I believe that’s something the Executive Board decided, years ago.
One of the things the new MUIR site is designed to do is discourage large-scale web-scraping, we will have API’s that people who need that much data can access, with proper data usage agreements, API keys, etc. (Even the public API’s currently available are or will be rate-limited.)
That’s also not actually true. You can be logged out or incognito and download https://secure2.uschess.org/supplements/ALLRTG2511.zip
Well, it used to work. :sigh: We may have broken that in 2020 when we changed the way people log in to secure2 as part of the membership system change, which I was not directly involved in.
Yeah it just hit me that wintd had never asked for my login credentials, so I went and double checked.
I wonder if the MUIR site is locked down then? I’ll have to try that from another system where I’m not logged in.
If you send me the link I can check from an incognito window real fast - I’m on mobile and it does not play well with the portal portion.
Looks like it’s a button not just a URL so perhaps it’s sufficiently locked down. That might complicate things for having an auto-dowload feature in the pairing programs.
Security issues are Emanuel’s area.
Yeah, the underlying URL requires you to be logged into the portal (and also so far to push the button).
I completely understand the need for change long-term, but we still have those sites today, probably for at least a few weeks. How about we use them until we get this figured out? Obviously I don’t know if the new file will work, but what WinTD has been downloading is two text files, one with a line or two identifying the date, the other the text file of all ratings. Why don’t we try it and see if it works? Relatively small investment in time, and if it works, you will momentarily silence the clamoring horde.
The file should be public accessible unless it has DOB, email, phone, or mailing/shipping address. Since the file is rating supplement that already public on each player API request. Check website for FIDE, Canada, Universal Rating System and other countries as well.
I believe that would violate an EB mandate from some 15-20 years ago, but policy issues are a matter for US Chess leadership to decide and I have passed this on to senior staff and leadership.
I’m just waiting for updated files to do that. (Under the previous system there was a lengthy shell script that did all that work, including copying them to the secure2 site, but someone still had to manually update the indexes.)
Oh so, US Chess has been violated that EB board since 15-20 years ago? Because
This Golden DB link: https://secure2.uschess.org/supplements/ALLRTG2511.zip
is public.
Copy that link, open your browser in incognito (you believe that incognito is no cookies from previous browsing right? so no login so whatever). Then you will see that the file will be downloaded in your download folder.
wouldn’t be the first time a board mandate has not been properly implemented, probably won’t be the last, either. :sigh: Sometimes nobody gets around to telling staff what the latest policy actions are, sometimes they just break over time.
I’m pretty sure it was working before 2020 because I set those sites up myself.
SwissSys usually uses the .DBF files, which allows it to “Display Field List” and indexing.
I am not sure what to do with the .TSV file currently on the ratings page, as that is a file extention SwissSys does not recognize.
I was able to download the ALLRTG2512.zip file and extract it.
It creates a .txt file that at least SwissSys can look at. However, it only sees the NAME and ID, and since it can not recognize any other column names using the “Display Field List” by default that is all you get.
I was able to open the .txt file outside of SwissSys, see the field names and type those into SwissSys manually and I think that is barely working so far. No indexing.
What is currently being provided, I will not be able to use for tournament starting December 1st, 2025.
Here’s what the new SwissSys team sent me:
The tab-delimited all-ratings supplement has been supported in SwissSys since Version 11 (2022). The Golden Master DBF file has been compatible since at least DOS Version 8 in 1993.
There may be a file name issue, though. The November Zip file had these files in it:
Archive: ALLRTG2511.zip
Length Date Time Name
--------- ---------- ----- ----
28 10-17-2025 11:29 ALLRTG2511/readme.txt
100526489 10-17-2025 11:29 ALLRTG2511/rtglist.txt
--------- -------
100526517 2 files
I don’t think that’s the case. Let me show you what I got.
Key step: rename the .tsv to .txt.
I think there’s a minor issue in that SwissSys wants to know that’s a text file, aka .txt, to figure things out correctly.
…would all of that be easier if the filename was the same as previous and available from the same URL as previous, even if through a redirect? Yes.
Yes, but you can not INDEX that .txt file!
I don’t have SwissSys to test it myself, I may have to download a copy, I think it will handle the supplement files it just won’t do an event larger than 2 rounds.
I don’t have the corrected files yet and I’m in the middle of prepping Thanksgiving dinner, I’ll be working on chess matters during the quiet points in my kitchen schedule.
I just got the two corrected Gold Master files, don’t have allratings tab file yet.
If anyone wants the Gold Masters, let me know and I’ll put them up like the previous test sets.
