Question about WUStl Live

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
Locked
Joshua Rutsky
Tidus
Posts: 663
Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2005 9:59 am
Location: Hoover, AL

Question about WUStl Live

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

Does anyone know if the output reports from WUStl's tourney program are of comparable value to those produced by SQBS? I'm considering using the program for our tournament and am interested in knowing if I'd need to do everything twice.
Joshua Rutsky
VP for Curriculum and Camp Operations, Qwiz
ASCA Board Member
Hoover High School Coach (Retired)
User avatar
Mewto55555
Tidus
Posts: 709
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:27 pm

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by Mewto55555 »

The standings come out looking like this, so what it will give you is team rankings with W-L and ppg, individual results, and the scoresheet for every game. The thing that looks like PPB it outputs is some other metric, so you might want to ignore that if you decide to use WUStL.
Max
formerly of Ladue, Chicago
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by Important Bird Area »

Please note that NAQT's results database is not currently set up to accept results in WUSTL Live format, so it might be easier to use SQBS from the beginning rather than having to keep an additional set of stats.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
Joshua Rutsky
Tidus
Posts: 663
Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2005 9:59 am
Location: Hoover, AL

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

I'm really kind of torn on this. My goal is to run the most efficient tournament possible, of course. Right now, what we do is have individuals on computers in each game room with Jon Pinyan's very good NAQT-style scoresheet with self-check that was posted here at viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6742#p202022 years ago. I have 10 copies of the sheet in a folder on the desktop, each labeled Round 1, Round 2, etc. The scorekeeper has to enter the player names and the team names each match, then at the end of the match must remember to print the file to our networked printer, which is in the tourney control room, and I then enter the stats by hand into SQBS. This works much more efficiently than having runners, and removes issues with handwriting and math errors, but requires me to 1) log into all the computers in advance so the scorekeepers have access and each room has its own folder, 2) make sure the scorekeepers understand how to use the scoresheet and remember to print it correctly and on time, and 3) re-enter all the information as it comes in to keep stats available, resulting in a delay at the end of the tournament for seeding purposes that cannot generally be avoided. Is the delay short? Yes. We're usually waiting on the results of one or two games that will really matter in order to do the placements, and often we can wait until the start of playoffs to finish the final regular round input. Even so, WUStl is appealing in that I can train my young players during practice to scorekeep, the interface is simple, and I don't need to log in to 30 computers the night before so we are ready. That may be worth having to re-enter results into SQBS after the event to produce NAQT and web-friendly stats.

I saw someone wrote some code to extract scores from SQBS files. As far as I'm concerned, coding is largely tinkering with black magic, but for you brilliant techies and coders, how hard would it be to write code to extract the results from a WUStl stat page into something that could be imported to SQBS or was NAQT friendly? Jeff, what formats besides SQBS are NAQT-friendly?
Joshua Rutsky
VP for Curriculum and Camp Operations, Qwiz
ASCA Board Member
Hoover High School Coach (Retired)
User avatar
The Friar
Wakka
Posts: 159
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:39 pm

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by The Friar »

What's labeled BCF (bonus conversion for) in WUStL! should be quite exactly the same thing as PPB as reported in other places.

I never really wrote up any help or documentation for this, which is kind of an oversight on my part. After I defend my dissertation (which will actually be pretty soon) I ought to do that.

At several people's request, I looked into making this output something that the database could load, but I've decided every time against investing the time in it. Given the current features of the database, it's just not clear what users would gain from myself or some other programmer going to all that trouble that they wouldn't gain from just linking to the stats on WUStL! itself from the tournament's database page. To take advantage of future database features, in contrast, would probably require learning how to write not just SQBS-format HTML reports but actual SQBS stat files, which follow a decidedly opaque format.

Lots of users (well, to the extent WUStL! has lots of users) do indeed keep score live with WUStL! and then reenter game records from WUStL! in SQBS when it's more convenient to do so. If you really need SQBS files for something, I recommend doing so at least for now.
Gordon Arsenoff
Rochester '06
WUStL '14 (really)

Developer of WUStL Updates Statistics Live!
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by jonah »

Joshua Rutsky wrote:Jeff, what formats besides SQBS are NAQT-friendly?
The only formats from which we can currently import full stats (as opposed to just game scores, just records, or just final standings) are SQBS and Tournament Director.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
The Friar
Wakka
Posts: 159
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:39 pm

