The Quizbowl Resource Center

Just wondering if the Byko rankings will be returning this year.

If so:
Will there be any changes to the formula?
When will they begin?

If not:
Is anyone else considering taking over?

I'd defer to Dave responding to this, but informally talking with him, we want people who can help with the data input for sure. The computational stuff... we hope the internet keeps working.

I've been working on a ranking system for teams that would operate along the lines of Google's PageRank/something stochastic that involves eigenvectors. Basically, as the number of games played tend towards infinity, whichever team would be the most likely to win would get the number 1 spot, and so on. Once I get some semblance of a working system together, I'll let Byko know.

Here's the short answer at the moment: yes, there will be updated rankings for 2008-09. I still have some work to do to update code and databases to do it, but that part won't be difficult. There are some other things that I'll want to do to improve them this season, but I have a development server at home I can use for that.

Any idea when the first rankings will be released? Also, in terms of suggestions, it would be cool if there was a specific time set for rankings updates (weekly, semiweekly, monthly). That way we'd know when to look for updated rankings/could refer to specific sets of rankings. For example... X team was in 1st as of the March rankings. Last year the rankings could change at any time, which led to a little bit of confusion as who sat where at any given time.

That be difficult to do. A lot depends on when Byko has free time and when he receives tournament, so just the rankings regularly for updates.

p.s. I apologize to all Mets fans who have had to endure another late season collapse despite a "gangsta" performance by Santana.

So much pain...

Any status reports?

Funny--I almost posted something yesterday about this.

I'm working on some consolidation and code edits. If all goes well, there will at least be something preliminary up this Sunday. Failing that, I definitely intend to get something up by the end of the month (I'm out of town for three straight weekends after this Sunday--hence the reason for potentially more delay).

At this point, I'll be hosting them on my own server at home at least to start since it's much easier for me to test and make changes there. When it's all ready, the new URL will be up here. As of November 1, the old ratings page will completely be gone, but all the data will be available at the new location (in fact, I've already migrated it over--it just needs some more work and, again, code changes).

Please feel free to keep e-mailing me tournament results to the address in my sig--some of you have been doing that already, and I greatly appreciate it, even if I haven't responded to your e-mails.

Do you have a web address for the new location of the 2007-2008 rankings? It's nice to have last year
s ratings as a starting point for balancing pools for fall tournaments.

AHS Eagles wrote:Do you have a web address for the new location of the 2007-2008 rankings? It's nice to have last year
s ratings as a starting point for balancing pools for fall tournaments.

I'd like to make a preliminary announcement that the High School Quizbowl Ratings will be appearing on hsquizbowl.org starting soon, as part of a general expansion of front-page content that you will be hearing more about very shortly. Until then, unless Dave posts otherwise, you can access the 2007-2008 big list through Google's cache at http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:Q3 ... cd=1&gl=us .

Yeah, with aiquizbowl.com going away (as expected), here's what I can offer you for now:

http://byko.servehttp.com:6174/bqbq/

It's a little different from before, though not much, and it does have all the same data from the last two seasons as well as some results from this year. I'm still about a month behind, and it'll take 1-2 months for me to catch up at this point.

Ultimately, yes, this will move to hsquizbowl.org, but I'll need to get access and all to be able to that, plus moving all the data will be a non-trivial matter. But, this is a start.

Since this is a server I'm running at home, sometimes the database connection doesn't take right away, and I"m really not sure why. Just reload and try again--unlike the old server, I haven't found consistent problems of long-time outages.

Is there any way for you to share data entry duties with some others? I imagine there are many of us who would not mind taking some time to enter data for the Byko's Quizbowl Quotients. I don't know if the data entry is an easy task to share or not, but if it is shareable, I will volunteer myself to assist you.

Thanks,

Maggie Walker A ranked 166th in the country, closely following TJ A ranked 156th...in other news, I now predict Alabama School for Fine Arts A will sweep NAQT and PACE this year! (this is certain as they have wins over national powerhouses like LAMP A and Arab!)

