Please don't use Neg5

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jonah
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Please don't use Neg5

Post by jonah »

Please don't use Neg5. (At least not for NAQT tournaments, but really in general.)

Neg5 doesn't validate a lot of the data that you input, so it is very easy to make mistakes such as having too many players in a game, having impossible combinations of individual responses that lead to bonus totals not being divisible by 10, teams playing more than once in a round (which could be valid but rarely is), and entirely missing individual results. These errors can cause problems for your tournament during it (e.g., wrong stats might lead to incorrect rebracketing, finals assignments, individual awards, etc.) and also poses a problem when NAQT processes your results (since we don't accept impossible results).

Neg5 hasn't been substantially worked on in over three years, and based on conversations with its creator around that time, I suspect it will remain more or less abandoned—i.e., these bugs and suboptimalities aren't likely to be fixed.

SQBS and YellowFruit, on the other hand, work much better, including validating things. (SQBS isn't perfect for validation, and I'm not sure if YellowFruit is, but they're both definitely better.) Please use one of those for your stats.


(Also, while I'm at it, if your tournament uses the NAQT registration system, remember to use the template from it to create your file [and don't change the team or player names]. It saves both you and us a lot of time.)
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
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Halinaxus
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by Halinaxus »

This is all very true. In addition, Neg5 also seems to have some sort of issue saving data, because both tournament files I tried to make on it ended up corrupted halfway through, leaving me unable to edit, add to, or fix them.

I would like to note that I never would have used Neg5 in the first place had SQBS or YellowFruit been usable on Chromebooks. There seems to be a dearth of web-based quiz bowl stats programs that I'm aware of. My school district runs mainly on Chrome devices, so it would be really awesome to be able to run SQBS (or something similar) on them, although I'm not sure how feasible this is.
Reilly Melville
Chaska High School '22
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the return of AHAN
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by the return of AHAN »

Does YellowFruit run on MacBooks now?
Jeff Price
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Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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nicole.
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by nicole. »

the return of AHAN wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:58 pm Does YellowFruit run on MacBooks now?
YellowFruit is easily compilable on Mac but there isn't a native app for it
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the return of AHAN
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by the return of AHAN »

Do you have an instruction manual to walk me through that? I didn't have to do that 2 years ago when I installed it on my old MacBook. It just worked.
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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the return of AHAN
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by the return of AHAN »

If Neg5 is now out of bounds, I'm pretty much out of options for keeping stats using my school-issued devices, which are 100% Mac.
SQBS won't install on my MacBook Air(see attachment), while YellowFruit no longer works for Mac, or at least not on mine. If anyone else can get YF to run on a Mac, I'm all ears.
Attachments
Screen Shot 2022-01-19 at 2.15.20 PM.png
(83.19 KiB) Not downloaded yet
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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meebles127
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by meebles127 »

the return of AHAN wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:19 pm If Neg5 is now out of bounds, I'm pretty much out of options for keeping stats using my school-issued devices, which are 100% Mac.
SQBS won't install on my MacBook Air(see attachment), while YellowFruit no longer works for Mac, or at least not on mine. If anyone else can get YF to run on a Mac, I'm all ears.
That issue with SQBS can be solved if you go into your settings and change them to allow non-recognized developers.
Em Gunter
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jonah
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by jonah »

the return of AHAN wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:19 pmSQBS won't install on my MacBook Air(see attachment)
There are instructions for overcoming this error here, about halfway down the page (search for the header "If you want to open an app that hasn’t been notarized or is from an unidentified developer"). I suppose it's possible your district has locked down settings so much you wouldn't be able to.
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meebles127
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by meebles127 »

meebles127 wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:29 pm
the return of AHAN wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:19 pm If Neg5 is now out of bounds, I'm pretty much out of options for keeping stats using my school-issued devices, which are 100% Mac.
SQBS won't install on my MacBook Air(see attachment), while YellowFruit no longer works for Mac, or at least not on mine. If anyone else can get YF to run on a Mac, I'm all ears.
That issue with SQBS can be solved if you go into your settings and change them to allow non-recognized developers.
I'm wrong (I haven't done it in a while, haha), Jonah's got the right thing though.
Em Gunter
Club President, University of Virginia
Tournament Director, 2023 Chicago Open
Assistant Tournament Director, 2022 and 2023 ACF Nationals

Author of: My Guide to High School Outreach and So You Want to Buy a Buzzer System

"That's got to be one of the most useful skills anyone has ever gotten from quizbowl." -John Lawrence
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the return of AHAN
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by the return of AHAN »

jonah wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:30 pm I suppose it's possible your district has locked down settings so much you wouldn't be able to.
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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PSwann
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by PSwann »

@jonah I haven't done stats for tournaments in a while (stupid COVID!) Is there a way to import game stats electronically into SQBS? I know how to import rosters, but what about game stats? Or does that still have to be input manually? Thanks!
Paula Swann
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jonah
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by jonah »

PSwann wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 6:36 pm@jonah I haven't done stats for tournaments in a while (stupid COVID!) Is there a way to import game stats electronically into SQBS? I know how to import rosters, but what about game stats? Or does that still have to be input manually? Thanks!
Where would you be importing them from?

SQBS can't import any formats other than its own, but some other statistics programs (notably, YellowFruit) can export SQBS files. YellowFruit can import both SQBS and QBJ files.

To the best of my knowledge, Neg5 can't import anything (but it can export QBJ).
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PSwann
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by PSwann »

jonah wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 7:35 pm
Where would you be importing them from?
@jonah That's a good question! My over-arching question is: Is there a way for score keepers to record game scores electronically and have each game's scores uploaded/imported into SQBS?
Last edited by PSwann on Fri Jan 28, 2022 8:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Paula Swann
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jonah
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by jonah »

PSwann wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 8:55 pm
jonah wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 7:35 pmWhere would you be importing them from?
That's a good question! My over-arching question is: Is there a way for score keepers to record game scores electronically and have each game's scores uploaded/imported into SQBS?
I'm not sure. There are some "live" scorekeeping setups I've heard about (TJ Sheets being the one I've heard the most about), but I don't know anything about their feature set, reliability, interchangeability, etc.
Jonah Greenthal
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sgoebel
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Re: Please don't use Neg5

Post by sgoebel »

I've used TJ Sheets for 6 tournaments over the past two years, and I've had very few issues with it. It's made handling stats much less stressful for me. The main issues I've run into with it are:
  • The "create scoresheets" menu option tends to not work when I try it on my mac, even in chrome. The export menu option seems to have similar issues for me. Both work fine in windows on chrome (though I think I've run into issues on firefox). This is probably a google sheets issue and not really specific to TJ sheets.
  • You still need SQBS available if you want to see individual statistics for individual awards. I had one export fail to capture the final game that was entered, but that was easily fixed and that hasn't happened since.
  • During one tournament we had issues with scoresheets becoming "unlinked" from the control sheet, but they re-linked with a page refresh and I think it was a google drive issue.
I read/kept score at an in-person tournament where it was used yesterday, and everything ran very efficiently. It was a huge improvement over using paper scoresheets and keeping one person (this used to be me at many tournaments) stuck in a room entering stats the entire day.
Stephen Goebel
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