Search found 89 matches

by Avram
Mon Nov 14, 2011 2:49 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: WUStL Updates Statistics Live!: real-time Web scorekeeping
Replies: 30
Views: 19641

Re: WUStL Updates Statistics Live!: real-time Web scorekeeping

Since this is clearly not a commercial venture, I recommend you put the code up on Github under a nice license like AGPL, and we may yet be able to bolt together QBSQL and WUStL to make something full-featured quite quickly. In PHP and web design, showing is often easier than telling, and if it's up...
by Avram
Sun Nov 13, 2011 1:06 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: WUStL Updates Statistics Live!: real-time Web scorekeeping
Replies: 30
Views: 19641

Re: WUStL Updates Statistics Live!: real-time Web scorekeeping

I'm glad to see another attempt to get tossup-by-tossup entry happening. As I've been through much of this before with my entry into the web stats world (code.google.com/p/qbsql/), I know it takes a bit of code wrangling to get anything going at all. I'd echo the concern with the stats output-- web ...
by Avram
Wed Oct 12, 2011 3:06 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Stats for the National Bowl
Replies: 7
Views: 2301

Re: Stats for the National Bowl

NAQT uses SQBS for ICT (and MSNCT). Tournament Director isn't really ready for general use at this point; lots of manual database editing is required for common tasks, and so forth. NAQT keeps Jim Puls around to do basically everything. That's about where I was for my first QBSQL event back in 2005...
by Avram
Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:07 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Stats for the National Bowl
Replies: 7
Views: 2301

Re: Stats for the National Bowl

This sounds great. Assuming this can get worked out, it would be great if you could keep the weekend of Apr 27-29 free on your calendar, as we'd be happy to fly you to DC from LA to help implement this at Nationals. The software is usually a turn-key operation, but I understand the concern with a h...
by Avram
Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:21 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Stats for the National Bowl
Replies: 7
Views: 2301

Re: Stats for the National Bowl

This is something that QBSQL was designed for-- just enter from as many computers as you like. Code at: http://code.google.com/p/qbsql/ UCLA tournaments using QBSQL: http://quizbowl.gimranov.com/stats/tournaments.php Berry College (QTQ) tournaments using QBSQL: http://quizteamquestions.com/qbsql/ I'...
by Avram
Fri Aug 05, 2011 3:58 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Theres an app for that.
Replies: 4
Views: 3455

Re: Theres an app for that.

Would it be possible to post the code to something like Github? I'd be interested in making this interface directly with QBSQL-- shouldn't be too hard.
by Avram
Thu Jun 16, 2011 11:30 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Archived stats from Taft
Replies: 1
Views: 2160

Re: Archived stats from Taft

See http://quizbowl.gimranov.com/t for a mirror. If you can provide the CSS, I can make them look tolerable again.
by Avram
Wed Mar 02, 2011 2:04 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT Is Searching for Staff for ICT
Replies: 3
Views: 1783

Re: NAQT Is Searching for Staff for ICT

If you can fly round trip from Kazan to Chicago for NAQT's limit of $275 or less, you win the Charles Meigs Travel Award and, presumably, the right to staff ICT. Remarkably, I can do it for $1000 from Kazan, or under $800 from Moscow (including train to and from Moscow). If I can give up having a h...
by Avram
Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:26 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT Is Searching for Staff for ICT
Replies: 3
Views: 1783

Re: NAQT Is Searching for Staff for ICT

Can I assume that international staff travel will not be covered by NAQT?
by Avram
Sat Jan 29, 2011 7:58 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: On-going season rankings
Replies: 391
Views: 125152

Re: On-going season rankings

.. Gimranov-formatted stats are harder in their own way - they don't require a manual search, but rather lots of clicking back and forth between games. In short, while it probably takes me 30-60 seconds per team to mine data from NAQT's website, it will take me a lot longer to do it with other stat...
by Avram
Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:28 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words
Replies: 49
Views: 64163

Re: A Moderator's Guide to Pronunciating Foreign Words

İ vs. ı This will never screw you over in quizbowl, but it is a big deal in the Turkish language. Basically, confusing to all hell, there’s an I with a dot at all times and an I that’s dotless. The one that has no dots is pronounced like “uh” – in Azerbaijani they spell it with a schwa (Ə). Most im...
by Avram
Mon Nov 22, 2010 2:24 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: UCLA Mirror of Minnesota Open (Nov. 21)
Replies: 24
Views: 4771

Re: UCLA Mirror of Minnesota Open (Nov. 21)

