Man this site sucks, its horrible, shut it down

[The KingPin]

Ok so if your reading this you may have thought...

Wow I like this site

Or

I agree with this person

I was on the pba.com site and a I noticed a post talking about the new bowl.com site.

As I read the posts, they were exactly like the title of this thread. Bowlers were complaining so bad, they were writing letters to the USBC, and everyone they can. Members were turning on each other, bashing one another, telling each other if they did not like what they had to say to not read it, and on and on.

I will tell you my friends, this is the EXACT reason BowlingBoards.com was created. There might be 8 million bowlers all over the world, but there has to be a handful just like you who appreciate a fun and positive environment.

I know members have gotten mad in the past about our strong censorship rules, and we do mess up from time to time. And we did have a case were grass was gr$#^ so I do mess up, but no one bashes each other, many of us go by first names, and we have a great time.

Anyways I just wanted to share what i noticed on other sites.

If anyone ever has an issue with anyone here, let me know. If you don't like something we do here, let me know. Many times something can be changed very fast. A member asked me to add a 900 Global review section as we had missed it, it was added within the hour if not 10 minutes after the posting.

I am not saying that as the owner I do not mess up from time to time, but I assure you that the members are #1 here.

Chris

[kakcpa]

I have heard a lot of complaints about bowl.com as well....mostly that it's users do not feel like their opinions are valued or the webmasters care...which is a shame. In my opinion, the only thing I think bowl.com is good for is a source of yearbook average lookup.

[JaxBowlingGuy]

i agree.. the new bowl.com is horrible!!! they charged my credit card 3 times for 33$ when i was renewing my membership.. it kept getting an error message and after calling them they said keep tryin.. well little did i know that when i was trying it was charging...ugh

[StormGirl712]

In my opinion, the only thing I think bowl.com is good for is a source of yearbook average lookup.

i do have to agree on this one, thats pretty much the only thing i've ever used bowl.com for. but the new setup is horrible.

[mrbill]

i do have to agree on this one, thats pretty much the only thing i've ever used bowl.com for. but the new setup is horrible.

Thats all I use it for now as well.
I go to our Fantasy bowling to look up PBA players tho:rolleyes:

[The KingPin]

Some people had mentioned that they moderate every post before it goes live. I think you can have every extreme we are more community feeling and like the pba site you are up for bashing. But really is it that hard to be nice to people? If the bowl.com site is so bad was it good once?

[branstew]

well I think "THE KING PIN" needs a pat on the back for giving us such a good site where everyone is helpful and full of fun with it. So a BIG THANK YOU FOR SUCH A GOOD SITE

[BowlnBrat]

In my opinion, the only thing I think bowl.com is good for is a source of yearbook average lookup.

I agree and find the new layout of bowl.com is horrible as well. It's not as easy to navigate as it once was and to someone who's new to bowling and to USBC, well, that's gonna make navigating that site harder especially when that site is pushed into a new bowlers face. Now that I have figured out WHERE they hid the member look up information, that's all I will be using it for anymore...a source of yearbook average lookup! I'm the daughter of the secretary for a sanctioned league, and we are always in need of look ups on members and I"m usually the one that does it. Although, this year we were actually GIVEN a USBC yearbook for our area so I may not be using bowl.com anymore. I definitely will not recommend bowl.com to new bowlers...I have found a new website to refer them too...

It's called BowlingBoards.com (http://www.bowlingboards.com)!!!!

[JaxBowlingGuy]

Some people had mentioned that they moderate every post before it goes live. I think you can have every extreme we are more community feeling and like the pba site you are up for bashing. But really is it that hard to be nice to people? If the bowl.com site is so bad was it good once?

the site was good when it was simple and to the point.. they tried to make it too flashy.. i cant find like half the stuff i used to use like the part to look up the pba patterns and how to play them...HORRIBLE!!

[gutterball]

well let me ring in here about this place. It is Great i do realty like it and the ppl here are very helpful. before i found your guys i had joined up on one of the other sites my first post there was what is lane1 I did not have a clue they was a bowling ball company well the first post was.....You got to be kidding me...... after that i was the dumb new guy no one would answer any Question i ask with out having a attitude about it. so off i went looking for a different forum to talk on and try to learn something on. And here i am you guys are stuck with me now. Thanks kingpin for the great site.

[The KingPin]

Well you all make this site what it is. I think any site has potential, but your right there is so much pressure to have flashy things and such that it takes away from the site instead of helping it.

[Graaille]

Some thoughts if I may. Note these are my own thoughts and opinions, and should not be considered to be fully based in reality.

