might be finding a fixed way for people to enter that is then uploaded into the main database with minimal input from the host.

 

I'm guessing that this has been considered before so again will await Spade's input.

 

You're very much onto something here. The entry phase is basically a full-time job for a fortnight. And when I've sounded out people on Upwork et al about a new system, I've had bites of interest but I'm not anywhere near organised enough to sit down and write a full job spec for a programmer and say "look, we need a data management system where someone goes to a website, writes 20 names down, hits enter and then it turns that into a deadpool team). But we do, eventually, need to do that. It'd probably take a programmer working for the amount of cash we could raise here (nowhere north of £300 I'd imagine) at least four months to turn something even workable out. So if we want to change the mechanism for entry for 2020, then we need to get a ball rolling asap. The Fantasy Football model is the obvious one yeah. We do have "master" databases in existence that are now jumbled through going through various owners as well. The question was raised previously as to whether place of birth/death adds anything to the site. A good question tbf.

[Spade_Cooley 9,601]

On 02/05/2019 at 10:58, maryportfuncity said:

 

 

That sickness leave

 

Are they - perchance - REALLY ill and also obitable?

 

Just askin' ahead of the MMMDP.

 

Food poisoning from bad seitan. Fucking vegans.

[maryportfuncity 10,673]

On 04/05/2019 at 15:02, Spade_Cooley said:

 

Food poisoning from bad seitan. Fucking vegans.

 

 

What - they suffered the poisoning whilst also fucking vegans (plural!) Respect to them for completing the task.

[Grim Up North 3,766]

 

On ‎04‎/‎05‎/‎2019 at 14:57, Spade_Cooley said:

The tasks across several people is where I assume it will end up, but unfortunately a lot of the "hard" work (the day-to-day stuff, the first rush of spreadsheet entering) kind of has to be one person's work: it's not like we're going to email each other Excel documents and go "I'm up to number 239, your turn".

 

Would you not have a single data base with multiple access password protected - when one person was updating everyone else would be locked out?

 

On ‎04‎/‎05‎/‎2019 at 15:01, Spade_Cooley said:

You're very much onto something here. The entry phase is basically a full-time job for a fortnight. And when I've sounded out people on Upwork et al about a new system, I've had bites of interest but I'm not anywhere near organised enough to sit down and write a full job spec for a programmer and say "look, we need a data management system where someone goes to a website, writes 20 names down, hits enter and then it turns that into a deadpool team). But we do, eventually, need to do that. It'd probably take a programmer working for the amount of cash we could raise here (nowhere north of £300 I'd imagine) at least four months to turn something even workable out. So if we want to change the mechanism for entry for 2020, then we need to get a ball rolling asap.

 

Can we flip the question on it's head - how much money do we need to create an environment that is easily maintainable and is 'match fit' for a number of years? It is not impossible at this stage that it may come to a straight choice for DDP entrants - group fund an IT upgrade or lose the DDP from their lives. The problem is that if the money is raised and spent and the solution doesn't work then it's double fucked and chips.

 

Getting friendly free help hits the same problem as raising funding publicly - it's not easy asking someone for help with a Dead Pool. Probably do need a techy on our side of the fence though to even understand what is possible and how much it should cost? Anybody out there got good IT skills?

[The Old Crem 3,621]

I can help with Obit writting and writting up summary's. Not it literate enough to handle massive spreadsheets on my own through.