In reviewing the 6 TLAs from my state (New Jersey) in the October Chess Life, I find that only 2 of them are currently listed in the “Clubs & Tourneys” section of this website. The date of the first of these unlisted tournaments is next Sunday! Shouldn’t these TLAs be up on the website by now?
Bob
I checked this a little more. There are tournaments being held this Saturday in Florida, Kentucky, and Texas that are listed in the October Chess Life but that still aren’t up in the “Clubs & Tourneys” section. There’s also one in Pennsylvania that is being held this Friday (3 days from now!) but that still isn’t up on the website. It appears that the only October tournaments currently listed on the website are those that were in the September Chess Life.
Bob
Bob,
The office has to do something at the beginning of the month to make the TLAs for that month active. Clearly, that hasn’t been done for October yet. Even though today is the 14th.
Mike
I too have been trying to get to the bottom of this issue. I’ve been given various reasons why my affiliate’s events are not listed in a timely fashion on the website – none of which make any sense to me.
For example our November tournament is unlisted in the main section. To view its TLA one has to scroll down to the very bottom of a very long page. The reader has to KNOW this section – the Hades of online TLAs – exists, then remember it exists when they’re looking for a tournament, then take the trouble to scroll down.
The argument that things will get better when the TLA system is revamped is disingenuous. The other thing I heard was that our tournaments are “weekly events” or some such. Whatever.
If you can post my TLA way at the bottom, with the other denizens of the nether-world, WHY CAN’T YOU POST IT ABOVE where it belongs? WHY???
Our club pays approximately $175/yr on TLAs. Don’t we deserve the same treatment as everyone else?
The TLA system admittedly needs improvement, it hasn’t been changed much in years, and relies upon some outdated technology at the office.
Having the online TLAs in three distinct sections is clumsy, but was done for several reasons.
The top section of the TLAs in the state-by-state listing are the ones from the current and previous issue of Chess Life. At this point October is still the ‘current’ issue. An event which has its first (or only) TLA in the November issue is not listed there yet. Organizers are advised NOT to put the only TLA for an event occurring in the first half of the month in that month’s issue (due in large part to uncontrollable variances in how long it takes the US Postal Service to deliver copies of the magazine) but some of them do it anyway.
TLAs from the November issue will be put online once the November issue is posted.
(FWIW, it appears that Mr. DePalma’s event is a one-game-a-week event that starts on Nov 7th, though it may be mis-coded in USCF pre-publication records as a recurring event rather than a single event that spans multiple weeks, although that mis-coding would not affect when or where it appears in the online TLA pages.)
The Chess Life TLA listings have to be built by extracting them from files provided by the editorial department into at least 53 different files, one for each state plus GP and national events. These files contain both the current month’s TLAs and the TLAs from the previous month. Apparently this process takes several days and doesn’t get started right after the next issue goes on press (usually no later than the 15th of the previous month),
Because those files are pre-built by state, there is no easy way to produce a customized list of TLAs using other criteria, such as by ZIP code, or to put it into another format, such as a map or calendar format with clickable links
TLAs for future issues are generated from pre-publication records of those events, and thus may change during the editorial process. Once a TLA is paid for, even if it is for an event in the future which will not be in Chess Life for several months, it is available in that section of the TLA listings online. It would seem somewhat unfair to intermingle those future TLAs in with ones from the current issue, and that might reduce the number of placements for those TLAs thus affecting USCF revenue.
The final section is for the online-only TLAs, These have never been very popular, even though they are free to organizers. The ED was sent a recommendation on Sep 30th that the USCF discontinue online TLAs for events occurring after May 31, 2012, but has not yet responded to that recommendation.
By choosing a date that far in the future for discontinuance of the current free Online TLA Service, that should give the USCF time to develop a replacement for the free Online TLAs that can be more readily integrated in with other TLAs. However, that may not alter the separation of ‘current’ TLAs from ‘future’ TLAs, and policy decisions would have to be made as to whether online-only TLAs would continue to be free and whether free TLAs should be treated the same as paid TLAs.
TLA Mail uses the pre-publication information on print TLAs and the online-only TLAs, and it does have the ability for members to select only the TLAs they are interested in, such as by state or ZIP code.
Bill Hall has talked about a ‘cradle-to-grave’ tracking process for TLAs and tournaments. The new tournament data entry program will implement part of this, TDs will be able to link their rating report to a (print) TLA for that event. This may help the office when compiling the Grand Prix and Junior Grand Prix standings.