1. PBA.com, Bowl.com and any other National Sport dot com has websites that reflect their marketing to the general public - especially their target demographic - the fans of that sport. Our sport is a little different in that the websites both have to be marketing oriented as well as information/tool oriented. With the PBA and USBC not pulling in the same cashflow the NFL/NBA/PGA is bringing in, it becomes more important that their money is spent wisely - especially when updating technology. Focusing on Bling/Flashgasms versus substance does a disservice to the credibility of the management, as well as indicates to the users who are supporting (directly or indirectly) a certain disrespect towards their targeted support base. A corporate website - and face it, that's what these are - needs to be professional, needs to be current, needs to be user friendly, and overall needs to work correctly at deployment - or at latest by the end of the first week. The tools that were in place before were working correctly - if you need to update the look of the tool to better fit the over scheme of the website, fine and dandy. However the basic design of a hammer (one for hitting nails - not the bowling ball manufacturer) hasn't changed all that much over several thousand years even tho there are many different looking hammers at the local home center - don't break the tool in the name of change.

1a. I wouldn't be suprised at all if there were people at both the PBA and USBC who lurk at a number of online forums (not just pba.com) to get a feel for how they're doing with both the website and the tour in general. The more intelligent/ constructive feedback that is given on forums in general will hopefull filter back to the "Powers That Be" which can be (hopefully) incorporated into future decisions. However, if the feedback isn't intelligent or constructive, it will never make it back to anyone of any decision making authority. The only caveat to this is when a change is so bad or destructive that it makes members who are normally pleasant, intelligent and constructive degrade into acid-spewing paragons of hate, that bit of knowledge will find it's way up the food chain pretty quickly.

1b. A modern axiom. Those who've been trained to do a job aren't paid well enough to do the job to cover all the possible issues. Those who love to do a job can't be paid enough to not do the job - and will burn all the midnight oil it takes to cover all the possible/potential issues. Those who can't do the job but would love to do the job cannot be paid enough to not criticize those who are doing the job - whether righly or wrongly. Those who can't do the job and have no interest in doing the job grumble "when will they find someone who can do this the right way."



2. One statement that I saw above was "But really is it that hard to be nice to people?" We don't know what's going on with the people who post on the various forums in their normal life. I've run into people who the concept of being nice is about as foreign to them as the ability to speak 1st dynasty Egyptian natively. The other thing is the joy of being anonymous behind the keyboard. People who normally wouldn't (as put forth in the Quentin Tarintino movie "From Dusk Till Dawn) "say s*** if their mouth was filled with it", will type with the ferocity of a grizzly bear w/hemmoroids. It truly doesn't matter the age of the person doing the typing - I've seen 14 year olds express themselves with more class, maturity, and thoughtfullness than some 40 year olds. Is it hard - no, is it unfamiliar to some - yes.

2a. There are members on other websites that come on with their self appointed role of "devil's advocate/troll" who do engender immediate resentment towards them - which is why most forums come with an "ignore" feature. If that doesn't give them a clue - there is always the "ban" feature.

2b. The first and best way of making sure that the forums are kept nice is to keep a positive tone in any and all dealings within the forum. If you have a beef with someone - take it pm's but still keep it civil. If you're already seeing red before you sit down at the computer - don't come here first. Go to comics.com or jokeoftheday.com, take a walk, go to the bathroom, see a prostitute, whatever it takes. But when you put fingers to the keyboard, make sure you're clearheaded and not bringing any outside baggage to your post. Remember the most powerful button on the keyboard is the 'delete' key.

[Strike Domination]

About it being "hard to be nice to people," Graaille made some nice points. Also, I think it's the fact that some people get their buttons pushed when people do certain things. Although unintentional, the little things can some how irritate someone enough to be rude to that person. For example, on other sites there are times where someone keeps making topics for discussion. Some people get bothered by that because they feel 99% of the topics are pointless.

About the 900 Global Review section, I had suggested that be added a while ago when there was a suggestion forum(I don't see it anymore). I guess it never got seen.

This site definitely has a healthy community unlike other sites. Chris, keep up the good work.

[artword]

the site was good when it was simple and to the point.. they tried to make it too flashy.. i cant find like half the stuff i used to use like the part to look up the pba patterns and how to play them...HORRIBLE!!

I got frustrated looking for the pba pattern fliers too. I found a copy and have saved them at http://sites.google.com/site/artword300/home/pbax-lane-patterns.

Feel free to download a copy.

Art Word
http://tinyurl.com/art-word-bowling