The 2013 CQ Ranking Manager Game

[SteelyDan]

Firstly Congratulations. Secondly, I refer only to changing the rule going forward into next year, which was hopefully clear from my post. You are very much correct in saying the rules are what the rules are, but perhaps you can concede that a slight flaw in the rules has been revealed. Also don't think Geraint is suggesting that the game should wait for Meintjes - indeed he seems to hope Meintjes doesnt score any more points.

Thirdly as winner in 2013, would you be interested in doing a set of updates in 2014?

Thanks. Yes it is flawed. I knew this could happen. It doesn't matter to me because in my mind the rules and Cq ranking points are arbitrary anyways but I understand that some now want it to be about all of 2014. Fair enough. I'm not certain if I am familiar enough with Excel to do updates. Feel free to PM me with the details. When is the deadline for the game?

 

[ingsve]

One alternate solution could be to recruit the help of someone who isn't planning on participating in the game to collect the teams. I'm sure there are many regulars on this forum that aren't interested in participating so perhaps someone can be persuaded to act as a mail carrier.

 

[SteelyDan]

Just so my thoughts are in the thread...

I think #1 is probably the way to go - (maybe the first person that knows they arent going to change their team, rather than the first person). I cant see there being any satisfaction for someone who has already won the game once, to win again by trying to take advantage of knowledge of other teams. Also choosing all the popular riders is not always key to winning the game anyway. It might be worth aiming for the 1st for confirmation of your team though, as potentially a lot of teams will submit after that anyway, and if someone is wary of giving away a super secret pick, they could submit after that?

#2 I think has too many practical issues, and puts too much pressure of the data input.

Lortnoc - making sure take on the challenge of the two other long term games Youth and Emerging Riders - .

Choosing the most popular riders is not the key to winning the game but knowledge of other teams is an advantage for most participants I guess. Finetto would of been in my team for sure had I known. I trust skidmark though. He doesn't have to submit his team to anyone else for me.

 

[mc_mountain]

Thanks. Yes it is flawed. I knew this could happen. It doesn't matter to me because in my mind the rules and Cq ranking points are arbitrary anyways but I understand that some now want it to be about all of 2014. Fair enough. I'm not certain if I am familiar enough with Excel to do updates. Feel free to PM me with the details. When is the deadline for the game?

well it doesnt have to be the whole of 2014, just until its unrealistic that the leader will be overhauled (and the rest of the top places seem set) which was relatively early in both the first two years. the cycling season is a strange beast - the races now in africa and asia are part of the 2014 calendar, so perhaps the answer is to bring forward the start of the CQ game season but there would be plenty of obstacles to that and the start of the season wouldnt be as interesting as it is now with la tropicale amissa bongo, san luis, and tdu in january.

deadline will be a few days before the aussie nationals start on 8th january.

 

[Netserk]

One alternate solution could be to recruit the help of someone who isn't planning on participating in the game to collect the teams. I'm sure there are many regulars on this forum that aren't interested in participating so perhaps someone can be persuaded to act as a mail carrier.

Maybe ask a mod to create an e-mail that the teams will have to be send to? Then there wouldn't be a problem with the 50 limit.

 

[skidmark]

Maybe ask a mod to create an e-mail that the teams will have to be send to? Then there wouldn't be a problem with the 50 limit.

I actually was just alerted by MC that there's an option to have PMs forwarded to email, so that makes a difference. The main issue with setting up an email is that it of course eliminates the easy privacy/anonymity of the board, and adds another layer to go through. Ideally, it would be easiest if people could just send their teams from their personal accounts.

With regards to ingsve's suggestion, yeah that's a possibility, that someone not related to the game can volunteer to hold the data. The thing is, I'm familiar with the spreadsheets, I'm going to make the opening posts and edit to update the teams who have submitted, etc. So adding another person to communicate that to me could be excessive. I want to gauge how people feel about me processing teams while I still have some uncertainties in my team. Looking at it right now, there are 16 riders who are a lock for my team, and probably spending half an hour looking through my 115-rider long list will give me 5 more I can be for sure about. So I'm comfortable saying that I'll send a provisional team to the first person to submit their finalized team, but I want to give it a few days to give people a chance to say if they're really opposed to that, in which case we can explore more complicated options.

