Abacus | A web application for quizbowl moderators

[rajk]

http://www.abacusquizbowl.com/

(Sorry, the image is cut off to the right. Full screenshot here.)


Abacus is a control panel for quizbowl moderators. With Abacus, moderators can read questions, keep score, and send statistics all on one screen.

-Keep score accurately and easily (no more math mistakes!)
-Load in .doc(x) or .pdf packets to be read onscreen
-Edit statistics in the event of a misclick
-E-mail statistics to your statskeeper for input into SQBS (Stanford Quizbowl Statistics Software)

Read the documentation to learn about all the features as well as what is going to be added in the future.

This is first deployment, so the website may go down if too many people try accessing at once.

Please post all comments/questions/concerns/bugs here or e-mail me at raj.ksvn AT gmail DOT com.

[samus149]

According to one of my teammates, "This is so great." And I have to agree. I hope we get to use this at our upcoming tournament; it would definitely make things a lot easier.

[vcuEvan]

I like this a lot. You do need support for substitutes before this can actually be used for tournaments, so I'd make that a priority. Maybe I'm missing it, but I think you also need a way to edit round number, school names, individual names, etc.

This certainly isn't necessary, but given the way rooms are set up it would help me as a moderator to have the eight names aligned from left to right along the top.

[Ndg]

This looks great. Perhaps I'm missing something, but is there a way to reset the stats for a new round without refreshing the page and losing the tournament information (tournament name and moderator name)?

[AKKOLADE]

My biggest concern with this is the security of any questions that are uploaded to this app. I'm not accusing you of anything but there have been notable incidents involving question security in the past and is obviously something that is going to be of concern with any kind of application like this, particularly if it's maintained or designed by current players.

[ryanrosenberg]

My biggest concern with this is the security of any questions that are uploaded to this app. I'm not accusing you of anything but there have been notable incidents involving question security in the past and is obviously something that is going to be of concern with any kind of application like this, particularly if it's maintained or designed by current players.

From what I can tell, packets are uploaded to a Scribd page which is public. This is obviously a huge problem if uncleared packets are to be read using this app.

edit: Just from searching a reasonably plausible timestamp title on Scribd I was able to find a packet of DRAGOON, which is uncleared (although I don't believe there are any scheduled future mirrors).

[pajaro bobo]

I'm not sure if I missed something, but does this do bouncebacks? It would be nice if this could track bouncebacks heard/points scored from them, too.

[touchpack]

Can you please take down the DRAGOON packet immediately? The set is not yet cleared.

[Mnemosyne]

Is ACF Fall clear? There's a packet up from it.

[Kilroy Was Here]

Where did that packet of Dragoon even come from? That's potentially indicative of something worse.

[AKKOLADE]

Possibly a host or reader who didn't think about the possibility of the back end of this program not being secured.

[rajk]

I apologize for the security issues. I thought I set the Scribd status to private but I had a typo in the code. I will get this fixed immediately.

[rajk]

The issue is now fixed, but at the cost of the ability to upload doc(x) files. It will be re-added within the next week or two but in the meantime, please convert your documents to PDFs before using Abacus. The files are not uploaded anywhere else other than the Abacus server as of now.

I'm not sure if I missed something, but does this do bouncebacks? It would be nice if this could track bouncebacks heard/points scored from them, too.

Not currently. Open an issue for it in the 'Report Bug' tab if it has not already been created.

My biggest concern with this is the security of any questions that are uploaded to this app. I'm not accusing you of anything but there have been notable incidents involving question security in the past and is obviously something that is going to be of concern with any kind of application like this, particularly if it's maintained or designed by current players.

This is a valid point. As of now, the server does not upload the packets anywhere else and automatically deletes all packets hourly.

This looks great. Perhaps I'm missing something, but is there a way to reset the stats for a new round without refreshing the page and losing the tournament information (tournament name and moderator name)?

Not currently. I will probably get this fixed tonight.

I like this a lot. You do need support for substitutes before this can actually be used for tournaments, so I'd make that a priority. Maybe I'm missing it, but I think you also need a way to edit round number, school names, individual names, etc.
This certainly isn't necessary, but given the way rooms are set up it would help me as a moderator to have the eight names aligned from left to right along the top.

Substitute support is being worked on. Round number, school names, individual names can be edited using the Upload Tournament/Round links at the top - read the documentation.
That is an interesting idea, I will try to implement it and see how it goes.

[Masked Canadian History Bandit]

I tried out some packets earlier and it seemed like each time you inputed points for a question, the packet would jump to the top of the other section, not the one last read (i.e. input a tossup, it goes to the top of the bonuses page and vice versa). Obviously this is an annoying problem if you're reading tossup 19, have to scroll down to around bonus 19, and then scroll back down to tossup 20, and scroll down for the last bonus. Surely there's a fix for this?

[rajk]

I tried out some packets earlier and it seemed like each time you inputed points for a question, the packet would jump to the top of the other section, not the one last read (i.e. input a tossup, it goes to the top of the bonuses page and vice versa). Obviously this is an annoying problem if you're reading tossup 19, have to scroll down to around bonus 19, and then scroll back down to tossup 20, and scroll down for the last bonus. Surely there's a fix for this?

Not in the Scribd API. But since Abacus is not using Scribd anymore, it should work as you expect it to (and when I migrate to Google Apps in the future, should work similarly).

[grapesmoker]

Cool beans.

I've already communicated this privately to Raj, but I would suggest that anyone who is interested in working on this kind of thing take a look at Backbone.js. There are other frameworks that handle client-side data and synchronize it with the server (Ember, Knockout, etc.) but of all those Backbone commits you to the least amount of overhead.

[rajk]

Abacus 1.1 is here! New features include variable number of players per team, locally saving and loading round statistics, and smart handling of tossups heard per player.

As always, report bugs or give suggestions at the 'Report Bug' link at the top right or just post here. Don't forget to read the documentation to understand the subtle additions.

Screenshot at http://i.imgur.com/A5wcS0n.png.