k-swimming.org

This is going to happen every year until it is acknowledged (by coaches???) that it is the responsibility of the current team to maintain the site, not the alumni who set it up.

Well that’s just fine and dandy, but the alumni who set it up would then need to pass some sort of admin abilities along to the current team. Previously, all we could do was edit our own profile, and that ability isn’t going to help renew the site.

Is k-swimming.org gone forever?

has anyone checked it out lately?

The current swimmers want to maintain the site, they just don’t know who to contact. I would assume Elston, but I really don’t know. Who does know?

no, it is gone. The site is now a pool chemical company or something

Well, yes, the URL will have to change, but the team needs to have a website.

http://www.badasshornets.com is available…

Penninga let me know about this thread.
Here’s the deal:

I host the site (though it no longer has a URL as someone aptly pointed out).
The code is sitting there, in place, ready for someone to take it over.

Chris Elston (celston@gmail.com) was running the site and responsible for keeping it (and the domain) going. Apparently Chris was under the impression that nobody cared at all, he got no timely results and had no real feedback from anyone about keeping the site up to date. So I think he just gave up.

Today, I gave AJ Penninga access to the entire database of results. He is working on something that might bring the results back to life (but not the site).

Anyone on the team who would like to take this over can have it. Please contact me directly (suydamDONTSPAM@gmail.com … remove the DONT SPAM). All you’d need to do is 1) Learn the admin interface (which might have been updated by Chris) 2) Buy a domain name 3) set the nameservers for that domain name to point to my server 4) I’ll give you free hosting on the LAMP platform for as long as you want to maintain the site (provided you don’t put up nude pictures or something stupid like that)

If you’re interested in taking this over, get in touch with me. You’ll end up talking to Chris since I think he was in the process of (or had already finished) changing how the database worked.

Penninga might help too as he now has full access to the database.

Thanks,
Brian Miller, K’96

I am willing to provide support, but at this time I cannot promise to manage the website.

ya know, I sent Chris Elston an e-mail last winter asking that if he wasn’t gonna update the site, maybe consider passing along admin access to a couple of us, but he got kinda defensive and said that he had grown attached to the site and wasn’t willing to pass on the administrative position. sooooooo…..

The website should never be maintained by alumni. That is not sustainable for the long-term (I suppose if they were getting paid that might ot be true). It is such an important thing that it should be decided in the spring who is going to take care of it the next year. I also think the team should have a recruiting captain, who is probably not a senior. Everything runs better when there is a system and someone directly accountable.

Very sad 🙁

How ironic that back when the internet first came out, we had an unbelievable and top-notch website, thanks to Brian, and now at a time when every single middle-schooler nowadays has a website, K Swimming loses theirs.

I was turning to kzoo.edu instead of k-swimming.org for actual updates over the past couple years.

Some great moments from k-swimming.org:

All those great and insightful quotes from swimmers, coaches and alumni for articles, that were completely made up.

The site was a great recruiting tool — Not just for results, scedules and rosters.

A gay website devoted to Hot Athletes pilfering about half the images of swimmers on the site.

Hope College swimmers trying to ‘crack’ the k-swimming recruit database; Brian catching it, finding out exactly what dorm they were coming from (and even who lived in said dorm) and posting an “All Your Base Belong to Us” video for anyone who tried again.

Coach Kent, topless and flexing, right on the front page.

@Low Tide wrote:

All those great and insightful quotes from swimmers, coaches and alumni for articles, that were completely made up.

A gay website devoted to Hot Athletes pilfering about half the images of swimmers on the site.

I want to expand on these two very important issues:

1) My favorite article quote (probably because I wrote it) was attribted the Brett Robbins. In it he said, “In Florida we swim 20,000 Meters perday. That is the aerobic equivalent of running 30 miles. Do you know anyone who can run 30 miles a day.”

There was an additional part of the quote that was chopped that said, “outside of a Kenyon marathoner.” It pissed me off that part got chucked.

Also, it is completely true that there was a website devoted to “hot gay men” and many of the “pictures of the day” came from k-swimming.org. Let that be a lesson to you!

i wouldn’t have a problem running it if i got some help. i am fairly good with computers, but i would need some help from various people…

I talked to miller about getting the site back up. I have a domain name registered, now I’m waiting to hear back about admin information for the database. Kev, I’ll let you know what I know when I know. If you know what I mean.

If you guys can get the site back up and relevant again, that would be awesome. It has been a fantastic site over the years and I’d love to see that continue. I think that it’s great as a recruiting tool; I certainly looked at it a lot when I was being recruited. It also helps keep alumni interested in and connected to the program, which makes them want to donate more money 🙂

I have a few short excerpts from a smattering of my forthcoming books I can contribute to the new site; that would be sure to churn the hits (all I ask in return is an 80% return on revenues and a 50.01% controlling interest in the site).

You’re welcome.

Bob-o and KennyG,

Just a bit of fair warning….the site has always been maintained by computer programmers so there’s almost a requirement that you know PHP reasonably well and MySQL inside-and-out.

