Recap / StatisticsMUScoop.com is 37 days old today! 400 members have registered (probably more by the end of the day), we just recorded our 3,000th post on the main board 2 days ago and over 500 topics have come and gone. During the Valparaiso game we had a record of 43 users in the game chat at one time (with quite a few more popping in for a few moments here and there). In the hours around the Duke game we had 107 users simultaneously logged onto the board reading and posting, but then shattered that again Monday night with 126 users! All of this in barely over a month! What do all these stats mean? They mean that this is a site FOR THE FANS, BY THE FANS.
To the newer members we’d like to invite you to join us in our prediction contest before every MU game. Just keep your eye out for the “Make your XXX Predictions Here” post on top of the
Hangin’ at the Al message board! With the jackpot styled bonus question nobody is out of the running until the last game is over - so get started now! We’d also like to invite you to our
gameday chat (see link to the left in the Resources frame). There’s always lots of good discussion as the action unfolds and a great way to follow the game even if you cannot see it on TV or listen to it on the radio or internet.
While you’re exploring the site, also check out the
wiki which has topics about nearly everything related to Marquette from bars to the band to the nicknames to (of course) our men’s basketball team. Thanks to EVERYONE who has been contributing to the content of OUR wiki! If you have anything at all to share related to Marquette please head on over there, dust off your keyboard and get typing. Feel free to add new topics if you believe one is missing or simply update any existing ones you feel are lacking!
New FeaturesEven if you have been around a while chances are that you noticed a few new things about MUScoop.com. I’ve been hearing users exclaiming that pages seem to load before they even click on a link to take them there! Several others were celebrating the fact that our gameday chat was able to cruise through 40 users without blinking an eye! We have our new dedicated server (aptly named Warrior of course
) to thank for all of these performance improvements. Imagine our pleasant surprise when, only two weeks into this adventure, we discovered that the hosting service had grossly overburdened the shared server we were on (more than 1,000 sites were hosted on the same machine!) and severely limited our processing capabilities. Now we have total control of nearly everything about the server and MUScoopers are THE ONLY ONES ON IT!! So let’s use it to its limits!
Another change that may be fairly apparent is that the
board list is now the first page that you see when you arrive at the site. This was in response to some comments we heard in Kansas City that people were not quite sure where to go to see the action. Hopefully this will make it more apparent. The contents of the old main page were moved to an
“About MUScoop” link under the Resources frame on the left side. This will likely be moved to a new tab at the top (next to Calendar and Members) in the short term.
Another significant addition was the enabling of the
calendar. Check it out through the tab at the top. You can also see a list of events coming up in the next 7 days right below the
board index. This list will be published inside the Al forum in the near future (complete with the dates for the events). Currently all of the games are added. We will be adding player and coach birthdays as well. If you can think of anything else that should be on there please let us know.
Probably the largest addition we have made recently is the ability to host
blogs. Check out the “MUScoop Blogs” frame to the left of this page. We are very excited about this feature and are actively seeking blog authors to create their own. If you’re interested just send a
PM to rocky_warrior AND spiral97 and you'll be blogging in no time.
Finally, this would be a good time to introduce scooper. scooper is basically a fairly anonymous account that allows you to post rumors, breaking news, inside perspectives, and tips (basically SCOOPS) to a new board (invisible to everyone but scooper and the moderators) without the rest of the general user base knowing who made the post. The moderators will review each post and move it to the Al board if it is appropriate (has merit, is non-slanderous, etc.) so that the whole community can view and react to it. It remains anonymous to the general community through this whole process so you can post in confidence! To use it, simply log out of MUScoop and re-sign in as scooper using a password of scooper. Knock yourselves out!
Well, let us apologize for the length of this message but it’s very difficult to keep our enthusiasm down to a few lines, especially when there is so much to share with you! We haven’t even mentioned the plethora of behind-the-scenes infrastructure type work that’s been going on to make everything easier to maintain, etc. What a blast!!!
We need YOUR feedbackEarlier we mentioned that this site is by the fans for the fans and we mean it. It wouldn’t be anything without any of you. That said, we need your feedback as well. Please let us know what your ideas for improvement are, or what you like and don’t like. We've added a new
MUScoop Suggestions board - listed on the board index - specifically for this purpose. With your help we can continue to make this the preferred site for Marquette hoops!
Sincerely,
Your MUScoop.com site crew
(rocky_warrior, spiral97, mu_hilltopper, and SoCalwarrior)
