Will submitting tournaments online replace sending in floppy disks?
I’m getting a new computer that doesn’t have a floppy and currently I take reports and submit them via Swisssys to USCF
(No more floppy disks in the future?)
I expect online reporting of results to be available some time in September.
The Delegates were given a demonstration of the new software in Florida, and there are currently about a half dozen people participating in the alpha test of the rating report upload/edit interface. (It isn’t possible to rate events submitted online yet, I don’t expect that to be in testing until after Labor Day and there are a lot of things that all have to work before we can switch over to the new software.)
I expect online submission will be the dominant means of submitting results within a few months of its release.
I can relate to your comment on floppy disks. I was in the TD room at the US Open and counted at least six laptops, only one of which had a floppy drive it it. The staff was using jump drives to back up the tournament files and to transfer data back and forth. The floppy drive is quickly becoming a dinosaur.
The question on this new system, how would the organizer or the director pay for the rating fees. As with a organizer and a director the last issue of the tournament are the rating fees and membership forms. Even if the person does have a credit card, with new memberships and the rating fees – could over step the credit limit of one or both parties.
Huh?
Credit Limit? It makes things a ton easier to do all of this online with a credit card. I have my chess club’s own account which i can electronically track it.
If you have 30 adult members that gave you cash for the (USCF life membership) memberships: having the money does not change the credit card; as credit cards do have limits – people do use it for other stuff then chess.
Very glad ‘thunderchicken’ that you’re club can place $30,000 on credit.
Actually it would, considering the credit card is tied into the checking account, if you deposit $30,000, you could use that.
#1 - Who is going to buy 30 memberships like that?
#2 - USCF would want a check since they wouldn’t want to take a 3% hit on credit card expenses.
My point is this: some times a tournament does bring in more money that has to be sent to the federation office. The bigger the tournament or the scholastic tournament: when most parents pay up front the USCF membership fees. During the tournament the director could have a great deal of cash from the players, it is going out with prize funds and membership fees.
Take a case like this, a director having 100 players that paid the entry fee of $50. Before the tournament is over there is over $5,000 in cash and checks that the organizers have. At a scholastic event the players that join at site are higher then at tournaments for all players. Just sending in the tournament report online, could break the organizers or directors personal credit card limit. With this kind of tournament the money is in the hands of the organizer, it is up to the director to have the report sent in. This has been the major issue for organizers and directors, how this money is taken care of.
You don’t send in your prize money to USCF, you only send in money for rating events.
What does bringing in more money than rating games at 10 cents each? No one has said anything about sending in information about memberships, only rating events.
$5000? Has anyone submitted a single tournament to uscf for $5000? What are you drinking up there?
Submitting a Rating Report involves the rating fee, which could get expensive in a large scholastic (300 players@5 rounds=150 games/round=750 games total@.20=$150). So, you have a large scholastic like the SCI Finals, with alot of USCF memberships paid at site and the cost can get quite heavy, but probably not enough to max out most credit lines.
The obvious solution to this is to send a check (after you have deposited all of your income, and all of the checks have hopefully cleared). The report wouldn’t be rated, of course, until USCF actually receives the check. This would be similar to submitting memberships online. You can submit the membership, get an ID# and click the “mail check” radio button. The membership isn’t activated by the office until they receive the check.
I can see some problems here with small clubs who don’t already have alot of cash in the bank and with reports actually being delayed pending USCF’s receipt of the payment.
MIKE: any thoughts?
I have personally opened an envelope that was received by the USCF with over 100 memberships in it, along with a tournament rating report.
I don’t know what the largest stack of memberships ever submitted to the USCF from a single tournament was, but I can make a few guesses.
First let’s eliminate the national scholastics.
It was probably from a statewide scholastic event, Let’s assume there were 250 memberships taken. (That’s not unreasonable for a large event in a state like Texas or California.)
Most of those memberships would have been for $25 or less, so let’s assume an average of $15. $15 x 250 = $3750.
So, in order for there to be $5000 in memberships, it would have been necessary to have 333 or more memberships at one tournament. That sounds possible, but not very common.
I can sympathize with TD’s not having a huge credit line on their cards, and that’s why they can send in the payment for memberships by check.
However, for ratings fees much lower numbers apply.
In 2003 there were only 650 events rated that had more than 200 games, and just 240 that had more than 400 games. There were 7047 events that had fewer than 200 games. (I think the largest tournament to date was the last Supernationals, which had over 12,000 rated games. That record may fall at the 2005 Supernationals.)
We’re still working out procedures for how to collect ratings fees. (In addition to the programming, there are literally dozens of administrative details that have to be resolved before we can start rating events under the new system.)
I assume we will offer the same two options as with memberships: online credit card payment and check-in-the-mail.
However, we may offer a 3rd payment method as well.
