User Guide

What do these words mean?

Padel Citizen uses a few terms that are obvious if you already play padel — and not at all obvious if you don’t. Here’s the plain-English version.

Padel

A racket sport — like tennis on a smaller court with walls. Played in doubles. Easy to learn, fast and social.

Crew

A group of people who play together — your club, your crew, your office league. Each crew has its own roster, leagues, and events.

Organizer (a.k.a. "jefe" / "mayor")

The person who runs games and admins the group — schedules sessions, manages the roster, runs leagues. You'll see "Organizer" everywhere in the app; the underlying word is the Spanish "jefe" (boss).

Admin

A crew helper with most organizer permissions but not the founder.

Member

You. A regular player in the crew.

Americano

A 2-3 hour social session where everyone plays with and against everyone — rotating partners by default, or fixed pairs all night. Best for mixed-skill groups.

Mexicano

Like an Americano, but every round players are reseeded by points so winners face winners. Finds the strongest of the day.

King of the Court

Courts ranked 1–N: win and climb toward the King court, lose and drop. The single-court "winner stays on" queue variant is the same format — the winning pair holds the court and challengers come on from the queue.

Round-robin league

A multi-week season where every team plays every other team. The best record at the end wins.

SMASH league

A premium league format: 16 players, 6 weekly matches with rotating partners (no repeats), then a Friday finals night for the top 8. Points scoring: 2-0 win = 3, 2-1 win = 2, loss = 0.

Tournament

One-day knockout — sign up as a pair, win to advance, last team standing wins. Pool format = round-robin pools that feed the bracket.

Ringer

A pre-vetted substitute. If a regular SMASH player can't make a week, a ringer subs in so the match still happens.

Career rating

Your skill rating across the app — between 0 and 100. Goes up when you win, down when you lose. Anchors matchmaking and standings tiebreakers.

Buy-in / prize pot

Some leagues (like SMASH) have a crew-voted entry fee. The pot pays out to the champion, runner-up, and a "production" budget for the after-party.

Changelog

Every meaningful ship, in plain language. Newest first. Dates are shown where we can stand behind them.

1. v7.0Auth & ProductionShipped

   Padel Citizen grew up: a production Next.js + Supabase app with real accounts. Email sign-in, a guided multi-step onboarding, optional Playtomic level import, admin-verified ratings for stronger players, and Club Events with RSVP. This is the foundation everything now runs on. (Since v7.0 we’ve also shipped in-app food ordering, the Kronoset live scoreboard, and Smash League — fuller write-ups landing here soon.)

2. v6.7WhatsApp Concierge & Score CascadeMay 13, 2026

   Two features. Score Cascade flows a single match result through both Career Rating and Season Points in one transaction with a full audit trail, so a corrected score never leaves the ladder half-updated. WhatsApp Concierge handles the moment a match needs a substitute — the bot finds and confirms a ringer in under thirty seconds, without anyone opening the app.

3. v6.6Location & Discovery

   Padel Citizen learned where players are. Profiles gained a location (country / city / postcode, with GPS auto-detect), crews can be sorted by distance with a “Near Me” view and distance badges, postcode search arrived, and cross-group scheduling now flags conflicts when a player is double-booked across crews.

4. v6.5Gamification

   Recognition that keeps people coming back. Four rotating weekly flags (League Leader, Giant Killer, Most Improved, Entertainer), permanent achievements, a Best Pairs synergy leaderboard, a Most Improved leaderboard, and post-match peer voting.

5. v6.4Crew Mechanics

   The messy realities of organizing real games. A ringer / substitute pool, a leave-match flow that pulls in a replacement, Friendly vs Competitive match types (friendlies skip ranking), an “I’ll book the court” claim with auto-assign, guest players with provisional ratings, household members that prevent same-match teaming, and organizer-authored announcements.

6. v6.3League Infrastructure

   Leagues became a first-class thing, separate from crews and linkable many-to-many. A creation wizard, Competitive / Social / Substitutes pools, a standings table tracking W/D/L/Points/Rating, season management with an end-of-season flow, and a per-league gamification toggle.

7. v6.2WhatsApp Integration

   The strategic moat. Instead of asking crews to leave WhatsApp, Padel Citizen meets them there — polls, match confirmations, reminders, score requests, result broadcasts, and ringer calls are all built to flow through WhatsApp, with replies (YES, BOOK, READY, /score) routed back into the app. Delivery switches on crew by crew as the channel goes live. The app is the system of record; WhatsApp is the system of engagement.

8. v6.1Ranking Overhaul

   Flat ELO out, transparency in. A two-tier system — a Career Rating (0–100) that follows a player everywhere, plus Season Points that reset fresh each league — with a skill-based K-factor, a score-margin multiplier, and a dispute flow: both scores go on record, and an unsettled dispute voids the match after 7 days with no rating impact.

9. v6.0Scheduling Engine

   The foundation for recurring weekly play. Weekly availability polls, automatic match generation from poll responses, a four-player match chat, auto-verify of results after 24 hours, invite codes and links, and richer result types — Win, Draw, Incomplete, and Void — beyond a simple win/loss.