Jancouver said:
Thanks!
Just what I was looking for.
Quite honestly after all these minor disputes, I really wish the crowd would have decided to go with some online version over the spreadsheet. Unfortunately we have all voted to stick with the spreadsheet and none of these issues would happen if we had an online game.
With online game, the website can simply check for validity of each team on submission and for duplicate values. It would also display all the riders with all their point values.
Looking at the sheet, you can clearly see a bunch of (probably new) teams that forgot to fill their teams with zero pointers and dont have full roster. Assuming those players made the rookie mistake because they didnt know where to look for those zero pointers.
Perhaps, since the admins for this game were allowing to make changes for those who made mistake by getting over the limit or by selecting duplicated riders, they could also point these errors to those submitting "incomplete" teams.
In my opinion, we should still let them fill their teams with zero pointers since we did allow changes to others after the deadline.
Again, this is just my opinion, and you do not have to start a war with me. We can all make this game better by having conversation about all these minor flaws.
to echo what skidmark said, the spreadsheet for me is still the way to go. but that isnt to say that the website wasnt amazing. when it wasnt password protected and updated regularly, i could check it at work and quickly gauge the impact of a race result. but later that day at home using the spreadsheet i could manually alter the tab with cq download data in and i could see how 80 points for a Demare win would change the whole of the rankings.
for CQManager to put in all the effort to maintain the website, he perfectly reasonably felt it needed to be either or. I probably lobbied quite hard to keep the spreadsheet, but that doesnt mean I dont value the website. CQManager very graciously added the data last year (skidmark the major advantage of the website version is you can instantly see which other teams have a rider on your team with a click of a mouse, you can also see with which team you have the most commonality or how common your team is with any other. the first of these things you can get the spreadsheet to tell you but it takes a bit of work - either manipulate the score of the rider in CQ results tab or the method that DJ Sprtsch outlines but it would take a lot of work to get the spreadsheet to provide the commonality data as far as I can tell).
because CQManager added the data last year, myself and skidmark made a massive effort to get the data he would need (this on the popularity tab) in the hope that he would do so again. Following his post I have PM'd him to politely ask if would do so, and suggest that anyone else who would like to see how many riders they match with other teams should also send him a PM). as yet i havent had a response from CQManager. Although from his post criticising my role in the game he indicated that he was keen to do so, so hopefully he can be persuaded.
but this demonstrates one thing to me, it is possible to create the website from the spreadsheet, but at present I cant see a way that it would be possible to create the spreadsheet from the website. If you, Jancouver, or CQManager can see a way to do that that could be an AMAZING thing. Although I can see there being some issues with what you describe jancouver in that to submit a 33 man team into the website (assuming it is done in the same way as for the 9 man GT teams), could take maybe 15 minutes to do, whereas cut and paste a team into a pm might take 30 secs. how would the website deal with zero pointers that dont appear on the CQ Download (but appear on the website and can be checked manually).
The slight problems we have had this year, can easily be ironed out in a second year with the current organisational staff (would likely not have occurred this year if I had given some better advice to skidmark), and the idea that there is a cooling off period seems like a sensible one just in case. perhaps this would need to be reinforced with a symbolic 50 point penalty for anyone that posts their team early (as, wow, are people keen to post their teams!)
I think your rookie mistake remarks are a red herring and go against your previous statements about mistakes and also seem contrary to the statements you make of the advantages of an automatic system of team submission via a website (will the website generate this advice for rookies?). The value of making a rookie mistake to the rookie is that they are unlikely to make that mistake again. they can also say to themselves throughout the year, 'boy, if i'd just have included some zero pointers I would be 10 places higher in the ranking' and hopefully that will spur them on to play again, knowing they can improve their strategy.
yes a constructive conversation is definitely the way to go, that's why I am a little surprised not to have receive a reply to my PM. Anyway I hope you will no longer to consider any team in this game as being void.
One last thing, it has been pointed out that a) i have quite a popular team and b) have had access to the spreadsheet before everyone else.
skidmark I am sure will be happy to confirm that I only had access to the spreadsheet of teams after the deadline and that my team was submitted several days before the deadline.
sorry for epic post.