1. Give Byko a break, he only has entered 2 of your games so far

2. That is TJ from North Carolina, if you had looked at the top, you would have seen them at 25th

EDIT: Is there a sarcasm button on this darned thing

Glacierguy1 wrote:1. Give Byko a break, he only has entered 2 of your games so far

There are notably fifteen games entered for MW; perhaps he just hasn't rerun the ranking algorithm.

everyday847 wrote:

Glacierguy1 wrote:1. Give Byko a break, he only has entered 2 of your games so far

There are notably fifteen games entered for MW; perhaps he just hasn't rerun the ranking algorithm.

It also doesn't help that the only games he has for us at RM are 2 play-off losses. We went 8-5 that day, including a win over Charter preceding our loss to them. Also, Andy, the rankings only show the 0-2 he has from RM, so it would appear that he hasn't rerun the algorithm.

The other problem is that every game has the same weight. Crappy local formats, NAQT, and HSAPQ are not all equally meaningful for determining which team is best.

wowitsquinthaha wrote:Maggie Walker A ranked 166th in the country, closely following TJ A ranked 156th...in other news, I now predict Alabama School for Fine Arts A will sweep NAQT and PACE this year! (this is certain as they have wins over national powerhouses like LAMP A and Arab!)

Well you're inching up on that first place individual ranking for arrogance and annoying comments.

Dude, what does it matter? People know which teams are good and which teams aren't.

Just out of curiosity, how can State College be listed in the maximum points scored in a game category, but not in the main rankings? This isn't intended to be rude, I'm just wondering.

aestheteboy wrote:Dude, what does it matter? People know which teams are good and which teams aren't.

Well, of course; it's just that this isn't all that helpful a tool for determining this.

wowitsquinthaha wrote:Maggie Walker A ranked 166th in the country, closely following TJ A ranked 156th...in other news, I now predict Alabama School for Fine Arts A will sweep NAQT and PACE this year! (this is certain as they have wins over national powerhouses like LAMP A and Arab!)

TheKingInYelliow wrote:Just out of curiosity, how can State College be listed in the maximum points scored in a game category, but not in the main rankings? This isn't intended to be rude, I'm just wondering.

Chances are, Byko hasn't run the part of the program that takes the score inputs and determines the teams' rankings. I'm also pretty damn sure that maximum points scored has no direct effect; it's just there for trivia purposes.

Sir Thopas wrote:

aestheteboy wrote:Dude, what does it matter? People know which teams are good and which teams aren't.

Well, of course; it's just that this isn't all that helpful a tool for determining this.

I would like to see a version of these ratings where only good quiz bowl results are considered, or at the least heavily weighted. Keep in mind there's not a lot of input for this year yet, too.

Adamantium Claws wrote: Well you're inching up on that first place individual ranking for arrogance and annoying comments.

I was kidding...for anyone that cares

wowitsquinthaha wrote:Maggie Walker A ranked 166th in the country, closely following TJ A ranked 156th...in other news, I now predict Alabama School for Fine Arts A will sweep NAQT and PACE this year! (this is certain as they have wins over national powerhouses like LAMP A and Arab!)

To whom should we send results and stats? I have some stats from a couple of tournaments that are not currently posted.

quizbowllee wrote:To whom should we send results and stats? I have some stats from a couple of tournaments that are not currently posted.

Me. See the e-mail address in my sig.

Byko wrote:I'm still about a month behind, and it'll take 1-2 months for me to catch up at this point.

That's my response to those of you complaining. Sorry. But please read what I've written and realize that I'm doing what I can.

AHS Eagles wrote:Is there any way for you to share data entry duties with some others? I imagine there are many of us who would not mind taking some time to enter data for the Byko's Quizbowl Quotients. I don't know if the data entry is an easy task to share or not, but if it is shareable, I will volunteer myself to assist you.

Not yet...but there will be. Hopefully I can get that done before the end of the calendar year--I'll certainly appreciate the help, and there have been at least a couple people who have volunteered to help with it.

TheKingInYellow wrote:Just out of curiosity, how can State College be listed in the maximum points scored in a game category, but not in the main rankings? This isn't intended to be rude, I'm just wondering.