Of course, it'd be easier for everyone but me if I would just finalize my team right away, but I just don't want to do that. I think sending 20 riders for sure with another 30 I'm going to pick the rest of my team from is an okay compromise. Ultimately what I think I want to guard against is that I'll be alerted to a rider I've never considered by other people picking them, and this will be eliminated by limiting my team in such a way.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

I actually was just alerted by MC that there's an option to have PMs forwarded to email, so that makes a difference. The main issue with setting up an email is that it of course eliminates the easy privacy/anonymity of the board, and adds another layer to go through. Ideally, it would be easiest if people could just send their teams from their personal accounts.

With regards to ingsve's suggestion, yeah that's a possibility, that someone not related to the game can volunteer to hold the data. The thing is, I'm familiar with the spreadsheets, I'm going to make the opening posts and edit to update the teams who have submitted, etc. So adding another person to communicate that to me could be excessive. I want to gauge how people feel about me processing teams while I still have some uncertainties in my team. Looking at it right now, there are 16 riders who are a lock for my team, and probably spending half an hour looking through my 115-rider long list will give me 5 more I can be for sure about. So I'm comfortable saying that I'll send a provisional team to the first person to submit their finalized team, but I want to give it a few days to give people a chance to say if they're really opposed to that, in which case we can explore more complicated options.

Of course, it'd be easier for everyone but me if I would just finalize my team right away, but I just don't want to do that. I think sending 20 riders for sure with another 30 I'm going to pick the rest of my team from is an okay compromise. Ultimately what I think I want to guard against is that I'll be alerted to a rider I've never considered by other people picking them, and this will be eliminated by limiting my team in such a way.

You could send your whole long list of 115 (or 200 or whatever) riders to a forum regular who is not related to the game on the day the new thread is posted, as far as I'm concerned. Or even at a later date, if you don't accept teams until that later date and that is clearly stated in the opening post.

And then finalize your team at any time you want. I don't see a need to further compromise your options, by limiting yourself to 50 or so riders. I mean, there could be news that would make you reconsider a rider and then you're stuck with that shortened long list. That doesn't seem fair.

 

[Netserk]

I actually was just alerted by MC that there's an option to have PMs forwarded to email, so that makes a difference. The main issue with setting up an email is that it of course eliminates the easy privacy/anonymity of the board, and adds another layer to go through. Ideally, it would be easiest if people could just send their teams from their personal accounts.

Huh? Everyone here have registered their account with an e-mail, which is visible to some

That's why I suggested a mod should create the e-mail.

 

[mc_mountain]

Huh? Everyone here have registered their account with an e-mail, which is visible to some

That's why I suggested a mod should create the e-mail.

Unfortunately it is difficult to tell whether or not you are genuinely trying to be helpful. Put simply a mod setting up an email that skidmark will need access to doesnt maintain real life anonymity for anyone submitting their team. (no slight on skidmark intended)

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Unfortunately it is difficult to tell whether or not you are genuinely trying to be helpful. Put simply a mod setting up an email that skidmark will need access to doesnt maintain real life anonymity for anyone submitting their team. (no slight on skidmark intended)

I don't get why a mod needs to be involved period. Just because they already have access to other people's IPs and spam email accounts? Yeah, no, it might just as well be someone else. Same guarantee of privacy: none whatsoever. The person who'd set up the email doesn't get any more trustworthy because his or her user title says mod or admin. It makes no difference.

Good thing it's not necessary. "Private" messages are easier for everyone involved. If one inbox doesn't cut it, then the next logical step would, of course, be to use more than one forum account.

 

[Netserk]

Unfortunately it is difficult to tell whether or not you are genuinely trying to be helpful. Put simply a mod setting up an email that skidmark will need access to doesnt maintain real life anonymity for anyone submitting their team. (no slight on skidmark intended)

According to who?

Everyone here has an e-mail they used to register with. Every admin can already see that, so if they see it once again, you'll lose absolutely zero anonymity.

My suggestion is simply that a mod creates an e-mail like cqmanagerteams(a)hotmail.com. Then everyone send their team to that e-mail before deadline, and then after deadline the teams are send to skidmark. Only the mod of the e-mail will have access to the e-mail, so no personal information (that said mod doesn't already know) will be revealed to anyone.

