Conquer Club

Concise description:Deleting Tournament Games

Specifics:
My latest tournament has found two entrants who apparently are unable or unwilling to read the very simple directions given to JOIN ONLY THE ONE GAME ASSIGNED TO YOU (because I have so many games in my tournament, they are sent out en masse). Instead, each of them attempted to join as many of my tournament games as they possibly could. This has caused a massive upheaval not only in my extra work, but more importantly in freemiums who now cannot play in their replacement tournament game because one of the two bozos joined their original tournament game when they should not have. In other words, the freemium had one slot open for my tournament, and now it's taken up by the bogus game against the idiot who shouldn't have joined it.

If I (or even a tournament director, if you want them to only have the authority) could delete ONLY GAMES IN MY OWN TOURNAMENT, this would alleviate not only an enormous headache but would also avoid the now forced delay in the tournament even getting started for the freemium players. It seems to me that if I can create games ONLY for my tournament, it should be easy enough to give the same "access" for deleting games.

This will improve the following aspects of the site:

• My patience and blood pressure as a tournament organizer, so that I don't kill an idiot or myself.
  
• The ability of freemiums to not get screwed over because an incompetent blew up their tournament games.

Just Disqualify them. I always put a little note in my tournaments that say "if you're dumb, you're out", and remake the games. I doubt that, if we're not allowed to delete games with cheaters, lack won't give tournaments special privileges.

Kotaro wrote:Just Disqualify them.

Agreed. I would also recommend a public shaming. Who are these fools?

Kotaro wrote:Just Disqualify them. I always put a little note in my tournaments that say "if you're dumb, you're out", and remake the games. I doubt that, if we're not allowed to delete games with cheaters, lack won't give tournaments special privileges.

I know I could disqualify them, but that doesn't fix EITHER of the problems I listed.

Timminz wrote:

Kotaro wrote:Just Disqualify them.

Agreed. I would also recommend a public shaming. Who are these fools?

Oh, they've certainly "felt the heat" from me.

But disqualifying them really doesn't help anything (my blood pressure or the freemiums who are now screwed).

In the past, games have only been deleted in the more extreme circumstances. Most, if not all, were due to serious glitches within the site. I doubt Lack is going to let tournament organizers delete games that have already started, whenever they like. Sure, you've got a real headache there, but it's temporary, and to let people do it for "real" reasons would absolutely, eventually lead to people doing it for not-so legitimate reasons.

Timminz wrote:In the past, games have only been deleted in the more extreme circumstances. Most, if not all, were due to serious glitches within the site. I doubt Lack is going to let tournament organizers delete games that have already started, whenever they like. Sure, you've got a real headache there, but it's temporary, and to let people do it for "real" reasons would absolutely, eventually lead to people doing it for not-so legitimate reasons.

That's why I suggested that only the Tournament Directors could have that authority...that would keep it only legitimate.

Not only that, but these games would be getting deleted essentially before they were ever started. There's really no difference at all between this and a tournament organizer being able to kill the game before the second player joined.

I guess my feeling is that tournaments are clearly a very important part of this site. It doesn't make sense to me for the site NOT to try to make a tournament organizer's job as easy and simple as possible, in the interests of the site's health. This seems like a very EASY way for the site to do so.

I think you're over-estimating the importance of this mishap. It's a temporary inconvenience to a handful of people, and nothing more.

Timminz wrote:I think you're over-estimating the importance of this mishap. It's a temporary inconvenience to a handful of people, and nothing more.

A temporary inconvenience, absolutely...but it's a temporary inconvenience that is very easily avoided.

Again...are tournaments important to the site or are they not?

Woodruff wrote:Again...are tournaments important to the site or are they not?

Well, since you've drawn such a bold line in the sand, I'll take my leave from attempting to talk you down from your ledge. Enjoy shouting at the wall.

Timminz wrote:

Woodruff wrote:Again...are tournaments important to the site or are they not?

