Cross The Pond 2021

[Kevin Finch]

Sadly, CTP communications is going from bad to worse.

The website is woefully incomplete. I logged on about nine days ago to see what was up. Voting for airports was going on; no closure date posted. I voted. I saw a tweet yesterday saying to expect the list of departure and arrival airports today. I saw a tweet today indicating the departure/arrival airports but that information is nowhere on the website. (My preferred arrival airport made the cut; my preferred departure airport did not; that's how voting works.)

No word on the website about when sign-ups begin.

No word on the website about how slots will be allocated.

These are likely the two biggest Qs missing from the Q&A.

When I searched MyVATSIM for Cross The Pond, it led me to the VATSIM forums. Not the Events section - which is being deprecated in favour of MyVATSIM - but the Announcements and Important Notices section.

The information in CTP-Eastbound 2020 updates - VATSIM Cross The Pond: Eastbound 2020 - Announcements & Important Notices - VATSIM Community - should be updated to reflect CTPW2021 and posted on the website.

The website is the one common denominator for all VATSIM members and should be the primary source of information for all interested parties. Instead, your information sharing seems strewn haphazardly across the VATSIM forums, Twitter, Discord, etc. Not all VATSIM members subscribe to Twitter. Or Discord. But we have access to websites.

Once you have a credible website in place, then you can add other channels such as Twitter, Discord, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, any additional media you wish that could drive traffic to the website.

Perhaps it's telling that VATUSA, which has seven of the nine destination airports, has not put this on its events calendar, as of this writing. VATCAN's calendar has a banner indicating dates and times but no indication of where to find more information.

Well, that's my advice, based on 30 years' experience in communications.

[Andreas Fuchs]

Hi Kevin,

yes, there may be room for improvement. But, after all, it's still a volunteer organization and CTP is THE biggest event at VATSIM - there are many more things to organize than just the slot-applications. And people will take part anyway.

Don't forget, it does not matte WHEN you request a slot, because there is no more "first come, first serve", but there will be a lottery to provide everyone with a fair chance to participate. I am NOT involved in the event organization whatsoever, but I faintly remember they mentioned last time that unsuccessful applications from the last CTP lottery may get sort of preference this time. Maybe I misunderstood.

[Mats Edvin Aaro]

Hi Kevin, and thanks for the feedback. I'll break it down for simplicity:

8 hours ago, Kevin Finch said:

The website is woefully incomplete. I logged on about nine days ago to see what was up. Voting for airports was going on; no closure date posted

The website not being optimal from a communications perspective is known. Tech has optimized the entire backend system, but that included some changes to backend priveleges, making it hard for people outside the core planning team to publish updates. Hopefully we will have a more optimized system in the future, we apologize for that.

8 hours ago, Kevin Finch said:

These are likely the two biggest Qs missing from the Q&A.

I will see about updating the Q&A to include recent changes to slot allocation.

8 hours ago, Kevin Finch said:

When I searched MyVATSIM for Cross The Pond, it led me to the VATSIM forums. Not the Events section - which is being deprecated in favour of MyVATSIM - but the Announcements and Important Notices section.

Where did you search for the event? And yes, CTP announcements are indeed posted in the announcements section and not the event section.

 

8 hours ago, Kevin Finch said:

The information in CTP-Eastbound 2020 updates - VATSIM Cross The Pond: Eastbound 2020 - Announcements & Important Notices - VATSIM Community - should be updated to reflect CTPW2021 and posted on the website.

That is an old post from last event. A new post will be made for this event, but that is not ready yet.

 

8 hours ago, Kevin Finch said:

Perhaps it's telling that VATUSA, which has seven of the nine destination airports, has not put this on its events calendar, as of this writing. VATCAN's calendar has a banner indicating dates and times but no indication of where to find more information.

We do not control VATUSA's, VATCAN's or any other divisional or subdivisional events calendar. You have to speak with them about that, but the aiports were only announced yesterday - it's not the end of the world that they haven't gotten the information up yet. 🙂

 

VATSIM is a volunteer organization, and we work tirelessly to bring you an event twice a year for your enjoyment. Hundreds, if not thousands of man-hours are put down in the planning and execution of it, ever single year. We have always posted things on the ctp.vatsim.net website in the past, this is an exception. The reason our marketing is "strewn haphazardly" is partially to circumvent the website issue, and partially to cover a huge demographic of everyone from 13-60+.

I appreciate your feedback, and we are fully aware of this year's flaws, and will take it into consideration. Just remember that we are doing this for you, without getting a cent in return... 🙂

Have a pleasant event, see you April 24th!

[Kevin Finch]

Thanks for the response, guys; much appreciated.

As the volunteer events manager for my VA, and as the volunteer web manager for Nova Scotia's provincial honours band - which involves keeping 50+ musicians and their families up to date on rehearsals, making their individual music parts available for download, photographing and recording rehearsals and performances, along with website security and member management - I appreciate the efforts of volunteers. I do this for the people I serve, without getting a cent in return, just like VATSIM volunteers.

Andreas, "Don't forget, it does not matte WHEN you request a slot,"; it does matter if you don't know - from the website where you register - when slots will become available.

Mats, "That is an old post from last event. A new post will be made for this event,"; that's why I said "should be updated to reflect CTPW2021 and posted on the website"; that means the info about using the lottery system, which airports have been chosen, etc. The organizers have that information.

In years past, CTP comms had a lot more information on their event site, information that made it easier to keep my pilots informed about CTP,  information that doesn't appear on the current site in a timely fashion. That was the main thrust of my original post.

[Vladyslav Smaliychuk]

When do te bookings begin?

[Sean Harrison]

Maybe for events which cross several divisional boundaries can be advertised on VATSIM events forum.  As an attender of events, it will be hard now to find them if we have to search on numerous divisional forums.

[T. Stone]

Would be interested in when the bookings/registration for the slot-allocation-lottery start as well. 
 

Best regards

[Layth Al-Wakil]

Hey!

Thanks for the feedback! 

Mats has already answered a few of the questions but just to sum up the reason why we can't answer all questions is because the answers haven't been given yet. From a comms perspective we don't want to post something only for the planning team to say actually no we want to change it to this.

There is a provisional date already given to us for when bookings will open but we cannot publish that until the planning team are ready for us too. Rest assured when we have that date confirmed you will see it and have sufficient notice before bookings open, as with the last event they will not be on a first come first served basis so you will not miss out.

 

[Nick Marinov]

Just to add to what Layth has said, we don't want to publish dates as many things depend on human and technical aspects and those dates will be taken as set in stone, even if we say otherwise. The amazing resource of the tech volunteers is one of the hardest to come by and their time on vatsim is spread thinly. Long story short, we don't want to lie to you about dates that we ourselves are not 100% sure about. 🙂 

[T. Stone]

Thanks for your reply.

Where will the registration-dates be published?

Best regards 

[Nick Marinov]

1 minute ago, T. Stone said:

Thanks for your reply.

Where will the registration-dates be published?

Best regards 

I dont see a reason for not publishing them when we are 100% sure that those will be the dates. Last time, iirc, there was some announcements in advance of the "picking/preselecting" being opened. 😄 

[T. Stone]

Thank you, but I didn‘t mean when but where.

Best regards

Edited April 1, 2021 at 05:57 PM by T. Stone