MeetFighters News

As always everyone's hard work keeping this site going is appreciated. This is the best site for meeting serious wrestlers and fighters. Keep up the amazing work. Thank you!!!!!

I think the idea of fitfighters has marret however I think the reason the sight is so sucssesfull is because you've so far stayed focused on bringing fighters together. The fighters will do the rest.
Please don't start filling the sight with sideline stuff that one has to navigate around in order to use what is already user friendly for the most part. Thanks

Dittoe from me!

Thanks also for the hard work you put into the site I was wondering if there were some way of adding a " I like your profile" button

Thanks again for giving so many of us the possibility of meeting like minded others.
Regards Mike

I can not comment much on the Fitfighters fearure, i do not currently do excercises that require it, and have never taken gym work so seriously meself.

The meetings feature I have tried using before, but only the once, to little success. I have not given it much more thought since if I am honest.

The match request feature i feel is a good one though. I do often flick through it myself seeing if there is any that i can offer to take up, and quite often see a good few listed at any one time for the UK. I am not too sure if it is as effective in otger areas though, maybe making it a more appealing feature to use may help it? I will try think of how this can be done, though this news feed will gain it some extra attention already maybe.

Match requests: Yes, I second that: more visibility for it please! I always check it if I travel somewhere. And I have directed a number of people to it who were not aware the feature exists at all! So I think much of the lack of use stems from lack of visibility perhaps.

workout journal: I voted "No, because I don't exercise" to a workout journal; however what I mean is a "might be"; and, actually, I would definitely welcome a body weight log (think the Eat Watch from "The Hacker's Diet"). And that already includes also recording daily the "rung" of the fitness ladder one is on, so in essence that is a kind of very very very simplistic workout journal. What would be the format for the proposed workout journal anyway, so that it can support people who do weights as well as people doing distance work (jogging, swimming)? And people doing other technical work (e.g. I do series of kicks and punches on the heavybag, as well as interval training on the heavybag, bodyweight exercises, etc.) Beacuse that kind of specificity could make a journal interesting and useful to me.

I would like to keep it relatively simple and free-form. There would be exercise names and details like reps / number of series / weight.

I would be using this page as a basis: http://jamesclear.com/workout-journal

Though i voted no as i do not do excercises, i do feel it is a good idea and would promote it, as there are many on here who may well want to use such a feature.

Maybe trial it and see what usage it gets before deciding to fix it permanently into the site?

Hey I came on here to say that I think the fitfighters aspect may be a good idea, I just personally wouldn't use it myself as I am already doing jiu-jitsu/boxing classes. But for someone else it may work!

Hallo Admin, es wäre sehr schön deine Infos auch in deutsch zu erhalten, ich kann leider kaum englisch .

Da es hier um sehr wichtige Fragen geht, die mir auch am Herzen liegen, hier ist mein Versuch einer Übersetzung ins Deutsche. Bitte seht mir meine Schweizer Konvention in Bezug auf "dass" nach;-)
Dies ist lediglich eine Übersetzung des englischen Originaltextes, um an den Umfragen teilzunehmen muss der Originaltext von Admin verwendet werden. Die Reihenfolge der Fragen und Antworten stimmt überein.

Ich denke über eine neue Funktion auf der Webseite nach: ein Online Trainings-Tagebuch.
Was ist ein Trainings-Tagebuch fragt ihr?
Schaut euch diese Seite an für eine schnelle Einführung mit Bildern: http://jamesclear.com/workout-journalf

Der Grundgedanke ist dass ihr euer Trainings-Tagebuch pflegen könnt und euren Freunden auf MeetFighters zeigen könnt, eure Trainingsfortschritte im Blick
haben könnt, usw.
Ich nenne diese neue Funktion "FitFighters", aber ich werde den Namen sofort ändern sobald mir ein weniger kitschiger Name einfällt.
Grundsätzlich wäre die Idee dahinter, dass ihr schnell eine Zusammenfassung eures Trainings aufzeichnen und abspeichern könnt, entweder während ihr trainiert oder gleich danach, auf eine sowohl vom Webbrowser aus als auch vom Mobilgerät einfach zu bedienende Weise.

Meine Frage an euch ist einfach:

Glaubt ihr dass eine Trainings-Tagebuch Funktion nützlich wäre?
[ ] Ja, ich mag die Idee und würde die Funktion nutzen
[ ] Nein, ich würde die Funktion nicht benutzen
[ ] Nein, weil ich garnicht trainiere
(Diese Umfrage wurde am 17.August 2016 gestartet)

In ähnlicher Angelegenheit spiele ich mit dem Gedanken zwei bereits existierende Funktionen einzustampfen, ganz einfach weil sie sich als nicht so nützlich herausgestellt haben wie sie es wünschenswert wäre wenn wenn man sie schon auf der Webseite anbietet.
Unnütze Funktionen zu entfernen hilft die Nutzbarkeit der Webseite übersichtlich zu halten und weniger verwirrend für neue Mitglieder.

