BBO Discussion Forums: Vugraph Automation - BBO Discussion Forums

I have another question.

I have just received an e-mail (from the npc of one of the teams) inviting me to commentate "either regular or voice commentary" on the Buffet Cup (the first such e-mail I have received since Roland's retirement). However, the vugraph schedule page (whether I am logged in or not) suggests that this event will not have voice commentary. Maybe the organiser failed to tick a box somewhere. Is the npc going to be disappointed?

Jallerton,

Donna knows about the voice thing. Voice was indeed not select when vugraph was set up but she definitely wants voice now, so sign up and indicate voice interest and we'll make sure you get to do voice.

Quote
I'm a little wary of adding active checks like you suggest, since there might be concurrent events within the same tournament, and I don't want to force entering them all in time order. E.g. at the NABC, you might want enter all the sessions of the Spingold, then go back and enter all the sessions of the Wagar.

jallerton, on 2012-September-09, 16:35, said:

[apologies - i couldn't figure out how to include both quotes with author/timestamp]

Exactly right.

There is a significant difference between checking for potential conflicts and preventing them.

With no sanity checking BBO runs the risk of things that have actually occurred and been reported as problems.

examples:
Host submitting information with impossible overlapping sessions of the same event

vugraph archive adding "commentator chat" in one room that not only doesn't match what is happening in that room but frequently isn't from same set of boards, match or even event.


The BBO response that you quoted concerns me.

Roland pointed out the bad entrie with overlapping start times that were visible on the posted schedule, but I didn't notice a response from BBO. But that is consistent with non-communication of requirements/design/goals/plans [and apparent failure to get input from key players before design/implementation]

If the only goal is to speed things up and eliminate tedious manual tasks ... go for it But that may just be a way to get faster BAD data.

Roland's suggestion of routine manual inspection of data was probably rejected because it just replaces one form of tedium with another. Sanity checking IS something that can be done manually.

HOWEVER keep in mind 2 quotes I used often back in the days of software engineering

1) if you don't have a good process, automation won't help
2) if you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter how you get there

conclusion:
if you want useful/accurate output from automation - you have to understand ALL that was being done manually
if you want end-users to embrace the tooling, you should ACTIVELY interact with them to determine Use Cases [more s/w engineer-speak] and interface needs/desires.
and you need a communicated plan for addressing issues that aren't addressed with the tooling

P.S. I intentionally defined the very narrow scope of commentator data entry to avoid larger issues such as multiple concurrent matches from single venue or new event/venue starting during an already selected session.

But even in those cases, it would be beneficial for commentators/hosts to be aware of potential conflicts.

[temporary] end of this soapbox

Al

jallerton, on 2012-September-09, 16:46, said:

You and 14 others received an email after I (among 20) got one from Donna Compton. I came out of retirement (Hi LC) and provided 15 new addresses; Donna was delighted. What bothers me is that BBO, by the look of things, does not take vugraph commentary too seriously.

- 1. As pointed out in an earlier post, on August 10th I offered 34 addresses to potential voice commentators. Reply: 'not needed at this point.'
- 2. On numerous occasions over the years Fred has told us that BBO loses money when we have vugraph presentations. They hijack potential users for money tournaments.

Donna is trying valiantly now (well done to her!). After I got the invite, I asked her a few questions. Three of those were ...

'Who is the coordinator, the person who directs commentators to the appropriate tables?' Reply: 'That would be me…but I don’t exactly know what I am doing…helpful hints are welcome!'

'Say 12 sign up for a session, how do you ensure that we won't get ten at Table 1, two at Table 2, and none at Table 3, 4, 5 and 6?' Reply: 'I want two at each table…Is there an automated way of doing this? I do wish you were coordinating - I have no clue what I am doing but will do everything I can to ensure a great show. I will be online at the start of each segment and I guess I can go into each room and tell the commentators to go to other rooms. Are there other ways? I am hoping that everyone will sign up online so I will have a list for each segment and I can send out an email and assign people to tables. But if people won't sign up in advance, then I can't do that method!'

'How do you ensure that commentators who like to work together are at the same table?' Reply: 'They can tell me those kinds of things…again if everyone will just sign up online, then I can send out emails a day ahead and coordinate those that like to work together and those that don’t!'

