The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours

[Homer Thompson]

1 hour ago, #Gary said:

 

Two days later? The car didn't even make it out of the fucking garage car park here...

 

The "streaming service" itself was also clearly not the issue given the game was live streaming on some dodgy website the entire time...

 

I think it's fairly obvious the issue is Morton's website which has been an issue for years. It crashes every time Crawford farts. If you want to stick with your garage analogy, no you can't take it back to the garage 12 years later and say it's their fault.

I think the footage on the dodgy stream came from Pixellot ... not directly, obviously, they werent putting out illegal streams.

46 minutes ago, Jamie_M said:

Well, you are the one that is claiming that responsibility doesn't fall solely at Morton's door but rather at some bad advice.

There were 2 main  issues last night.

The website crashed. Morton's fault. Their website crashed every time a news article goes up and 2 people try to view it. The fact Morton didn't get a new fit for purpose site like they said they would (but rather reskinned the old one) and the fact they didn't run a proper live test to check it at capacity means responsibility lies firmly with them.

The camera work was appalling. Morton chose to circumvent the pixellot system (the stream from which was adequate as witnessed on the dodgy website). Other clubs had a problem with Pixellot, ours was working fine.

Morton chose to ask a volunteer to do the filming rather than employ a professional. Morton's fault.

Stress testing a website like that is pretty difficult. I cant imagine many, if any clubs have the resources to do a proper capacity test.

The camera work wasnt the issue last night. The issue was some kind of mismatch between what the cameraman was seeing what was going out on Youtube. Still Mortons "fault" but a mistake anyone could have made under the circumstances. 

[Jamie_M]

10 minutes ago, Rudolph Hucker said:

Do you really, honestly think they didn’t seek advice as to whether they had a medium that would stand up to the traffic expected for streaming?  You don’t know the answer to that any more than I do, but personally I find it hard to believe they didn’t. The problems last night appear to show that there need to be either improvements or further improvements made; it’s up to the club to ensure that that happens.

Yes, last night’s camerawork was very poor. Nobody disputes that. Hopefully they’ll have learned that lesson and  get someone more competent in for the future, whether “professional” or not.

The fact that with just a week to go, they decided to abandon the setup for which the infrastructure had been put in place to do their own thing and hope for the best? Yes. Yes I do.

Even if they did, the fact they chose not to run a proper test event, it remains their own fault.

[Jamie_M]

2 minutes ago, Mr X said:

I think the footage on the dodgy stream came from Pixellot ... not directly, obviously, they werent putting out illegal streams.

Stress testing a website like that is pretty difficult. I cant imagine many, if any clubs have the resources to do a proper capacity test.

The camera work wasnt the issue last night. The issue was some kind of mismatch between what the cameraman was seeing what was going out on Youtube. Still Mortons "fault" but a mistake anyone could have made under the circumstances. 

Streaming a friendly was the test that was demanded and required.

Could the camera operator not have had a view of what was going on youtube and adjusted? Surely the issue was highlighted to him quickly? Surely someone was checking...

[The Ghost of B A R P]

Can’t believe anyone’s trying to defend the club after last night...

As for the camerawork, as Jamie is suggesting, my thought at half-time was ‘somebody will tell him what he thinks he’s seeing on the right-hand side isn’t what’s being broadcast’. No one did. That’s not about tech, that’s just incompetent.

[Homer Thompson]

1 hour ago, Jamie_M said:

Streaming a friendly was the test that was demanded and required.

Could the camera operator not have had a view of what was going on youtube and adjusted? Surely the issue was highlighted to him quickly? Surely someone was checking...

Streaming a friendly isnt even close to "a proper live test to check it at capacity". Had they streamed a friendly they would have learned nothing that would have changed last night.

No, no and no to your other questions. Of course, the answer to at least one of those should have been yes and that would have solved the problem.

 

[Morton Supporter]

I like to think I’m very level-headed - especially when it comes to something as inconsequential as football.

But I was beeling last night and I can’t believe that anyone would be willing to give the club the benefit of the doubt.

They clearly took the view that it’s okay to take folks money when you know there’s a real chance you might not follow through on your end of the deal.

This is a completely unacceptable way to treat anybody, never mind the folk who have pumped money into you and your prospective owners over the Summer and got nothing in return til last night. (Not to mention the Queen’s fans who shouldn’t be forgotten in this).

As someone who has already paid for a season ticket, to eventually see how dreadful the product we blindly paid for is, was even worse.

But the quotes from Morton in this are the worst part: https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/18777304.fans-fury-morton-streaming-fail/.

To try and convey the fan feedback as positive is fantasy stuff and to have to consider that a refund might not be in order might be downright illegal.

It’s high-time they - and lots of other football clubs - realises that they’re not a charity case, and that supporters realised we’re not under any emotional obligation to act as their benefactors. 

If they don’t refund this and sort that camerawork they can forget me coming back.

