In a few weeks, we’ll turn the page on 2012.

So why not now to look back at the year in regard to disc golf. This week’s poll will be covering your best disc golf memory from the year.

Maybe it’s that tournament win. Or figuring something out about a new technique.

It could be something such as hitting a 50-foot putt.

With a year full of disc golf memories, will you be able to pick out that one moment — that perfect event — to be your best disc golf memory of 2012?

We’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s go back to last week’s poll and check in to see what some of you had to say about the oldest disc in your bag.

We had 149 people respond to this poll. The overwhelming majority selected a disc that is 2-5 years old (63 votes/42 percent). The second choice was 6-10 years (37 votes/25 percent), with a year or less coming in third (20 votes/13 percent). Then the older discs started popping up as 11-15 years old placed fourth (17 votes/11 percent), followed by 16-25 years old (9 votes/6 percent) and more than 25 years old (3 votes/3 percent).

That’s quite the range. I know I’d like to see those 25-year-old discs and what kind of shape they are in!

Let’s see what some of the readers had to say.

Continue reading →

OK, old timers (and newer players), it’s time to figure out some ages.

Now I realize some of you players will go and buy an older disc because of its plastic or whatever, but that’s not necessarily what we’re seeking here.

One of the Rattling Chains folks sent me an idea for this poll and I really liked it. I’m not too sure if this is exactly how he saw it, but the more I thought about it… well, the more I got curious about the way we’ll be doing this poll.

But more on that in a moment.

Let’s check back for last week’s poll first.

We wanted to know how long you’ve been playing this fine game of disc golf. We had 189 responses for this poll.

The winning choice was 3-5 years, which received 38 votes (20 percent). You’ll notice it’s not a crazy majority here as the votes were extremely spread out.

A year or less took second (36 votes/19 percent), followed by 1-2 years (34 votes (18 percent), 6-10 years and 11-20 (25 votes/13 percent each), 21-30 years (18 votes/10 percent) and more than 30 years (13 votes/seven percent).

That’s quite a spread-out set of data, which is good. It’s nice knowing people of all experience have stopped by here!

Continue reading →

This week, we’ll be covering your time in the game.

It’s funny because in my short time playing this game, I’ve come across people who have been playing for 30-plus years and still have the crazy love for it.

But I’ve also noticed the generation gap of long-time players and newer players. There’s definitely a different feel. Maybe it’s because it seems like there’s so much to digest when starting now.

Starting way back when, it was more minimalist. These guys (or gals) had the chance to grow with the sport and technology.

Anyway, we’ll get back to that in a moment.

Let’s quickly re-visit last week’s poll. I say quickly because we didn’t get much of a turnout for this one, which is quite disappointing, if not just because as writers we’re interested in what the readers want to see.

As I noted in the post, we won’t necessarily be changing things based on the poll, but it helps us when deciding future things.

I’ll be covering the past two weeks worth of polls as well as some other things about the site in a post later this week.

Last week we asked about the content you, the readers, like best on Rattling Chains. Each person was allowed to vote for two options. We had 65 people cast votes, for a total of 122.

Continue reading →

As noted last week, we are doing a two-week set of polls covering our site. It’s mainly to use as a tool to try and improve what we are already doing.

It’s also to help us understand our readers a bit.

The reality is, blogs aren’t always successful. You can’t base everything on the amount of visits or hits you get. You have to base it on your readers. Many blogs have people who visit once and never come back. Some blogs get massive hits, but the content isn’t great.

We aim to have a solid following and to them, we strive to give the best possible content. In many facets, the content on Rattling Chains isn’t available anywhere else based on what our writers go through to give you these things.

Before diving back into that, let’s check out last week’s poll about visiting the site.

Though we hoped for more voters, this kind of proved the point originally thought — the readers we do have seem to be loyal. And, in turn, we hope to be loyal to you.

Of the 76 people who voted last week, 49 percent (37 votes) said you visit the site daily (whenever a story is posted). Second place, understandably so, with 17 percent (13 votes) was when you see something that interests you.

Continue reading →

By P.J. Harmer — Rattling Chains staff

This week’s poll will help us, somewhat, shape the direction we plan on going with Rattling Chains.

Though we have a great group of writers, the reality is none of us get paid to do the work on this site. Therefore, when real life gets in the way, sometimes the content takes a hit.

When that happens, sometimes the load comes down on one or more of us and it becomes a burden.

But that’s neither here nor there.

All of us who write for this site enjoy the aspects we bring to readers — a journalistic way to look at the sport we love. I still believe we offer content not available in most other places, such as our in-depth pieces. Our interviews are not in a Q&A format, rather crafted in the form of an article in the format many traditional publications would use.

To do so is a time-consuming situation. We research. We interview. We write. We edit. We format.

Over the past few months, I’ve watched our site statistics. I’ve seen the type of stories that seem to get the hits and I’ve seen the ones that don’t work as well. I know what days the bigger hits will come and I know where hits come from on certain days etc.

Still, as we shape the site and we push forward, we need to know how to shape the site. For the next two weeks — today and next Monday — I’ll be doing polls that are based on the site and the reading tendencies of our visitors. In the end, we hope to continually make the site better moving forward.

Continue reading →