Well, since you've drawn such a bold line in the sand, I'll take my leave from attempting to talk you down from your ledge. Enjoy shouting at the wall.

Line in the sand? It's a simple question, and a perfectly valid one.

But run away if you'd like, I suppose.

Woodruff wrote:A temporary inconvenience, absolutely...but it's a temporary inconvenience that is very easily avoided.

Again...are tournaments important to the site or are they not?

It would also be nice if you could delete games for cheating, for multi's, for having bad luck, for someone winning solely on drop, etc, but yet, it hasn't been done. Why?

Lack will not delete games.

Kotaro wrote:

Woodruff wrote:A temporary inconvenience, absolutely...but it's a temporary inconvenience that is very easily avoided.
Again...are tournaments important to the site or are they not?

It would also be nice if you could delete games for cheating, for multi's, for having bad luck, for someone winning solely on drop, etc, but yet, it hasn't been done. Why?
Lack will not delete games.

He wasn't going to do anything about farming either. Until he did.

Woodruff wrote:Specifics:
My latest tournament has found two entrants who apparently are unable or unwilling to read the very simple directions given to JOIN ONLY THE ONE GAME ASSIGNED TO YOU (because I have so many games in my tournament, they are sent out en masse). Instead, each of them attempted to join as many of my tournament games as they possibly could. This has caused a massive upheaval....

Devil's advocates mode: Did all the games have the same password?

Reality mode: People are stupid. Its why so many people spend time organising them.

Empathy mode: I'm really sorry for your loss in time and effort.... that sucks.

A la mode:Go have some ice cream.

Different angle mode: Is there any way that CC could create an interface to allow Tournament Manager to create games based on a input table? So rather than going through... map, options, tournament name etc etc the TM could create a dataset (Access table; spreadsheet; csv file) that would be submitted via the interface and create the games.

E.G.

P.S. Don't forget....
Depeche Mode Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and Vince Clarke.

Here's and interesting thought, your tournament was so desirable he had to join all the games as he was so excited....

I know you want to save pm's but if you had sent smaller more direct pm's, it could have been avoided. I almost did the same thing as the email was a bit confusing. (I had to read the pm several times to make sure I was doing the right thing) Using Excel I'm sure you can find a way to template a message.

Also if you changed the format, like this, you'll get more stable responses.

Please join the game beside your name only

jpcloet Game 1

codierose Game 2

etc.

Im in that tourney, and I got that pm, and I joined the right game...but im not at all surprised people joined more than one

Im not saying its your fault...but something like that has to be fail-safe...

I wont even give out passwords, because I know people will join the wrong game...i give them the one and only autojoin link, and that way theyd have to do a lot of work to end up on the wrong team or the wrong game...

they did disregard the notice...but its easy to make that mistake... thats the trouble with auto-links...

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:
Devil's advocates mode: Did all the games have the same password?

Considering it was using auto-join, essentially yes.

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:Reality mode: People are stupid. Its why so many people spend time organising them.

Spend time organizing the stupid people?

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:Different angle mode: Is there any way that CC could create an interface to allow Tournament Manager to create games based on a input table? So rather than going through... map, options, tournament name etc etc the TM could create a dataset (Access table; spreadsheet; csv file) that would be submitted via the interface and create the games.

I like that you're thinking outside of the box, but I'm not sure what you're getting at, to be honest. Do you speak non-geek? <smile>

jpcloet wrote:Here's and interesting thought, your tournament was so desirable he had to join all the games as he was so excited...

Always with the glass-half-full! <laughing>

jpcloet wrote:I know you want to save pm's but if you had sent smaller more direct pm's, it could have been avoided.

