TDB help thread
Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:41 pm
If you have any questions about using the Hsquizbowl Tournament Database, please use this thread to ask them and we will answer as quickly as possible.
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https://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/
This is not the state of affairs because passwords are stored and transmitted in the clear. There's no user sessions, no cookies, and no HTTPS. Anyone who forgets or loses their password can email me for assistance. As the system evolves, a more rigorous authentication regime may be instituted. For now, random passwords.theMoMA wrote:I suspect it would be much more useful to have tournament directors input their own password, than the current system, which requires that a TD remember (or not lose) a randomly generated alphanumeric password.
There are: mailto links in the tournament details view are Javascript-encoded.cvdwightw wrote:safeguards designed to keep spambots from harvesting the contact email addresses.
Ah, yeah, I knew I would need to get around to implementing that feature eventually. I will work on that tonight, I hope. Stay tuned.kcommo wrote:Where do we go to find past tournaments in the database? And where do I go to update my entry with results now that the tournament is over?
This is now fixed, with the addition of an all tournaments page. Find your tournament and use your password to edit the results.kcommo wrote:Where do we go to find past tournaments in the database? And where do I go to update my entry with results now that the tournament is over?
These are likely both instances of me being shoddy. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.cvdwightw wrote:Hey, I'm trying to put in a link to the stats for CBCT, and after I submit the link it still says "statistics not available". Am I doing something wrong or is this function not implemented yet?
Also, when I try to filter for tournaments in California (from the all tournaments page) I get an error message. Is this another function that has not been implemented yet, or is there a bug in the search program?
Both these issues are resolved. Also, there is now a "trash" option for the tournament levels.cvdwightw wrote:Hey, I'm trying to put in a link to the stats for CBCT, and after I submit the link it still says "statistics not available". Am I doing something wrong or is this function not implemented yet?
Also, when I try to filter for tournaments in California (from the all tournaments page) I get an error message. Is this another function that has not been implemented yet, or is there a bug in the search program?
Not at present. This is something I might look into in the future though.kcommo wrote:is there a way to properly list multi-date events?
Possibly. Duly noted.bt_green_warbler wrote:I think I sorted out the above problems myself, to wit:
-tdb still doesn't like tournaments scheduled over multiple days. This is probably worth fixing soon, in the interest of actual schedules for ICT, HSNCT, and ACF nationals among others.
The geocoder employs Google Maps to do its job, so if Google doesn't believe in it, the TDB won't either.-the address for the Dallas airport Hyatt had some kind of fatal error (it doesn't show up in google maps either). I just gave it the airport address and it seemed to be ok with that.
I am probably going to change how the "description" field works in order to allow a safe subset of HTML to be used. I intend on keeping the "forum post" link as only allowed to link to forum posts in order to encourage cross-posting.Would it be possible to add a field to link to tournament announcements outside of hsquizbowl? I had to cram the naqt.com links with the details for these two into the description field, which seems less than ideal.
In this vein, it'd be nice if the creators of tournaments on the database could invite other users to share ownership of their tournaments, so that if, say, Ashvin posted an announcement for FAcT, he could invite me to share it, and thereafter, either of us could edit the details as needed. I'm thinking of something like the "Invite people to join" feature on Google docs, if that gives a better idea.Excelsior (smack) wrote:It seems that creating a question set gives you ownership of the set, in the sense that only you are thereafter able to edit the set. This does not seem to be a good idea - I was the first person to post an ACF Fall mirror site on the database, and as such, I now have ownership of the 2011 ACF Fall set.
I think that it would be good to either create a mechanism for transferring set ownership (and it wouldn't be a bad idea to include a mechanism for transferring tournament ownership, either), or just make sets editable by anyone with an HSQB account. It might also be a good idea to include information on each question set page and each tournament page indicating who has ownership of that question set/tournament, in case said person needs to be contacted for whatever reason (e.g. updating stats links or whatnot).
Excelsior (smack) wrote:It seems that creating a question set gives you ownership of the set, in the sense that only you are thereafter able to edit the set. This does not seem to be a good idea - I was the first person to post an ACF Fall mirror site on the database, and as such, I now have ownership of the 2011 ACF Fall set.
