Tourney Directors

[MadMatt]

Tourney Directors:

you people are slacking  <_< In the last week, I was pretty much the only one to hold any tourneys.

Now let's get some more tourneys running. If anyone wants to run a longer one where people have a week to sign up, then a week to complete their 1st round match etc., it'd be great, too  


Cheers,

Matt

[JonJon]

I have some questions about tourneybot....

How many tourneys can it handle at one time?

Is there a time limit to how long ahead of time a tourney can be set up?

Is there a time limit to how long a tourney can run?

Is there a way to not allow players with bad reps or excessive saved game in a tournament?

Is there an easier way to determine which tourney number should be used?

I'll think of more later....

I'll run some more tourneys, for sure...

JJ

[MadMatt]

How many tourneys can it handle at one time?

There is no limit on that other than the memory of the machine the bot runs on.

Is there a time limit to how long ahead of time a tourney can be set up?

No.

Is there a time limit to how long a tourney can run?

No, although Tourney Directors should usually impose some timing rules.

Is there a way to not allow players with bad reps or excessive saved game in a tournament?

Not yet, although it's a planned feature. Also, I have the three-tier ban system already in the code repository, allowing TDs to ban (or eject a player) from a specific tourney, all tourneys of the same type or all TourneyBot tourneys. I hope to have it in the running version of the bot by the end of the weekend.

Is there an easier way to determine which tourney number should be used?

No idea what you're asking here, please clarify.

[JonJon]

So...tourneys have numbers...the one I am running now is tourney 59....

Is there a way to list all the tourneys, so I know what number tourney I will be creating ahead of time, before I send the create bracket command?

JJ

[MadMatt]

So...tourneys have numbers...the one I am running now is tourney 59....

Is there a way to list all the tourneys, so I know what number tourney I will be creating ahead of time, before I send the create bracket command?

JJ

You could send tourneys completed to the bot to see finished tourneys. The next tourney number will most likely be one higher than the last tourney.

But I fail to see why you would want to know this number before creating the tourney. In fact, there's no reason to pay much attention to these numbers at all. A number is just a property that's guaranteed to be different for every tourney, so that you can refer to it when requesting/inputing data from/to the bot. That's all. Don't pay too much attention to these numbers.

[MadMatt]

Question on running a longer tourney: how would you rate the current stability of the bot and it's backing store?

The bot seems to be perfectly stable, with a reliable connection. It also knows how to reconnect itself if anything happens.

It is true that I am still introducing new features and commands at a fast pace because I get a lot of enchancements requests and suggestions and for that reason I still consider it beta software. Changing code does involve the risk of introducing bugs, of course, but I try to test everything sufficiently before it goes into the running version.

As far as permanent data storage goes -- it's completely synchronous with the data in memory - everytime a tourney state changes the data get immediately synched to disk thanks to the truly excellent piece of software by Joel VanderWerf. So, unless there's a major hardware failure, there is no risk of losing the data.

I am perfectly confident in the bot's ability to run longer tourneys.

What happens if the bot is down while someone finishes a tourney match?

In that case, the loser has to report that he lost via the report loss command. True, the bot has to come back online for that, but it can't process anything without the data anyway. Alternatively, the players can message the Tourney Director who can then award the win when the bot comes back.

What do you think of this possible enhancement:
-command to register a tourney match result from loser/winner (similar to fibsleagammon) that is accepted via "message" as well as "tell".

That certainly is an interesting idea, the fact is, though, that I'm not sure it's worth the trouble and my time to implement it. In any case, now that TB runs on a permament server it is expected that it won't be offline for extended periods of time. And like I said, there are Tourney Directors, players can just interact with them which saves me the trouble of adding a new feature that's already been implemented in several different ways and which also has the positive effect of the human factor -- the TDs can be told all the circumstances regarding why the match hasn't been recorded in the usual way and they can act accordingly, using human sense.

Which brings us to an interesting point - can tourneys be fully automated? That is to say, can they run without any kind of human intervention (from TDs)? Personally, I believe some small sort of human overseeing will always be required. In elimination tourneys, one participant not showing up can not only hold up the entire tourney, hecan prevent it from being completed. So, the TD must give the win to the opponent. The bot could handle that with enforcing some kind of timeout rules (and it probably will someday) - but how is the bot to know whose fault it is the match hasn't been played? Whom to give the win to? The bot can't possibly devise all possible circumstances of why the match hasn't been played. What if FIBS went down for a time? etc. I think it's required and beneficial to have some human elements, that's why I think the bot is more of a tool to help TDs rather than their replacement.

That said, TB did in fact run several tourneys fully automatically (with myself setting them up, then logging off), but everything went okay on the account of all players following the rules and not having connection problems etc.

Anyway, if anyone has ideas on how automatic timeout rule enforcement should work, I'll be more than happy to hear them  

I have to get going on a telnet proxy that can multiplex i/o based on user. That way I could develop a gui for chatting with tourneybot without changing anything about the way i do other fibs things. I think this could be useful for repbot as well. Then add some programmable filtering capabilities, and translate into jabber format so you can connect a jabber client

 Hehe, sounds nice,  though perhaps again more trouble than it's worth, especially since FIBS is not fun to program for due to bugs, incomplete protocol and the infamous "feature"    that eats up your command if you send it before the earlier one has been completed.

What I'd like to see is more client integration, for both TourneyBot and RepBot. Because even I who know all the commands back to front sometimes crave for a quick access to the bot with a menu or a button and then to be presented with nicely formatted data in a separate window etc.

In addition to that, I was a bit surprised to learn how many FIBSters aren't very knowledgable about computers and stuff. A lot of them think FIBS is the board that the client shows them and have no idea how to send a tell to the bot, particularly with that annoying bug because of which FIBS doesn't send all of the players' list on who. :angry:  

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure client integration won't happen. It doesn't seem that the currently popular clients are still being developed, with the possible exception of 3dfibs. Peter still supports JavaFIBS clients, but isn't adding new features, seems that's the case with MacFIBS as well, all the rest seem to be dead. In addition to that, it has to be admitted that even implementing part of TourneyBot's protocol would not exactly be fun,  much less the whole of it. So for now, I'll be happy if they include sending 'rawwho TourneyBot' to FIBS when the client connects to get around the players list bug.

ok, back to tourneybot:

You seem to have stopped midsentence there. ^_^  

[JonJon]

Anyway, if anyone has ideas on how automatic timeout rule enforcement should work, I'll be more than happy to hear them  

I am all for an automatic timeout feature. This is something which the tourney director should be able to turn on and off and to set a particular time limit for.

Lets define the two types of timeouts I can forsee having problems with....

1) A player signs up for a tournament, and then doesn't show up to play when he gets the match-up from tourney-bot....The problem here is that which player do you eliminate? Hmmmm. Maybe a feature allowing a player to register with tourneybot that his opponent has not joined and it starts a clock would be helpful.

2) A player drops a match, either on purpose or due to connection problems. This should be an easy one....set a time limit and if the player who drops connection does not re-join, then he is awarded a loss.

Or something like that...just some ideas..

JJ