The reminder to enter the time control in minutes, not hours should always be present - not only when viewing time-control examples.
Response: Good idea, at least for the first year or two.
When entering colors, it would be nice to auto populate color for a player if they do not have a color selected but their opponent for that round does.
Response: There are two ways to do this. One would be to add in the missing color information when the form is redrawn, the other way (which would definitely be cooler) would be to have a Javascript module that updates the corresponding player/round in real time. That’s probably a lot of work for not all that much added functionality, especially since the plan is to release a new upload file format, probably XML-based, so that the major pairing programs can supply the color information from their records.
In the color-coded swiss crosstable (the presentation of which is an improvement over the current form), I would like for the green that you are using to indicate “color coding inconsistent” to instead be used to indicate a complete result that has no issues identified. The blank form starts white and as players and results are entered it would become green – a visual contrast that indicates what has been entered. The way it is now with a portion of each unpopulated cell in yellow functions fine, and I would keep that part regardless.
Response: Too much green might be jarring, but this change has been made. Let’s see what others think. It might make it harder to find the ones that need to be checked on rather than easier.
In some ways we’re already running out of sufficiently different shades. There are also TDs with various forms of color blindness and they may not be able to see or discriminate between all the shades being used. That’s why when there is a text field with a yellow background (to denote an error that needs to be corrected) it is also uses a thicker border to make it visible to someone who cannot see yellow.
On MSA the total score is shown to the left of the round by round information, next to the player name, rather than to the right. Would that be preferable here as well?
It is clear that quite a bit of work went into the time control entry. I expect that I’ll know my standard time control and enter it using the shorthand option each week. I did note that when using the Detailed option the time control displays twice by the appropriate control, and when using shorthand it displays twice at the top of the second column. I like that the time control is displayed separately from the field that is used to edit it – but it should only be displayed once.
Response: Those were diagnostic prints that have been removed.
I hereby nominate Eric Hammond as the new champion of detailed, important, constructive suggestions. May several more contenders enter the field!
Bill Smythe
Eric Mark gave the time control field parsing code a real workout, finding several problems, and also deserves a big thank you.
Cool.
What?! It can’t figure out whether G1055inc means G/10 +55 or G/105 +5? You’re slipping. 
No anagrams?! Surely it should recognize “dlaey” and “iceenmrnt”. Don’t forget, just as some TDs may be colorblind, others may be dseixlyc.
Bill Smythe
Hmm, true. I should have said, you fought hard for a system where the time control alone continues to determine the distinction between regular and quick. For a while it looked as though there might be problems because of G/25 d/5 vs G/29 d/3. The death of the latter was a downside, but well worth it. Those organizers can switch to G/26 d/3, anyway.
(Labels b[/b] and b[/b] added by me.)
Agree with b[/b], disagree with b[/b]. There should be no need to embrace every weird possibility from 5 minutes through infinity. I’d like to get rid of, for example, combinations of extremely fast main times with extremely slow increments. I see no good reason why G/6 d/90 should be rateable at all.
It is important that the definitions of regular and quick be non-overlapping, but it is not important that the two together blanket the entire theoretical spectrum.
Bill Smythe
There are probably a lot of people who would agree with this, though the Rules Committee seems to lean in the direction of finding SOME place to put any time control slower than G/5, no matter how weird it is.
There do not appear to be any organizers running events at weird time controls, so it may be more of a theoretical problem than an actual one.
The concept of using ‘under 30 seconds per move’ for quick-only and ‘over 60 seconds per move’ for regular-only is worth exploring in greater detail for the 2012 Delegates Meeting.
Under that concept, G/6 d/90 would continue to be regular-only.
This may be one case where increment is significantly different than delay, so one possibility might be to cap delay at ‘X’ seconds as far as determining which rating system applies to an event, where X is some number, possibly 30.
That would mean that G/6 d90 would be dual rated, but G/6 +90 would be regular-only.
This could be coupled with requiring that the first time control in a regular-only event must be at least 30 minutes long. The fallback could be to dual rated if the prevailing sentiment of the Delegates is that all time controls that are G/5 d0 or slower should continue be USCF ratable.
Putting these all together:
G/6 d20 would be quick-rated only.
G/6 d90 would be dual rated (because delay is capped at 30 and the first time control is shorter than 30 minutes.)
G/6 + 90 would also be dual rated, because the first time control is shorter than 30 minutes.
G/30 d60 would be dual rated (because delay is capped at 30 seconds.)
G/40 d60 would be regular-only.
G/30 +30 would be dual rated
G/30 + 60 would be regular-only.
Yes, but not with the gusto and zeal shown by Mr. Hammond. It’s all in the name, maybe. I have tried for some time to get Eric Johnson to join the Forum fun; at that point all bets are off.
Notes on the thread topic: I have eight browsers on my Win 7 system, though I seldom use most of them. Thus far I have not had a problem accessing and testing the new form through any of them—including Aurora 9 and Chromium 16, which are essentially the ‘dev’ versions of Firefox and Google Chrome.
Also—we have been through this before, but I still scratch my head: We need some standard minimum time for non-SD controls. Where in the official rules and policies of the Fed does it say that 99/5 is legal? For that matter, where is the record showing that the old Allowable Time Controls document—taken down from the USCF site last year—was rescinded or changed?