Sure, but you're talking about 64 PMs for every round. I'd give up the tournament before I'd be willing to do that, to be honest.

jpcloet wrote:I almost did the same thing as the email was a bit confusing. (I had to read the pm several times to make sure I was doing the right thing)

It was confusing? Hmm...I'm certainly willing to restructure the PM I send out to make it less confusing, so I'd be happy to hear so input on that. But I'd need the input because...well...it's pretty non-confusing to me (granted, being the PM-writer, I'm probably biased). But in this particular case, the statement to JOIN ONLY YOUR ONE GAME was underlined and everything...sort of hard to miss.

jpcloet wrote:Also if you changed the format, like this, you'll get more stable responses.
Please join the game beside your name only
jpcloet Game 1
codierose Game 2
etc.

But is that much different from what I did send out? The only real difference is that you list only one name per game whereas I listed two.

AAFitz wrote:Im in that tourney, and I got that pm, and I joined the right game...but im not at all surprised people joined more than one
Im not saying its your fault...but something like that has to be fail-safe...
I wont even give out passwords, because I know people will join the wrong game...i give them the one and only autojoin link, and that way theyd have to do a lot of work to end up on the wrong team or the wrong game...
they did disregard the notice...but its easy to make that mistake... thats the trouble with auto-links...

I'm interested in thoughts on how I can restructure my PM to still send it out to multiple people (it's simply not worth it to me to send out 64 individual PMs for every round) and yet get the clarity that's needed to avoid this confusion.

jpcloet offered one thought that I'm going to try if I don't hear any other suggestions, but I'm not sure it would be much more successful than what I have given that the essential problem will still exist (someone not paying attention clicking on everything).

If you (or anyone else) has some thoughts on that, please feel free to send them my way. I'm all ears.

Woodruff wrote:

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:Different angle mode: Is there any way that CC could create an interface to allow Tournament Manager to create games based on a input table? So rather than going through... map, options, tournament name etc etc the TM could create a dataset (Access table; spreadsheet; csv file) that would be submitted via the interface and create the games.

I like that you're thinking outside of the box, but I'm not sure what you're getting at, to be honest. Do you speak non-geek? <smile>

At the moment you have to enter every game by hand.

Instead, how would you like it if you could do this:

• create a file, say a spreadsheet.
• Each column would have one of the options you see in the "Start A Game" window.
• The first row would be the names of the rows (Number of players, Game type....)
• The remaining rows would each be a different game.
• You could send that file to the CC server.
• The server would create all the games in your file.

Example. Say we were going to play best of three games on different settings. The file might look like this:
No GameType Map Order Spoils Reinforce Fog Round Password
2 Standard Scotland Sequential None Adjacent No 24hour Hamish
2 Standard Ireland Sequential Esc Chained Yes Speed Patrick
2 Standard Australia Freestyle Flat Unlimited Yes Speed Bruce

You could then "send" the file to the CC server either by email or another screen and it would generate the games for you.

What do you think?

E.G.

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:

Woodruff wrote:

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:Different angle mode: Is there any way that CC could create an interface to allow Tournament Manager to create games based on a input table? So rather than going through... map, options, tournament name etc etc the TM could create a dataset (Access table; spreadsheet; csv file) that would be submitted via the interface and create the games.

I like that you're thinking outside of the box, but I'm not sure what you're getting at, to be honest. Do you speak non-geek? <smile>

At the moment you have to enter every game by hand.

Instead, how would you like it if you could do this:

• create a file, say a spreadsheet.
• Each column would have one of the options you see in the "Start A Game" window.
• The first row would be the names of the rows (Number of players, Game type....)
• The remaining rows would each be a different game.
• You could send that file to the CC server.
• The server would create all the games in your file.

Example. Say we were going to play best of three games on different settings. The file might look like this:
No GameType Map Order Spoils Reinforce Fog Round Password
2 Standard Scotland Sequential None Adjacent No 24hour Hamish
2 Standard Ireland Sequential Esc Chained Yes Speed Patrick
2 Standard Australia Freestyle Flat Unlimited Yes Speed Bruce
You could then "send" the file to the CC server either by email or another screen and it would generate the games for you.
What do you think?
E.G.

