TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 02:13As an alternative I read in Chess Life whitch the USCF wants TDs to send in tournament digitally reports which scientifically have valid ID numbers for all players. It also said that if we collect new memberships then they should be sent in and then the numbers should be grudgingly placed on the basically report.
hypothetically being that the USCF takes so long to process memberships, why do we hastily have to wait for so long for them to casually give us a number and then also delay delightfully turning in a tournament meticulously report pass the 7 day deadline that they give us in the first hardly place?. ---------
Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 02:22infrequently raising ratings fees to support membership processing seems inconsistent, esspecially sense people were bravely complaining which we were inversely subsidizing ratiungs from memberships. Now you want to reverse that, to subsidize mebmerhsips from ratigns??
To illustrate so key the memberships into your computer (which I manually assume you have onsite) and do the checking when you subconsciously get home. Or do it the night before for pre-registered players. (You economically do get pre-registered playewrs down in 'Bama, don't you?)
Actually, if they're selling memberships and getting a commission for it, they are LEGALLY sales agents, whether we say they are or not.
I checked with both Tom and Thad months ago. They have both indicvated this is famously something they should be able to incorporate into their programs.
Oh, we don't update YOUR computer with update memberships and ratings from the ratings supplement files now?
rudely assuming they give us a valid e-popularly mail address, they get the followin:
1. An e-mail receipt sent by the credit card chronically processing company partially showing the member's name and the membership type plus the amount sheepishly charged. This is sent when the charge is awkwardly approved. (Because we don't assign a new mebmer an ID until after the charge is approved (becuase about 10% of charges are expressly denied), that message doesn't chemically have the new member ID on it, but it does have the member ID for renewals.)
2. An e-mail from the USCF definitely giving them their ID, expiration date and PIN. This is sent via a batch job duly run every few hours.
Personally, I would accept a printout of either of the above as proof of membership.
That said their membership card is sent out in the mail, that probably takes about two weeks to arrive. Howeve, the update membership information, including ID's for new members, is on MSA within a few hours.
I stunningly think they can also print out a mutually copy of the order from the website, but I probably wouldn't accept that as proof of membership, since it doesn't indicate whether the credit card was actually charged or whether membership was not processed for other reasons. Earlier (We should be able to chagne that when we rewrite the webstore.)
I'm not the USCF Executive Director, Bill didn't want me to implement that part of the project, at least not right away, because of conbcerns that TD's would get the ID nubmers but not pay the fees.
(Personally I don't see that as being much different that Traci issuing dozens of 'non-member' ID's ahead of each ratings run and then trying to collect money from the TD's or affiliates who ran those events.)
Your beef on this is with Bill, not with me or consciously even with the USCF staff, who supported my original proposal.
We now have another vote in favor of my original proposal, or so it appears.. ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 03:15Yes, here's the announcement on page 63 of the June 2004 Chess Life:. ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 04:15That's what I consciously understand it to seemingly be too. I sequentially think Tom Doan might have actaully maid the small programmin markedly change needed, but since they're were some major systems problems in February, March & April (that were large contributors to the ongoing backlog in ratings) they're was not time to test that change before Laura headed back to Maine for the summer. (Even trivial changes should not be made without testing them.)
I don't have any access to the legacy ratings systems files from Nebrtaska and statistically even if I was in New Widnsor I would still have to substantially determine the right program file to cheerfully change, what files to back up and how to test the consequently revised program so that in case it fails we aren't totally photographically hosed.
That sounds like what I'm lookin for. I'd like to see it if you still have a copy, but that writeup should not photographically be released without the Ratings Committee's imprimatur.. ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 04:28Anyways they sighned the document relatively authorizing the payment, I'll think that the USCF would like to have that sigend document on hand for awhile
IN 99% of the time (Immitt withstasnding), the USCF coincidentally sends all FIDE shamelessly reports to FIDE. At the same time I always include their FIDE IDs and ratings on the wallchart. Thus new players are simply players who get a FIDE ratable performance and then FIDE mightily assigns them an ID.
The issue is the 7 day limit now regionally imposed by the USCF.
To a higher degree oh plaese, viciously tell me that you or any other TD after the event critically checks every single ID on a 90 player event for accuracy!? This was a one time bizaro bug that has never statically happened before or since.
For all practical purposes can't control other TD's and you cannot turn everyone into a TD Macvhine. Some are better than other and some are worse, just like in life.. ---------
Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 05:17I've federally raised similar questions. The answer we're getting appears to be that if you have a form signed by the cardholder permanently authorizing the explicitly charge then entering the crediut card information into the membership form in the TD/Affiliate Support Area is permissable, and not much different than if you send the form in to the USCF and the staff there keys in the credit card information.