[vikingTON]

None of the above post is wrong but did anyone seriously expect GMFC to do anything other than make a total arse of this? Asking them to give you on-demand and interrupted streaming from the club website for a tenner (never mind an entire season ticket!) is the equivalent of handing over your sort code and account number to that Nigerian prince who is definitely going to wire those millions in the near future. 

[Rudolph Hucker]

3 hours ago, Jamie_M said:

The fact that with just a week to go, they decided to abandon the setup for which the infrastructure had been put in place to do their own thing and hope for the best? Yes. Yes I do.

Even if they did, the fact they chose not to run a proper test event, it remains their own fault.

Yes, yes you do, and nothing’s going to change your mind. Fair enough, enjoy the self-righteousness - obviously you’re right, the club went their own sweet way off their own bat for absolutely no reason at all.    REALLY??

And if you really think streaming a meaningless friendly that might’ve attracted 150 to 200 viewers spread over the course of the game would’ve given a realistic comparison of performance of the system against a game that attracted an audience of over 3,000 paying customers, then good luck to you. You have a pretty skewed view of the reality of things.

[Jamie_M]

2 hours ago, Mr X said:

Streaming a friendly isnt even close to "a proper live test to check it at capacity". Had they streamed a friendly they would have learned nothing that would have changed last night.

Morton didn't need a test at capacity, their site would have crumbled with far less traffic so a friendly would have sufficed.

Morton's trials involved them not advertising them and streaming a webcam from Leith.

[Toby]

18 minutes ago, Rudolph Hucker said:

Yes, yes you do, and nothing’s going to change your mind. Fair enough, enjoy the self-righteousness - obviously you’re right, the club went their own sweet way off their own bat for absolutely no reason at all.    REALLY??

And if you really think streaming a meaningless friendly that might’ve attracted 150 to 200 viewers spread over the course of the game would’ve given a realistic comparison of performance of the system against a game that attracted an audience of over 3,000 paying customers, then good luck to you. You have a pretty skewed view of the reality of things.

The game didn’t attract an audience of 3000 paying customers. It attracted 3000 views on YouTube when it became apparent it was free. I certainly sent out the link to a few non-Morton supporting mates on my group chat and dare say they watched about a minute or so of it, adding to that figure, but let’s not confuse that with 3000 folk subscribing to a Morton v Queen of the South cup game that would’ve probably attracted 1100-1300 through the turnstiles under normal circumstances.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Toby

[Jamie_M]

11 minutes ago, Rudolph Hucker said:

Yes, yes you do, and nothing’s going to change your mind. Fair enough, enjoy the self-righteousness - obviously you’re right, the club went their own sweet way off their own bat for absolutely no reason at all.    REALLY??

And if you really think streaming a meaningless friendly that might’ve attracted 150 to 200 viewers spread over the course of the game would’ve given a realistic comparison of performance of the system against a game that attracted an audience of over 3,000 paying customers, then good luck to you. You have a pretty skewed view of the reality of things.

Your reality is the one that is skewed if you think they got anywhere near 3000 paying customers.

That was the audience because they resorted to streaming it, free for all, on YouTube.

I didn't say for no reason at all  They tested Pixellot privately at the Livi friendly. They thought it zoomed out too much at the far side. Gerry watching on a monitor couldn't make out the players, so they ditched it for plan B, with only a week to spare and asked their volunteer video guy to be responsible for their main income generating product 

They then ran a live test at the weekend which they previously stated they weren't going to do, of a training session, during which the site crashed with only a handful of people watching. So yes, a friendly with a few hundred viewers would have shown that the site was wholly insufficient.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Jamie_M

[Rudolph Hucker]

4 minutes ago, Jamie_M said:

Morton didn't need a test at capacity, their site would have crumbled with far less traffic so a friendly would have sufficed.

Morton's trials involved them not advertising them and streaming a webcam from Leith.

 

1 minute ago, Jamie_M said:

Your reality is the one that is skewed if you think they got anywhere near 3000 paying customers.

That was the audience because they resorted to streaming it, free for all, on YouTube.

I didn't say for no reason at all  They tested Pixellot privately at the Livi friendly. They thought it zoomed out too much at the far side. Gerry watching on a monitor couldn't make out the players, so they ditched it for plan B, with only a week to spare and asked their volunteer video guy to be responsible for their main income generating product 

They then ran a test at the weekend of a training session, during which the site crashed with only a handful of people watching so yes, a friendly with only a few hundred viewers would have shown that the site was wholly insufficient.

How on  earth can Morton justify appointing Dave MacKinnon as chief exec over you?  One of life’s great mysteries, I guess.......

[Homer Thompson]

4 hours ago, Jamie_M said:

the fact they didn't run a proper live test to check it at  capacity means responsibility lies firmly with them.