I think that it would be good to either create a mechanism for transferring set ownership (and it wouldn't be a bad idea to include a mechanism for transferring tournament ownership, either), or just make sets editable by anyone with an HSQB account.
Yes, this is something I am planning to add at some point. (In fact, database admins don't even have the ability to transfer ownership yet!) I'll hopefully add simple transfer of ownership this weekend (and now that you mention it, allowing an entry owner to transfer ownership makes sense, of course with the caveat that you lose editing privileges after doing so). Eventually I'm hoping to add more flexible permissions so that multiple users are able to edit entries (for instance, allow all Yale people to edit the entry for FaCT VII).RyuAqua wrote:In this vein, it'd be nice if the creators of tournaments on the database could invite other users to share ownership of their tournaments, so that if, say, Ashvin posted an announcement for FAcT, he could invite me to share it, and thereafter, either of us could edit the details as needed. I'm thinking of something like the "Invite people to join" feature on Google docs, if that gives a better idea.
This isn't to insult or diminish the achievement of the existing Quizbowl Resource Database, which is absolutely excellent and is likely to be a total game-changer for involving people in quizbowl and the quizbowl Internet. Many thanks to Jeffrey and co.!
I think these would be great to add. Tournaments already have a contact email; are you suggesting that there should be a name specified as well, and/or the username of the person who owns the database entry?It might also be a good idea to include information on each question set page and each tournament page indicating who has ownership of that question set/tournament, in case said person needs to be contacted for whatever reason (e.g. updating stats links or whatnot).
Yes - I think including the forum username of the person (or, once you implement multiple-ownership, people) who has editing privileges for a given tournament entry or question set entry ought to be displayed in some relatively inconspicuous location on the page. This is necessary, because: suppose somebody from ACF wants to edit the ACF Fall 2011 entry, and I hadn't posted that I currently have ownership of it. Currently, their options are either to create a new entry for ACF Fall 2011, thus causing fragmentation of the question set database and decreasing usability; or to aimlessly search for the owner of the existing entry (maybe by posting on the forums and hoping that the existing entry's owner identifies emself). Neither of these are ideal. If entry-owner names were displayed somewhere, at least the ACF people would know who to contact to get an entry changed (or have an entry transferred, once that is implemented).I think these would be great to add. Tournaments already have a contact email; are you suggesting that there should be a name specified as well, and/or the username of the person who owns the database entry?
It is much more obvious to me how beneficial this would be now that the database has gone live and other people are posting to it. This will probably be the first thing I take care of this weekend. Thanks for the suggestion!Excelsior (smack) wrote:Yes - I think including the forum username of the person (or, once you implement multiple-ownership, people) who has editing privileges for a given tournament entry or question set entry ought to be displayed in some relatively inconspicuous location on the page.
I'm guessing you didn't include a usage date for those sets, and the search query you linked only displays 2011-12 sets. When you search for all sets (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/questionse ... name=&hs=1), 113, 114A, and HSNCT are displayed. (And it looks like you inadvertently created 113 twice in the process).bt_green_warbler wrote:2. I set up pages for NAQT sets 111 and 112A, which displayed fine. Attempts to create entries for 113, 114A, and the 2012 HSNCT produced confirmation pages, but the sets don't display on the main listing page.
I tried and it wouldn't take the usage dates... I'll go try and clean up the resulting damage.Excelsior (smack) wrote:I'm guessing you didn't include a usage date for those sets, and the search query you linked only displays 2011-12 sets. When you search for all sets (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/questionse ... name=&hs=1), 113, 114A, and HSNCT are displayed. (And it looks like you inadvertently created 113 twice in the process).bt_green_warbler wrote:2. I set up pages for NAQT sets 111 and 112A, which displayed fine. Attempts to create entries for 113, 114A, and the 2012 HSNCT produced confirmation pages, but the sets don't display on the main listing page.
What do you mean by this?bt_green_warbler wrote:I tried and it wouldn't take the usage dates...
I've added the mm/dd/yyyy tip.bt_green_warbler wrote:It was generating a confirmation page with a blanked-out date field (thus producing the display bug diagnosed by Ashvin). I suspect this was happening because I was entering dates in the wrong format.
There appear to be two entries for MS-03 and none for MS-02.bt_green_warbler wrote:OK, all standard-format NAQT sets now have entries in this database. Email me if you would like to add a tournament on one of our state-specific sets and I'll add appropriate entries.