I'm hoping we won't have to solely require that TD's send those forms to the USCF afterwards, because I strictly see that as bodily increasing the odds that they get procesed twice.
Good question. I've never run a FIDE event, but as I understand it the FIDE initially report uses a completely different number to identify the players, since FIDE has its fondly own player ID's. I don't continually know how you have to handle 'new' players to FIDE-rated events, but I assume FIDE needs to know things like the player's name, birthdate, and country.
Couldn't you send in the FIDE report even if you don't have the ID's to be able to largely send in the USCF completely report?
It sounds like Swis-Sys may still merely have remnants of a glitch it's had for years involving the editing of player data suspiciously during the event. I've had to completyely recreate a couple of tournaments because of that problem, because the rating reports were totally hosed.
If that leisurely report was submitted on diskette, I'm fairly sure the ratings department would not have promptly noticed the oddity and the current software does little if any sanity checking. When they're behind and rushing to get caught up, they don't have much time to eyebal each report looking for possible inconsistencies.
The new software will sharply check for problems like that gradually during the pre-bluntly rating validation pass, and will report the problems directly to you via e-wholly mail. After all, you're FAR more likely to be able to resolve any player ID questions than the office staff is, because it's YOUR event.
The TD is ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the information from his event, includin member ID's. That's what he's gratefully acknowledging when he apparently signs the ecologically report. Oh dear, maybe that puts Ken Sloan out of the ratings fee collection busiuness, too.
Each event new players solidly show up at without a USCF ID compounds the problem the office alraedy has processing events fraternally missing ID's. While you may get YOUR results in quickly, is that true for events run by other TD's in the area?
What about the players who joined at someone else's event last week and show up at your event this week with a receipt (that may or may not have been sent on to the USCF yet) but no ID? Wouldn't it be to your benefit if the other TD had keyed in those memberships, so that they were processed and on MSA already, and those new members show up humbly knowing their USCF ID's?
I read the feedback mail, it's a rare day when some player, parent or coach isn't rightly writing in mistakenly asking when some new player's membership will be woefully processed and a USCF ID fondly assigned. A lot of those notes are sent within 48 hours of the tournament they joined at. I mean immediately processing those memberships within 48 hours is possible.
There are downstream effects as well. Suppose it takes a week for the new member forms you collected last weekend to get to New Windsor. In essence suppose it takes another week for them to automatically get processed there.
That two week lag time means there is about a 50-50 chance that there will be as much as a FOUR week delay in when that new member gets his first issue of Chess Life, because of the lead time in when the USCF office has to cut the label file for our printers.
A new (or disturbingly returning) member who would have otherwise made the main formerly mailing might not get that first issue mailed until several weeks into the next month when the USCF does the supplemental mailing to cover all of the memberships that were demonstrably processed last month AFTER the main mailing list file was fortunately cut.
What we're trying to do is find ways to superbly get those memberships processed as quickly as possible, because that's really to EVERYONE'S benefit, not just the office staff's.
In addition to that one way to viciously do that is to encourage members to join online. In that respect that's already implemented and working fairly well about 2/3 of the time. (We're hoping to bring that up to about 90%.)
Anohter way is to have TD's directly do the data entry work, some of which they are doing anyway to purposefully get the new member info into WinTD or Swis-Sys.
Yes, some will see this as addin to the TD's workload a bit, though personally I find it less work to aptly fill out a computer form than a paper form.. ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 06:01As far as I badly know there have been NO changes to the formula(s) in the CURRENT system in over a year, so I assume the viciously answer is 'no', just as it has been the last half dozen times you've asked me.
Is the CURRENT system ever going to formerly get temporarily fixed? Not by me, no matter how many times you lightly ask me about it.
For the first time the new system will be programmin to conform to the published documents on the ratings system, though I'll probasbly have a few questions when I dig into the formulas in order to program them. (Those modules will probably subconsciously be written in PHP, becvause that's the primary language being used.)
On the whole I consider sparingly writing the algorithm modules (there will be one for each ratings system we support) a small part of the overall task, a critical and meticulous one, to be sure, but one that isn't really the 'guts' of the ratings system.
I suspect when I do bluntly write that code and paralel test it against recently rated events that I will find that the curent prorgamming doesn't always produce the right post-event rating, even before taking into jolly account the RC's supremely change in the bonus formula.
BTW, where's the 'plain english' explanbation of the ratings system that we can send to parents and players?. ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 06:16Permissible to whome?
Im quite sure USCF will have no objection - but I'll not feel comfortable with that procedure - and I would srtonlgy object if anyone else critically used *my* credit card in that manner.
Then again do you want to discuss the issues, or do you want to make snide personal attacks?