This appears to have happened, with stats at http://quizbowl.gimranov.com/stats/index.php?t=mo2010 Note that I wasn't at the tournament or within several thousand miles of it, so for all I know these stats were just posted for the hell of it and the real ones will be posted later. But they look real...
by Avram
Wed Nov 17, 2010 2:14 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Excel quiz bowl scoresheets
Replies: 64
Views: 70154

Re: Excel quiz bowl scoresheets

For the moment, I'm ignoring all the stuff at the front and back of the SQBS file, some of which I've figured out and some of which I haven't. [..snip..] Basically, the difficulty here is that the macro needs to know the number of each team (and the number of each player on that team) and the game ...
by Avram
Thu Nov 11, 2010 5:06 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: statkeeping and online scoresheets (split from ACF Fall 2010)
Replies: 18
Views: 7098

Re: statkeeping and online scoresheets (split from ACF Fall 2010

I'll add that it's not necessary for the purpose of keeping the stats that are currently kept to transmit entire scoresheets. After bogging down QBTPS in file format recommendations, I wholeheartedly agree here. The SQBS fragment for a game is quite compact, probably near-minimal for a format encod...
by Avram
Mon Oct 25, 2010 2:12 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Accent marks on foreign words
Replies: 36
Views: 10314

Re: Accent marks on foreign words

They're certainly not considered indivisible units by, at least, native Czech and Hungarian speakers, who will frequently leave off even the diacritics not marking length in text messages and informal online communication. Length, yes. But the consonants have been, in my experience, more resilient....
by Avram
Sun Oct 24, 2010 11:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Accent marks on foreign words
Replies: 36
Views: 10314

Re: Accent marks on foreign words

Point 2: Any moderator that is confused by something like the pronunciation of Capek will be told that this is how it's pronounced. Assuming as I do that moderators are reasonable human beings, they will most likely accept the explanation. Anyway, even if you had an accent mark on there, why would ...
by Avram
Sat Oct 23, 2010 10:38 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Accent marks on foreign words
Replies: 36
Views: 10314

Re: Accent marks on foreign words

So the consensus is that we should write "Karel Capek" and hope that people say "Karel Chapek"? What about answer lines? How will you indicate to the moderator that "C" in the answer line might be pronounced quite differently than /s/ or /k/? Maybe it's the linguist in ...
by Avram
Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:59 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: statkeeping and online scoresheets (split from ACF Fall 2010)
Replies: 18
Views: 7098

Re: statkeeping and online scoresheets (split from ACF Fall 2010

As the main developer of JAGUARS ( http://jaguars.sourceforge.net/ ), I have been considering how to export data for a completed game to a file. I was seeking feedback from statkeepers on what type of file format would be the easiest to work with. I've been thinking about using some sort of XML, bu...
by Avram
Mon Oct 11, 2010 12:02 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: statkeeping and online scoresheets (split from ACF Fall 2010)
Replies: 18
Views: 7098

Re: ACF Fall 2010 Global Announcement (November 6, 2010)

Using Avram's gimranov stats software has worked wonders for UCLA's tournaments, we've been able to run tournaments with no dedicated stats person since stats can be entered from each individual computer, and teams have loved it because it means stats are available online immediately. We still use ...
by Avram
Mon Oct 04, 2010 1:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Announcement: TWAIN XI at UCLA, October 2, 2010
Replies: 9
Views: 3379

Re: Announcement: TWAIN XI at UCLA, October 2, 2010

Frater Taciturnus wrote:Gimranov appears to be down.
Looks up to me. Intermittent cosmic rays?
by Avram
Thu Mar 25, 2010 6:17 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Keeping individual stats
Replies: 42
Views: 6750

Re: Keeping individual stats

As for the concern with details on young players' performance going online, I opted to use first names only (and sometimes last initials) when running high school events back at Grinnell. It was enough to be informative for participants and coaches, and it prevented the results from becoming part of...
by Avram
Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:36 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Stats programs and you
Replies: 20
Views: 5731

Re: Stats programs and you

Is there a specific program my statkeeper should be using if he's going to try to track 48 teams playing in 2 separate but parallel tournaments? QBSQL handles this well-- I ran D1 and D2 stats simultaneously for the Region 15/West SCT this year and last without a problem. I created two tournaments ...
by Avram
Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Stats programs and you
Replies: 20
Views: 5731

Re: Stats programs and you

I'm going to agree with Charlie: the output looks poor compared with SQBS. Each game has its own page, which could be cool in principle, but I'm not convinced that's necessary unless a play-by-play is included. The game detail was not intended to replace the grand summaries-- I'll improve the summa...
by Avram
Mon Feb 15, 2010 1:02 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Stats programs and you
Replies: 20
Views: 5731