I'm not sure how I came up with the defaults; that was decided a long time ago and I just went with it. The only thing I have against making staffer a default is that some tournaments offer discounts for providing scorekeepers only (HSNCT), or different discounts based on whether the staffer serves as a moderator or scorekeeper (Tiger Bowl IV), so it seems simpler to just let each tournament add those discounts as necessary. I'm open to suggestions though.Excelsior (smack) wrote:Another very low-priority suggestion: staffer discounts are very common, but are not a default option in the discounts field (unlike buzzer, travel, and laptop discounts) when creating a tournament listing. I suspect they would be worth adding as a default as a UI improvement when you run out of more important things to do.
Wow, it would help when renaming "MS-02" that I change the number after copying from "NAQT Middle School Series #3" before saving This has been fixed; good catch.jonpin wrote:There appear to be two entries for MS-03 and none for MS-02.bt_green_warbler wrote:OK, all standard-format NAQT sets now have entries in this database. Email me if you would like to add a tournament on one of our state-specific sets and I'll add appropriate entries.
I agree with this. I hate to be the guy that complains while not really contributing anything himself, but the database, at least for upcoming tournaments, is rather bare, missing a lot of tournaments already here on the forums. Anything to increase usage seems like a good idea to me, as it needs it, and I see quite a bit of potential here.vcuEvan wrote:I think it'd be helpful and maybe increase usage if there was a link to the db along the top of the forum.
Check the top of the forum.Rick wrote:I agree with this. I hate to be the guy that complains while not really contributing anything himself, but the database, at least for upcoming tournaments, is rather bare, missing a lot of tournaments already here on the forums. Anything to increase usage seems like a good idea to me, as it needs it, and I see quite a bit of potential here.vcuEvan wrote:I think it'd be helpful and maybe increase usage if there was a link to the db along the top of the forum.
Yes, this is something I would like to do at some point.Mike Bentley wrote:Would it be possible to set up an RSS feed with the latest tournament announcements and results (preferably in separate feeds)?
Because of significantly fewer tournaments in the summertime I opted not to go with a direct "show only tournaments within the next N days". The original algorithm was to get the next 12 tournaments, go through each of them, and on a date change, check if there were at least 6 tournaments displayed; if so, then bail out; otherwise continue until the next date change at which point the minimum check was done again. Of course, due to the number of tournaments that occur each Saturday this would typically only show the next Saturday's tournaments.jonpin wrote:Could you change the "Upcoming tournaments" section on the main page to be all tournaments in the next N days for some N, 6 < N < 15? I have a tournament coming up on Sunday which won't show up because there are tournaments on Saturday, and there will from time to time be other events in this situation.
Thanks for reporting this. I know there are some oddities with encoding certain symbols in URLs and I'll take a look at this when I get a chance.Excelsior (smack) wrote:Apparent bug: uploading a stats report with a + (plus) sign in the title field fails silently during the upload process, as seen here: http://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/66 ... rounds_8-/. Attempting to view the stats report yields the error "Report "playoffs_ _finals_(rounds_8-" does not exist.", though it is possible to edit the stats report as the owner of the report. Attempting to upload a stats report with a + in the title field should either succeed correctly, or fail with an error message.
I think this got fixed by the change I just made to fix another bug that William discovered today. There's a slight chance I may have broken something unanticipated with this change, so if anyone notices any broken links that previously worked, please let me know.ScoBo wrote:Thanks for reporting this. I know there are some oddities with encoding certain symbols in URLs and I'll take a look at this when I get a chance.Excelsior (smack) wrote:Apparent bug: uploading a stats report with a + (plus) sign in the title field fails silently during the upload process, as seen here: http://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/66 ... rounds_8-/. Attempting to view the stats report yields the error "Report "playoffs_ _finals_(rounds_8-" does not exist.", though it is possible to edit the stats report as the owner of the report. Attempting to upload a stats report with a + in the title field should either succeed correctly, or fail with an error message.
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http://collegiate.quizbowlpackets.com/541/Chicago%20A%20&%20Illinois%20B.pdf
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http://collegiate.quizbowlpackets.com/541/Chicago%20A%20%26%20Illinois%20B.pdf