I want to start off by saying I've been and still am a huge supporter of the PDGA. I've been visiting this board for many years but I find myself like many others spending less and less time here. It's not that I don't want to but it's the poor performance of the website. If you look at the PDGA Demographics 2010 you'll find Illinois is in the top 6 of current PDGA members(T5), pdga events(T6), and courses(6).

This weekend I talked to quite a few players at the Illinois State Championships. If you visit clubs and other disc golf message boards the theme is "we are frustrated with the PDGA website." That is saying it nicely.

Every year I try to keep up with the course directory. Last August I had it entirely updated before I left on a trip to complete the rest of the IL courses I had not played. It's getting tougher each year. Players are starting to go to Disc Golf Course Reveiw and adding courses there and not the PDGA Directory. The first place players used to enter new courses was here. There are 162 courses listed on DGCR for Illinois & 143 on PDGA.

I see the PDGA website as the #1 tool. It's the face of the org. I think we are starting to fall behind in that area. I'm hoping to see some upgrades to the upgrade. I'm voting for BOD members solely on their responses to the website. Anyone else share this frustration?

We stopped using the course directory on the PDGA site a long time ago. Mainly because half the time when playing out of state the club has named the course something other then the park name or doesn't tell you the name of the park to begin with. My fiancee and I were going to play a tourney out of state and used the directions from the directory and well one they were wrong and two when we googled the course/park name in the city it was suppose to be in google maps kept giving us another city that was almost an hour where the original directions had taken us.

We now communicate with the club running the event or other means. We found that the directory is poorly updated and quite inaccurate.

Brett, some of the issues about the PDGA website are detailed in the 2011 Board Candidate - Theo Pozzy - #14166 (http://www.pdga.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=35771) thread (post#3) and should help to address your questions about the website which you posed in both this thread and your Question for all BOD Candidates--PDGA Website (http://www.pdga.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=35777) thread.

I don't think there's anyone out there who wouldn't agree that the website issues are serious, and have grown intolerable. While unfortunately no concrete answers are given in Theo's remarks, my interpretation is that the problem lies with a) too much growth in too short a timeframe and b) too little investment in IT infrastructure.

Imo, I think the fault lies mostly with Ciphent whose business and contract should have been based on maintaining the site as it grew, and keeping up with upgrades. That's what they are paid for. We should have upgraded to Drupal 6 in 2009, let alone in 2010, and by the time it really started to become a problem, it was already too late.

All we can hope for is that with the planned upgrade from Drupal 5 to Drupal 7 and the migration to a social media based platform for communication between disc golfers, we get back some of the folks we may have lost. :confused:

Jeff,

At what point do we stop relying on band-aids and blind faith? Think about the excuses we are asked to buy into.

1) Too much growth? Well, I'll bet discussion board traffic is down from three years ago. The major growth is ads. The mindset seems to be to maximize ad revenue, rather than to optimize membership convenience. With that mindset, ad traffic will always be pushed to the system breaking point, no matter how fundamentally capable the system might become.

2) Too little investment? If I remember the original contract correctly, Ciphent has already received well over $200,000 from the PDGA, plus 50% of all advertising revenue. Is there anybody out there who believes that we have received even a small fraction of our money's worth? Many members believe that the website is actually worse than it was four years ago.

We jumped on the Ciphent bandwagon without issuing an RFP, and now we are paying through the nose for that decision. I say that we need to do two things. First, dump Ciphent, issue an RFP and hire a qualified firm. Second, change the PDGA mindset so that the website functions primarily for the benefit of the membership.

Regarding the course directory in particular, I think there are several reasons why DGCR has surpassed the PDGA directory, beyond the issues with our website's poor performance.

One is that DGCR built a better mousetrap. It leapt way ahead with mapping, reviews, photos, and other features, and seems to stay ahead.

Another is that the PDGA site is mostly used by, and in many cases limited to, PDGA members. (I'm not sure if that limitation applies to course entry or not). DGCR has the much broader base of casual players, so is likely to have more courses entered, more reviews, more photos, more information overall.

Though I still feel there's good reason for the PDGA to maintain a directory, to improve it and make it as thorough as possible.

