Like the title says, wordpress is not geared towards not for profit site like it once was, All the easy to use plugin’s are paid versions, so It has been a little of an up hill battle finding ways around these issues, We can host our PDF files just like it is as soon I can find a free way to allow us to login and block the spam bot’s, I am working on it as I feel well enough.
Author: myke
[April 22nd 2021]
The Schedule for 2021 has been completed by Terry
You will find it in our NIHL Documents section
The email from our president in it’s entirety:
Hi Fellow Team Captains
Let’s begin with the bad news. We’re down to 18 teams. The new team captain never got back to me after a number of voicemails & texts so unfortunately, they’re out. The good news is 18 teams makes an even 6 teams in each division with no BYE nights. But it also means there’s only going to be 18 weeks in our season. Because we only have 18 weeks, I thought about moving our Opening Day to next Thursday (4/29) in hopes it would be warmer. But next Thursday temps are going to be exactly the same as today’s temps with a low of 41º. Hence, Opening Day will remain today.
Our new team this year is the Boomers playing at Bolt On Inn in Burton’s Bridge. It’s easy to find, just go past Kief’s Reef on Wright Road another 1/4 mile and you’ll see the facility on your right at the curve. Can’t miss it. Chris Maves is the Team Captain. Don’t take this new team lightly. Chris was a star player for the Repeters many years and would easily rank in the top 20 players in our league. Bring your A game when you play the Boomers.
After rearraigning divisions for 18 teams, here’s the division lineups:
Red Division – River Rats, Golden Shoes, Crew, Monsters, Silver Shoes & Green Barons
White Division – Ringers, Repeters, Hitmen, Knucklers, MedRyders, & Shooters
Blue Division – Ringmasters, Two Baggers, Stingers, Boomers, Tea Baggers & Sand Snipers
Attached are 3 files, the 2021 Schedule (only showing Opening Day), 2021 Weekly Score Sheet & the sample substitute roster. Make 20 copies of the weekly score sheet for the 2021 season.
With all that said, here’s your Opening Day contests with handicap:
River Rats @ Boomers (+12)
Sand Snipers (+12) @ Golden Shoes
Moby’s Crew @ Whiskey Ringers (+6)
Marty’s Monsters @ Moose Knucklers (+6)
Silver Shoes @ Moose MedRyders (Formerly Interstate Batteries) (+6)
Green Barons @ Tea Baggers (+12)
Stingers (+6) @ Moose Repeters
Hitmen @ Two Baggers (+6)
Bud’s Shooters @ Ringmasters (+6)
“So let it be written, So let it be done.”
I’m also going to send each of you a brief text showing the same matches as above. If you don’t get the text, let me know.
As mentioned, it’s going to be cold tonight (41º), so dress accordingly. Most importantly . . .
Have Fun Out There..!
Terry
DahPrez
[April 10th- 2021]
Getting more progress in again this weekend.
I know it dose not look like much, no flare no photos or flashy interactive menus, but I am only working on functionality and security to get us started. WordPress is the defacto standard for websites at the moment, our previous website used Vbulletin and I liked it, but they are abandoning the older projects to sell the newer products like everything these days.
WordPress is “Free” the software itself, but the plugin authors each have their own way of making money for their many hours of work, I don’t blame them. However it presents a problem for me the webmaster, in t hat I have to find ways to make the site work and not pay all the separate subscription fee’s for each and every plugin I need to make this work. To make our PDF files for the weekly sheet available in an easy to access page for everyone there were so many plugins I tried first that all had a common theme, in order to make them do what I needed, they wanted a yearly subscription paid. $250 per year for the best one, then $75, $50 incredible. Then your at the merci of the author that he will remain diligent in updates and provide support. Typically the fastest way for them to make more money is rather then providing updates, they abandon the project and rebrand it under new management and then webmasters need to pony up more money for the updated products.
I finally settled on a Document Gallery to list our files that is free so far, Its not real flashy but it works. I fully expect to redo the site again for next season, I doubt I will be lucky enough that it will continue working into 2022
Across the top of our page you should see the links, on my mobile phone I had to find the menu button, the document gallery page is HERE
I have installed a geo blocking plugin that works and is free to stop the robot sign ups from Russia and china, the trade off nobody from outside the United States can view our page. Who cares, they wont be commuting to play shoe’s in our league each week from outside the country anyway.
Still no luck getting the Facebook or Twitter connect login’s working, as I said below, due to covid 19 they are making it more difficult then it needs to be, I’ll be happier when people stop using that crutch. Google login works and the standard wordpress login as well.
I had a couple of messages from captains asking when the website will be done, I ignored them and worked on the site rather then dedicate any time to coming up with clever answers for a question that has no answer.
Since there are no currant documents for this year yet, I have a few old files from previous years hosted in the Document Gallery just so it’s not empty, to show how it will work when we do have this years files.
I created a stand alone registration page and disabled the default wordpress registration page to help stop robot logins and malicious attempts to spam our site, the default gave us 260 fake users accounts in less than one week, the new page has had none so far. There is a blank for your team name on the registration page and a blank on your profile page where it will go, since there is no list of teams yet for 2021, I will fill this in later.
I’m checking every page after I have created them from both my android phone and my wife’s iPhone and everything looks and works easily for us. I am able to open the PDF files with ease and expand t he size to see it even with my old eye’s.
Things on my to do list
a. message board
b. more shoe practice
c. Come up with something pretty and cleaver for the front page.
d. map page of our locations
[March 28th 2021]
Getting some progress made on our site. I did get the software installed and the SSL enabled for secure data transmissions , I was able to get the google sign in “api code” working so far. Facebook login is in “progress is stalled”, they claim due to covid, they only have time if relates to money, is my best way of explaining what the page said, I sent the required data and am now waiting for facebook to allow it to work. They wont do it just for people having fun, it has to be for some type of business, not enough people working, wish me luck there. Twitter has so far not allowed me to make the twitter api for there login to work either, it says wait another 15 minutes even if you wait for hours. Meanwhile the site is up and allows login via google or standard registration method.
To do list,
a. provide some way to keep and allow upload / download of our PDF files.
b. figure out a message board
c. figure out the facebook and twitter logins
d. practice pitching shoes