Deciding If Canasis Is Right For Your Group?

Note if you are moving from zone, check out the zone info page

Only you can decide what is best for your group, but here are some notes to provide you with the necessary information to make an informed decision. This page is just a start, if you require personal assistance please speak to a supervisor inside Canasis or email us, speaking to a supervisor is preferred though.

As you know, there are 2 aspects to every site: the site and software itself is one, and the community and people is the other.

About The Software

Here is a quick list of the features you can expect to see in Canasis, as well as suggestions on how they may be used to help you run the best group you can.

Feature How It Affects Your Group More Details
Easy setup Start playing anytime with no paperwork. Use the 1000 league, 2000 league, or Just For Fun rooms anytime. No permission is needed to come here, play, create a club or league, hold events, or begin advertising your league in the lobby. You don't even have to tell us you are here. Eventually you can ask for your own room here too once you are settled in.
Canasis is free Your group or members won't have to pay to play and you will be able to have ANYONE play even if they can't afford to pay for it. We offer more for free than most paid sites offer for a price. All of the features described below are free. We never plan to change that and are happy to do it for our players.
Clean and supervised chat If you experience problems during your event, there is no need to get your hands dirty, we will take care of it. Problems will be dealt with quickly and with minimal involvement on your part so you can just page us and return to focusing on your event. All swearing, sexual chat, or excessive bickering in the chat lobbies will be handled by our trained supervisors. We have the cleanest game lobbies on the internet, so it is not common for players to cause problems as peer pressure discourages it.
Millions of game styles Offer variety to your players, you could have a different tournament each day of the year if you wanted to. Canasis has all the rule styles built-in so you don't have to pretend or make players remember all the rules and follow them in their head. For example, in spades if you want a bonus for "moon/13 tricks", Canasis will score the game properly rather than expecting players to keep track in their heads. For example, our checkers has normal English draughts, simple US checkers, italian dama, Spanish dama, German damenspiel, Polish draughts, Canadian, Russian shashki, giveaway/losing, and thousands of other games which you can customize in dozens of ways. All our games are equally flexible.
Color and feature-rich chat Have your staff chat in different colors to stay organized. Use [[yeha]] to get people's attention. Keep chat lively and interesting with colors. Maximize chat during busy events to see lots of chat without scrolling. Right click on where you type to change colors. Right click on where you read chat to change font, copy/paste. Click the sound button to type things like [[clapping]] which people hear.
Built-in messenger Helps you stay organized in busy events without keeping track of what seperate messenger names people use. Helps you settle disputes in private without everyone seeing it. Because each private chat is a seperate window, its easy to hold several conversations at once. Right click on a person to open a full chat window to discuss things with them in private.
Built-in ratings and stats Easy to see who is new or experienced, who won the last game in your event, and who has a habbit of abandonning games. All built-in. Right click on the list of players to show info like games played, ratings, abandons, winning streaks, and more.
Nice graphics 3D wood feel is warm and comforting, not gray and boring.
All games in the same room No confusion about which room to go to for which game. Also, ever thought of marathon with many games, or a tournament with several games. Just create a table and it will automatically ask which game you want to play. When you have your own room, you can also pick which games to allow or not.
Many rooms to play in or have your own room No crowding of dozens of groups into 1 room, no confusion and lost train of thought due to interruptions from other groups. Even before you have your own room there are enough league and tournament rooms to suite all our groups without over-crowding. If more rooms are needed, we are always willing to add more to keep away over-crowding.
1min site upgrades Very minimal interruptions to your schedule. Site upgrades usually last only 60 seconds or less, and all players online will be warned in advance. Its barely enough time to go another coffee so hurry back. They only occur every few months.


About The Community And People

Here is some basic information about our community, people, and management you can expect to see in Canasis, as well as suggestions on how they may be used to help you run the best group you can.

What? How It Affects Your Group More Details
Stable Canasis management No worries about your group being stranded next week. Some sites are free one moment and paid the other, or shut down because management is losing money or having other problems. Canasis is stable, free, and intends to stay that way for at least 15-20 years into the future. We love our site, enjoy making it, and are not having any financial crisis.
Trusting management We trust you to do what you do best, running your group. We don't pretend to know how to do your job better than you, and we know interfering with how you run your group only slows and distracts you. So long as everything remains clean you are free to organize your group however you like. We will not interfere with whatever schedule you want to maintain, rules you want to impose for playing, what games you want to play, how often you want to play, or how you deal with group issues.
You decide who runs your ladders and tournaments No restrictions on what systems you use to run tournaments and ladders, use the one that is best for you. Play on your own rating system, our rating system, MyLeague, Cases, LadderCity, or any other system you want.
Peer pressure pushes for friendliness Less dealing with rude and crude people, less dealing with the problems they bring. Your current members will gradually become more polite. Its hard to explain exactly why, but the peer pressure on many other sites is to be rude and vulgar. To feel popular you need to be vulgar and players find it funny and encourage it until more players act that way. In here, players discourage such behaviour and players quickly learn that politeness wins over more members, so that is what people start becoming... more friendly.
Management cares about you Get personal attention and help when you need it. Feel comfortable asking for help and not guilty that you are bothering someone. Contact any supervisor in Canasis for immediate help, we are not hard to find. You may often find the site owner (MPI-Thomas) in the site and available to answer your questions too because he cares enough to be there.
Respect and Appreciation When you get more respect and appreciation for your hard work, your job becomes much more fun and easier to do. We earn your respect by respecting you. Most sites don't make the groups feel wanted, and most sites don't realize groups should be appreciated because they help the site. In Canasis, we make sure you know you are wanted and respected for helping Canasis grow and entertaining our players.


Information You May Need In The Future

Canasis.com
Homepage with screen pictures to see (click download page to begin downloading and for a slideshow of Canasis features)

Canasis.com/players/supervisors.php
This page lists supervisors and what their duties are along with contact information.

Conclusion

After talking to players from many other sites, we found something that all of them had in common. Their group was wasting time dealing with filthy chat, problem makers, site management that restricts them and dictates everything they do, sites that can't make up their mind about being free or paid, long maintenence blackouts, over-crowding of many groups into one room, paperwork in moving to a site.... and all the confusion that comes from all of the above.

Isn't it about time you start focusing on your events, having fun running your group, making sure your friends are having fun, and doing what you do best? Don't you deserve at least that much for all your hard work?

If you find the main reason you are staying at some other site is loyalty, ask yourself if your loyalty is being rewarded and appreciated (with more features, personal attention, and respect) or abused and ignored and they make you feel like you're not important to them, and if the lack of respect you get is causing you to miss out on something better?

If you find the main reason you are staying at some other site is fear of leaving, rest assured there are ways to move slowly and steady. You don't have to pick up, give up all your friends, and start from scratch. Start by getting your main group staff (administration, tournament directors, leaders..) into Canasis and playing a few games, then do a practice event with just your staff. Then gradually start having your events here. We are fine with you having events here AND on your old site until everyone has a chance to get used to it here.


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