Bitte vergesst nicht für jede der drei Umfragen den Abstimm-Knopf ("Vote!") separat zu drücken!

Glaubt ihr, dass die "Meetings"-Funktion ("Treffen") entfernt werden kann?
Die "Treffen"-Funktion trifft nicht auf sonderlich viel Liebe. Ursprünglich war sie dazu gedacht Treffen zu organisieren bei denen mehr als zwei Personen involviert sind, aber es hat sich herausgestellt dass derartige Treffen entweder nicht allzu oft stattfinden oder dass sie mittels normaler Nachrichten
ordiniert werden.
[ ] Entfernt die "Treffen"-Funktion. Ich verwende sie nicht.
[ ] Behaltet die "Treffen"-Funktion bei, ich mag die Funktion so wie sie ist.
[ ] Behaltet die "Treffen"-Funktion bei, ich habe Ideen wie man die Funktion verbessern kann (Bitte die Idee als Kommentar unten beschreiben(*))
(Diese Umfrage wurde am 17.August 2016 gestartet)

(*) eine Rückübersetzung der Idee wird hoffentlich auch jemand vornehmen;-) (Anmerkung des freiwilligen Übersetzers)

Glaubt ihr, dass die "Match Requests"-Funktion ("Match-Anfragen") entfernt werden kann?
Ähnlich wie die "Treffen"-Funktion wird auch die "Match-Anfragen"-Funktion nur wenig benutzt. Vielleicht ist es an der Zeit die Funktion in den Ruhestand
zu schicken.
[ ] Entfernt die "Match-Anfragen"-Funktion. Ich verwende sie nicht.
[ ] Behaltet die "Match-Anfragen"-Funktion bei, ich mag die Funktion so wie sie ist.
[ ] Behaltet die "Match-Anfragen"-Funktion bei, ich habe Ideen wie man die Funktion verbessern kann (Bitte die Idee als Kommentar unten beschreiben(*))
(Diese Umfrage wurde am 17.August 2016 gestartet)

Vielen Dank für eure Teilnahme an den Umfragen!

Thank you so much!

What I say is, I'll give it a try. I'm not an everyday workout guy , but this may help Me change. I will see what kind of routine I can figure out.
That would be good. I did check-out the james clear pages, could help..
Many thanks for this great site. I've met several guys , made a couple of good friends , met a few for matches . Not so easy to do in this day and time of Super busy & I gotta 's .
So Thanks again for all the hard work and asking what we'd like . That's to cool !

If match requests survive, they should be defined a little more clearly. Some are very specific and actionable.... and some of them seem to be stale (someone posted a general request for matches a long time ago).

Match requests should have date ranges if they continue, including a maximum duration of 90-120 days... (As a User, I will not respond to a match request from a couple years ago!) and could build on the information on a profile (size, style) and travel destinations. A match request could display as an icon in search results (As a wrestler visiting Toledo, I search wrestlers in Toledo and Toledo user with match requests have an icon OR are higher in default Sort Order so they stand out in search results.) I think most of what Match requests do is already being done with Locales for travel and text updates to the profiles themselves.

One thing that would help with travel is adding locale to the Favorites/Fought view and Favorite/Fought indicator to location based search results:

(As a User in the Favorites or Fought List, I can sort by distance from city I live in/city I will visit)

(As a visitor to London, I set dates for my London trip and I see a link to search results where [city = London (OR distance < NN miles)] AND user is in my Favorites/Fought. (Same thing for fought list?)

You say "Some are very specific and actionable.... and some of them seem to be stale (someone posted a general request for matches a long time ago). "...

I never have observed a matchrequest being stale.
I recently issued some requests and they all disappeared right after the date due. No clean-up required from my side, so if you do observe a match request with a date in the past(*) I´d recommend to write a bug-report about it because that should not happen...
(On a sidenote: I have very good experience with reporting bugs, either they get fixed (that´s the common case) or sometimes I get explained very politely why my assumption was wrong and the site is indeed working as intended by Admin:-)

(*) Make that "way in the past": one day over-due can eventually happen due to timezone effects. But on the day after tomorrow the request should really be gone.

I like the match requests when I wander there but as people above noted, it is hard to find so being able to see it more easily would be super.

Meetings are....I don't know what they are for, so there's that. That seems to be what the calendar and/or match requests would be used for.

The FitFighters concept is interesting and I'd be curious to know who would use it.

I think the workout journal could be useful to some who want to keep a record of their progress. Perhaps it could include a comments section so others could offer encouragement.

