If this has already been posted\discussed, I apologize for missing it. Will there be a downloadable 0205 supplement file? And, if so, is there an estimated timetable? If there is an answer, it would make like easier then checking that area once a day.
Thanks,
Mike
The February 2005 Supplement Files are available for downloading.
Note that effective with the June 2005 Supplement (in May), these files will only be downloadable through the TD/Affiliate Support Area.
Do you mean that one will have to obtain an affiliate ID and login to download the rating supplements? That’s absurd. Not all TDs are affiliates, and vice versa, and it’s the TDs who need the rating lists. If this is your really your intention, I’d rather you go back to selling them by subscription.
John, haven’t you figured out yet that the TD/Affiliate Support Area is actually two related areas, one for TDs and one for Affiliates? (If I was doing it over again, I’d probably take the extra time to make them two separate areas.)
While it is true that not all TDs are affiliates and vice-versa, a TD who doesn’t have an affiliate to submit memberships or events through isn’t going to do much, is he or she? And an affiliate CANNOT submit a rating report, those must come from a certified TD. (It’s a weird dichotomy, but I didn’t make the rules.)
The current rating supplement files have been available for download to both groups in TD/A for several months, all we’re doing is eliminating their availablilty in the Members Only area.
If you’re not a TD or an affiliate, what legitimate need do you have for that data?
BTW, the main reason this is being done is because we’re getting ready to change how the supplement files are created and to define a new format (the old one will still be available, of course) so that we can create dynamic updates including all new and renewing members, even if their ratings didn’t change or if they’re unrated.
We have the interfaces to support that in TD/A, we do not have them in the Members Only area.
We started this process a few weeks ago with the custom ratings list feature, which at this time is available to affiliates but not to TDs.
With custom on-demand rating supplement files, you will be able to keep your computer up to date with the USCF’s database, since many if not most TDs don’t really use the printed supplements for checking ratings or current memberships any more, they use their computer.
It will also eliminate the problem with having to upload the supplement files every two months, files with the updated official ratings will be available for download about a day after the cutoff point is reached for each supplement.
Mike, I do not use the “TD/Affiliate” area, and I have no present interest in doing so. Perhaps someday, when it is no longer a beta test … but not today.
Let’s back up for a minute. Seven or eight years ago, when pairing progams using databases became popular (I don’t count the clumsy old “Tournament Administrator”), the USCF began to offer the rating supplements on disk for a fee. (Seems to me it was $24/year.) Later the option of downloading from the web site was added. Around 2001, it was decided to offer them as a free download to everyone (someone perhaps having noticed that the cost of providing it this was was approximately zero), and those who had subscribed (Like myself) got a refund.
Now you are trying to say that only TDs and affiliates may have them. This is counterproductive (every member is a potential tournament organizer!). It is also counterproductive in that it will provoke action by the Delegates placing tighter restrictions on what the office may do – the very sort of restrictions which you have complained about before.
What you are trying to do is obvious. Ou want people to use your “TD/Affiliate” front end to upload memberships and rating reports, and you are trying to use the rating supplements as a hammer to make them try it. It’s an abuse of power. More importantly, it won’t work. What you are doing now works (a tautology). Leave it alone.
Now I have to ask, since I’m confused here.
Having once been a TD and had an affiliate back in the days when there was no computer access, I appreciate the new access that’s being built. Supplements were used primarily to verify membership and in case someone wasn’t sure what thier official rating was, besides getting the rating for the tournament I was running.
Since I no longer run tournaments and I am not an affiliate, I have no need for a supplement. In fact, if I have a need (and I do sometimes) to check on ratings or tournament history, I find the MSA provides all the information I need.
So my question to you, John, is why do you need a supplement if you aren’t submitting rating reports or even running tournaments?
Radishes
Since memberships have gone online, as with any event: there would be the risk of someone joining the federation or renewal of their membership. Would be hard pressed of wanting a event not close to a online computer. True, directors can have events away from a online computer: it has now become a factor for any director or organizer.
