Why new events start as drafts

Every event you create in Dockside starts as a draft, whatever else you set on the form. A draft is visible only to club officials. Sailors cannot see it, and cannot sign on, until you publish it. This article explains why Dockside works this way.

Setting up takes more than one sitting

An event has a lot to configure: its type, its scoring, the classes that can enter, who must be a member, how sailors sign on, and the race schedule. Few people get all of that right in one pass. You might create the event, come back the next day to add the scoring template, and check the dates with another officer before it goes out.

If the event were visible the moment you created it, sailors would see a half-built event and might sign on to something that then changes underneath them. Starting as a draft gives you a private space to get it right first.

Publishing is a deliberate step

Because publishing is separate from creating, it is a decision you make on purpose rather than a side effect of filling in a form. When the event is ready, you open it, select Edit Event, set the status to Published, and save. From that point sailors can find it and sign on. See Publish a draft event for the steps.

The draft notice on the event's Overview is a reminder that the work is not yet live, so an event does not sit half-finished and invisible by accident.

Drafts are easy to remove

A draft has no sailors signed on and no results, so it is safe to delete outright if you decide not to run it. Once an event is published or has results, Dockside stops you deleting it, because people and data now depend on it. That difference is another reason the draft stage exists: it is the one point where an event can be thrown away cleanly. See Delete an event.