History • • Chapter 1

September 2011 is edmontonrefs.com's 10th birthday! In honor of this, we thought it might be interesting to look back at how the web site has developed over ten years, and some of the features that have appeared.

Beginnings

The EDSRA has actually had a web site since 1996, although in those days the association was known as 'ASRA, Edmonton Society'. The original web site was designed and maintained by Vladimir Bado, a Class 1 referee and assessor, who was also the ASRA (Edmonton) Registrar. In 2001, Vladimir asked if someone would be interested in taking over the web site, as he was considering 'retiring' as an official after many years' service. Wayne Telfer and Dave O'Neill both expressed interest, and after a couple of months of testing and set up, a redesigned web site was launched on September 30th, 2001.

Ideas for the content of the web site were researched by many hours of surfing other soccer referee web sites from around the world. In 2001, there were not a lot to choose from, and some of the designs were quite basic.
We also noticed that many web sites remained 'stagnant', and you could return months later to find that nothing had changed. edmontonrefs.com has worked hard over the years to avoid these pitfalls.

Some early content included - AMSL news with referee crews listed; results from provincial tournaments; quizzes and contests; and a fairly basic style discussion forum. EDSRA meetings and events were advertised on the site, and this usually resulted in higher attendance figures than would have been achieved otherwise.

First Major Development

In November 2002, a change in the hosting arrangements with Telfer Communications allowed us to take two significant steps:
One - we were able to publish on the web as 'edmontonrefs.com' instead of being a sub site of 'Telfcom'. This enabled us to be searched and indexed by people and software on the web, just the same as all major web sites, which resulted in more visits to our site.
Two - we gained access to a much more sophisticated style of discussion forum. The 'forum' has by far been the most successful aspect of edmontonrefs.com, with over 11000 postings to date! As well as public discussions, the forum has also been used for - Upgrading Study Groups, EDSRA Board Discussions, Provincial Discussions, CMISL and PDL League Referee Discussions. We have had a few controversial conversations over the years, and there are a few users not welcome anymore, but in general, the standard of discussion has been very high, and the archives are a great place for any level of referee to get some 'food for thought'.

Availabilites

In the days before EDSA and EIYSA used the Arbiter for assigning, availabilities were initially gathered through our web site and forwarded on to Ralf Schmidt. This process was also used for provincial assigning in the Edmonton area, and was actually quite efficient. Once the Arbiter program arrived though, with its many features, we quickly handed back the availability to the leagues!

Mentor Program Pages

In the first few years of the Mentor Program, the web site had a whole section devoted to that. There were 'Mugshots' of each years' participants, and a mentoring goals page that you could use as reference, and even add your own goals to. This year, the mentoring pages are undergoing a bit of a makeover to bring them up to date, and will be re-opened once that is complete.

Updated Designs

There have been many minor 'tweaks' along the way, but there have also been significant design changes every three or four years. This is to ensure that the web site has an appearance that is consistent with the designs that are being used on the web today, with advances in technology and programming. Along with this year's redesign, you can take a look back at how we have changed our look over the years.

 

Future of the web site

edmontonrefs.com is partly a service to the EDSRA and its members, but it is also a hobby and learning experience for the Webmaster, Dave O'Neill. As such, there will be more new designs to come, features will be added and removed to respond to our users' needs, and one thing is for sure - we won't stand still for long.

Happy Surfing!