I used the Meetings feature once to try to organise a private group session. I didn't find it to be very user friendly. Not being able to send out a group message to update everyone of the ongoing arrangements was a big hindrance to the effective organisation of the event. I was hoping it would be a private version of the Events Page but this was not the case. That would make the Meetings feature much more appealing.

The Match Requests feature is used a lot in the UK and I often check who is looking for matches and have responded to a few.
I've not used it to make a request myself so am not sure how user friendly it is.
I don't know how useful/effective it would be for others, but could there be an indication that there have been responses to the requests? It wouldn't necessarily have to give the details as they may want them to remain private, but an indicator of how many responses the request has had could help.
Maybe some are put off from using it because they don't know how effective it is?

I also want to echo the thanks of others for all the hard work put into running this site.
It's very much appreciated.

Never used or noticed the 'meetings' feature.

I do browse 'match requests' more out of habit than having found it much use! It can be useful if someone cancels on you last minute and you have a mat room booked - but even then it is not very successful in my experience. On the whole people seem to prefer messaging each other directly.

No strong feelings about FitFighters. Something you'd get somewhere else?

Fitfighters, I think this would add to the Admin's work load and duplicate functionality freely available on almost every smart phone, I think what might be interesting would be to link data from say the top 3 apps that provide this feature, But there might be licensing costs involved here.

Meetings feature, I don't do group meets so I don't use it.

Match request, There are a lot of people who will not respond to a "match request" simply because they feel they should have more than "one click" from the challenger, for them to consider responding (personally I find that arrogant and rude) so I wonder if some form of tracking/reporting, perhaps: -

1, Number of challenges made;
2, % of challenges made that were responded too;
3, Number of challenges received;
4, % of challenges received that were responded too.

and maybe to keep this clear, only post for the last 30 days, or maybe last 90 days, it will help understand the best way to approach a match with someone, both as the challenger or the challenged.
.

Match requests: perhaps if it sent out a notification to people in the area where a new match request was made? e.g. when I make travel plans, and know I will be at a certain town for certain days, I now have to search that area and message guys there to gauge potential interest. It would be useful if the meeting request feature (or the locations feature) would have the option to send out a notification to people in the area to avoid the need for manually browsing profiles and sending out feeler messages to inquire about potential interest.

If this is opt-in, that would be awesome!

Meetings: how about working the Meetings and Event features into one, that would allow private ones (Meetings) as well as public ones (Events), and then working on just one common codebase on enhancements that would benefit both. Like, just recently, there is an Event organized by someone else, I would like to invite other guys from the site to. I now try to do this in personal messages, but it could be fun to open up a group discussion instead to build momentum for people to come. (Granted this does not happen often for me - but maybe people would be interested in if it was proposed?)

Basically, I think the Meetings feature is unfinished in a way that makes its use often impractical, so the lack of interest might partly come from that?

I think the events and meetings are quite hidden. Thats the only reason why they are not used that much.

Off subject a tad, but have you ever thought about adding a feature where we can find people looking for our age/weight groups? You have the bigger/smaller section, but in search it would be helpful, I've seen it on another site where they use it. Great feature. Thanks for your time. Awesome site you have. James

To make this site even better, you could make it easier to connect with people. If you're a gutpuncher, you could searc for Punchee to find guys. The gutpunching site with 800 member you find punhers, punchees and they who like to trade blows. Most of them you have to contact to find out which type they are - would be nice if it was easyer to find the right ones...

Thanks a lot to everyone involved for your effort to make a great site even better!
Her come my 6 cents (three times my 2 cents;-)...

Regarding "workout journal": No.
Sounds like a good idea, but how does that help to "meet fighters"?
I see dark clouds on the horizon that such a feature might introduce discrimination where a fitness enthusiast might refuse to meet me because I don´t have a workout journal - and therefore obviously I don´t work out and must be an unfit slump of meat and fat that´s boring to fight with...
I do my grappling sessions twice a week and don´t have the feeling of needing further workout. beyond that.
(Yes, I often have rather overly pessimistic thoughts... The upside of expecting always the worst is at least sometimes I get surprised in a positive way;-)

"Meetings" and "Match requests" in a second post to keep the responses separate and better structured...

Regarding "Meetings" and "Match requests":
I´m not exactly sure who a meeting would work.
The "Meetings" link just gives me a page saying:
"You are not involved in any meetings at this time." and a button "New meeting"...
Some explanationary text might make more clear how "Meetings" are supposed to work.

What´s the difference between a "Meeting" and a "Match request"?
Maybe the two can be merged to one thing with maybe a checkbox-flag or something that indicates the difference (whatever that diference is;-)

Regarding "Match requests":
Those sound extremely valuable, after all this is "Meetfighters", eh? ;-)
Having a profile says "I am a fighter and basically interested in fights... somewhen somewhere somehow..."
But issuing a match request says "I am a fighter and want to fight RIGHT NOW (or in two weeks when I´m in your town;-), RIGHT THERE, IN THAT SPECIFIC WAY (yeah, my profile says MuayThai, but unfortunately some injury restricts me to pillow fights for the next three weeks;-)"

So it seems that should be the central feature of the whole site...
Maybe "Match requests" would become more prominent if they were incorporated in the search results?

