Skatingscores implements paywall

[celiabiche]

No idea where to put this but I wanted to hear thoughts on it… just recently saw on Twitter that the skating website we all know and love, skatingscores.com, that organizes skating competitions, results, and overall skating statistics will be officially implementing a payment plan in order for users to access the full site. The statement made on Twitter linked here:

https://x.com/skatingscores/status/2015577914020921581?s=46

This site has been an extremely useful and free tool for so many skating fans for so many years, many users are upset that essential features are now behind paywalls. Do you guys think it’s right for them to make users pay for a resource that was previously free to the public? 4 price tiers, not including the free package, will be available to choose from ranging from about $6 USD to about $25 USD monthly.

 

[celiabiche]

Right before Milano aswell… devastating I’ll be relying on this site much more often from now on

 

[Arigato]

I read his position and I can see why it's not sustainable for him. His expenses are probably quite significant by now. No one can expect him to foot the bill for that many years and not eventually need financial help.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Introducing a paywall for parts of the site killed off Stats On Ice, and now I suspect it is going to kill off Skating Scores.

To be honest, I was never the biggest fan of Skating Scores. The layout of the skater pages is a mess. And you can't copy and paste scores to Word documents (which is what I do when doing my research for the Predictions Games).

The things I find most useful on the skater pages are the boxes at the top - the upcoming competitions box, and the boxes showing their TES minimum situation. Although, that said, I have found the TES minimum boxes very hard to understand since we moved to using the Combined TES system. The boxes were much easier to understand under the old system. So, I now just look at whether there is a green tick or a red cross at the bottom of the box.

Another thing I found useful in the past, but which was removed last year, was that they provided links to the original Entries / Results pages at the top of their own pages for events. I realise that the reason they removed them was because so many Entries / Results pages get taken down, but even then it was useful to have the original address so that you could put it into the Wayback Machine.

I have used the Chart Builder a few times to compare the form of members of teams, but found that you couldn't add enough skaters to it. And that is one of the things that is now behind the paywall.

Personally, I always preferred Rink Results, where everything is displayed in a straightforward table format. And which you can copy and paste from. The big drawback is that it can't cope with the way the Canadian events post their results, so the pages for Canadian skaters are very incomplete. That is the main reason that I started repeating my research on Skating Scores after initially doing it on Rink Results - for the Canadian skaters.

The drawback of all these database sites is that none of them manage to catch all events. And the events they do catch are not always the same. So, if you are trying to find the Absolute PB scores for a skater, you have to use a number of databases in conjunction with each other to get as full a picture as you can manage.

In this respect, what we really need is for the ISU to provide us with a definitive database. But, with their track record of running websites, they would probably make a right hash of it.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[celiabiche]

The Tiers 1-4:



Pewter
$6/ month

• Historical Scores
• Detailed Stats
• IJS Score Calculator
• Rescore Protocols
• Chart Builder
• Database Queries - 15 rows of results

Bronze
$12/ month

• Historical Scores
  Detailed Stats
• IJS Score Calculator
• Rescore Protocols
• Chart Builder
• Database Queries - 50 rows of results

Silver
$18/ month

• Historical Scores
• Detailed Stats

• IJS Score Calculator
• Rescore Protocols
• Chart Builder
• Ad Free
• Elements List
• Database Queries - 50 rows of results

Gold
$24/ month

• Historical Scores
• Detailed Stats
• IJS Score Calculator
• Rescore Protocols
• Chart Builder
• Ad Free
• Elements List
• Database Queries - 100 rows of results
• What If? Rescoring

I’m not sure what the free package gives, I’m sure not much though, let me know if someone has information on that

 

[Jeanie19]

The Tiers 1-4:



Pewter
$6/ month

• Historical Scores
• Detailed Stats
• IJS Score Calculator
• Rescore Protocols
• Chart Builder
• Database Queries - 15 rows of results

Bronze
$12/ month

• Historical Scores
  Detailed Stats
• IJS Score Calculator
• Rescore Protocols
• Chart Builder
• Database Queries - 50 rows of results

Silver
$18/ month

• Historical Scores
• Detailed Stats

• IJS Score Calculator
• Rescore Protocols
• Chart Builder
• Ad Free
• Elements List
• Database Queries - 50 rows of results

Gold
$24/ month

• Historical Scores
• Detailed Stats
• IJS Score Calculator
• Rescore Protocols
• Chart Builder
• Ad Free
• Elements List
• Database Queries - 100 rows of results
• What If? Rescoring

I’m not sure what the free package gives, I’m sure not much though, let me know if someone has information on that

If it was ad free for $6.00 a month I would do it, or give a discount to pay yearly.

 

[Lamente Ariane]

I wonder if they would have had a better reception if they'd simply introduced a "paid" tier that was $6/month along with the option to make a one-time donation of any amount toward the upkeep of the site. I'm no business person but it seems to me there are too many tiers without that much of a meaningful difference between them, and a lot of people are going to be put off by the mere existence of a $24/month tier for a previously free resource.

For me, pretty much all their information that matters to me is stuff I could find elsewhere, it was just more convenient having it in one place. The rescore tool was fun to play with but certainly not worth a subscription fee.

 

[4everchan]

For me, pretty much all their information that matters to me is stuff I could find elsewhere, it was just more convenient having it in one place. The rescore tool was fun to play with but certainly not worth a subscription fee.

