In MSA there used to be the following disclaimer at the top of the crosstable page:
“Results within crosstables are NOT in tiebreak order and and players may not be listed in the same order as the prize lists from an event.”
This should be on the new MUIR page. I’ve already received two complaints about the new “official USCf” MUIR standings don’t match what trophies were presented onsite and parents want the upgraded trophy.
I did log that today, in conjunction with something that was discussed during pre-development but not part of the feature set for launch, which is having a way to upload tie breaks so we can display events in the same order that the TD did rather than using something like member ID or player rating as the secondary key after score group.
There are at least two gotcha’s with this.
One is the asymmetric data results (eg, both W and B get a win for ratings purposes) because this means the total score may not be the same as it as when prizes were awarded.
The other is post-event changes to results in a game, which may also mean that a player’s score is different than it was when prizes were awarded.
So we would probably need a ‘total score for prize purposes’ field in addition to several tie-break fields for each player. (And players who have multiple pairing numbers in a merged event might complicate things, too.)
The other way to do this would be to have the TD supply a ‘prize order’ ordinal and display the event in that but that might confuse people if they see results not in point group order.
Place vs rating group prizes also could factor into this, someone might be 14th in terms of total point standing but 3rd in class C.
For what it’s worth, although we’ve had the disclaimers about players not being in prize order in place for nearly 20 years, we still see dozens of messages every month asking why someone is listed 5th when they won the 3rd place trophy.
And the asterisks for ‘not yet rerated’ are even more widely ignored or misunderstood.
I had a parent email me today saying why did her child get the 9th place trophy onsite when the official USCF website lists him in 7th place. Went on and on about how we got the standings wrong because the official USCF website must be correct. She is still trying to argue the point!
If there is at least the disclaimer at the top of the page I can refer a parent to that and the discussion is over.
We’ll get it put on, but that may not be the highest priority task in the queue.
BTW, what do people (TDs and non TDs) think about adding tiebreaks and showing players in that order? Adding the necessary fields to the API for uploading events should be fairly simple.
Another one that I have seen is where an extra rated game is placed inside the real section and does not count for prizes. Easier than creating a new section – usually you can spot these as there is an extra round (but doesn’t have to be) - and in a 3 round tournament might even get a player a shot a norm.
I have done this on a few occasions where a section got over quickly - awarded prizes - and two of the players stuck around for a 4th game.
I’ve also seen a playoff put in as extra rounds for the two players involved in the playoff. As long as it is at a time control that would make it fall into the same ratings system categories, I don’t see a problem with that, though it might affect bonus eligibility (in either direction) and it would obviously affect score group for ordering purposes if ordering by total score.
While it might not be considered highest priority, it is one of lowest hanging fruit.
Adding a disclaimer does not require much efforts from Leago at all, but immediately provides benefits to TDs of scholastic tournaments.
While adding the necessary fields (tiebreaks) to the API for uploading events sounds fairly simple to do, given Leago’s progress on MUIR Issue: Section Rating order by Individual Display and Lost Provisional Status in Tournament History and other issues,
personally I would ask for only the disclaimer for now.
Nevertheless, curious on what you heard back regarding MUIR Issue: Player ordering withing score group What is the order?
I haven’t heard back on that one yet, nor do I know where the disclaimer is in the pipeline along with the approximately 500 other support tickets we’ve generated in the last two weeks.
only FIVE HUNDRED??
Well, the incident count number is at about 1250, but Leago uses it for tracking internal items as well, so I really don’t know how many of them are from us.
How’s this one looking? I just got another inquiry from parents about why their child’s results at the tournament don’t match the results on the US Chess website.
I’ll try to bring that up at tomorrow’s regular meeting with the developers.
A better long-term solution would be to have a ‘display order’ field in the event, but that involves database structure changes, changes to the upload files (or implementation of an upload API), and several UI changes, so that one isn’t likely to happen for a few months, assuming it gets approved and added to the budget.