If you can get over those hurdles, it’ll be easy to maintain.

I guarantee you the complexities of the site are why it’s never been handed off. Heck I was stuck with it for years before I gave it to Elston for this same reason.

Where someone like Derek (or me or Elston) could help (though I have absolutely no time right now) is building you better admin tools for entering data. When I handed it off to Chris about 90% of what had to be done could be done through the web. I have no idea what state it’s in now.

Brian, is it in php now? I seem to remember it being in perl at one point – am I remembering incorrectly or did you get it switched over?

I can help support php and MySQL (as can just about anybody with any programming background thanks to the online docs).

I spent almost the whole summer programming, so I’m not especially worried about that aspect of it. I have a bit of time and I’m willing to learn another language in the next month or so, so let me know when you have things set up.

@Derek wrote:

Brian, is it in php now? I seem to remember it being in perl at one point – am I remembering incorrectly or did you get it switched over?

I can help support php and MySQL (as can just about anybody with any programming background thanks to the online docs).

THere are a bunch of cron-jobs written by me in Perl (in 1996!).
The admin tools were still mostly Perl when I handed it over to Elston 3 years ago. He may have updated it since then.
The front side was already all PHP when I gave it to Chris, so you should have no trouble there.

Boblo, the DNS is already pointed to my nameservers right? If so, I’ll try to get access cobbled together for you yet today.

As of right now, the website is back online at:

http://www.k-swimming.net

I’ll be working on getting used to the site setup over the next couple of weeks, but if you find a problem, let me know (e-mail link is on the site) and I’ll work on fixing them as I am made aware.

@iamdonovan wrote:

As of right now, the website is back online at:

http://www.k-swimming.net

I’ll be working on getting used to the site setup over the next couple of weeks, but if you find a problem, let me know (e-mail link is on the site) and I’ll work on fixing them as I am made aware.

Great job Bob-o, many kudos. I know it’s a ton of work, but we (the alumni) would love it if the site was updated often, like after every meet with a short write up or just something down there.

There shouldn’t be too much problem with the updates, I’m sure that we’ll talk about it more this year amongst the team. I’m actually looking forward to this… it should be a bit of an adventure.

@iamdonovan wrote:

There shouldn’t be too much problem with the updates, I’m sure that we’ll talk about it more this year amongst the team. I’m actually looking forward to this… it should be a bit of an adventure.

I’ll apologize in advance for any obfuscated or poorly coded stuff you find. 🙂

Much of it is from the late 90s…that’s almost 10 years ago.
Jesus I’m old.

Make sure you get the link from the swimming page at kzoo.edu updated.

Glad to see it back 🙂

FYI: I moved this topic into the Kalamazoo College forum.
It’s more appropriate here.

miller, I agree…

I did enjoy making others watch as we got our website back online, though, considering that every attempt at a website Hope has ever made has been pathetic.

Out of curiosity, anyone think adding pool records to the site is a good idea?

Pool Records: Good Idea.

Anyone have that information? Or will I have to actually go look in the pool?

I’m emailing you a list. I’m not sure if it is accurate or even complete, but you can check it out.

Okay, the pool records are now online. If you see them and notice problems, know first names, or know new times (or missing times), please let me know; either through d3 or via e-mail (link is on k-swimming.net).

Lookin’ good man.
I like seeing that out there.

hey bob-o, we broke the 200 medley pool record last year:

http://k-swimming.net/results/dual.php?id=342

I don’t think it was put up on the record board though

It also looks like Fons set the 100 breast pool record in that same meet (58.48 vs 58.51).

Way to revive the site, by the way. I always thought it should be maintained by current swimmers…it seems they would have a greater interest and be more motivated to keep it up to date.

Does the greater swim community know about the new url?

Thanks for the heads-up, Kev. Let me know if there are other things in need of correcting… the schedule is up now, or at least, the schedule that Kathy e-mailed us. I’d start working on the roster, but I don’t have a roster, so that complicates things.

I’m thinking of changing the roster so that juniors who are abroad are still listed, just as “abroad” or something like that… it was nice getting the team e-mails (for a while) last fall, before Elston changed the mailing lists.

@iamdonovan wrote:

Out of curiosity, anyone think adding pool records to the site is a good idea?

I think it’s a GREAT idea.

@silentp wrote:

@iamdonovan wrote:

Out of curiosity, anyone think adding pool records to the site is a good idea?

I think it’s a GREAT idea.

I agree. It is a little thing, but it maintains team continuity and makes those members feel like they are still a part of the team. Additionally, for recruits who are interested in study abroad, it sends a good message.

I just noticed that there isn’t a prominent link back to kzoo.edu or kzoo.edu/sports. I think it should be part of the permanent navigation scheme.

How about editing the Florida section. Maybe get a current swimmer to write a new summary of the training trip, and get some pictures of the Hall of Fame pool instead of GT Bray. Just a thought.