Pretty much exactly what the others said. Some of those tables on the front page are just a straight database query from the Games table; others query from other tables that get edited/re-created during recalculations. That also explains how a team's record as recorded in the ratings and the actual list of game results for that team can be different.

Byko, I'll be more than glad to help input data. I know I sent you many, many stats last year, as I am privy to a lot of stats from local tournaments. Just let me know if you want me to help.

Do you have the results for the Yale Fall Tournament? Only one match is in the database from the tournament- I'm just wondering if that's just all you've inputted or if that's all you have. If you're missing some results, I can give you some, although not all.

erkifish26 wrote:Do you have the results for the Yale Fall Tournament? Only one match is in the database from the tournament- I'm just wondering if that's just all you've inputted or if that's all you have. If you're missing some results, I can give you some, although not all.

That's all I have--it's all I could find on the board. Any more data for any tournament that appears to be lacking would be greatly appreciated, even if it is just for a single team.

I'm certainly looking forward to the day I can input Indiana results directly... we generate a lot of games for teams that usually aren't factors on any national stage.

The rankings appear to have been completely wiped except for the 2006-2007 season. Dunno if there's a reason behind it [maintenance?] but just thought I'd point it out.

Johannes Climacus wrote:The rankings appear to have been completely wiped except for the 2006-2007 season. Dunno if there's a reason behind it [maintenance?] but just thought I'd point it out.

The ratings get wiped out every time there's a recalculation--it starts by clearing out the tables in the database that contain the rating information.

Byko - for the rankings' sake, could you please enter the Georgetown Day and VCU Fall stats for TJ A as TJ B, because we were missing (more than) half of our A team in both cases?

closesesame wrote:Byko - for the rankings' sake, could you please enter the Georgetown Day and VCU Fall stats for TJ A as TJ B, because we were missing (more than) half of our A team in both cases?

Sure--I'll try to correct that in the next couple days. Thanks for letting me know.

Byko,

Have you received the results of the Brookwood Invitiational Tournament from Mr. Barry?

HarvardHillBilly wrote:Byko,

Have you received the results of the Brookwood Invitiational Tournament from Mr. Barry?

Only the brief pieces that were posted online here. I haven't had time to e-mail anybody personally/individually to fill in gaps in data, and I'm not sure how much that will change as the season goes along. However, if anyone has anything they see that I haven't included, even if it's just for your team, please feel free to send it my way.

Byko wrote:However, if anyone has anything they see that I haven't included, even if it's just for your team, please feel free to send it my way.

I'll send you James Island data from Brookwood either tomorrow or Friday.

If we have matches that were not submitted can we submit individual matches if we don't have results from the whole tournament?

Mr. Bykowski, should I send you the links to stats for GSAC or do you check announcements threads for them? I've never been sure of your procedure...

BGSO wrote:If we have matches that were not submitted can we submit individual matches if we don't have results from the whole tournament?

Yes, please do e-mail me.

MLWGS-Gir wrote:Mr. Bykowski, should I send you the links to stats for GSAC or do you check announcements threads for them? I've never been sure of your procedure..

Yeah, if you could e-mail with that, that would be great. I try to follow the posts online as much as I can, but the e-mails as reminders are good things for me to have, and they don't bother me. Plus it saves me a little time going through larger threads on individual tournaments. But you're right--there really isn't any procedure, though perhaps I'd be best off asking people to e-mail me links to online postings. I've had some people e-mail me SQBS files, which has also worked, though I tend to prefer the online web generated listings many times.

In time, I'll get things organized. But there's still a lot of work to be done on this.

I guess one of the other things i wonder, David, is just exactly what tournaments 1) you've received but not entered vs. 2) you haven't received at all. I feel like i see really recent ones added and some old ones that (i thought) were posted, but not entered in the rankings.

So with that said, did you receive/add the stats from QuAC (UPenn's 11/22 tournament)?

Are there others you've received and not added? What others do you know of that were submitted? I just want to be a help and get the correct information to you in case you're missing something, but i don't want to be a bother if it's just something you haven't quite gotten to yet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we (James Monroe) play State College's A Team at GSAC?

Ah, it looks all updated now. Excellent.

intothenegs wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we (James Monroe) play State College's A Team at GSAC?

