Just checking in while memories are fresh.
So we tried the experiment of having the 7 pre-made bare-bones women’s world cup threads in the sidebar.
How did it work out? Good, bad, indifferent?
If you think it was worth doing, then next time I think we should have one or two designated people to let me know in advance when a big match is coming up so I would know when to move a post to the front page. Too many times I stumbled on a comment asking for that, long after the match was over.
Anyway, please share your feedback here so we know if you guys think this is worth doing again. It didn’t take long to make the 7 bare-bones posts, so it’s not too much trouble if you guys find it useful.
Open thread.
Baud
Just a note. The Finals Match link returns an error.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Weird. But fixed!
Alison Rose
Seems like it worked out okay, especially with the current posts being bumped to the front page. When you say “next time”, do you mean the next women’s Cup or the men’s too? I do think for the men’s we might want more posts, especially since there will be more nations qualifying and thus more matches being played.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose:
I can’t speak for Anne Laurie, but I think all those men’s soccer posts were A TON OF WORK. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that she’s not interested in doing that again.
So if you guys have ideas for how we could work that, even for the men’s team, share them here.
Having MORE posts isn’t an issue, if they can be bare bones. I am willing to put up bare-bones posts for something that isn’t my thing; I don’t know if Anne Laurie could bring herself to do that, because everything she does is well researched.
Anyway toss out all of your ideas here and we’ll figure out what we can do.
Tony Jay
The next World Championship for Chaps is slated for 2026 in your continental mass so is a way off, but the Euros are taking place in Germany next June/July, and there are usually a lot of people here eager to see England get beat 2-1 in the semi-finals by one of France/Italy/Portugal while Germany lose the other match on penalties to Spain.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Oh yeah, I wouldn’t say a post for every match or anything! Just that we might need, say, two weekly posts during the first round. It’s still a ways off obviously!
But I liked having one spot for multiple discussions and think it makes sense.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
How difficult is it to set up a generic ‘World Cup 2026/European Championships 2024’ post that can get yanked to the top of the page whenever there’s a game due? You wouldn’t need separate posts for each game, just the one that could be filled with everyone’s excited ramblings as each game takes place, and at the end of the tournament you’ve got a time-capsule for anyone who wants to do a simple Google search.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay:
That could easily be done. Though I think once a post got to be 300 or so comments, we would want to start another one. (LONG posts can be an issue on phones.)
Thoughts?
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: That could work!
eclare
I thought the bare bones approach worked well. Seems to me most people who follow soccer are informed enough so that the bare bones approach worked.
randy khan
Depending on the general appetite for such things (and how much work it is!), there could be similar bare-bones posts for non-footie events – World Series games, college football/pro football playoffs, political convention sessions, trials of former Presidents (oh, wait, that would *never* happen), etc.
baquist
@eclare: I second this. Helpful and hopefully not too much work for the moderators.
trollhattan
I liked it. Next tournament of importance is Paris Olympics 2024. You can even add a thread series for the dudes, if there’s any interest.
Meantime, all eyes on US Soccer and their next choice of a women’s squad coach (manager to some of you furrin’ types). There’s one hellova rebuild ahead over the next several months. And because the squad size drops from 23 to 18 (with four alternates, don’t ask) no more wasting slots on 18YOs. That said, I expect the mean and median age to be significantly lower. Spain were pretty darn young and very fast and physical.
LFG
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
Back from work now.
For the WC/EC, each tournament lasts a month, with a glut of games in the first two weeks (group stage) followed by a slower pace in the next two weeks (knock out stage) leading up to the final.
Say each game gets an average of 40 comments (conservative estimate, they’re just so thrilling) even a weekly bare-bones post would hit 300+ comments danged quickly during the group stage. Would a daily bare-bones post be too much? How about a split weekly post?
See how that goes.
Timill
@Tony Jay: That suggests one post per group would be about right for the group stages – a 4-team group has 6 games, which would be about 240 comments.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: @Timill:
A bare-bones post for each group would be very doable. But since I don’t even know what the ED refers to in WC/EC (European?) obviously someone would have to point me to a site that would lay out the groups so I would know what to call the posts. :-)
randy khan
@trollhattan:
The top two managerial jobs for the USWNT are both open right now. I presume they will wait to fill the coach position until they fill the one above it, but I suppose it could go the other way around.
My observations from limited viewing are that
(a) The team seemed to feel like it was constrained in some way, but I don’t know what it was, not being a real expert in the game. It did seem like the kind of thing that was a coaching failure, not a talent problem.
(b) This team is going to get a lot younger just because a good number of stalwarts are retiring, and that will be good. I had some sense that there wasn’t enough ruthlessness in setting the roster, especially with players who I’ve loved over the years who were old and nursing injuries.
JML
system seemed to work pretty well. biggest challenge had nothing to do with the site but the time zone difference for many of us to watch live, i’m afraid. nothing to be done about that!