New TourneyBot administrator

[MadMatt]

Hello, Fibsters,

I am writing to announce that TourneyBot has a new administrator - Tom Moulton, also known as Tom on FIBS. He is now running the bot from his own server and is also taking over as the main developer, web administrator and project maintainer. He should from now on be the main addressee of any comments, complaints or suggestions you have regarding TourneyBot, though I will of course still be around from time to time, as usual.

The transition happens just around TourneyBot's 4th anniversary - the first experimental tourney was held on 31st December, 2003. Since then, TourneyBot has run about 1600 or so tourneys, about one a day on average.

Thank you all for making the bot a success, thank you Tom for taking over and good luck in the future,

[Tomawaky]

Many thanks MadMatt for all you have done 
And good luck Tom for new features 

[Tom]

I am happy to help out.

But reading that description makes me wonder "What have I gotten myself into!"

I have a few new commands that I need to better document (web pages) and then we can start using them.

Tom

[webrunner]

Thanks for all the time and effort you have put in it Matt, it has been an important improvement of Fibs!

The king is dead, long live the king!!!

Tom, thanks for taking over. If you need anything just let me know.

[adrian]

I am happy to help out.

But reading that description makes me wonder "What have I gotten myself into!"

I have a few new commands that I need to better document (web pages) and then we can start using them.

Tom

Dear Tom,

Call me old fashioned, but those shouts, after each finished match, in every round of a tourney, are more than spam 
We can`t follow shouts anymore during tourneys. I`m sure that if you could have programed all this new features for the bot, it would be feasible to redirect the messages from shouts to tells, aimed ONLY to the players in tourney . Even better, each tourney player may receive only the message related to his matches!

Can you do it, please ! 

Thank you.

BTW, I unsubscribed from TourneyBot tells, at least this reduced the spamming to half.

[Kari_Grandi]

I was subscribed to TourneyBot before also until it started to send tells in every 2 minutes or so. Especially its a pain when you're using a client like 3dFibs where a window pops up every time.

Old system with shouts/tells after each round was finished was much better.

[socksey]

Thank you all for making the bot a success, thank you Tom for taking over and good luck in the future,

Thank YOU, MadMatt for all you have done.  A thanks seems inadequate.  We've had a long and happy relationship with TourneyBot.  Maybe kisses and hugs are in order.    

CHEERS!!!!!!!!!!

socksey



The bubbling brook would lose it's song if you removed it's rocks. - unknown

[socksey]

Call me old fashioned, but those shouts, after each finished match, in every round of a tourney, are more than spam 

Yes, I agree, Tom, the announcements are far too often (I think I mentioned sometime that once every 5 minutes is the most fibslanders will tolerate interrupting their shouts).  The current frequency of TourneyBot shouts is a total detraction from the other dialog there.  Keeping them in tells to the players would be an improvement. 

Thank you for taking this on and thanks for all your efforts so far.   

socksey



Everything is always ok in the end, if it's not, then it isn't the end. - unknown

[Tom]

Firstly let me explain why this format is useful...

If for example, you receive a bye and win in rd 2 quickly you will end up with a long wait for round 3.

This keeps you informed of all the players where you can watch your possible opponents approach.

This is just one example.

I have moved the updates to Tells so as not to flood the lobby.

It is not every 2 mins, it gets sent when the standings change... after each match completion.

So sometimes it is often and other times it is rare, depending upon the speed at which people play and the length of matches.

Let's try it this way for a bit and see...

I am very interested in suggestions how to make it work better and it may take a little time for the best solution to become obvious

tom

[socksey]

It is not every 2 mins, it gets sent when the standings change... after each match completion.

Right!  It was more often!    I had noticed that was the case and I agree it is very helpful to everyone.  I know it saves me a lot of time answering questions from players.  

Having taken the notices out of "shouts", should solve the problem!  

Thanks!

socksey



"My folks didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they met the boat." - Will Rogers

[adrian]

Having taken the notices out of "shouts", should solve the problem!  

Thank you Tom for the quick fix! That is what I call a premium service, maintenance and improvement!

[don]

Hey Tom.

I appreciate what you are trying to do with TourneyBot, both as a FIBS user and a programmer.  Unfortunately, tonight TourneyBot crashed during a tourney run by manxcat.

You should not break something that works.  The dependability of TourneyBot is an issue on its use in long running tourneys like Bago.

I suggest that most of the changes you desire are cosmetic, and could be accomplished with ANOTHER BOT feeding on the TourneyBot database and FIBS I/O.  If THAT bot failed, it would not invalidate a tourney.  Use the other bot to micro-manage tourneybot, enhance shouts, whatever, but don't break something that works.

To my knowlege, the only bug in TourneyBot is when a match is pursued to silly cubes like 1024 (FIBSmax) and result is a win of 2072 to x.

--
don

[Tom]

I appreciate what you are trying to do with TourneyBot, both as a FIBS user and a programmer.  Unfortunately, tonight TourneyBot crashed during a tourney run by manxcat.

Yes I am sorry about that. I found the problem and fixed it.

You should not break something that works.  The dependability of TourneyBot is an issue on its use in long running tourneys like Bago.

That goes without saying, I had not intended to break the bot.

I suggest that most of the changes you desire are cosmetic, and could be accomplished with ANOTHER BOT feeding on the TourneyBot database and FIBS I/O.  If THAT bot failed, it would not invalidate a tourney.  Use the other bot to micro-manage tourneybot, enhance shouts, whatever, but don't break something that works.

I would agree *IF* most of my changes were cosmetic, but they are not.

I first started looking at adding a second bot a TD Bot, but when it looked at how much work it would be to parse what TourneyBot
says, I decided it would be much easier to learn a new language (Ruby) and make the changes internal.

I had tested the code but some of these things are only found in live events.

I will continue to move forward but there will be times where I mess up.
It will not happen often, I assure you. I do a lot of testing.

Progress is sometimes painful, tonight was enough pain for this month

Tom