This is an issue that's been getting at me. From the posts in the GSAC topic, State College said in advance that they were missing their A teamers and that it wasn't an A team. However, the results for them at GSAC, to my eye, look like they might be closer to State College A than to State College B. It gets even more interesting in that the team listed at GSAC as State College B very definitely has results that correlate well with State College C. And of course, with State College using pseudonyms at the tournament, I have no information to go on there.

So, could someone more informed about the situation help me come up with a final decisive answer? I've actually run recalculations on the data both ways and haven't found anything that satisfies me.

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:I guess one of the other things i wonder, David, is just exactly what tournaments 1) you've received but not entered vs. 2) you haven't received at all. I feel like i see really recent ones added and some old ones that (i thought) were posted, but not entered in the rankings.

So with that said, did you receive/add the stats from QuAC (UPenn's 11/22 tournament)?

Are there others you've received and not added? What others do you know of that were submitted? I just want to be a help and get the correct information to you in case you're missing something, but i don't want to be a bother if it's just something you haven't quite gotten to yet.

Here's our current status as of about 3:00 this afternoon:

1. All full tournaments that I have seen on this or any other individual state forums that I read (e.g., Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia) that have posted results have been included.
2. There are probably between 5 and 10 schools that have sent me individual results for their teams during the season that I have not yet incorporated yet. I'm striving to include that next, but since I'm out of town this weekend (and may not have any Internet access), that probably won't happen until early next week.
3. I have gotten league results for multiple states. Those aren't included yet because the leagues are going to be included in a whole different set of tables since, for display and data storage purposes, they should be handled differently than I did back in the 2006-07 season. I'm still working on this and shooting for having this task completed by the end of the calendar year.
4. Obviously, there are some tournaments that I have just about nothing to go on. Some of those are actually included (e.g., South Carolina); others are not (e.g., Kent State and Auburn's Harvard mirror). Any helpful stats from such events would be greatly appreciated.
5. My goal in 2009 is to have these get recalculated weekly with all of the previous weekend's updated results on, say, Wednesday at about 4:00 AM ET. I don't know if I'll always be able to keep up with that this year, but I'm going to at least try to do that. There are more ideas in my mind about features I'd like to add than there is time for me to code them all right now.

I hope that answers people's questions--if not, feel free to post here or e-mail me and I'll try to get around to at least responding to everything.

From the posts in the GSAC topic, State College said in advance that they were missing their A teamers and that it wasn't an A team.

At GSAC our A-Team had one regular A-Team member who is generally our second or third leading scorer. Our B-Team had no regular B-Team members. Do you have anything to add Graham?

Regarding State College: Ruilong, Ben, and David, all A-teamers, were not there. So our "#1" team was me and three players usually from our B team. The B team itself was an assortment of kids who had been to a tournament or two, but aren't on our traditional A team/B team.

EDIT
Ooh, haha, beat me to the punch there, Ben

The State College discussion brings up a question that I think has been discussed before, but I can't remember the thread.

If the ratings are going to reflect which "team" from a school is attending, how should players/coaches/TDs denote results when submitting?

For example, at the NNT @ Notre Dame that my teams attended, I had only one regular A player on team A because the others could not attend. As a coach, I would love our subsequently poor record to not be counted in the ratings against the regular A-team. But what's the threshold to call them the A team? (a) majority A players (b) majority A starters (c) as long you have player X (d) whim of coach? Or isn't this all a bit too murky, especially for Byko to have to keep track of?

For a high school sports team, the varsity is scheduled to play regardless of who can be there, so if you're missing varsity players, you can't say to the other coach, "Yeah, this is going to count for our JV record instead". You're simply out of luck; your available players are varsity for a day.

Ideally, Byko would be keeping track of individual players' ratings instead, and any team ratings would be sums of individuals who are playing. But we all know this is impossible logistically (and to whom would you assign bonus points) and likely undesirable since it's the teams that are paired as opponents, not the individuals. Therefore, I would support the idea that we don't play these games of designating A's as B's, and simply call the first team A regardless of content when submitting to Byko.