The first Live Chat session, organised by the GPVWC Administration to help close the communication gap between members and admins in the league, turned out to be a success, with a good turnout of 6 members and some interesting questions being asked.
Administrators Michelangelo Manrique and William Ponissi illustrated the main projects that will take place in the last week of August, which will be devoted to the elimination of bugs and the correction of problems individuated during the first part of the season. Among these measures, the first to be tackled will be:
- Fixing the registration procedure, with the automated check for duplicate entries;
- Creation of a password retrieval system to help those who forgot their Paddock Pass;
- Implementation of a new automated footer code.
Another important point discussed has been the production of news items and special interviews and features. The flow of news items has recently increased, also thanks to some welcome Managers' contributions; in the future, however, the special features will become more frequent, with Mike Phillis's involvement in the process.
Finally, the Administrators announced two implementations that will have a more tangible effect on the Superleague:
- The Contract system will be fixed, making sure that expired contracts results in the driver returning to the Drivers' Market;
- An Appeals procedure will be implemented, allowing Drivers and Managers to submit a post-race Notification of Incident (NOI) to the Race Directors, who will review the fact and then either issue a penalty or dismiss the appeal.
Besides the Administration's announcements, some good questions from the Members attending raised some good issues. It was confirmed that Managers DO have the possibility of submitting their own press announcements, which will be reviewed and published by an Admin. This procedure has been introduced to avoid the publications of "three liners" - short, incomplete press announcements - or news with a poor grammar. All submitted articles will be published after editing, in order to present the readers with interesting, well written stories.
Adam Rouse inquired about the possibility of having detailed statistics in the Drivers' pages, and it was confirmed that work will start towards mid-September to create pages which will include the full racing statistics of each driver - subject to the upload of all the results of the 2000-2009 period. It has also been confirmed that the statistics page will include also data from other series, when supported by the website.
All in all, the Live Session has been an interesting moment that contributed to make the Admins and Members closer, allowing the former to explain the development of the site and the latter to express their ideas and suggestions. The wish is to establish a proactive moment of discussion on a weekly basis, resulting in a stronger league and a more informed membership.
Next Live Chat Session is on Tuesday, September 1st at 7 PM British time.