Structuring tne search results in two blocks:
First a block that gives the match request where either the request or the user behind the request matches the search query...
I propose to match not only the request but also the user, because if that muaythai-guy did a request specific for sumo he still might be up to do some muaythai if he doesn´t find a sumo guy!

And in the second block give the search results as they´re now (eventually cleared by the users that were already shown in the first block, dependign on whether the first block shows users with their requests or just the requests...)

The first block could look roughly like:
"There are 3 match requests that match your search:
(user profile like in the search results right now, followed by:)
Match request on Wed 01/01/2000 in Montreal:
Looking for some greco-roman training partner to meet in my newly built garage.

(Second user profile with request)
(Third user profile with request)"

And if there are no matching match requests:
"There are no match requests matching your search.
Link to:Issue a new match request yourself?"

That way the match requests would be mentioned in every search - and I assume that´s what people are using most on meetfighters...
Maybe that would make the match request feature more widespread known, more widespread used, and therefore more useful?

Workout - There are numerous apps etc out there already so I feel this would just be an unnecessary duplication.

Meetings - I was never sure what this feature was actually for and have never used it.

Match requests - I look at this every day to see if anyone is stopping off in Newcastle. I think it is also useful for fighters that are travelling as they can find possible opponents rather than have to send individual messages.

Thanks for that work you put into this site.

I hacked up a quick mock-up of what the "FitFighters" feature might end up looking like:

I think like a lot of people, the fitfighter like the previously floated fightopedia are great ideas BUT it's probably going to be a lot of work for not that much reward.

Something I'm learning from work,the mistakes companies and brands (look at BHS, Woolworths) make is to expand itself too widely it loses sense of its core, rather than refine the services it already has.

Meetings? I've never used them. I've clicked on them, but always thought it was somehow linked to Events.

Match requests are one of the great things about this site. I have used them to great success in the past. Vanman's blog sums up my feelings nicely. It enables fighters to actually meet and not have those vague conversations about a match "sometime"

It might be worth reaching out more directly to the non-UK users to see why they aren't using them rather than listen to us noisy Brits. See what they would need refining or changing to get them to use it (which I know you are doing.)

Keep up the great work, admin!

Who are you calling noisy?

I think there a few strands to this that need merging.

Events - I have attended loads and like the idea, but the interface of them needs tweaking perhaps.
MEETINGS - Brilliant in my opinion, group messages and messages work well. (Just need to be time specific as this is where I think people see stale requests)
Match Requests - mainly used by the UK for some reason.
Match maker - is this where most random challenges come from. I have had challenges from Australia when neither of us will be travelling that far.

Match maker? I totally forgot about that one... just checked it out and it seems to be the same funny joke page I remember from the very early days of the site...
...unless it sends out a challenge to someone "based on your past opponents" silently, but I doubt it and think that message is more of a plan what the "match maker" page should do once the idea is implemented;-)

UK leading in match requests:
Well, indeed you seem to be leading by number of match requests, but not that overwhelming (8 out of 21 right now).
Of course you only see the UK match requests under the "Local macth requests" tab unless you click on the "Global match requests", but since you where writing "mainly used by the UK" instead of "only used by the UK" I take it granted that you already knew about the two tabs:-)

If I had to guess why the UK are using the match requests so much more, well, maybe it is way easier to arrange matches in the UK?
I heard rumors of "mat rooms" existing there... Just checked:
1 of the 8 UK match requests mentions a ring, obviously at some mat room-like facility. That infrastructure makes it easier to arrange matches, and maybe wrestling is in general more popular in the UK, which might explain why you have such mat rooms... ...and so many match requests;-)

I do take the other tabs into account, but I agree with Admin overall 20 requests given the number of wrestlers on here is low. The thing is when it is 'used' it is useful as per the UK.

Regarding the total number:
OK, I now understand why admin even thinks about removing something that should be the central feature of the site...

If anyone thinks my idea (in another comment) of how to make the match requests more outstanding, more visible by integrating them with the search results seems promising, please write up a short agreeing reply so Admin can see your intention too.

Admin is a very capable person, at least regarding buidling such a perfect website, yet: reading your minds might not be one of his skills, so you still have to write down your thoughts if you want them to reach Admin;-)

Plus the numbers don't mean anything really. I put up a request, and within the hour I took it down because I had a taker ... so when it works, you don't notice.

Of all the parts of the site, it's the one I'm genuinely surprised Admin is thinking of removing. ((Please don't!))