If the director is online, could take care of all the memberships, even have all the USCF ID numbers before the start of round one. If the person is a new member, would know their USCF ID number before the end of the tournament; and there is a print out of the tempory membership card. The new member can use it if they go to someones tournament. After the event, in just a few minutes the tournament can be sent online for rating.
Having a rating supplement downloaded into you’re computer is fine. Its’ just making a statement you’re having a event with a computer that is not online. Having a computer not online and one online, would be as a factor as having pairing cards or computer pairing software.
Actually, John, the rating supplement diskettes were first offered in 1992, as a direct result of my motion requiring them, which was made at the 1991 Delegates Meeting in LA.
I think the first one was issued in June of 1992.
I’m willing to keep offering the old-format rating supplement files in the Members Only area, though that will still require someone to upload them and update the scripts every two months.
However, the new format files will only be available through TD/A, and won’t require bi-monthly manual uploads.
Is that in part to encourage people to register for online access and use it? Sure it is. But it’s also because the way that the new files will be generated and distributed will use a different interface than what is available through the Members Only area.
We have tried to make the new system as accomodating as possible for those who can’t or won’t use it. We continue to accept reports received in the mail, we even permit TDs to submit memberships and rating reports online but mail in their payment.
There are those (especially out on rec.games.chess.politics) who think the USCF should ONLY rate events received online, who think all memberships collected by TDs should be submitted online with payment required by credit card. One person even suggested that we assign everyone a new USCF ID because the old one doesn’t have a check digit in it for accuracy.
Of course I’m submitting rating reports and running tournaments. Quite a lot of them. What I wrote was that I am not interested in using Mike’s on-line upload interface until the bugs are worked out. If it runs without any complaints for six months or so, I may try it.
I agree than, in principle, a new TD should need only a printed rating supplement and a pencil. Unfortunately, most TDs now assume that they need a computer and a pairing program. Restricting access to the rat. sup. files to members of the “ruling class” is a terrible idea.
Then we have no problem. I’m a little puzzled as to why you bother with the javascript overlay, but I can’t say I’m vitally interested.
Do you mean that users will download a new copy of the big DB, or that their existing DB will get an automated update? The former has some obvious drawbacks, since despite what Microsoft would like, a large majority still use dial-up modems.
The reason for having the rating list on your computer is that it allows the pairing program to import players automatically, with one or two mouse clicks. If you type in the name, ID and rating independently, whether you look them up on paper or on line, there are going to be mistakes. If you use the database, the error rate drops dramatically. This really shouldn’t need to be explained.
There isn’t a lot of javascript in the TD/A interface, just enough to give us the ability to validate logins.
We have an occasional problem with a click on the submit button causing multiple submits that I may have to use Javascript to get around, because it can result in double charges to someone’s credit card. This is a know problem with the mouse interface, though shakey hands can also cause it. There are sequencing tricks that can be used on the server end to help detect double submits, but they’re not 100% effective.
The plan for the custom supplement update feature is that you give us a starting date and I give you every record that has had a ratings or membership status change since then. Once you download a ‘gold master’ file, you should be able to keep it up to date with relatively small updates.
With about 72,000 membership transactions a year, in a typical month there would be somewhere around 6000 records to download because of membership issues plus however many members have had a ratings change in that time frame. And if you are downloading only official published ratings as opposed to the latest rating, then the only time you would need to download the roughly 12,000 members in a typical supplement is every other month.
So, if you updated every other month you’d generally be downloading around 24,000 records, which is a lot better than downloading 600,000 records.
I suspect many active TDs will want to update more frequently than bi-monthly, probably syncing their computer with the USCF’s before they direct their next event.
We could offer ‘regional’ updates, of say only the players in CA and surrounding states, but I’m not sure that saves enough downloading time to be worth the effort.
