Why Does it Take So Long to Rate a Single Event?

Running Chess Tournaments
1

It now takes over 6 weeks to rate a single tournament. from taking 3 weeks to receive a tournament, to the ridiculous amount of time to rate, this is unacceptable.
Tournaments I played in during November are still not rated.

USCF has been "trying" to change to new programming for years now -

Isn’t it about time that they stop complaining and actually DO it?

It should not take this long to get something like this working. Integrate the ratings with the internet, provide for internet tournament results submittal, and post weekly or daily rating updates for TDs to download the day of the tournament, as to have the most accurate pairings. This would help to avoid the disaster that is the USCF today.

2

Xolom:

This is a new program. Myself have a event, it was received for rating 11.29.04, and its’ real ending date is 11.20.04 (not 10.20.04), its’ not rated also. Myself have four tournaments not rated but received for ratings (as of 2.08.05). It does not matter if the events are rated today, or the first week in March if it comes to that. If it takes till the middle of March, they will be in the April Supplement. If they are rated today or whenever, would not be official till April 1, 2005.

If you have players asking why they are not rated. Tell them you have the everts received for rating. If the rating department has the tournaments, then its’ out of your control. Want the programing done right the first time, then having patch work done. Nolan is working as hard as he can. Working on programs designed in 1991, then convert the programing with modern upgrades is hard work. It will take time for designing the new program.

3

One of the reasons why we wanted to change over the ratings system right after a supplement cutoff is that under the old system there was always a big push to get as many events entered and validated as possible ahead of each supplement cutoff.

After the February Supplement was created, there were only 64 events with a total of 117 sections that were in the ‘entered but not ratable’ queue.

46 of those were events that ended in December. 11 were events that ended in November, 7 were events that ended prior to November.

Only a few of those events are ready to rate at this point. The rest still have data problems that haven’t been resolved.

I don’t know if that includes any of your November events, or if they had not yet been entered by the time they did the cutoff. I’m not actually in New Windsor, so I don’t have a good handle on the number of events waiting to be processed other than what’s in the new computer records.

Of the events that have been processed by the USCF office staff (ie, not including events uploaded by TDs via the Internet) under the new ratings system, 3 are from 2005, 69 are from December, 17 are from November, and 8 are from prior to November. Around 60 of those appear to be ready to rate.

It will take some time to build up speed on the new data entry/validation process, and the whole operation is moving to Tennessee by the middle of March.

There are around 380 events that have been uploaded by TDs that are either still being validated or are ready to rate, mostly the latter. Some were rated under the old system in January, but I think I know which ones those are.

Making sure we have accurate status information on all those events (so that we don’t miss an event or rate it more than once) is meticulous work. To make matters more interesting, several TDs submitted events online AND mailed them to the office. Some of those have been partially rated, so we need to make sure we know which sections still have to be rated.

As I said the other day, the mathematics part is done, now we’re working on the administrative issues, which are complicated somewhat by changeover issues.

4

As a director and as a player, can accepted the time it takes to change over the rating program. The statement, that you (Nolan) have finnished the upgrades to the new rating program. Feel you should be rewarded for you’re hard work. It should not take that much time to upgrade the system, when the administrative issues are worked out.

The problem is not the new programing, its’ the administrative policy of not knowing what they want. The membership on the rating committee, understood better then anyone in the federation what rulings they will have to make. The administrative issues should have been worked out months before the final end of the programing.

Its’ very common, any committee the federation has is always behind the curve. If the federation had a committee on when its’ time to fill up the tank, it will not make the final ruling till the car runs out of gas.

5

Nolan probably feels the same with any implementation of new software… Most users don’t want to take 15 minutes out to learn something new, something better because they’re used to the old way. This is common with any new software. The chessplayers wont really care since they wont see the inside difference, but I understand nolan’s frustrations :slight_smile:

These types of upgrades are criticial to the success of USCF, and I applaud Nolan.

6

Its’ the problem they (rating committee) understood the changes were going to happen. It was not the problem, they would need to put off the problem because of lack of funds. Its’ just a official statement from the rating committee, for having it done one way or the other. It could have been settled before the rating program was finnished. Once again they drove the car till it ran out of gas, someone is walking to the gas station to fill the tank.

7

The Ratings Committee is NOT, repeat, NOT a significant problem here.

However, when issues relating to the specifics of the formula arose during testing, they had to be informed and consulted because they are the USCF Committee charged with that function. They have rendered their opinion in a timely fashion.

I also don’t share the disdain expressed about the USCF Committee system. Committees are by their very nature deliberative groups, and not only do they have to be kept in the loop to function properly, they also have to have to be granted time to do their jobs.

I’ve served on many USCF committees and chaired several of them, including the Bylaws Committee, the Finance Committee and the Scholastic Committee.

8

I think the rule is:

A committee with Mike on it will perform efficiently, because he will prod the other committee members into action. A committee without Mike (or a similar wonk) on it will perform inefficiently.

Bill Smythe

9

Are we sure the last post is a positve thing that will help build the USCF into a better organization for all of us. I didn’t see a smiley face after the post, so I guess you meant what you said as a critisism. Was your intention to have a discussion of whether Mike Nolan should be involved in committe activity? I don’t think I will take part in that discussion. I really like the work Mike has done from everything I have seen!!! I hope these posts are not intended to be personal attacks.

10

I’ve known Bill Smythe since 1967, so I’m pretty sure he’s not being negative here, and I don’t consider his use of the word ‘wonk’ pejorative.

