Registration Format Proposal: Lottery System

My suggestion is if you go with that kind of model (tickets) - that you provide more tickets to volunteer stat keepers and league organizers. This will encourage more people to participate.   

While I see where you're coming from, if we're using your suggestion then we're taking the "control" away from the player and putting it into the hands of luck.

I'd be fairly frustrated if I was mid-range salary-achieving volunteer-loving third-year player who was available at 10:00 pm with my waiver signed... and some random person is pulling names out of a hat and I don't get picked. 

I know there are some people who didn't get their spot this year based on waiver problems/issues with logging in. But, the onus was still on them to try to get a spot. 

Hadrian - what brings this to mind for you? Are there players who are disgruntled with the process? Are you looking to just start chatter? Do tell.

Hadrian, as always, has some genius ideas to mull over. Give this man a bonus $10 000 fantasy dollars for being smrt.

I had also tossed out the idea that women could register in winter leagues the next day as this may help with the system crashing. Since there are a designated number of spots for women it would have no effect.

I would also present for mulling over, the possibility of alternating sites/days every year or two years. You could have Parity at Superdome on Mondays for two years, then at Ben Franklin on Thursdays for two years (or just alternate). This could draw from the Barrhaven and Kanata members more fairly.

I do like the lottery system, though I would not give any favourtism to high salary earners as we have all learned from the educational Parity Podcast that stats only tell one small part of a players value. See, I am paying attention.

I personally love the excitement and hilarity of hammering the OCUA site. It's the closest I'll ever dare to be to something like this.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruDxe4N7vV0

I also accept that there's a chance I won't get a spot and that's a reality of life. That would free me up to chirp more though....

While this won't get rid of the problem of too few spots for too many players, I'm pretty sure Toronto just opens registration for parity on a different day than all their other leagues (before others I think). That way no system crashes anymore. If parity registration happens before other leagues and a player doesn't get a spot, they could still then play in another less fun/demanding league like IAD :-P 

Hadrian, I commend your efforts to try to solve a problem that's been affecting OCUA for many years. We could use that kind of logic on the Board (hint, elections are in April). To be clear, the problem is the demand for winter league > the supply for winter league, in particular when it comes to prime time (Monday-Thursday) and prime space. This isn't a unique problem to Ultimate, a lot of sport leagues are desparate for prime indoor space.

When online registration became possible in 2014, the Board and staff reviewed various registration options. Lotto system, grandfathering or legacy, how to balance offline vs online payments, grace periods, etc. The system we currently use (first come, first served, 48 hour grace period) was seen as the fairest for the membership.

The biggest drawback from doing a lotto system is that it isn't that easy to register 700-800 winter players, most of which is done individually. Doing a lotto system would essentially require 700-800 conversations to confirm the person wants the spot and then getting them to pay. You can imagine that some players may not want to play in the league if their friend or partner doesn't get in. For this reason, Justine, splitting male and female registration could also pose challenging.

It was unfortunate the website had some issues this year. The same process was used last year without a hitch and that is also the same process Toronto Ultimate Club uses. IT can be unpredictable sometimes.

Brent - One day, it might come to having separate registration nights for each league. Why we haven't is because it makes it easier for people to only remember 1 night of registration.

Lastly, if you really want to skip the lines. Volunteer to become a league coordinator, youth & junior convenor, or board member. These volunteer roles come with a sweet pre-registration of your choice of indoor league.

The splitting up of men and women registration occurred to me this year when, at the same moment, I got into Parity and Chris did not. We were then sitting there deciding whether to try for a different night and I would unregister. I thought if he had registered the day before me, then 24 hours later I would register for whatever he did manage to get in for and save me (and you) the unregister/re-register and it would be less people on the server. 

Yes, last year was flawless. Good ol' IT lulling us into a false sense of security! 

I'll also mention that we solved the waivers so they will no longer be required to be re-signed prior to indoor registration. If you want the long form of any of these points, feel free to email me.

There's merit to your idea, Justine, but in some cases a league will sell the female spots before the male spots sell out; rare but it happens. This process might also encourage players to only sign up for a league if their partner gets in, which would be a shame.

If that were the case for this year, Parity League would be missing two of its most famous members this winter eh??

Sorry CC, but Burton and Keates are correct. TUC opens parity sign-up a day before all other leagues, because demand is so high - male spots fill out within minutes. It has been this way for the past four registrations windows (2x/year), and has run seamlessly. People then have 15 min to process payment once sign-up is complete before being moved to the wait list; and lots get around the 'i can't be online at noon' by asking someone else to do their registration on their behalf (i've done it before for a male friend, then completed my own without issue). There's also been a LOT less grumbling here in the way of 'we need to change how sign-up is done' after the move to a different sign-up day.

And RE: 'only having one night of registration makes it easier for ppl to remember' - trust me, no one here will let you forget... every time i've logged into FB the morning of a parity registration, my feed has been full  of 'don't forget to register for TPL!'. If it's something that matters to you, you won't forget :) .... so personally i don't find that a valid excuse.

From TUC's Adult League Info page (http://www.tuc.org/adults/winter):
[...For Winter 2017, registration will open at 12:00pm on Tuesday, November 29 (12:00pm on Monday, November 28 for the Discraft Parity League) and close about a week before the league in question starts play, or when specific leagues reach capacity....]

Happy to provide more details via email as these forums aren't meant to hash out the details.

No need to be sorry G, I understand how TUC operates. It's a different organization entirely so please consider the technical and cultural differences between the two. For one thing, OCUA's Parity League doesn't sell out in mere minutes. It takes 15-30 minutes to sell out. If we found it was selling out within minutes, we might consider changing the registration format. Keep in mind that this exact same problem was happening with Wednesday 6x6 a few years back. All good problems to have, it means we have a very popular program!

Also, grumbling is subjective. It was the same process last year when OCUA was receiving a lot of praise for winter registration. The bottleneck that happened this year had little to do with server load and wasn't something we could have reasonably foreseen. In total, the delay was 5-10 minutes. FWIW, I was able to register and grab a spot in any league at 10:15pm. I always run my own set of tests to experience what a member is going through.

Lastly, OCUA would never implement a strategy that might discourage participation. In the case of splitting registration by gender, I believe it would discourage registration on whomever's registration is offered second (assuming women). We also tend to stay away from creating single-gender policies because that's a can of worms you generally don't want to open running a coed sports league.

This thread is amazing. We turned Hadrian's suggestion into a flame war against the OCUA administration.

Stay classy.

(P.S. This is probably why the BOD and OCUA staff avoid posting on the forums)