Peter, I can't disagree at all with any point you just made. A lot of nebulous things get said and discussed around here, but the performance of the website (or lack thereof) is a real and concrete and tangible thing that should have been instantly obvious to everyone involved. It should never have been allowed to get to this point.

Again, all I can hope for is the supposedly upcoming migration to a social media based platform and maybe getting back some of the folks we may have lost.

I appreciate all the responses. I've made my votes and hope to see an upgrade.

Personally i'd love to see the PDGA parnter with or pay Disc Golf Course Review or find a way to upgrade to something similar or better. DGCR basically took the model of the course directory and turned it into something really special.

Those discussions came to a dead end a while back from what I heard second hand.

Hey folks,

I thought that I would chime in and clear up a few of the issues.

---We tried to team up;

regarding DG Course Review; Yes - great site. Tim has built a cool resource and online community. We tried to team up (sync databases - host DGCR ratings at PDGA.com as links to his web site) but it did not work out. Sorry folks - I really did try to herd these cats into that corral - but no go.

---Folks really need to keep course listings at both web sites up-to-date

The downside to not teaming up is that folks really need to keep course listings at both web sites up-to-date for the disc golf community.

Course listings at both web sites can be edited by the users (they do not have to be PDGA members to use and to edit listings at pdga.com). So if there are any inaccuracies at the PDGA Course Directory - please come online and fix them - please email me - [email protected] if any problems doing edits. If you see something wrong - please fix it and/or email me - hate to hear general talk about inaccuracies in the directory (especially non-specific inaccuracies!). The database is the cleanest it has ever been - all thanks to the input of all of you players. Good job! Find anything wrong - please edit to fix it and/or contact me. [BTW - If you can - please try to refrain from posts trashing the accuracy of the directory database until you have either tried to fix them or at least contacted me about the inaccuracy. Cool? ]

----If you find "permanent" courses that are not listed - please come onto PDGA.com and list them;

The PDGA Course Directory does not list temporary courses (if any of the 19 additional Illinois courses are not temp courses - please come and list then at PDGA.com).

If the location has two or three viable courses on site - then we want those split out into two separate listings at PDGA.com (some of those sites with multiple courses currently only have one listing with us - we would like to fix that - please help out by editing one listing for Course A and creating a new listing for Course B in these cases!). Please note - this separate listing policy does not apply to a course that simply has two different layouts due to dual tees.

Even accounting for temp courses and courses that have multiple listings at dgcoursereview - there will still be courses up at that site (or elsewhere online) that should also be listed at the PDGA Course Directory (and vice versa!). Please come online and insert any courses that should be listed.

So - bottom line. Cheers to dgcoursereview and to others that are in the process of building (or have built) fine tech tools that utilize the course database. Smartphones ...I-pads ... wow some cool better mousetraps are changing our world. We are going to need the Course Directory to continue to be the same viable source of information that it proved to be when it served as the basis for the data on disc golf courses in these other apps and web sites. Please - keep it up to date like Steady Ed, Steve Hartwell, Gregg Hosfeld (and all the rest of you super cool course updaters and editors) have done over the years.

Thanks, Cliff Towne
PDGA Course Directory

A couple questions...

(solved) How long does it take for a newly-added-to-pdga course listing to show up on the actual map?

How long does it take...to show up in the iPhone app?

I added the new 10-hole course in Glenview, Illinois two days ago and it is still not showing in the app. EDIT: found the issue with the map, I noticed this text below it: "* Map is a representative sampling by default.". Still wondering about the course showing up in the iPhone app...anyone know when I can expect it to be there?

A couple questions...

(solved) How long does it take for a newly-added-to-pdga course listing to show up on the actual map?

How long does it take...to show up in the iPhone app?

I added the new 10-hole course in Glenview, Illinois two days ago and it is still not showing in the app. EDIT: found the issue with the map, I noticed this text below it: "* Map is a representative sampling by default.". Still wondering about the course showing up in the iPhone app...anyone know when I can expect it to be there?

ask the question in the equipment section of the discussion board under the PDGA App thread. Theo Pozzy is monitoring that thread closely, and should reply quickly.