We’re already starting to see some indication that the TD/A activity will be related to tournament directing cycles. I see numerous small batches of new and returning members on Friday, probably corresponding to advance registration, and bigger ones on Saturday evening and on Sunday, with rating reports more likely to be posted on Monday or Tuesday. (That’s significant mostly because I need to know when I can schedule some maintenance tasks.)
There’s no reason why the pairing programs couldn’t be set to automatically log in and initiate a download of whatever it needs to update itself, but that’s something that would have to be worked out between those authors and us.
That would be the case only if there were a fundamental change in the “last published rating” policy. It sounds like this is one of your long-term goals, but it’s not going to happen soon.
I personally have an aversion to any sort of “auto-update,” but I must admit that I have seen several TDs experience great difficulty with the fairly simple process of unzipping and installing the supplements. So there probably is a market for a no-thought system.
But until pairing programs evolved beyond the reptilian stage, the rating supplements on disk were a solution with no known problem. Bill Goichberg and one or two other big-tournament organizers used the TA database for registration (which was faster than paper, but not by all that much). Otherwise, they were a toy for computer geeks.
And those computer geeks went on to incorporate the information in the ratings diskettes into Swis-Sys and WinTD.
And they did a good job. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us were (or ought to have been) interested in the intermediate stages. Eating sausage does not require an interest in watching it produced.
It works. I’ve used it several times. I sent Mike a list of interface changes which would make it easier to use, but even so it worked for every event I’ve submitted.
Personally, I just don’t see the heartburn about logging in to the TD area, instead of the members only area, to download the supplements. I mean, downloading the supplements from there doesn’t obligate you to upload anything at all. It’s the same number of steps, and the download process is identical. I just don’t get why it’s such terrible thing to move the download from point A to point B.
So if you’re a member of the proletariat and want a rating list, go to Ken Sloan’s site and get it there. 
Again, this just seems to me to be a tempest in a teapot. The files are on the site, easily accessible to the people who need them. So what’s the squawk about?
Quite likely it does work (but tell me again in six months). My basic objection is that Mike is approaching this like a corporate MIS – the answer to the question “Why should we do this” is “Because you’re employees and will do what you’re told.” TDs and organizers are not partners with the USCF in rating tournaments; they are customers.
The TD/Affiliate area is accessible only to TDs and affiliates. The point is that there is no reason to restrict access to the rating lists. There’s no secret information in them. The USCF should want as many poeple as possible to have them, in the hope that a few of them will become organizers. Even the current requirement of member login seems fairly pointless; adding another level of bureaucracy is idiotic.
Note that I am not objecting to adding new services. Apparently what Mike has in mind is an “auto-update” system, which will be welcome to those TDs I know who have difficulty in mastering the concept of unzipping a file. What I object to is the elimination of existing services.
The current format rating supplement files will continue to be available in the Members Only area and will continue to be uploaded to the web site some time after the printed supplement is sent to the printer. There will be someone on the USCF staff assigned the task of creating and uploading those files, I don’t know yet who that will be.
However, the new format files will NOT be available in the Members Only area, they will only be available through the TD/Affiliate Support Area, and will be available as soon the supplement records have been created.
Thus, if you want the most recent (and more complete) data in the most recent format, you will need to get it through TD/A.
Historically the cutoff for a supplement has been events held and received prior to the month before the supplement takes effect, ie, for the April supplement it would not include any events that ended or were received after February 28th. As far as I know, that policy is not changing.
Because of near-real-time ratings I don’t know exactly how supplement cutoffs will work in the new ratings system yet, especially for events submitted online, but the ultimate processing cutoff point will probably continue to be somewhere around the 10th of the month before the supplement becomes current, because it is tied to the cycle of generating labels for Chess Life.
By “more complete,” do you mean that the new files will include ratings modified after the supplement cutoff, or just that it will include members whose ratings have not changed (or who have no ratings)? If the former is what you have in mind, what rating will SwissSys/WinTD call up when a player is imported from the database? While there are some directors now who use “most current,” 90% of the time what is wanted is “last published.”