AUK Finances and Website Project was: AUK Chairman Statement

[S2L]

SO the moral is that there was money in the bank and an IT project appeared to be a reasonable way to waste it.

I would have rather invested it in the property market to be honest... a go to location to be used as start/finish/mid point control, as well as for AUK events and celebrations, maybe even an AUK cafe or pub run by volunteers... or some kind of barn conversion in the middle of nowhere in Leicestershire or wherever is reasonably accessible to the majority of the membership. Something that representa an investment, something that can be enjoyed by cyclists.

I still can't see any value in code... something that just becomes obsolete, has zero resale value and it's only a very marginal improvement over something that can be had for a few quid or even for free...

What a missed opportunity, what a lack of imagination

[bludger]

Perhaps some kind of new monastic order focused on IT work, where instead of brewing beer or keeping bees the monks and nuns would build and operate websites?

[FifeingEejit]

SO the moral is that there was money in the bank and an IT project appeared to be a reasonable way to waste it.

I would have rather invested it in the property market to be honest... a go to location to be used as start/finish/mid point control, as well as for AUK events and celebrations, maybe even an AUK cafe or pub run by volunteers... or some kind of barn conversion in the middle of nowhere in Leicestershire or wherever is reasonably accessible to the majority of the membership. Something that representa an investment, something that can be enjoyed by cyclists.

I still can't see any value in code... something that just becomes obsolete, has zero resale value and it's only a very marginal improvement over something that can be had for a few quid or even for free...

What a missed opportunity, what a lack of imagination

And the volunteer to hold all data in massive filing cabinets, leafing through pages and pages of info whenever anyone wants to know anything is...

The value of code is it makes business stuff easier because its automated and faster.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[Greenbank]

I was working on a way to figure out what's what for formulaic processing for screen scraped data, I found I had to manually turn the points Into distance for an event, not difficult... Until you need to add on ECEs, you can't rely on the E in the homologation number.

From that and previous comments about event types I suspect the legacy data being wooly about what's what is more likely to be problem if the new data structure is more explicit on combining events with their extension.

I got bored after than and went out for a bike ride and never went back to it so I'm still using my spread sheet.

Exactly, but that's if you migrate the legacy data as is, which would be foolish. Even a small amount of processing would make it much simpler to deal with.

ECEs were shoehorned into the existing system[1] rather than a little redesign and corresponding small data migration. (Very easy to say this with the benefit of hindsight.)

There are various limitations of the ECE system where the source of the limitation is the current DB schema and various constraints rather than Martin's desire to set arbitrary restrictions.

1. And to be fair to them, by the unpaid volunteer(s) and, most importantly, successfully. Plus the "system will be gone soon" was always looming on the horizon so fixing it "properly" was probably stuck on the end of the existing large TODO list that would get thrown away with the old system.

[peter simplex]

AUK's current role is to let people organise and enter events and access results. Without the website none of that happens.

Er, I seem to remember  quite a lot of the above, excepting accessing other riders' activities, did go on in the "good old" pre-internet days of AUK. 

[FifeingEejit]

I was working on a way to figure out what's what for formulaic processing for screen scraped data, I found I had to manually turn the points Into distance for an event, not difficult... Until you need to add on ECEs, you can't rely on the E in the homologation number.

From that and previous comments about event types I suspect the legacy data being wooly about what's what is more likely to be problem if the new data structure is more explicit on combining events with their extension.

I got bored after than and went out for a bike ride and never went back to it so I'm still using my spread sheet.

Exactly, but that's if you migrate the legacy data as is, which would be foolish. Even a small amount of processing would make it much simpler to deal with.

ECEs were shoehorned into the existing system[1] rather than a little redesign and corresponding small data migration. (Very easy to say this with the benefit of hindsight.)

There are various limitations of the ECE system where the source of the limitation is the current DB schema and various constraints rather than Martin's desire to set arbitrary restrictions.

1. And to be fair to them, by the unpaid volunteer(s) and, most importantly, successfully. Plus the "system will be gone soon" was always looming on the horizon so fixing it "properly" was probably stuck on the end of the existing large TODO list that would get thrown away with the old system.

I'm thinking more along the lines of difficulty and therefore cost of migration.

I'd assume standard events would be easy to add because the basic schema can't be all that different, oh except if it holds distances then working out if a BP is 50,100, 150 or even a non BR 200 isn't possible from the current visible lists too.
So it depends on what's behind the scenes, event code and main event record which has the distance?

But anyway automating the migration of BRs should be fairly easy, the exceptions must depend on what's behind the scenes whether they can be automated or have to be done manually.

Hindsight great, if only we had it before doing stuff!

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[frankly frankie]

The public results displays are a complete side-effect.  As you say, in the good old days we never had any of this.  But now we process results online - we could keep the finish lists etc private, but having them public allows a some pretty thorough error-checking by the riders concerned, and this is frequently useful for correcting the records.  Arguably they should be behind a member password though.  A palpable downside to displaying the lists is that it has ramped up the 'competitive' aspect.

Old results data:
The summary displays (lists for the various awards, points and AAA lists etc - including ECE adjustments) are all derived from a single flat table with no dependencies, per season.  It could not be simpler. 
To have a full drill-down to Finisher Lists and riders' Rides Lists uses three related tables, one of which is the one already mentioned.  Per season. 
That would lose historic Club/CTC data, which would require more tables and which I'd see as a good example of 'stuff that could be jettisoned and no great loss'.  (The Club/CTC championships themselves are of course recorded separately and should never get lost.  The Hall of Fame is not dependent on the historic data records.)