Mike,
If we are doing a revision of the online TLAs, it would be great if we could have some kind of database that returns the location of every TLA. That would be an important first step to allow customized searches for TLAs.
A tie in to something like Google Maps would be one way, providing we have an accurate address for the tournament site. (Not all TLAs may include that detail, sometimes we may not have anything more precise than a ZIP code.) Of course, Google Maps isn’t always correct.
I’ve looked into Joomla extensions that would allow all kinds of interesting information to be displayed but we would need a set of locations to work with. I thought about parsing the TLAs to extract their location but they are not in a standard format.
Not much about TLAs is ‘standard’, in part because TDs don’t want their TLAs to conform to a standard if it doesn’t meet their idea of the proper order and formatting of the information. USCF internal records have fields for site address information, but that information is no longer available when converting the TLAs into the 53+ state files, which is another reason why the whole TLA process probably needs to be updated, to bring it into the 21st century.
I know this is obvious but I just wanted to mention it.
I would just like to reiterate the point the TLAs should be prominently featured on our web site rather than buried like they are now. A large fraction of the attendees at my tournaments list online TLAs as their source of information. Our web site should have the goal to increase membership and tournament attendance. Memberships are only one click away (from a small menu item). To find TLAs requires three clicks. Both should be much more obvious from the home page.
Most complaints about the website end with a call for something to be closer to or on the home page. 
Mike Regan
An amusing comment in general, but I don’t think it should end the discussion here.
A TLA is something an organizer pays for (revenue generator) and is something that the players use a great deal.
I can’t think of any state association website where the Tournament announcements were difficult to find. Its considered a critical feature they are providing players by us at the state level. I often hit neighboring state chapter websites to check for close events. I’m never doing three clicks to get there I think to do that more often than I go state by state through the USCF’s online system, even though it would seem less efficient. (of course catching tournaments that don’t have TLA’s, or are in their “paid for” time yet, is another advantage
The current system looks like the USCF half heartedly tried to get something up in the area of online TLA’s, but hasn’t given it the attention it deserves. Certainly better than not having one, but there is lots of room for suggestions. I suspect a vibrant Online TLA area would quickly become one of the most used pages on the site.
As noted above, the ED has been given a recommendation (on September 30th) that the current online TLA Service be discontinued for events that occur after 5/31/2012 and replaced with something that would better meet the needs of the USCF, its players and its organizers.
Ideally, the replacement would be better coordinated with the print TLA system, which is also in need of upgrades.
Whether an online-only TLA service would remain free is one of several policy issues that would need to be addressed during the development of the new system.
That project would be separate from any redesign of the USCF home page and the site map (ie, where everything goes relative to the home page) although such a redesign is probably long overdue.
These are issues that the Executive Board may discuss at some point, although the agenda for the November EB meeting has not yet been published.
Somehow, there should be a single tournament list, rather than several lists divided according to whether there is also a print version, whether the TLA is submitted through the official form or free form, etc.
Even in free form, a few fields should be required in standardized form – such as the state code, the starting and ending dates, and the time control.
All the events would then be there, in a database. Sorting (by date) and selecting (by state and/or time control) should be possible. Multiple state selections should be possible and combineable, as some players will be interested in events in three or four nearby states.
Ah, yes, in a perfect world …
Bill Smythe
Some policy issues to consider, with several of these issues applicable to print TLAs as well as TLAs on the website (though the policy could differ):
Should a free TLA receive the same consideration ((ie, equal treatment) as one for which the organizer has paid a TLA fee?
Should an event for which the TLA is not scheduled to be published in Chess Life until next month (or later) receive the same consideration as one for which the organizer has paid for publication in the current month’s issue (and possibly paid for ads in multiple issues?)
Should an event in, say, Ohio, be entitled to be listed among events in Illinois? What about one in California? What if the organizer pays an additional fee for that listing?
Should the same standards with regards to rules, such as those for prize guarantees, apply to online-only TLAs?
Should year-long events like the Grand Prix and the Junior Grand Prix continue to require TLAs that are published in Chess Life?
On most of those questions, I’ll pass. (Contrary to popular belief, I absolutely refuse to have an opinion on everything 
.) But, on one of them –
In general I don’t like the idea of tournaments in one state being listed also in another. There are simply too many of these, and they get in the way. If it were possible for the user to specify several states at once (such as IL, WI, IN, MI, IA, MO) and view a combined list, that would serve the same purpose, and do it better.
There could, I suppose, be a single-line listing for a few of the larger out-of-state events, with a cross reference to the full listing in the appropriate state.
Bill Smythe