Hopefully the break will allow me to regroup and return with the vision as to where I want this site to go.  Until then, I will still monitor the site and keep it safe from attackers and spammers, but otherwise things will be quiet.

I’m also going to shift the focus of posts. Topics will include the Overtime plugin, the development process, different fantasy contests and the world of fantasy sports as it appeals to me. Posting on the progress of development and features of the plugin I hope will provide an opportunity for feedback from interested parties, although I don’t expect much until the plugin is officially released and publicized. I won’t commit to any post frequency, but hope to post on a regular basis.

Finally, Overtime Central will only host private contests from now on. I’ve decided the stress of managing public contests is not needed and interferes with my other focus. As time permits I will still hold the odd private contest for my usual group of associates.

Entries received as of today for the public Pick ‘em contest are short of the required 20 entries as specified in section 4, point 6 of the rules. All entries and new accounts will be deleted today.

After much deliberation and consideration of the options and a sleepless night, I have decided it is best to take this year off, regroup and prepare for next season. Due to other commitments, the preparation and launch of the contest was left later than desired, but I still tried to push through all the work necessary in a couple weeks. This resulted in the contest not receiving the exposure it should have, with only a quarter of the regulars signing up, and the contest not being fully ready for the new season.

The lack of participants was only a minor factor in the decision. Last night, after reviewing the entry count, I considered continuing on with the contest with perhaps an adjusted prize list. However, after getting into some of the contest setup remaining for automation of emails and updates, I realized I had forgot some major work that needed to be done. With an already busy schedule at work and lots of overtime the past six months, I wasn’t looking forward to putting time in to patch the system to the point it would work. Instead, I decided I should take a period off, get some things off my plate, then focus on getting the system ready for next year. Without any contests taking up my time, this will be the best option for me to get the code quality to where I want it to be.

So basically I jumped the gun here, pushing forward because I did not want another year to go by. My busy work schedule left me unaware of just exactly what tasks I had remaining for this year. I feel the final outcome will be better by taking a break and getting the code completed rather than in a good-enough state.

I hope everyone will understand this position. I would like to thank all participants that signed up and cfldb.ca for their sponsorship. Check back next year for what contests we have available.

Check back for the announcement of the full slate of Overtime Central 2008 CFL contests in the next week. There are some great prizes this year and I believe this will be Overtime Central’s best year yet. As always, if you have feedback, suggestions or something to get off your chest, leave a comment or use the contact address.

I have not yet added forum rules to the site, but I do have some. First, please keep it clean. This is a family site. Second, please avoid defamation of character, whether it is someone you know, an athlete or anyone else. These forums are for constructive discussion, not anonymous attacks on people. Finally, keep it on topic. As moderator I reserve the right to delete or edit any post which does not meet with with the site standards.

If you think I’ve missed a forum topic that you would like to see, let me know and I will consider adding it.

The code is not ready for release yet. It could take another year to fully test the code, clean up and standardize some of the legacy code, complete the administration interface and develop some more contests. However, the plan is to release the Overtime plugin as open source (exact license to be determined) so anyone can use it to operate their own contests on their site, customize it and add their own contest plugins.

With that news out of the way, what about something our regular readers are interested in? Here is a list of changes in the new Overtime Central.

• Redesigned and styled site with a more uniform look and feel.
• New forums for contests and other sports discussions.
• Unified login system for blog comments, contest login and forum posting.
• Fixed the bug in Performance History where it would show the end total for Month points for each Week rather than the running total. (That has been bugging me for a while.)
• Data conversion of all previous contests, excluding cancelled contests.
• New contests! To trial our new contest plugin infrastructure, I have added a Hi-Lo contest and Starter Draft.
• Ability to have private and public contests.
• Many other fixes to bugs and other inconsistencies.

I am far from done yet. With some help (thanks Cin) I have performed extensive testing, and am confident with the critical pick saving abilities of the code. Some more real life testing will have to be done on contest updates, notifications, etc. once we are under way. There are also some features that are missing, incomplete or still need some work. Here is what I plan to add this summer.

• Reworked advanced Poll feature, allowing multiple choice and better review of the results.
• RSS feed for your entry which includes contest forum posts and results.
• Additional interface design and style tweaks.
• Return of the account balance view, with fees owing and prizes won information.
• Monitoring performance and tweaking when necessary.

In the long term I have more features planned.

• PayPal integration for payment.
• Additional contest types, like board pools.
• Hockey contests returning!
• A return of the League feature, for private groups to compare results.
• Hosting private contests for others. (Long, long term.)

As you can tell, I am beaming like a new father. To celebrate this “alpha” launch in 2007, I will be chipping in extra prizes for all contests this year. I have not decided exactly the make up yet, but I will publish the details later in June. This is to express a big thanks to all those who have participated and stuck with Overtime Central over the years.

The most exciting change for us is the new site will have revamped administration capabilities, allowing us to create, track and update contests easier. The time savings will mean more time spent on delivering more features to the site. New contest ideas and experiments will keep things fresh and interesting around here.

In addition to a new design, Overtime Central will have a change in focus. While we will continue to hold our fantasy sport contests, we hope to expand the purpose of the site around web-based fantasy sports.

In addition, driven from some old ideas and our experiences at Overtime Central the past few years, we also have some spin-off projects we will be kicking off in 2007 that hopefully will be ready for unveiling by 2008. We hope everyone first sticks around for the new site unveiling in June. Until then, leave a comment telling us what you want to see on the site.

During this season, we look back at the previous year and find much for which to be thankful. Besides the increased content and comments on the site, we held two successful CFL contests in 2006. We are very appreciative of our visitors and participants for their support this past year. We are still on schedule to release the new version of Overtime Central, with some direction changes for the site, in the first quarter of 2007. Stay tuned for more at a later date on the changes coming to Overtime Central.