Several people suggested at the US Open that they would be willing to keep some funds on deposit for ratings fees. Bill has already approved this in concept assuming I can work out procedures that satisfy our CFO. Ken and I have had several discussions on it already, I think I can meet his concerns.
It would probably require a $100 initial deposit, with replenishing deposits of $25 or more. Those deposits could be on a credit card or by check.
The credit issue is exactly why I give my paypal account info in my TLA (see below). That way players can preregister AND pay EFs.
Every Mon (Except School Holidays).
BHCC RBO U1200 Quick QUADs or OCTOs. 3RR or 3SS, G/10!
Room 429; Baldwin High CC; 841 Ethel T. Kloberg Drive; Baldwin, NY 11510.
$$12/Quad. EF: $6. Reg: 2:45. Rds: 3-3:20-3:40.
Ent: paypal.com
Info: A. Jorge Garcia via calcpage.tripod.com/bhcc
If you think you’re going to have a problem with lots of new memberships or renewals, why not offer a USEF in your TLA with paypal.
In either case, you would have instant access to that money to pay tournament related expenses and pay USCF fees as paypal gives you a Debit/Mastercard to access your money as cash or credit.
Just a thought!
Regards,
AJG
I tried to contact USCF about getting the information about submitting my tournaments online. I don’t have a floppy anymore and would like to submit this. Can someone send me my username and password so I can get these tourneys submitted?
Thanks
ID: 12461707
David:
If you want, can place you’re name down to use the ‘Greater Grand Rapids Chess Club’. As a ‘tournament director’, you will still need to make a name and password: you will have the right to send in reports with the affiliate. The real test for myself will be uploading real memberships this (9/18/04) Saturday.
You can’t submit rating reports online yet. I’m still hoping to have this ready for public testing before the end of September, but there are a LOT of details to get worked out, mostly procedural issues. (Things like how to handle payments, what to do with events that have already been submitted but not completed on the old system, etc.)
TDs will need to register for a separate login ID to gain access to the TD/Affiliate Support Area, which is where rating reports will be submitted online from. They will also need to be validated by an affiliate to submit events on behalf of that affiliate.
The registration form is in the Members Only area, you will need your PIN (on the back cover of Chess Life) to log in to Members Only.
Affiliates also need to request a login ID for the TD/Affiliate Support Area. A current USCF member who is listed on the USCF’s records as an officer of the affiliate must make that request.
I should have the reprogramming of the ratings formula completed over the weekend so that I can parallel test a number of previously rated events to make sure that the new programming comes up with the same ratings as the old programming.
OK, I had signed up for this, but forgot my login information and sent a request to have it sent to my email.
If its not ready, no big deal, I’ll see if I can get it on a floppy.
Swisssys copies over 3 dbf files, right?
Have you registered your e-mail address with the USCF? If not, it won’t do you much good to request a new password, because it doesn’t know where to send it.
E-mail me (mnolan@uschess.org) and give me your Login ID and USCF ID and I can reset your password for you. (Passwords are stored in an encrypted format and I can’t decrypt them.)
Yes, THEXPORT.DBF, TSEXPORT.DBF and TDEXPORT.DBF
Thanks
Sent you an email.
Here’s something affiliates need to think about when authorizing a TD to use their affiliate ID and something that TD’s need to think about when submitting an event using an affiliate’s ID.
When an affiliate authorizes a TD to use it’s affiliate ID to submit memberships or rating reports, it accepts co-responsiblity for the accuracy and validity of any memberships or rating reports submitted, including adherence to USCF membership requirements where applicable.
That’s why the affiliate is currently e-mailed a copy of any memberships submitted by a TD using the affiliate’s USCF ID. Affiliates will also be notified via e-mail when TD’s submit events for rating.
Also, when the ‘edit previously rated event’ module is released some time in October, I think it is likely that both the chief TD and the sponsoring affiliate will have the authority to make corrections to an event.
Because our historical records go back over 10 years, and there may be cases where the chief TD and the sponsoring affiliate are no longer on polite terms with each other, I think we may need another layer of permission for updating previously rated events or a way to restrict certain types of changes, but I haven’t come up with how I want to do this yet.
Maybe you should restrict rerating to events that are listed in the MSA less than a year? Allowing rerating any event going back 10 years could change the ratings distribution of the current USCF membership drastically, don’t you think?
Just a thought,
AJG
Re-rating events from the old system (ie, those rated before we switch over to the new system) raises a few data quality and consistency issues that may restrict how far back we can go initially, but a year is probably a good guess on how far back we will permit re-rating events in general.
However, even if we don’t re-rate an event I think correcting errors in our historical records is a good idea. (And I want a corrected event to show that a correction has been made even if it doesn’t trigger a re-rate.)
If a data error from an event a long time ago is such that correcting it would still have an impact on someone’s rating there are other ways to correct a player’s rating.