My computer was stuffing up all through the first 15-20mins of the game right now. Getting angry at it. Great job on the match last night guys. What happened to Scouse. Great work Mizza on the pick up

have the midweekers been picked up? i'm happy to take the late kickoff

If you want the login details pm me as Im not letting strangers into the survey area

Just so you know what I went through:

I was at work, logged on to the coverage, saw no scouse, started reading Sportal's commentary and virtually changing it into my own words to commentate, so I was commentating without even watching the game :lol:

Sportal's is absolutely shithouse, we put them to shame, they barely know the player's names and the updates are minutes apart. Not to mention it's about 10 minutes on delay, which led to 1 viewer asking if my stream was farked, I was like sorry mate, no stream here! Then he sent me a stream, but the work computer is shithouse and the screen is terribly dark, all I could see was the Jet's players white shorts running around. I had no sound either, it was a shambles and thank god that's over.

But lesson for the day, never use Sportal's commentary to help you.

That is what I call commitment mizza!

I have taken the late kickoff. But you can have it mate

Just so you know I removed Craig Foster's twitter feeds whilst I commentated today. They are good but they are too frequent IMO

Fozzie goes analysis crazy on that shit... you can have the late kickoff if you still want it, but i wasn't able to do any games this week and thats the only one i can realistically do

You can have it. You have not had a game this week. I can do the early one

PM's sent to Buddha and Doc.

just reading through it now... some critical, a fair few that are positive... i don't think people are aware that this is a service that people are doing for free and that we're not 442 employees but volunteers... i liked one or two points about the Prem, that we shouldn't do it because it would take away from the A-League, i can see that point, the site is primarily for Australia Football News, and having Live EPL would take away from that... i think for major matches like all Socceroos games and major A-League games we should have two commentators, thats what i gathered from it anyway, so like most of the finals and games like the melb derby and others should have duel commentators, if we have the numbers to do so though

there was one who had the shits with scouse's anti-sydney bias, was pretty funny... some argue for more talk, comments, banter etc... some of the others want more updates, wanting literally an update every minute (FUCK THAT)

one of the blokes who did the survey asked about how he could get involved and left his email... iv sent an email in response seeing if he wants to get involved

That would be me :) Seems like a nice way to get involved.. I do something similar for a live sports information business so thought it could be alright. Probably want a few more details if that's alright like how it works if you guys are good to have me.

And that was me wondering about the minute by minute... and tbh I read "minute by minute updates" so naturally I wondered "so why isn't it?" but that's probably just ignorance on the whole thing on my part.

Hi RSW,

We are currently quite full on commentators but ask FM to train you on the console and when we are short on commentators like this week we can call on you

Thanks for the interest

we want as many people on the roster as possible, last week we were in the lurch abit and avy, dt and a few others havent been able to commentate... also if we want two people for finals games it wouldn't hurt to have more people

Some good feedback.

I'm with doc, we should try recruit a bunch more, because plenty of feedback suggested that viewers like more analysis, something having 2 commentators would compliment nicely. If we can't get 2 on at the same time? Stiff shit, 1 can manage, but at the moment we are battling to have 1 commentator per match. We've got BusbyBabe & RSW waiting in the wings, and IMO we would be crazy not to get them on board.

Also, looks like we should abandon the EPL idea.

Plenty of good stuff to be positive about!

i dont think recruitment is the way to go. if we get too many, then some people will just miss out completely.

we getting a bit carried away. i know some games will be missed out, but thats just the way it is. we are volunteers after all, so sometimes we cant control things.

Looking at the surveys I have to the following conclusions:
1. We are doing a good job
2. People are tuning in from around the world
3. Scrap the EPL idea
5. People want more analysis so 2 commentators would be ideal

Keep it us guys!

I think we can live with one commentator for North Queensland vs Perth on a wednesday night at 930 but i think all Socceroo games and games with high traffic (Melbourne Derby, Finals, Melbourne Adelaide, Melbourne Sydney, Brisbane Gold Coast etc.) should have two commentators... I think one or two people also brought up the issue of the actual program we are using, i don't think it'd hurt if we did some research and saw if there was anything else out there which could netter the service

I think the stuff about people saying less or more comments, i think leave it as it is because each commentator has a different way about going about things

i can tell that lots of people dont know we have to approve comments and thats why they dont all appear.