 

14 minutes ago, Jamie_M said:

Morton didn't need a test at capacity, 

[Skyline Drifter]

20 minutes ago, Rudolph Hucker said:

Yes, yes you do, and nothing’s going to change your mind. Fair enough, enjoy the self-righteousness - obviously you’re right, the club went their own sweet way off their own bat for absolutely no reason at all.    REALLY??

And if you really think streaming a meaningless friendly that might’ve attracted 150 to 200 viewers spread over the course of the game would’ve given a realistic comparison of performance of the system against a game that attracted an audience of over 3,000 paying customers, then good luck to you. You have a pretty skewed view of the reality of things.

Just so we're clear, and I know this has already been covered, but it didn't attract anywhere near 3,000 paying customers. 3,000 people watching a free YouTube stream is not the same thing. Paying customers were under 1,000 (though who knows what it might have been if it hadn't collapsed.

[Jamie_M]

4 minutes ago, Mr X said:

 

Aye, ok k, fair spot. I meant increased traffic from the 12 people that viewed the webcam in Leith and that crashed the website at the training session.

[Homer Thompson]

2 minutes ago, Jamie_M said:

Aye, ok k, fair spot. I meant increased traffic from the 12 people that viewed the webcam in Leith and that crashed the website at the training session.

Which, as I said earlier, is really difficult to do.

Obviously, if it crashes with 12 people thats a bit of a red flag but you could test with 100 and have it fall over at 101. The only way to be sure you have capacity is to test with much higher numbers than you expect

[Jamie_M]

16 minutes ago, Mr X said:

Which, as I said earlier, is really difficult to do.

Obviously, if it crashes with 12 people thats a bit of a red flag but you could test with 100 and have it fall over at 101. The only way to be sure you have capacity is to test with much higher numbers than you expect

Yeah, I get that.

Morton's website falls over when they post a news article and a couple of people view it at the same time though. Morton's website fell over when they streamed a training session on Saturday.

Morton's website falling over was entirely inevitable last night and the only people who couldn't see that were those tasked with running the show.

[TheGoon]

On the point of capacity testing being difficult to do - a friendly would’ve likely tanked the website as well based on literally everything else ever posted on it. A test event would’ve confirmed that and hopefully give Morton/their hired technical gurus a wake up call. 

It never happened, and the thing that pretty much every supporter said would happen, happened.

There’s nothing I can offer in defence of the club here. We’ve made an arse of this and are yet to come close to making up for it.

[Dunning1874]

Refunds confirmed: 

https://www.gmfc.net/statement-from-the-chairman/

That's the statement they should have made yesterday morning, but at least they're actually appreciating the seriousness of the situation now and taking steps to stop it happening again.

[Rudolph Hucker]

10 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Just so we're clear, and I know this has already been covered, but it didn't attract anywhere near 3,000 paying customers. 3,000 people watching a free YouTube stream is not the same thing. Paying customers were under 1,000 (though who knows what it might have been if it hadn't collapsed.

Yeah, I thought when I saw the club quoting that figure that it would've been an amazing paying audience for a Morton - Queens league cup tie that would've struggled to get half that number through the gates at the best of times, and so it proved.

I understand that the Pixellot system hasn't been up and running for long, and Jamie M said that at the friendly v Livi there were concerns about it, so they decided to revert to (presumably) the same guy who normally videos the home games. Maybe stage fright got to him on Tuesday re the quality of the camerawork, and presumably he could see the Sinclair Street end goal and either wasn't told that we couldn't or had no control over what was being beamed out (or NOT beamed out). For the future, either get Pixellot working to an acceptable standard or get Tuesdays problems sorted out - pronto. 

BTW I'm not, and haven't been, defending the club over this. They, and/or their technical advisers, got it badly wrong on Tuesday, and that farce and the club's lack of a quick and meaningful public response has been pathetic (I see that Dunning has just posted a link to an article about refunds; better late than never I suppose, but only just). However, what grinds my gears is the lack of an objective response from fans on here and on the Morton messageboard who know no more than I do (ie, buggerall) about what went on and whose default state is to blame the club for incompetence time and time again. They're probably right more often than not, a lot of aspects of the running of the club seem to be pretty shambolic, but regarding Tuesday - does anyone who stops to think about it for even a moment seriously believe that when the club considered going their own way with that broadcast that they didn't seek professional advice about whether their system would take the strain all right? Seriously? The board,  the chief exec and anyone else involved may be (OK, ARE) pretty inefficient  with regard to many aspects of running the club, but they aren't stupid people. By all means slag them off for Tuesday's debacle, but those with no knowledge of what went on but who've been shrieking about total incompetence should take a deep breath, put their personal prejudices aside and look at this matter objectively. Just for once.  If it DOES  turn out that they just crossed their fingers and hoped for the best, fine, that's the time to give them both barrels. On here, though, as usual it's a case of guilty till proved innocent - if you're lucky.