I am directing my first tournament this Saturday, and had a question about the rating files you can download to go into SwissSys (or WinTD).
What is the difference between the Dec golden and the Dec rating list?
Is the golden one that includes everyone, not just those with updates for Dec? If so, I would assume that is what I should download this time, right?
Then, starting in January, should I just download the regular update files?
Thanks!
There are 3 sets of files for December:
A ‘two month’ update, ie events rated since the preparation of the October Supplement.
A ‘12 month update’, ie all events rated for the 2006 supplements.
A new Gold Master format.
Both of the update formats contain only those players who have played or had a ratings change during the time span they cover.
The Gold Master contains all players, regardless of whether or not they are rated.
Why is that significant? Because if someone renews but doesn’t play in a tournament, their updated expiration date is on the Gold Master file but not on the other two files.
When I run an event (once a year in July) I always use the latest Gold Master file.
Our plans are to release a monthly update each month in 2007 plus a new Gold Master file each month. We may also release a six month cumulative update in June, since that is what TDs are used to us doing.
Some time in 2007 we hope to start releasing another set of rating files each month using a new ‘combined’ format. If I can get it to work, I will also set up a system whereby a TD can request updates for all membership and ratings changes that occurred between two dates. This way TDs could get only the records they need to bring their database up to date from the last time they download data.
(If we make this new file available in a dBase III format, it should be possible to configure SwisSys to handle it, I doubt that will be true of WinTD.)