Like the phantom fear of G/5, delay-16 Regular-rated games under the current rules or G/5, Inc-24 games as Quick under the 2012 rules, etc., this is most likely a theoretical rather than a practical issue. No one will show up for events advertised at such controls. If two perverse patzers want to play a match at a club at that speed, just to be different, that’s their ‘thing.’
All true…but still, it is good to have sane guidelines in place, so the malcontents and innovators have a set standard against which to push.
System Administrator Response:
[i]Phil Smith may still be in the process of making changes to both the current (eg 2011) rules update document and the 2012 rules update document, adding watermarks to make it clear which set of rules changes is current and which one is ‘future’, including changing the file name, though at this point the original file is still posted on the website. (Presumably a ‘2012’ document with a different watermark will be posted on January 1st, 2012.)
There may be a revised version of the 2012 document posted in the next few days removing some redundant text.
The 2012 time control changes were made by the Delegates in August, see ADM 11-36 in the unofficial notes posted in August. The status of official minutes from that meeting is a matter for the USCF Secretary to address. [/i]
One thing to be on the look out for is browsers that time out a session during a long editing pass, resulting in the loss of all that data entry when it goes back to the TD/A sign-in screen.
The form sets the session time-out period to 12 hours.
Leaving the browser idle for several hours has been successfully tested on multiple versions of Firefox and IE, but not all browsers may fully honor those time-out settings.
That would indeed be fun. I remember the good old RGCP days. And here in USCF territory, the moderators could keep him in check, if necessary (perpetual check?).
Agreed that a minimum time for secondary controls would be good. But why just for non-SD? The same minimum could also apply to SD.
My suggestion: Minimum time for secondary controls should be 15 minutes, whether SD or non-SD.
(Of course, for primary controls there’s already a minimum of 30 (or 25+5) for regular-rated events.)
Bill Smythe
There is no minimum for move-based controls that repeat ‘forever,’ with no SD. Enter 99/5d0 on the new form, either 2011 or 2012 rules, and it will spit back “Regular only.”
Granted that events with no SD control at all are extremely scarce these days, but I know at least one club in NJ that plays 40/80, 15/30 with no SD. (For perspective: That was once the fastest ratable rate of play…) A club at which I play used 40/90, 30/60 (later 40/60 secondary) until last year.
99/5 is clearly a non-issue and a joke—but what about, say, 30/20? There should be a standard here.
30/20 is 40 seconds per move, which is in the range that has been suggested for dual rated events, eg, between 30 and 60 seconds/move. (That probably comes from the presumption that a game is 60 moves long and then dividing that into the allowable time range for dual rated events today.)
30/20 d30 would be 70 seconds per move, which would be in the range that has been suggested for regular only (unless the minimum time control in a regular-only event is also mandated to be 30 minutes or longer.)
And what about something like 5/5, 1/1? (1 minute, not 1 hour) There are probably clocks that would support it.
For that matter, is there much difference between 1/1 and 60 seconds increment, so is 5/5, 1/1d0 essentially the same thing as 5/5+60?
The parser will now recognize a time control entered like this:
40/60 20/30 5 inc
and reformat it to
40/60,20/30;+5
Aha – so now a space is an adequate separator.
Bill Smythe
Response: Since we are REQUIRING a valid time control field, we need to try to accommodate as many valid variants as we can. In testing, nearly 98 % of the time controls entered for events rated since 2005 would currently parse either as is or with ‘;d0’ added at the end.
Quite a few of the ones that still don’t parse are ones that don’t make any sense, like “G/30 SD/30”.
Bill Hall has said more than once that there may be a market for USCF rated online blitz chess, with time controls like Game in 3 minutes with 2 seconds delay.
Whether that would be in a separate blitz-only rating system may depend on whether there is sufficient volume for those ratings to be reliable. The low volume of quick-only chess events was the primary motivation behind dual rating of G/30 to G/60 events. An even lower volume blitz-only system may not be either mathematically or economically viable.
For the most recent analysis of games by rating system, including blitz events (defined as G/5), see BINFO 201100445.
If you are talking about a minimum number of minutes in a secondary control, I have already suggested 15 minutes would be a nice number, whether SD or not.
If, however, you are talking about a maximum number of moves, then I don’t see your point. An infinite number of moves (i.e. SD) is already legal, so why should any finite number be outlawed?
Or maybe you are talking about a minimum number of moves. In that case, how about 10 moves?
Bill Smythe
Right now the fastest allowable control for rated blitz is 5 minutes. Why not make 3 minutes rateable, as long as there is a 2-second delay?
In other words, for blitz, main time should be 3 to 5 minutes, and main time plus delay should be 5 to 7 minutes.
As for whether to rate online play, that’s a separate question entirely.
Yes – as I’ve said before, let’s keep the issue of quick vs blitz events separate from the issue of quick vs blitz ratings. If, for the time being, the ratings have to be combined (due to low blitz demand, or for any other reason), then so be it. The rules for quick vs blitz are already established, and the time controls for each can be defined so as to be non-overlapping, as is already the case for regular vs quick. There is no need to wait.
Or, a similar solution can be implemented. Just as some regular events are also quick-rated, some quick events (under 15 minutes, perhaps?) could also be blitz-rated.
Bill Smythe
The Delegates have rejected establishing a blitz rating system at least twice. And with the exception of the decision to extend the low end of quick chess from G/10 down to G/5, which was made when (and because) WBCA folded, decisions regarding ratable time controls have been made by the Delegates.