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Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:38 pm
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.)
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:40 pm
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.
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:58 pm
by the return of AHAN
Does YellowFruit run on MacBooks now?
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:35 pm
by nicole.
YellowFruit is easily compilable on Mac but there isn't a native app for it
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:11 pm
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.
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:19 pm
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.
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:29 pm
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.
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:30 pm
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.
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:31 pm
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.
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:47 pm
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.
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2022 6:36 pm
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!
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2022 7:35 pm
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).
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2022 8:55 pm
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?
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2022 9:34 pm
by jonah
PSwann wrote: ↑Fri Jan 28, 2022 8:55 pmjonah 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.
Re: Please don't use Neg5
Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:25 pm
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.