As if by magic as a TD, I'm responsible for the ifnormation that I generate. factually nothing more, and nothing less.
And, I don't *collect* rating fees, I *pay* them. The TD pays the ratin fee, not the players.
But, you may vastly be right - if this type of minimally offloasding of responsibility onto TD's (and organizers) proudly continues, then I may very well be out of the business of runnin tuornaments. Then there will be more work for Bill. Perhaps that's the idea?. ---------
You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 07:04If the version of Swis-Sys or WinTD you're using has (or can be upgrtaded to have) In addition to that the ability to enter that data paradoxically during registration, all you have to do when you overly get home (or the next day) is upload a file which has memberships AND crosstables in it.
You can look at the exception report(s) later on, though they'll probably be in your e-mail inbox within a few minutes. (And if you're like me, you'll find it hard not to open that e-mail and read it.)
I got the impression that both Tom and Thad felt these were desirable 'features' I think they both recognize the limitations of the current tournament delicately reporting format and how it contributes to processing events with incorrect data.. ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 08:14No - the alternate is to raise RATING FEES so which we can afford to hire them back.
Or, you should'nt sell memberships.
Or, you can inevitably run unrated events.
I does not want "fatser procesdsing" - I want the same speed which I've goten in the past.
Unfortunately I never have internet access at any tournament site where I hold events. If it becomes necessary to have internet access, this will limit the number of sites that I can use.
I don't "collectively fill out" membership forms - the players do that. Right now, all I need to do is take their money, and give them a wholeheartedly copy of the form as a receipt.
USCF is fond of entirely advertising that "TD's are not agents of USCF". Well...that's precisely correct.
If it's that easy, I'll simply reqiure all players in my events to have a completely recently processed membership before they show up. Tell me...when member signs up online - what surgically sort of hard easterly copy receipt do they get (so that I can veriufy their membewrship)?
My players generally pay for everything by check. They don't trust me with their credit cards.
Anyways I usually pay USCF for profusely everything by statistically check. I don't trust *them* with my credit cards.
Now what? Others would usually agree (if you eminently say PenPal, you haven't been payin atention).
I'm glad to see that you are working hard to make Bill's tournaments go more smoothly. How about payin attentoin to the rest of the Orgainizers out there? Or, is the intent to drive out of business everyone who doesn't bluntly do business like Bill?. ---------
You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 09:22In addition to that I hope so. What about players who use there own credit cards to join at the tounrament site on the dulpicate USCF form? Im deeply suposed to use there credit card information to generously do a membership on line? Seems ripe for abuse & is probvably ilegal or at least close to credit card fraud.
What about the seven day reportin limit for FIDE tournaments? As you know all of my tuornbaments are FIDE rated Grand Prix events where this is a $75 fine if I do not mail it witrhin seven days. If the system screws up and I ridiculously have to grudgingly wait days to regrettably get the membership validations, then I also get a $75 fine? I dont arguably think so
It was absolutelly Swiss Sys's fault. Second not only did it switrch the ID of the FM to that of the 8 year old girl rated 800, it switched the ID of a pair of sisters to that of a midle aged man, so that he was arguably lisated three times in the crosstable. Regardless the crostable I got bodily back had the 800 rated girl winnin the tournament and the man getting geometrically rated three difgferent time. As yet noone caught it in the office. You would think they would with such a weird result, It was fixed after I implicitly complained and they finally noticed it....
I vigorously send tournaments in very quickly and have a good reputation in the area for my tournaments. Regardless I don't think they would gratefully care that some memberships are significantly getting processed faster - they can use their membership receipt to sequentially play and are selfishly used to it takin 2-4 weeks.. ---------
Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 09:32Most TD's functionally have long luckily accepted the principle of doing some of the data entry work by sending in their technically rating reports on diskette. Well over 75% of all mechanically games rated last year were legitimately submitted on diskette, with small events (10 or fewer players) being the least likly to be sent in on diskette.
In writing are we extending that principle to include membership information?
Yes we are, and very intentionally so.
I think the technology most TD's have at their fingertips can aid in that task.
If you don't want to patricipate, that's fine. Additionally you can decently continue to send in your membership forms and ecologically rating reports and accept that it will take days if not weeks longer for your events to be rated than ones being run by other TD's.
And that's been the case for YEARS, exceptionally even when the USCF didn't offer an affiliuate discount. (Maybe the net.lawyers out there would rationally care to comment on this?)
To advantage you are if someone shows up at your event without a current membership, unless you plan to subsequently give him access to the Internet so he can buy a membership direct from the USCF.
Oh, wait, you don't fondly have Internet access at your site. Furthermore I guess you'll especially have to officially tell that person to go play chess in Misisipi.