Hey guys, good to see you managed to survive without me the past 2/3 days, Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in on the matters at hand:

-V>H, good idea with the survey, but I think you went over the top in linking it during coverage, you posted it just over 50 times by my count, during just 3/4 matches.

-The Co-Commentator idea seemed to work well during the Final, but I think we need to use it better. Reading back, it seems like most of what was said was just repeating what the Main Comm had just said. If we're going to have a special comments guy, they need to be just that. Pick relevant stats, and discuss those.

-Foster's twitter was a nice idea, but he posts more during a match than we do. I think I read someone removed, I think it's best if we keep it that way.

-I think we save double commentators for Major Matches, Finals, etc. A boring 0-0 draw between last and 3rd last doesn't need two people to cover it. 1 Person is still capable of doing more analysis, I think we need to start using Half Time and doing more Pre-Game, in terms of this.

-As for extra commentators, I think we need to be careful with this, yes in the past 2 weeks or so, we've been struggling, but as has been said, we're volunteers, this happens. When everyone is available, and we have 20 blokes ready to commentate, suddenly a lot of people are missing out. ATM we have:
Imnofreak
Zimbos
The Doctor
Scouse_Roar
Mizza
Budhha
Busby
Avy
DavidTorres
Victory>Heart
Funky

That's 11 names already. Anymore than that would be overkill at this stage. So thanks for your interest RSW, but at this stage I think we have to stick with what we've got. If it comes to the stage where we need more people, I'll keep your name at the top of the list.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts at this time. The end of the season is almost here. I think we stick with what we're doing for now till the season ends, and then look back and make whatever changes are needed.

Well said. Somebody doing co-comm shouldn't be commenting on events in the match,

EG:

Main: Good chance for Brisbane there. Henrique wriggled his was past two defenders on the left before crossing from the byline towards Solorzano, but the striker can only head over the bar from close range.

Co Comm - That's the third time Henrique has found space on that left hand side. Byun is having a real struggle and we could see him come off to try and control the threat soon.

Shit example but you get the idea.
Co Comm should just be doing analysis, interesting stats, not giving a play by play.

also assistant could be doing stuff like scoreboard, running stats, and comments alongside analysis

Oh yeah, this. If a 2nd Commentator is online as a Co-Commentator, his main focus should be that everything is up to date and running smooth. Have 2 people online, and still lagging behind with SB/NF and comments, is unacceptable tbh.

Can see the merits in both arguments now, and I agree with having 2 commentators for the 'bigger' matches.

I don't think any of us could have predicted how widly this has taken off, and it's almost becoming a weakness, because as the survey's indicated, we've set a pretty high standards for ourselves, and the viewers are expecting high standards, such as quicker updates and what-not.

Also not helping is that we have covered 99% of A-League matches, therefore the viewers expect every match to be done, instead of rushing to find a commentator, just a polite note on the console like we did for Australia Day should work well.

All valid points but I do agree a 2nd commentator could be useful for the big matches. Also mentioned in the survey was the program we are using. Maybe in the off season we can look into a better program and hopefully a dedicated live matchday thing on the website.

Does anyone know of a good program that we could look at trying over the off-season?

I also would suggest during the Asian Champions league matches we should have two commentators if possible as these matches hold more significance

Just one last thing. I agree with FM, 11 commentators is enough at this point and we can look at other ways to expand in the future

I personally think we try and utilise 2 commentators as much as we can. Or even if there is 1 person just changing around the scoreboard, and the lineups. Even if this is just for a second half of a match.

Yeah, that's fine. If someone whose commentating wants someone in the background to do that stuff, they just need to ask, someone will be online, I usually am and can do it. But what I mean with 2 commentators, is for most matches, we don't need someone doing special comments as a 2nd commentator. A backup to help do the behind the scenes stuff yes, but an actual 2nd commentator, only for special matches IMO.

because of having a 2nd comm in the background you take that work off him, and he'll probably do better and more in-depth updates, wouldn't you say?

That was my reasoning Doc.

That's what I thought you were talking about Funky, just wanted to add my two bobs worth