Clarity

Hi,

Its been a testing few weeks for us as we have been working round the clock on several items. Thankfully we can now see things starting to take shape and February is going to be a nice month of upgrades.

This blog is really to provide clarity on a few things, so as to be sure all members are aware of how the site is run and why.

Firstly we are aware some of the facilities are useful to some but not to others, thats understandable and really all we can say on the subject is simply pick and choose those you like, as most of you do already. As an example of what I am talking about, we just now added an extra tab into the Todays Tools area and as it continues to grow you will find yourself of course using certain tabs frequently and others probably never, the point really is that items appear because someone has requested them. Where we run into difficulty is when members have differing opinions on how things should be laid out. In certain scenarios we can accomodate both by introducing an option (such as the place settings) however in other cases it is more difficult.

One example of such a situation is the Class Stats in areas such as Stat Attack & the Builder, which presently display the horses record in todays race class or higher. Its always been that way and initially its what was requested via feedback. However several of you have now been in touch and quite rightly pointed out that in lower class races the statistics are basically pointless (example a class 6 race shows all runs, wins etc of races of Class 6 or higher meaning pretty much everything). In this case we will be putting an amendment through at some stage soon to create a more detailed class breakdown.

This leads me on to my second point, as readers of this blog shall know, I am always waffling on about this being a site based on member participation. The reason I do so is because its vital you appreciate this is why the site continues to grow, if it were based solely on my ideas or that of one or two members it would just hit a brick wall. But with many collectively working together we can truly achieve something magnificent. I made a plea for fair donations in my last blog and I have been pleased by the response - this too is absolutely vital, we can only proceed with adequate funding and of course the more we can invest the quicker we can achieve the site goals.

On therefore to the third point, timescales are something I realise can be frustrating. If you suggest something it may be the case you see it done within 24 hours, most actioned within a month, others take longer. It obviously depends on our workload at the time, the nature of the request and the overall benefit to the site. If you have been with us a while you will be aware of the continual growth of the site. We have huge folders with all feedback logged and it is our intention to get through everything but obviously it must be prioritised, accurate and complete otherwise there is no point.

Sometimes the most simple request can be a coding nightmare, other times whats seen as a complex problem can be resolved immediately. Thats the fun of it all i guess!

I shall sign off for now but do really hope to post a blog more regularly, now that we have managed to get through this work we have some very powerful new software to help us with the improvements to the site but also it should free up some more time.

Id like to thank all members who continue to offer such great support to the site, we honestly could not be online without you. Your loyalty is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Chris