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An online directory of petanque clubs, groups, and terrains in the USA.
The Directory (organized by state)
States in RED have no known petanque clubs.
What is petanque?
Imagine horseshoes played with metal balls instead of horseshoes, and a little (moveable) wooden ball instead of stakes. Or -- imagine pool played on the ground with metal balls. Visit PETANQUE.us.org for more information.
The goal of the American Petanque Directory
Added by Jules LenoirThe goal of the American Petanque Directory is to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date listing of petanque clubs, groups, and terrains in the USA.
Its strategy for staying up-to-date is its implementation as a wiki. A wiki is a website that allows its viewers to add, edit, and delete its contents.
In centrally administered web sites, the central administration eventually becomes a bottleneck to keeping the site updated and current. The goal of a wiki is to remove the bottleneck by making it possible for individuals to update and maintain the information. If you know of something that needs to be added, you can add it. If you know of something that needs to be corrected or updated, or deleted, you can change it. This is the model that Wikipedia uses. This site is a bet that the same model will work for an American Petanque Directory.
If you are not familiar with the concept of a wiki, this short YouTube video explains the basics, and you can consult the Wikipedia article on wikis.
How you can support the Directory
The American Petanque Directory is a wiki -- anybody can edit it. If you know of a petanque club that is not yet listed in the directory, please edit the wiki and add an entry for it. If you have a correction, addition, or update to an existing entry, please make it. Our only request is that before you edit the Directory, please read the Guidelines for updating the American Petanque Directory.
You can also help by adding a link to the American Petanque Directory on the home page of your blog, web site, or Facebook page. This helps spread the word about the Directory, and tells Google and other search engines that people think we are worth finding. Adding something as short and simple as the following text will actually help quite a lot.
| For a directory of American petanque clubs, visit the American Petanque Directory. |
For a directory of American petanque clubs, visit the <a href="http://american-petanque-directory.wikia.com">American Petanque Directory</a>.
A handy tip for exploring the Directory — right click to open links
If you are in (say) a page for a state, and want quickly to look at the listings for several clubs in the state, here is a useful tip.
- If you use the right mouse button to click on a link, it will cause your browser to open a new tab or window, and display the target web page in that new tab or window.
This makes it unnecessary to do a lot of backtracking using your browser's Back button. You can just close the page that you're currently viewing and you will return to the last page you were viewing.
The kind of things that are listed in the Directory
The directory is meant to list the following kinds of things.
petanque clubs
- A petanque club is an organized group that has its own web site/ blog page/ Facebook page. Information about the club is provided on its web page, so the directory usually provides little information other than the address (URL) of the club's web page.
petanque groups
- A petanque group is an informal group that does not have its own web page. The typical group has a terrain where it plays regularly, and a regular day and time when it plays. The directory listing for the group may give a contact telephone number or email address, but in many cases the best way to contact the is simply to show up at a place and time when the group is playing, and introduce yourself.
petanque terrains
- A petanque terrain is a location that is suitable for playing petanque. It might be an area in a park, or a petanque court in a hotel or apartment complex, or just about any place that would be a good place to play. It has a location, and it may have a web site... for example a park might have a listing on the web site of the local parks and recreation department.
petanque players
- A petanque player is a person who is seeking other petanque players, in a city where there is no petanque club or group listed. Contact information may include an email address, telephone number, or personal web page such as a blog or Facebook page.
Things that are not listed in the Directory
- Event announcements (such as announcements of upcoming tournaments), announcements of personal plans, personal status updates, etc. For those kinds of things, we recommend Facebook
- "personals"-type communications (petanque player seeking petanque player). For those, we recommend Craig's list
How to edit the Directory
Who can edit/update the Directory?
- Currently, the wiki is operating in a maximally OPEN mode — anyone may edit the wiki. This makes updating the Directory easy and hassle-free. If the Directory experiences problems with inappropriate edits, we may move to a mode in which only pre-authorized users can edit the Directory. We hope that will not happen.
How to edit/update the Directory
Why your club or group should have a web presence
Other petanque players want to find you
- All of the tools that people formerly used to find things — the yellow pages, the white pages, the newspaper classifieds — have moved to the Web. Today, the Web is where people go to find things. Today, without a web presence, your group or club is essentially invisible to the rest of the world.
- So, even if you are a small and informal group... if you want your group to grow (or to stop shrinking!) — if you want to find new friends and new players — your group needs to be "on the web".
How to make a web page for your club or group
- One important way for your group or club to be "on the web" is simply to have an entry here, in the Directory. But there are advantages in having your club or group have its own web page, too.
- It allows people to find your group or club in the easiest way — by using a search engine such as google, yahoo, or bing.
- It allows people to contact you via email, without exposing your email address to spam.
- It isn't hard to create a Facebook page or blog or web page for your club or group. You don't have to be an FPUSA member, a bunch of computer geeks, or even a "real" club. And it can be done for free.
- For instructions on how to set up a web page for your group or club, see How to make a web page or Facebook page for your club.
- If you'd like us to create a free web page for your club, send us email at our contact page.
We can set up a web page for your club or group — for free
- Just drop us an email via our contact page.
How can I contact the site administrator of the Directory?
The owner of this wiki is Jules Lenoir. To communicate with him, add your message to the Message_Wall:Jules_Lenoir page.
See latest editing activity
Go to the Activity Viewer page.