It has the advantages that it solves the 'skidmark problem', that the inbox doesn't have a limit of 50 messages and that you don't have to have a CN account to participate in the game.

The only disadvantage is that people will have to use an e-mail they already have confirmed.

But whatever. It is just a suggestion. If you don't think I'm 'genuinely trying to be helpful', then just ignore it and come with a better solution.

 

[mc_mountain]

According to who?

Everyone here has an e-mail they used to register with. Every admin can already see that, so if they see it once again, you'll lose absolutely zero anonymity.

My suggestion is simply that a mod creates an e-mail like cqmanagerteams(a)hotmail.com. Then everyone send their team to that e-mail before deadline, and then after deadline the teams are send to skidmark. Only the mod of the e-mail will have access to the e-mail, so no personal information (that said mod doesn't already know) will be revealed to anyone.

It has the advantages that it solves the 'skidmark problem', that the inbox doesn't have a limit of 50 messages and that you don't have to have a CN account to participate in the game.

The only disadvantage is that people will have to use an e-mail they already have confirmed.

But whatever. It is just a suggestion. If you don't think I'm 'genuinely trying to be helpful', then just ignore it and come with a better solution.

Well as it stands it will be ok anyway, as per the notifications thing I mentioned to skidmark. the problem with how you have set it out is skidmark will have to input over 100 teams in a few hours or days, (or expect the mod in question to forward them on regularly as they are submitted) and then comunicate with all the people that have tallied up their teams wrong or chosen ineligible riders. It just doesnt seem sensible to me to involve a 3rd party or move away for using PMs.

(sidenote its not possible to cut and paste teams from emails directly into the spreadsheet - the whole team ends up in one cell, whereas it is from PMs)

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Well as it stands it will be ok anyway, as per the notifications thing I mentioned to skidmark. the problem with how you have set it out is skidmark will have to input over 100 teams in a few hours or days, (or expect the mod in question to forward them on regularly as they are submitted) and then comunicate with all the people that have tallied up their teams wrong or chosen ineligible riders. It just doesnt seem sensible to me to involve a 3rd party or move away for using PMs.

(sidenote its not possible to cut and paste teams from emails directly into the spreadsheet - the whole team ends up in one cell, whereas it is from PMs)

Agreed. Regardless, when more people get involved the possibility of the game being compromised will increase, not decrease, IMO.

 

[skidmark]

Okay, I get what you're saying, netserk. I didn't realize that people's email info was accessible, mostly because I've never cared enough to look. Either way, there is some level of (perceived?) anonymity that I like about the boards, and a level of simplicity in terms of administrating the game through a board user account.

And thanks for the suggestions, 18-valve and mc, it's actually good to know about the copy/paste thing. I said this a few days ago, and I've become more sure of my position on this, but I feel like it's simplest to just keep it in PM under my account. I have never really played around with user preferences, so I didn't even know you could forward PMs to email, or download the text of your PMs, both of which will help keep my inbox from filling, even if I can't process the teams right away. Hell, I've been on the forum since the first week it was around and never erased any PMs until yesterday (ie. I had less than 50 for the whole span of this board; I don't use PMs much). So I feel pretty fine about updating the spreadsheet often, and especially paying attention on the first day for accepting teams and the deadline day, to make sure messages don't go over 50. It really shouldn't be hard.

I also think that a) it's good to start the thread early enough to build some hype as people have probably been working on their teams already and b) it's good to start accepting teams as soon as the thread is started. So with that in mind, my goal is to start it (and start accepting teams) by next weekend. Unless I hear dramatic arguments to the contrary, I'm going to send my provisional team (as defined in previous posts) to the first person to submit their team.

 

[Netserk]

Okay, I get what you're saying, netserk. I didn't realize that people's email info was accessible, mostly because I've never cared enough to look. Either way, there is some level of (perceived?) anonymity that I like about the boards, and a level of simplicity in terms of administrating the game through a board user account.

I totally get why it's preferable to use PMs, as that has been used the previous years. As for copying, in e-mails, it'd be better to attach an excel file with your team on the e-mail (the same file we use to check if prices of riders are correct).

 

[search]

having to open dozens of attachements just to copy it into another excel file afterwards anyway sounds like a lot of useless work to be honest