[S2L]

The value of code is it makes business stuff easier because its automated and faster.

Yes, indeed and what business are we talking about here? The business of archiving pointless data that nobody should really care about?

[frankly frankie]

It's what AUK does.  Get over it.

I would have rather invested it in the property market to be honest... a go to location to be used as start/finish/mid point control, as well as for AUK events and celebrations, maybe even an AUK cafe or pub run by volunteers...  Something that representa an investment, something that can be enjoyed by cyclists.

That's what the CTC did.  (After spending a 6-figure sum on a website refresh.)  But they sold their old HQ, which was a place where cyclists were welcome to call in and be social, and bought a 7-figure new one where members are not welcomed.  Everything the CTC does could be done by home workers - if they don't want to meet their members they don't actually need an HQ building at all.

But yes, an AUK Hovel sat on top of a big steep hill is a nice idea.  (Sounds a bit like my home actually)

[Tim Hall]

Perhaps some kind of new monastic order focused on IT work, where instead of brewing beer or keeping bees the monks and nuns would build and operate websites?

You mean a scary devil monastery perhaps?

[FifeingEejit]

Hm, you only need to be able to Interogate data of the past for the awards.
Right now awards are claimed through either the shop guy or the Black hole that is the recorders email address.

Pdfing the historical records and linking to them would fit the current mode of operetion well enough.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[LittleWheelsandBig]

AUK is just about the largest randonneur organisation worldwide, one of the older randonneur organisations and probably the most innovative randonneur organisation. It isn’t surprising that its problems are bigger than most randonneur organisations.

AUK’s business is validating and recording results. To my mind, that includes making results available to at least riders and ideally the public. If AUK doesn’t record results, it doesn’t need to exist at all.

[peter simplex]

If AUK doesn’t record results, it doesn’t need to exist at all.

Well, there's Arrivee.   Should AUK not have existed before the internet age?    How much do we want recorded for £xK?

[Redlight]

I know this may sound odd, but why not ask these questions over on the actual AUK forum itself, asking here is all well and good, but I suspect the people with the answers might only answer it under their own forum not here on a '3rd party' one...

I am sure that a genuine question being asked about AUK business would be more likely to receive an answer from a board member on the AUK forum than here or on any other site.

It may not get an immediate response, as all of the board members are volunteers and don't spend all of their spare time on the internet, and I doubt there would be much appetite for joining in the technical debate that some participants are having here, but the organisation strives to be transparent and, as visitors will see, the General Secretary has attempted to answer concerns about the supplier's failure and the impact on the systems renewal as thoroughly as possible.

It should go without saying that posts that are peppered with insults and abuse towards the volunteers that keep the organisation running are unlikely to be elicit any response.

[frankly frankie]

If AUK doesn’t record results, it doesn’t need to exist at all.

Well, there's Arrivee.   Should AUK not have existed before the internet age?    How much do we want recorded for £xK?

Rides were recorded by quill pen and ledger, and in ACP's case going back to the 1930s.  Their records still exist (though somewhat flood damaged) and like AUKs have been converted to image files.  I can tell you the old handwritten records are fascinating, and sometimes moving if like me you go back a long way.  Quite different to the web data archive.

Oh.  And now we have an aukweb outage. 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

PS, want to address the other things I mentioned, rather than abstracting just one part?

AUK is big and complex and growing past the size where volunteers can do things simply and easily. Drop AUK back to 20% as big as it is now and solutions are easier.

[bludger]

Another model to consider might be Parkrun. They do a similar thing to auk in listing events and recording times, managing membership, etc. https://www.parkrun.org.uk/aboutus/

They manage over 5 million accounts and let people register online etc. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-45756572

[peter simplex]

AUK’s business is validating and recording results.

Oh, I thought it was about bringing like-minded cyclists together socially in more challenging long-distance events.  Silly me.

[Martin]

I'll ask again, after AUK and its volunteers have done all they can to migrate over to the new site, how much will remain on the old site? and more importantly how long will the old site last?

asking again; if I don't get a simple layman's reply I'll assume "as long as the server in someone's back bedroom still works"

[LittleWheelsandBig]

PS, we don’t need events or validation or anything to do that. Just post a ride idea on ‘something’ (even a bike shop window), ride with whoever turns up, job done. No need for any of the paraphernalia involved with AUK. I bet it wouldn’t be as popular as the current arrangement though.

[Feanor]

AUK’s business is validating and recording results.

Oh, I thought it was about bringing like-minded cyclists together socially in more challenging long-distance events.  Silly me.

I thought it was about being a national governing body delegated with the responsibility for validating riders for PBP.

[quixoticgeek]

I thought it was about being a national governing body delegated with the responsibility for validating riders for PBP.

If that was the main aim, more events would be BRM...

J

[aidan.f]

From an organisers POV auk provides backup of  national body plus liability insurance if anything goes wrong.

[Ian H]

I thought it was about being a national governing body delegated with the responsibility for validating riders for PBP.

If that was the main aim, more events would be BRM...

J

They all were until the numbers overwhelmed ACP's systems.  They told AUK to go away and do their own thing, and the BR was born.

[quixoticgeek]

They all were until the numbers overwhelmed ACP's systems.  They told AUK to go away and do their own thing, and the BR was born.

Then it all went digital...

J