[Meet Results Out, Next Meet Announced]

After two server crashes and plenty of software tweaking, we're back!!!
 
The purpose of this post is to briefly outline the major changes that have hit Virtualmeet.net since February.

Meet Results Out, Next Meet Announced

The most important news is of course the belated publication of the results for our inaugural meet. Congratulations to Brent Kim for scoring a tight win with some impressive lifts at his bodyweight!! The rankings have also been updated with the data from this first meet. Helgi Briem's deadlift is particularly impressive in this regard.

I put in a lot of effort into the visual presentation and the technicalities behind it. All video is now streamed straight off the server using Flash a la YouTube (JavaScript and FlashPlayer 8 required) making it possible to just sit back and watch the meet unfold in the proper lifting sequence if one so pleases. An edited meet video has also been prepared for your pleasure; feel free to share it, burn it, advertise it... The individual clips are protected for the moment though, but plans exist to allow users to share their own clips with the world.

The next meet will be another full powerlifting meet on September 7-9th, 2007. Pre-registration is already open, judges also welcome! 

Real names and lifter home pages

The forum has been hacked to show the real names of all its users instead of the username. As everyone competes under their real name, it makes things much more consistent to also show real names on the forum. This change is not total though; for example, you need to send Personal Messages (PMs) using the users username (eg. to send a PM to me address it to kris, not Kristoffer Lindqvist). The main purpose of the username is now to uniquely identify each member even if they would change their real name (as could happen through marriage for example).

Another big change is the introduction of Virtualmeet.net home pages with URLs of the format:

Code:

http://virtualmeet.net/username/

Those of you who participated in the first meet will find that your home page holds a video player loaded with your own meet clips, but for the rest of you it only shows some very basic information from your member profile (which is now only visible to you and the moderators). This is only the beginning, rest assured that these home pages will become much more sophisticated with opportunities for every user to decorate them according to their own taste.

In light of these changes, any member who registered before April 2007 and wants to change his/her username can do so by contacting me.

Updated member agreement

The acceptable code of conduct and the moderating policy should now be much clearer than before. Every user will be prompted to accept the updated agreement before being allowed to log into the forum. The agreement can always be read here as well.

Rules posted

Up until the first meet, only lifters had access to the sketchy rules draft. A slightly amended version of it has now been posted under meets.

Who's who

A participants page has been added which simply lists users actively involved with the project as lifters, judges or staff (or any combination).

Site hierarchy and design revised

The site logic has been thoroughly revised, you will now find only Meets, Rankings and Community in the main menu. I think these are the three integral components of Virtualmeet.net under which the other pieces can be logically placed. Surf around and see if you agree.

I have also added a breadcrumb trail to make it easier to see where one is in the hierarchy.

Code:

virtualmeet.net > community > promote

The site URLs have also been cleaned up, as has the forum layout (all member information is now shown above each posted message as opposed to the side as well, this also makes the design forgiving of long real names) and the navigation (mouseovers).

The forum subcategories (boards) have also been changed, most notably in the Meets category where the Current Meets and Meet Results boards have been deleted while Post-Meet Talk has become the public Meet Talk board. Meet results now have their own subsection of the site and meet sign-ups will in the near future be handled by a dedicated meet interface. A Marketplace board was also added for trading/selling/buying powerlifting goods.

That should be the major things. There is still many things to be done around here related to accessibility, web standards and such, but for now we're golden. Feedback, criticism etc. is welcome on the Site Feedback board. Thanks for your attention.