Yup. I never went there directly. I would click on links when others provided them and the information was clearly organized but available already when reading protocols. If one suspected that a judge did a nasty on a skater, it took two seconds to see on skating scores... but it took maybe 10 seconds just be looking on protocols. So for me, it's not worth it.

I don't know about other people but I personally have a difficult time accepting to pay for things that were free for a long time, especially if they are not truly essential.

 

[FlossieH]

I’m not sure what the free package gives, I’m sure not much though, let me know if someone has information on that

This is what the Twitter post you linked says about the free version: "...detailed scores from the current season remain completely Free and accessible to everyone. Additionally only the detailed scores and statistics from seasons past are behind the paywall -- so massive amounts of historical data remain Free to all. Skater/Team detail pages remain Free as do many other features."

It sounds like we will be able to get the scores and breakdowns for the current season, and the pages relating to the skaters (which I would expect to be scores, PB and TES info, but not detailed results breakdowns from previous seasons).

 

[4everchan]

This is what the Twitter post you linked says about the free version: "...detailed scores from the current season remain completely Free and accessible to everyone. Additionally only the detailed scores and statistics from seasons past are behind the paywall -- so massive amounts of historical data remain Free to all. Skater/Team detail pages remain Free as do many other features."

It sounds like we will be able to get the scores and breakdowns for the current season, and the pages relating to the skaters (which I would expect to be scores, PB and TES info, but not detailed results breakdowns from previous seasons).

well in that case, most of us do not need to pay because the use we seem to be mostly making is to look at detailed scores after one competition and look at judges' biases

 

[teraytan]

Bummer! I use this site a lot! I wish the lowest subscription tier was more affordable. $6/month adds up. Now I'll have to find another way to search detailed historical scores.

 

[4everchan]

Bummer! I use this site a lot! I wish the lowest subscription tier was more affordable. $6/month adds up. Now I'll have to find another way to search detailed historical scores.

the ISU has them. it's just not always as convenient depending what you use them for.

 

[Fetinia]

To be honest, I was never the biggest fan of Skating Scores. The layout of the skater pages is a mess. And you can't copy and paste scores to Word documents (which is what I do when doing my research for the Predictions Games).

Take a snapshot and do OCR in ChatGPT . It will convert an image to the text (table)

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Take a snapshot and do OCR in ChatGPT . It will convert an image to the text (table)

Thank you for the tip. I'll remember that for when I get into situations like that in the future.

But for what I am doing in this case, that would be over-complicating matters. It's only at most a four digit number that I am looking to copy, so just typing it out does it. But, it's the principle of the thing.

To be honest, the reason this is annoying me is because I don't trust myself to type the numbers out correctly.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[skatewill]

Thank you for the tip. I'll remember that for when I get into situations like that in the future.

But for what I am doing in this case, that would be over-complicating matters. It's only at most a four digit number that I am looking to copy, so just typing it out does it. But, it's the principle of the thing.

To be honest, the reason this is annoying me is because I don't trust myself to type the numbers out correctly.

CaroLiza_fan

As a fan of spreadsheets, totally agree that typing scores out gets annoying very fast. I also wish the Element Query section would show more than 35 results. If you're looking at a common jump, there are way more than the 70 you can see using the reverse button. I know Wikipedia has some information on past scores, but it's not nearly as comprehensive.

Honestly, I just wish the ISU would have a way to navigate to all of their results pages. I have never found those from the website

 

[manleywoman]

As someone who has maintained a podcast website since 2007 ... and has absorbed all the costs involved with monthly hosting, equipment, software, maintenance, travel to events (when I was doing that more), etc ... and who has never charged for any of it, it gets expensive over time. I'm not surprised to see this at all. I asked for donations for years ("I'm like NPR, it's listener supported!) and I'd be lucky if I got $40/month. I tried to do raffles/giveaways in the early days and that helped. But content creation is time consuming and I don't fault folks for asking for compensation.

If you're Jackie Wong or Adam Rippon and getting paid by NBC, you don't have to. But Jackie did hard work for almost a decade with no compensation. And even now with NBC salaries, both Jackie and Adam sell pins and merchandise, and The Runthrough has special content on Patreon.

I can't fault SkatingScores for trying to set up a system that offers content at different price levels. I feel like they are trying to give options, at least.

 

[gsk8]

I agree with @manleywoman.

I've been running this site for nearly 27 years. It's a labor of love. For the first 12-15 years, everything was out of pocket. Then I implemented ads to pay for hosting, coding, maintenance, license fees, etc. that goes on behind the scenes. It barely covers it. Barely.

If Skating Scores provides a valuable service, they should be able to at least find a way to pay for their expenses.

 

[manleywoman]

I agree with @manleywoman.

I've been running this site for nearly 27 years. It's a labor of love. For the first 12-15 years, everything was out of pocket. Then I implemented ads to pay for hosting, coding, maintenance, license fees, etc. that goes on behind the scenes. It barely covers it. Barely.

Hence, a labor of love. If Skating Scores provides a valuable service, they should be able to at least find a way to pay for their expenses.

Thank you for all you've done for the sport. I know it's a lot!

 

[gsk8]

Thanks! I didn't mean to make this about GS. Was just trying to point out that creating and maintaining a product, resource, service, etc. is not sustainable without implementing some kind of revenue.

 

[Kiki5375]

It's ISUs job to provide statistics.... on a website where you can really find stuff like that without searching forever