He is correct that the committee system works best when someone on the committee (or working with the committee, as I am with the Ratings Committee) keeps them on task.

It also works best when others utilize the committees properly (especially the office and the Executive Board). Too many times the committee has been the last to find out what’s happening in areas under its purview, because nobody kept them in the loop.

11

To me, a “wonk” is somebody who really knows what he is doing, has sufficient technical expertise to get the job done, quickly sees where plans are strong and where they are weak, and dislikes decisions made for purely political reasons. It is a term which, for me, has a 100% positive connotation. Mike Nolan is USCF’s super-wonk.

It’s like “geek”. That word, too, has a mostly positive flavor to me.

If other people use “wonk” differently, then I apologize to them for the confusion.

Bill Smythe

12

My Mistake, Sorry :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue:

13

Thanks for completly diverting the attention from my topic.

USCF is still the most broken organization in the US, and in a very sorry state.

How do you get a job at USCF? Getting paid for nothing sounds like fun.

14

Wasn’t your question answered? You asked why it took so long, I explained the status of the ratings system upgrade. Is it taking longer than we wanted? Yes.

Although it may not look like it to the rest of the world, we are getting quite close to having the new system going. At this point we’re done cleaning up data issues on events that are ready to rate, but I ran into a problem with the new ratings table and ratings floors, so I have to rebuild it tonight. While that’s running I can test the event selection code, it should come up with 251 events that are ready to rate.

–
Mike Nolan

15

Everyone would love to see the new rating system running before now. Going from a program built in 1991, and into the second version in 2005 – 14 years is a long time between programs. The USCF program Nolan is building is way more advanced then the one in 1991. Since both versions are designed for only one company (USCF), Nolan is having to design everything without a design team.

The cut off date for the April Supplement will not happen till around March 15, 2005. It does not matter if its’ rated in early March or a few days from now. The ratings will not be official till April 1, 2005.

The current Executive Board under the leadership of President Marinello is fixing a problem cause by bad managment problems during the 1990’s. The reason why it was in bad shape, as organizers, directors and members – we always asked for a free lunch.

16

That’s not an accurate statement. The USCF could have hired a large software development group to design and program its systems upgrade, but it chose to have me to it. I’ve been in the software business for over 30 years, that’s longer than I’ve been a TD.

In the late 1990’s the USCF did bring in a larger company to do a systems upgrade, they botched the job so badly that the ED who hired them was fired. The USCF spent well over $100,000 on that project and had to write the whole thing off as a complete failure.

The advantage to having a single designer (even on a project with a lot of people working on it) is that you get something that is much more tightly engineered to work as a unified whole. Computer systems design is as much art as it is science.

One disadvantage is that there’s only me, and I can only get so much done at a time. I’d much rather get it done RIGHT than FAST.

(There’s a saying among computer professionals: Price, Time, Quality, choose any 2.)

The ratings system is important, but so are other parts of the project that aren’t done yet, such as a rewrite of the correspondence chess area, a new membership and tournament registration website, the national events site and a lot of back-office stuff that few members will ever see, such as improved financial information for the accounting department.

I’m also part of the team that is working to move the USCF offices from NY to TN, so I’m spread awfully thin these days.

I do consider this a team effort, with the USCF staff, the Executive Board, several USCF committees (especially the MIS/Website committee and lately the Ratings Committee) and many TDs and players part of the design team. I have gotten many ideas from discussions with people and a lot of the design details have been modified as a result of the discussions here or on rec.games.chess.politics.

Fairly often writing notes here about how various parts of the system will or should work helps crystalize my thoughts and improve the overall design. And I’ve floated a few trial balloons, some of which got shot down badly.

17

Why even have a supplement system?
With the internet now, it no longer is neccessary.

18

If it takes time to get it done right the first time, take the time to get it done right the first time. The ratings will not be official till April 1, 2005, it does not matter if the batch of tournaments are run in Febuary or into March. As you have made it clear it should be done in a few days, it will be all online (MSA and rating program) before the last run of the April Supplement.

Can recall the days (1980’s) when you only know your new rating, when you got your issue of Chess Life. If you had more then one tournament, the only way to know if all or only one was rated for that cycle, was look at the rating list (annual or supplement). Back in the 1980’s when the president brings in the rating list to the club, everyone wanted to look at it. Now if you bring in the rating list, the club members treat it like a dead animal.

19

The rating list is something every affiliate should have. It has not change that much in decades. The major change is the drop of the codes for life titles, and have regular and quick in the same section. Even still has the “Tournament Clearinghouses”, even that most directors with emails give feedback to each other faster then going with a clearinghouse. Would not change the idea to give up on the supplements.

20

The paper supplements are still used, not every tournament site has Internet access, for example. Not every TD uses a computer for pairings, either.

Even if we discontinued printing the supplements, which I doubt would be a popular move among our TDs, the concept of published ratings that are to be used for a stated period of time is still valid.

Consider the Amateur Teams, for example. Teams are formed based on the combined ratings of the players. There has to be a fixed point in time for those ratings, otherwise nobody would be able to make up their teams enough in advance to book reservations.

Similarly, would you make plans to take the week off and play in the World Open if there was a chance that when you showed up, planning to play in the under 1800 section, you could be told that you had to play in the under 2000 section instead because you won a couple of games last night and your new rating is now 1802?

Personally, I feel that with daily updating of ratings the PUBLISHED rating will become even more important.

In the ‘good old days’ I used to prefer to be underrated for a few months while my published rating caught up with me.