Umpire in Chief

Agree and with @DerekGDS too. The whole site this I removed the link to was AI created garbage. But it's a good though provoking post. Someone did an awesome video covering this many, many moons ago...🤣

First I think this is a great idea! I do not believe it is hard to get an EIN, I actually have one for U-E. Now it was 18 years ago, but I just applied online and got it immediately if I remember correctly. From there you will want to provide those who pay you a completed W-9 to use for payment. Now the flip side. This puts you on the radar for cities/states/municipalities to tax you and create additional burdens on you. Many years ago a city not far from me got lists of people who claimed non W-2 earnings on their taxes, then fined them for not having a business license and such. I found out about it from multiple sports officials that this happened to and this was just using their SSN. So I'd say do some research and see what obligations this may bring for you.

Version 5.0.X of the forum software has officially launched. I am not going to be an early adapter, but I am following some discussions of people who are and the response the highly positive. I will continue to monitor, but unless something crazy comes up, I plan on doing the upgrade in mid-February. Besides not wanting to be an early adapter, like many new software updates there are a ton of small updates that have already come out. They're literally already at 5.0.15... And I don't want to do a lot of small updates. I'll let the dust settle first. I am always very hesitant to send an email out to all members, because I hate emails, and from 30+ years in HR I know the vast majority of people won't read it any way 🤣 However... I am planning on sending out 2 emails to all members. The first one will probably the week before letting people know that if you're like me and login using your username, that will no longer be an option. You will have to use the email in the system. So please check the email address we have for you. If it is out of date you may not be able to log in I know many people have used their work email addresses and they may no longer work there for example. First, Select the dropdown by your username and avatar in the top right. Then Select Account Settings Then you can see and update your email address.

I do not miss taking that test... Not the best written, but overall if you paid attention in one of the regional meetings you should come out okay on the new rules questions.

I've finally completed a laundry list of software updates some of which were very over due. For the geeks, this upgrade included: Newer version of PHP Conversion of the databases from MyISAM to InnoDB Multiple security updates So I am again allowing new registrations to the site. Please note. This upgrade is in preparation for a new full version of the software in February. Going from 4.7.X to 5.0 in February. I've skimmed through the change logs and the only thing which will directly impact users seems to be that members will no longer be able to log in with their username they must use their email. I will send a couple of email reminders out to all members before I launch this upgrade.

The first thing today on my YouTube feed was @Lindsay appearance on NBC Sports. She gave a great and honest breakdown of the "Robo Ump" situation. Great job and Congrats!

I'm still looking into the options. The other site I got the idea from uses the authenticator app. The problem with the email is that all 96 of these spammers did verify their email addresses.

I've been following the CWS this year and particularly the Chants since eliminating ECU, but was away for these 2 games. First, I really respect Coach Schnall and Coastal Carolina, they really stand out as a class act, the coaches, players and fans every time they come to East Carolina win or lose. In 2022 ECU was the host of the Regionals, and beat them, everyone concerned were amazing, humble and very professional. So much so that it stood out. This year we hosted them for a series and lost 2 of the 3 and the same thing, very classy - I was at the Saturday game only. And look at the stance he took against Florida's coach and team at the Regionals this year in Conway when they were acting like complete D-bags. That said the coach ultimately should have absolutely ejected for arguing balls and strikes. But I also think the warning and EJ came really quick. Initially it was reported that the suspension was for the "bump" and when the "bumped" official got up he signals 2. There was no bump. Plain and simple. Now the narrative is the suspension is for prolonged arguing. Towards the end of the video you see him raising the 2 fingers, and I'll take that as prolonged arguing. Now people on SM are saying the prolonged was about the bump suspension. And since there was no bump that he shouldn't have been suspended for prolonged arguing something that didn't happen. In spirit I agree, but at some point you need to give up and let your AD and the NCAA hash it out. Class act or not, he deserved the ej and suspension, but the optics of the whole situation for the umpires looked really bad IMO. And we all know assistant coaches are like children - meant to be seen and not heard. So he was an easy one.

Earlier this month U-E got slammed with 96 spammer accounts, and over 1000 spam messages. This was a coordinated attack by real humans, they beat the Captcha and the little quiz I had to try and limit spammers like what color are the threads on an MLB baseball, how many sides does home plate have, and such. I do have multiple upgrades to do for the site. One is a major upgrade that will require me bringing the site down but I'll find the time to do that in the weee hours of the morning one day. But my question is.. I belong to another forum that requires two factor authentication at registration, every 45 days or if you log in from a different IP than your last log in. I am considering implementing something like that. Would using two factor authentication like Duo, Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator or something similar for registration, new IP logins or every X many days (30+) deter you from using the site?

Are you still seeing those posts.. I thought I got them all

LOL...🤣

I've been waiting for Lindsay's analysis of this and got exactly what I was hoping for. This has blown up my social media and I've been asked a few times about it too. Not a great situation on either side.

Sorry for the slow reply... A few people have contacted me directly with this. I've been looking into it. There is a major update about to come out I'm going to wait until that drops get it installed and see if that fixes it, otherwise I'll get some paid support in. I've just about exhausted everything I can think of to do. It seems to be intermittent. comes and goes. I lease this server directly and have access to the stats and there doesn't seem to be on that end.