Dear BBO. I announced my retirement more than six weeks ago. I had no contract, I have been unpaid from the word 'go' to the word 'stop', so I thought three weeks' advance notice was fair. According to barmar I have been nothing more than an 'assistant'. Fair enough, but if that is so, then there must be someone else, the one in charge, who can answer all the questions a new coordinator has. I don't understand a word of what Al is saying in his two comprehensive posts (that is way over my head, but that is my problem), but I do understand that things worked extremely well when things were done manually. And finally, in order to avoid misunderstandings:

No, I do NOT want my job back!

I'm sure that it will take a little while for people to realize that RW is no longer the 'go to' person for Vug. After all, he was just that for a long time. Not that that's an insult, any more than Barmar's term was

Nowadays, that goto person is likely 'support@bridgebase.com' and we'll route emails to whoever actually needs to get involved (currently that's usually Rain or Ara or Barry).

The restructuring of the whole vug thing is still under way and I'm not sure where it is going. It isn't a simple thing, but now that everyone is back from their various summer activities, it should move faster.

To ans. some Qs here:

- when in doubt, you can send vug issues to rain@, if you don't feel like contacting support@ - she is in charge, or will know who is in charge.

- No conspiracy here; BBO loves vug, and believes it is good for our game. that's why we're investing resources into improving it. We're not thru

U

ahollan1, on 2012-September-09, 16:16, said:

I understand. It comes from shoe-horning the new features into the existing schedule web page, rather than redesigning it from scratch. The right way to do this would be to use AJAX to update the page in place, but the page isn't designed to be updatable like that. So instead any changes are done as a form submission, which updates the database, and then it reloads the schedule page to pick up the changes.

barmar, on 2012-September-10, 09:31, said:

[refer also to comments about us not knowing goal/requirements/design/plan ...]

This explanation is missing a very critical piece of information ...

Are you going to change the interface?

ahollan1, on 2012-September-17, 10:59, said:

Yes. I'm changing it to a combined date/time picker, and I'm adding a warning if round N starts before round N-1 ends, or if the stawrt time is unlikely (starting before 8am or after 9pm). This should be deployed sometime this week.

I just realized that my answer addressed a different complaint (about submitting new events with rounds out of order).

Regarding the schedule page scrolling back to the top, the next version will have a small improvement. When it redisplays after you submit a change, it will position the row that was changed at the top of the window. This isn't as nice as keeping the page completely still, as I could do with an AJAX implementation, but it's pretty close -- most likely the next round you want to volunteer to commentate on will still be on view or just a small scroll away.

The changes I referred to in the last two posts have been deployed.

uday, on 2012-September-10, 05:46, said:

I've heard and read Roland saying that he didn't know the identity of his successor. Is it the intention of BBO that there will be a successor for any of the (many) aspects of Roland's job, or are you relying purely on 'automation'?

jallerton, on 2012-September-20, 01:08, said:

Does nobody know the answer to this question?

OK, no-one is prepared to answer my question. I'll have to draw my own conclusion.

Automation works best for events where only one table is being shown on BBO and sufficient people are sufficiently self-motivated to sign up. When there are multiple tables, automated sign up is not good enough by itself; the commentators need to be informed which table to go to. Why? Let me give you an example.

Last week, I used the automated sign-up procedure for the EBL Champions Cup. This is a very strong event. Only twelve teams, but the participants included many world champions. There were four tables being shown on BBO, so I was a little disappointed to see that only two other commentators had signed up for that session.

I was automatically ungagged, so the software was working well in that respect, but there was nobody to tell me which table to go to. I chose the room showing Fantoni-Nunes against Upmark-Wrang as there was only one other commentator there.

A quick review of vugraph records suggests that other table in that match seemed to have three or four commentators, whilst the other match being shown had one commentator in one room and no commentary whatsoever in the other. This would never have happened under Roland's watch as the commentators would have been assigned to particular tables in advance; if assigning on the day, he would note which rooms were lacking commentators and approach potential commentators to join or ask people already commentating to move tables to balance the numbers.

Now I know that there are a few events where the organisers are trying to set up their own system (as JanM is doing for the ABC Nationals in a few weeks' time) but these events are the exception rather than the norm, but it should be noted that these assignments rely on the work done by real people, not computers.