Re: Stats programs and you

You could make a virtual appliance of it and run it that way which I imagine is easier for non-technical people than installing apache+friends. My thinking is that some programs will want to run their own copies, and they can find their one tech-oriented person who can upload a folder of scripts an...
by Avram
Mon Feb 15, 2010 12:37 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Stats programs and you
Replies: 20
Views: 5731

Re: Stats programs and you

Even if I could figure out how to use your program, I wouldn't because I think it looks horrible compared to SQBS's output. I encourage you to go to http://quizbowl.gimranov.com/qbsql/index.php?t=test_sct, log in with the username "test" and password "test", and click on "A...
by Avram
Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Stats programs and you
Replies: 20
Views: 5731

Re: Stats programs and you

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:Avram, couldn't someone just run Apache off their computer and install QBSQL on that?
Yes, but not many hosts want to get into that kind of set-up.
by Avram
Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Stats programs and you
Replies: 20
Views: 5731

Re: Stats programs and you

Also, it can be used without an internet connection. This is less of an issue than it used to be, but wireless connections are not 100% reliable. I wish I could say that I had a good solution to this, but I don't. This is one of the reasons I added SQBS import and export, so that I can switch syste...
by Avram
Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Stats programs and you
Replies: 20
Views: 5731

Stats programs and you

At the urging of several people who keep asking me why few people use QBSQL , the stats system that I announced about a year and a half ago, I'll pose the question: Why do you prefer to use SQBS? It's been encouraging to see more teams use Taft to simplify their hosting, and recently two more school...
by Avram
Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:35 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

There were errors in the D2 individual scores for Berkeley in round 9, Caltech B in round 13, and Caltech A in round 11. These have been fixed and the fixed scores sent to NAQT. Please let me know if you catch any additional errors in the team or individual data.
by Avram
Sat Feb 06, 2010 9:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

Division I Irvine placed first in Division I at 11-1, finishing the with a four game lead over 2nd-place Stanford (7-5). San Diego took 3rd at 5-7, and our house sacrificial lamb took 4th at 1-11. There were no D1-Undergraduate teams. Division II After 9 nine rounds of regular play and 5 in the pla...
by Avram
Wed Feb 03, 2010 4:27 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: NAQT SCT Mountain West @ ASU-Tempe (2/6/2010)
Replies: 17
Views: 4860

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: NAQT SCT Mountain West @ ASU-Tempe (2/6/2010)

uga_chris wrote:Is a trip to UCLA on short notice out of the realm of possibility? Would make much more sense to have y'all there than playing scrimmages in Tempe.
That would be great, but unless we can get a pile of staff overnight, adding 4-6 more teams on this short of notice would be quite tough.
by Avram
Mon Feb 01, 2010 6:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

There will definitely be a UCSD DI team consisting of at least myself and Brian and quite likely Auroni (and possibly Vivek too). We're still trying to figure out who will be on our DII team since we've been recruiting this quarter and the number of people who might be on that team is in flux. So w...
by Avram
Mon Feb 01, 2010 3:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

Several notes: 1. We need more teams in Division 1. UCLA can field a team (i.e., Ray) to make a 4-team field, but first UCSD or someone else needs to register another Division 1 team. Otherwise, Division 1 will be very boring. 2. More staff would be very welcome. At this point, we have enough qualif...
by Avram
Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:38 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

jpn wrote:Chris, Brian, and I are actually thinking of forming a DI team, but we'll have a DII team there regardless.
It'd be good to have you in DI. Please let me know for sure very soon-- we need to make sure that we are fully staffed.
by Avram
Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:44 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

Field updated. We're looking at a pretty good strong field so far-- just make sure you register on the NAQT website ASAP and let me know if there are any cancellations. With 4 teams in D1, we'll do a quadruple round robin followed by an advantaged final (12 games / 12 rounds + 1-2 finals). With 10 t...
by Avram
Thu Jan 28, 2010 2:23 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Comment on the draft 2010 S-value here
Replies: 31
Views: 6138