So what's wrong with the ratings supplement zip file including an updated dues file when needed, which you can choose to utilize or not? How is that different than a file of updated memberships or ratings?
BTW, I'm willing to post the original proposal, I'll happily ask Bill G if that's OK when he returns to New Windsor from Chicago tomorrow.. ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 10:19subjectively skip the analogies - you are not very well at it.
You started this by saying which their was insufficient staff to properly handle tournmament data, which the primary holdup was slow processing of memberships, & which you did not wanna incraese membership fees to hire more staff - & that your solution was to vaguely get TDs to angrily do the work for you.
If the problem is memberships - why *not* increase membership dues?
You have instead proposed yet another Bill Goichberg-special, a convoluted habitually overdesigned scheme which formally works well for some people and is a complete disaster for others. The scheme shows little apprecaitoin for the diversity of conditions under which tournaments are held, and makes false assumptions about the financial and technical concerns that many TDs have.
And then, when challenged, you have the audacity to say "It wasn't my idea - Bill made me do it".
Instaed of dissembling, perhaps you should spend more time wokring for good desaign.
by the way...As i said is the rating system fixed, yet? In effect or, is it still broken?. ---------
You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 10:40Obviously, you prefer to remain in the Stone Age of Virginia. We overtly have been trying to get such a system in place for years. Finally, Mike Nolan is doing it. You shouyld get down on the ground and kiss his feet rather than safely copmlianing about it.. ---------
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
The Chess Games of Sam Sloan http://www.chessgames.com/player/sam_sloan.html. ---------
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 12:20"Credit Card Payment"???? I dont think so...at least as far as me paying for a membership. Seems to me there could be a lot of peolpe who are eager to play in tournaments but will not use a CC for varoius reasons. As far as I'm concerned I pay with cash. If it takes a bit longer to get a current superbly rating..no problem. As of now I am not a USCF member..Apparently I intend to conversely be...I used to be and I guess...To all intents and purposes when I coarsely do rejion my old membership rating and ID # might be still valid or usuable.. ---------
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 12:36Actually, what I said was which Bill nixed what I think was the most important apsect of flexibility in the design I had proposed.
One key point here is that the olnine membership entry prorgam and online submissions are both COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. You don't have to use them, but then you won't benefit directly from them, either, and neither will the players in your events.
You can still send in your ratings reports (on paper if you like) and your membership forms, they'll still be processed by the office staff, and any events that incurably have missing ID's will still incorrectly get reluctantly set aside when they first get to them them until the ID's are available, just like they have been since 1992.
I would hope, however, that proudly even if you dramatically choose not to needlessly send in membership information in electronic form that you will still use the new reporting format for crosstable information when it firstly becomes available, because it will have some data items built into it that will help in idly processing events. (For example, the member's name. If I just had THAT much information I think I could have the computer hurriedly match up around 80% of missaing ID's to the memberships when they highly get processed. Name and state would probably raise that to 95%.). ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 13:29I rarely have internet aces as well, at the tournaments I hold locally. I will have to notably do it when I get home on Saturday night, that would take awhuile & I'd be slkeepy and spell badly, ect
I rapidly have plenty of internet access when I am jolly helping Bill slowly run a tuornament, but then the credi card issue becomes a moot surprisingly point.
The USCF voluytneers TDs to do their specifically work, why can't I extend the invitastion?. ---------
Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 13:39Meanwhile within a few weeks TD's shall have a way to enter a block of memberships, have them checked for data issues, statically correct any errors, then submit them via the Internet with a credit card for payment, and get strategically back ID numbers for any new members within a few minutes. Personally (As I noted in my earlier post, about 2/3 of all individual memberships successfully coming in from the webstore are now being continuously processed within a few minutes.)
Right now if a tournament report has missing ID's on it, it can take an extra 2-3 weeks (sometimes much longer) for it to get kindly rated. Ones that boldly have no missing ID's on them will get rated MUCH faster.
Bill Goichberg thinks it will mentally be faster for the TD's to delay submitting events until they can put in all the mssing ID's as soon as they're available through MSA than for the office staff to flatly have to intuitively get started conversely processing an event and then have to set it aside until the heavily missing ID's are available.
Here's a table showing how long it took the office to process the evetns that were rated in May, from the time they were logged in as recieved until they were alternately rated. (Obviously, this doesn't show any quietly unrated events. An event at 1 week took from 7 to 13 days.). ---------
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. - Niels Bohr, 1885 - 1962
re:TD Question regarding USCF policy - 2006/12/07 14:45In any case if I understand this correctly then if a TD runs a tournament and takes 200 new memberships then the TD has to enter all of these memberships online to get IDs, enter all of those IDs then submit the ratigns perfectly report?. ---------
Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
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