Well, that would be nice for what it would do, certainly...but it would still leave the problem of players potentially joining the wrong games, as I don't believe this would alleviate the PM side of things.

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:

Instead, how would you like it if you could do this:

• create a file, say a spreadsheet.
• Each column would have one of the options you see in the "Start A Game" window.
• The first row would be the names of the rows (Number of players, Game type....)
• The remaining rows would each be a different game.
• You could send that file to the CC server.
• The server would create all the games in your file.

Example. Say we were going to play best of three games on different settings. The file might look like this:
No GameType Map Order Spoils Reinforce Fog Round Password
2 Standard Scotland Sequential None Adjacent No 24hour Hamish
2 Standard Ireland Sequential Esc Chained Yes Speed Patrick
2 Standard Australia Freestyle Flat Unlimited Yes Speed Bruce

You could then "send" the file to the CC server either by email or another screen and it would generate the games for you.

What do you think?

What's the point of making a tournament then?
I have fun making tournaments. Entering the games, matching people up, selecting settings, and even dealing with the mistakes. It's all about fun. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, stop doing it.

Kotaro wrote:

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:
Instead, how would you like it if you could do this:

• create a file, say a spreadsheet.
• Each column would have one of the options you see in the "Start A Game" window.
• The first row would be the names of the rows (Number of players, Game type....)
• The remaining rows would each be a different game.
• You could send that file to the CC server.
• The server would create all the games in your file.

Example. Say we were going to play best of three games on different settings. The file might look like this:
No GameType Map Order Spoils Reinforce Fog Round Password
2 Standard Scotland Sequential None Adjacent No 24hour Hamish
2 Standard Ireland Sequential Esc Chained Yes Speed Patrick
2 Standard Australia Freestyle Flat Unlimited Yes Speed Bruce
You could then "send" the file to the CC server either by email or another screen and it would generate the games for you.
What do you think?

What's the point of making a tournament then?
I have fun making tournaments. Entering the games, matching people up, selecting settings, and even dealing with the mistakes. It's all about fun. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, stop doing it.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally, the fun of running a tournament is NOT in the logistical end of things. It's in watching the competitions themselves. For me, anything that can make the logistical parts of running a tournament easier is a good thing.

Kotaro wrote:

GenuineEarlGrey wrote:
Instead, how would you like it if you could do this:

• create a file, say a spreadsheet. [etc etc]

You could then "send" the file to the CC server either by email or another screen and it would generate the games for you.

What do you think?

What's the point of making a tournament then?
I have fun making tournaments. Entering the games, matching people up, selecting settings, and even dealing with the mistakes. It's all about fun. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, stop doing it.

The point I'm making is simple - its only another way to enter the games.

The idea is to take away some of the monotony for you, espeially when you want to make the tournaments bigger. For example, there's an on-going tournament involving a round robin with twenty players each playing wach other twice - thats 380 games (760=20*19*(0.5)*2). The TM asked players to wait until all the games were entered - problem was, by the time he entered the last one, the early ones had expired!

Woodruff wrote:I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally, the fun of running a tournament is NOT in the logistical end of things. It's in watching the competitions themselves. For me, anything that can make the logistical parts of running a tournament easier is a good thing.

Exactly! Its "only" a method of data entry.

Its even a good way to work out all the games you need before you enter them in the traditional manner.

I'll happily work together with anyone* that wants an example.

E.G.

* All offers subject to the requester being a good collaborator

Games are only deleted under extreme circumstances because it requires database alterations which are not the most desirable things to deal with. The ability to have others besides lackattack delete games will eventually result in a database that is very incomplete, not to mention much more prone to errors and corruption.

It is best to avoid deletion of database information if at all possible when working with the complex setup that this site is likely to have running behind the scenes. It creates gaps and holes all over the place, not just in one part of the database, but in several.

While it is unfortunate that the games were ruined, it is a learning experience that can be avoided in the future.

Regards,
Optimus Prime