Re: Comment on the draft 2010 S-value here

Is there a particular reason why this is not "Total tossup points / Total tossups heard"? Precisely for the reason you mention. The other option weights the points per tossup heard by round length, which is equivalent to weighting by game speed. That doesn't really seem justified. This pa...
by Avram
Fri Jan 22, 2010 11:51 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

if I can get driven up, I'll be happy to moderate too. Let me know if you can-- we'd welcome the help. I don't want to repeat last year's desperate efforts to make a four-team Div 1 field. There are some major teams still missing in action. Where are you, Stanford, UCSD D1, UCI? This can be a good,...
by Avram
Fri Jan 22, 2010 2:47 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

uga_chris wrote:At the moment it looks like 1 UCSD DII team will be attending. There's a slight possibility another may come too. If you could use an experienced mod, let me know and I can come staff.
We would welcome you as a moderator-- every external moderator is one more UCLA player who can compete.
by Avram
Fri Jan 22, 2010 1:22 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

Tournament details: All rounds will be held in Bunche Hall , with the main meeting space in Room 1209B . For campus maps and driving directions, see http://www.ucla.edu/map/. For parking information, see http://www.transportation.ucla.edu/portal/maps/paystationmap/2005-6PayStationMap.htm. The best ...
by Avram
Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:56 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors
Replies: 21
Views: 10589

Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Does anyone know if TAFT can handle > 8 players in a match? I know SQBS doesn't handle large teams so well. QBSQL can handle > 8 players per match out of the box. Take a look at the test installation (http://quizbowl.gimranov.com/qbsql/tournaments.php) and see if it will fit your needs. If you noti...
by Avram
Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:20 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: ACF Winter at Stanford
Replies: 31
Views: 12757

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: ACF Winter at Stanford

If you're going to set 10 AM as a start time (is this standard West Coast procedure?) then you should have the tournament up and running by then. Most UCLA events have a 9:00 start time, and while we haven't always been great about actually starting at 9, I don't think we've been consistently signi...
by Avram
Sun Jan 17, 2010 3:11 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

Field updates go here Div I Stanford (1) UC Irvine (1) UC San Diego (1) (not registered!) UCLA (1) (if needed to make four teams) 4 teams Div II Caltech (3) Fresno State (1) UC San Diego (1) Stanford (1) Claremont Colleges (2) UC Irvine (1) UC Berkeley (1) 10 teams Current registrations can also be...
by Avram
Wed Jan 06, 2010 3:03 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

Post edited to add registration information. See http://www.naqt.com/registration/field. ... nt_id=3198 for the current field and to register.
by Avram
Mon Jan 04, 2010 10:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

Re: NAQT West SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

Post edited to match the hosting guidelines; there is now no explicit minimum fee, and packets will be distributed free of charge.
by Avram
Sat Dec 19, 2009 3:34 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: A Close Look into Dwight Wynne's PANTS
Replies: 13
Views: 4547

Re: A Close Look into Dwight Wynne's PANTS

Weighted averages are slightly more computationally intensive but I'm guessing are more accurate - here you just weight each opponent's TPTH/Powers/Tens/Negs by how many times a team played that opponent, then you take the average of that; we can do this since most stats now have game-by-game data....
by Avram
Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:39 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010
Replies: 27
Views: 6927

NAQT West (Region 15) SCT @ UCLA, February 6, 2010

The UCLA College Bowl Club and Graduate Academic Tournaments Organization are pleased to announce: West NAQT Sectional Collegiate Tournament (ACUI Region 15) DATE: Saturday, February 6, 2010 FORMAT: NAQT rules, timed 10-minute rounds. There will be separate, parallel tournaments for Division I and D...
by Avram
Thu Dec 17, 2009 4:27 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: A Close Look into Dwight Wynne's PANTS
Replies: 13
Views: 4547

Re: A Close Look into Dwight Wynne's PANTS

the only time-consuming part is putting in the data; once you have that it takes maybe five minutes to do everything else. One of my back-burner projects is results integration more substantial than SQBS HTML output hosting. In our discussions over how to make QBTPS a good system, Ray and I have ta...
by Avram
Thu Dec 03, 2009 4:38 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Round Report on Stats
Replies: 10
Views: 12530

Re: Round Report on Stats

Also, QBSQL has round report built in to the Round Summaries page, although that feature isn't in the 0.5.3 release on the Google Code downloads page; anyone installing will need to grab those revisions from the repository. The current QBSQL 0.6.1 release (http://qbsql.googlecode.com/files/qbsql-0....
by Avram
Thu Nov 19, 2009 2:01 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Round Report on Stats
Replies: 10
Views: 12530

Re: Round Report on Stats

Avram wrote a web based statistics program which can be found here . Contact him for more details and if you want to use it. The project page is actually http://code.google.com/p/qbsql/, and it's certainly not necessary to contact me for information or permission before using QBSQL, although I'm gl...