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by The Friar »

jonah wrote:
Joshua Rutsky wrote:Jeff, what formats besides SQBS are NAQT-friendly?
The only formats from which we can currently import full stats (as opposed to just game scores, just records, or just final standings) are SQBS and Tournament Director.
Jonah and HSQB database operators: If you have interest in writing your own code to import from WUStL!, I could easily provide you a complete copy of WUStL!'s existing source to get you started.
Gordon Arsenoff
Rochester '06
WUStL '14 (really)

Developer of WUStL Updates Statistics Live!
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by jonah »

The Friar wrote:
jonah wrote:
Joshua Rutsky wrote:Jeff, what formats besides SQBS are NAQT-friendly?
The only formats from which we can currently import full stats (as opposed to just game scores, just records, or just final standings) are SQBS and Tournament Director.
Jonah and HSQB database operators: If you have interest in writing your own code to import from WUStL!, I could easily provide you a complete copy of WUStL!'s existing source to get you started.
I'll discuss this with the rest of NAQT's tech team; my guess is that it will be a pretty low priority unless WUStL! becomes very popular. (I realize this may be somewhat of a chicken-and-egg problem, inasmuch as NAQT failing to support WUStL! may inhibit the latter's growth.)
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
The Friar
Wakka
Posts: 159
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:39 pm

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by The Friar »

jonah wrote:
The Friar wrote:
jonah wrote:
Joshua Rutsky wrote:Jeff, what formats besides SQBS are NAQT-friendly?
The only formats from which we can currently import full stats (as opposed to just game scores, just records, or just final standings) are SQBS and Tournament Director.
Jonah and HSQB database operators: If you have interest in writing your own code to import from WUStL!, I could easily provide you a complete copy of WUStL!'s existing source to get you started.
I'll discuss this with the rest of NAQT's tech team; my guess is that it will be a pretty low priority unless WUStL! becomes very popular. (I realize this may be somewhat of a chicken-and-egg problem, inasmuch as NAQT failing to support WUStL! may inhibit the latter's growth.)
Sounds good to me. One of these years I will indeed start doing a better job of selling WUStL! by showing it off to tournament directors myself. Till then it will probably just not get very big no matter what.
Gordon Arsenoff
Rochester '06
WUStL '14 (really)

Developer of WUStL Updates Statistics Live!
cdcarter
Yuna
Posts: 945
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:06 am
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Contact:

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by cdcarter »

The Friar wrote:
jonah wrote:
The Friar wrote:
jonah wrote:
Joshua Rutsky wrote:Jeff, what formats besides SQBS are NAQT-friendly?
The only formats from which we can currently import full stats (as opposed to just game scores, just records, or just final standings) are SQBS and Tournament Director.
Jonah and HSQB database operators: If you have interest in writing your own code to import from WUStL!, I could easily provide you a complete copy of WUStL!'s existing source to get you started.
I'll discuss this with the rest of NAQT's tech team; my guess is that it will be a pretty low priority unless WUStL! becomes very popular. (I realize this may be somewhat of a chicken-and-egg problem, inasmuch as NAQT failing to support WUStL! may inhibit the latter's growth.)
Sounds good to me. One of these years I will indeed start doing a better job of selling WUStL! by showing it off to tournament directors myself. Till then it will probably just not get very big no matter what.
Gordon, I'd be happy to help make WUStL! support SQBS output, either by direct export or though an intermediary. I've been working on prettying up stat output (see http://tournakit.neocities.org/standings.html) and generally improving stat data interchange. I'd love to help make WUStL! support Tournakit (see my other thread) and SQBS output is part and parcel with that (and currently working super well for non-bracketed tournaments!) Email me at cdcarter at gmail dot com.

NAQT, I shot y'all an email too about all this, but if you have any questions/suggestions/hopes email me as well!
Christian Carter
Minneapolis South High School '09 | Emerson College '13
PACE Member (retired)
cdcarter
Yuna
Posts: 945
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:06 am
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Contact:

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by cdcarter »

As an update, looking around the WUStL! generated stats, it looks like it wouldn't be too difficult to get a compliant SQBS file out automatically, from an external processing standpoint. It would likely be even easier if Gordon and I could collaborate.

It certainly sounds like you'd save yourself a lot of work, even if you had to re-enter SQBS later.
Christian Carter
Minneapolis South High School '09 | Emerson College '13
PACE Member (retired)
User avatar
The Friar
Wakka
Posts: 159
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:39 pm

Re: Question about WUStl Live

Post by The Friar »

As announced in http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... 23&t=16757 SQBS-format output is now implemented.

WUStL! has moved to http://www.wustlqb.info for the foreseeable future.
Gordon Arsenoff
Rochester '06
WUStL '14 (really)

Developer of WUStL Updates Statistics Live!
Locked