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 Team match creation functionality |
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Team match creation
I have personally addressed this issue by message with GameKnot on three separate occasions and there have been at least four lengthy threads in various fora addressing the issue. I received the standard boilerplate response from GameKnot to my messages and, to my knowledge, no headway has resulted from the forum discussions. That said, I would be happy to join any plan of action you have to get some basic changes made that would benefit all captains with creating matches. Lead the charge and I will follow.
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bevo_xv
It doesn't sound as though they'll be particularly receptive then.
I'll read up on the other fora and then see if Gameknot would be open to discussion. I guess if enough premium members make their views known then it would have more clout than any one individual.
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TEAM MATCHES
I am probably the lone wolf here but i don't think matches should be set up by a computer program.
it takes away the human element of the players.
the captain knows his/her players, they make the best decisions, they know the players tendencies, if their game is off , if their on, etc.
Automation is not always the best.
just my opinion.
mike d,
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I'm sure others have given this a lot more thought over the years but the process of sending a challenge to another team seems overly complicated.
One way to make it more efficient would be, when challenging a team, to be able to view members of that team who are available for team matches. Upon selecting them you could be presented with potential matches from your own team who meet certain baseline criteria (eg rating +/- a certain amount, day per move preference etc). You then select players and submit to the other team who can accept or propose alternate players.
Or alternatively you could select members of your own team to match and be shown teams with suitable opponents, which you can toggle between.
A fairly simple UI change like this would probably be a couple of days for a developer to implement but would save a lot of time on every match set up.
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I think it would be very helpful to have some sort of automatic pairing system. After the pairings are suggested, we as captains can decide whether we are happy with them or not. If not, we can turn them down and try again. Personally, it would take a great deal of work from me. Even though I have a small team, I try to match as closely as I can, current ratings, approx. 90 day ratings, general 90 day averages and times per move. I also use the chart a lot, and can dismiss a match very fast by the chart. I use the statistics more to keep the captains satisfied. I know that mikemate has been trying to accomplish an automatic pairing system with GameKnot for a long time. Obviously, Captain Bevo has also.
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My idea
The process that I have in mind and have suggested to GameKnot several times is far from an automated pairing system. Let's say you have 2 players for whom you wish to find a match. One player is rated 1250 with a 90 day average of 1275 and you are willing to go +/- 25 current rating pts and +/- 50 90 day average rating. The second player is rated 1500 with a 90 day average of 1475 and you are willing to go +/- 30 current points and +/- 60 90 day average rating. Upon request, the system would present you with a screen where you would enter something like this:
Player_______Max. Current_____Min. Current____Max. 90 day avg.___Min. 90 day avg.
You would fill in the blanks as follows:
Frank_______ ___1275 _________1225 ___________1325_____________1225
Bill_____________1470_________1530____________1445_____________1505
The GameKnot system would then search the player database to find a team that has available players meeting the two specified criteria and give you a list of those teams. The captain would then look at those teams and make any desired challenge in the current manner. The only "automation" is finding teams matching your desired criteria so that you do not need to look at teams one by one until you find a team with available players matching your requirements.
Other selection criteria could be included such as one year high rating, lifetime high rating, time per move, number of days per move (3,5 7) and available for a match (green dot) and others. I spend a lot of time flipping through every team to find one team who has available players for a fair match with my players. This system would reduce the number of teams I must search through to only a very few teams for each challenge.
I do not see this as a terribly complicated programming issue as it is basically an expansion of the advanced player search function already in place.
I hope this clarifies the idea that I have presented to GameKnot on multiple occasions. I anyone has an idea how to get the attention of the GameKnot developers, I am open to suggestion.
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I sent Gameknot a message to ask if they would consider some feature enhancement ideas. Their response is as follows
"Thank you for contacting us regarding this matter. We always welcome all comments and suggestions.
Please use the same "Contact us" form to write to us, and we will forward your message to the
appropriate team for further consideration. Regretfully we are unable to offer feedback about
submitted suggestions, or discuss whether it was accepted for implementation, or commit to a time
frame for when it will be implemented.
Thank you for choosing GameKnot as your premier online chess battleground!"
So this seems to suggest that they would at least consider an idea, even though they would provide no feedback.
Perhaps the best approach would be to agree as a group exactly what is wanted and then send it in with the details of everyone who supports it. A long list of names would add weight to any suggestion.
I guess the question is whether enough people would be interested enough to put their name to any proposal. I'd be happy to submit it in a developer friendly format if there was enough support to make it worthwhile.
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I wonder if someone could create a stand-alone script that was either web-based or PC based that would allow one to enter certain players and parameters. Then the human element can remain in the selection of players without having to open a bunch of windows to evaluate players.
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Based on my previous discussions regarding this issue, I don't think we would have any trouble getting 20 or more captains to endorse a well written, sensible suggestion for decreasing the amount of time captains must spend to find appropriate challenges for their players. I would certainly be one of them.
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I certainly would sign it.
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Let's make a list here on this thread of actionable recommendations that Gameknot could make. What script could Gameknot add to make this happen? What features do you want the script to have? What benefits would be derived from this for team captains? And how would Gameknot benefit from such a script? If there is no benefit to them, why should they do this for us? Let's look at it from their perspective as much as from ours.
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Hear us, Gameknot??
My ideas have always revolved around modifying/enhancing the advanced player search function
as Ro bevo_xv has suggested. And Shirley's first post addresses the negative issue brought up by
mike d. Clearly it would be beneficial for all Captains to have a semi-automated pairing system.
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bevo_xv
If we're going to put in a feature request then why not make it a little more ambitious?!
1) Go to a screen a little like this one gameknot.com
2) Enter time per move and max rating difference. Perhaps max 90 day too or other criteria.
3) Click players from your team that you wish to match.
4) Click a 'find me a match' button
5) It searches, as you suggest, and shows a list of teams who are possible matches based on the criteria of 2) and players who are available for a team match.
This approach is the same idea as yours but cuts out having to enter the players names and look up their various ratings, making it much quicker to do.
To me it would make sense to then take it one stage further.
6) Click on a the suggested team you'd like to create a match with and be shown their available players matching the criteria
7) Select the desired players on the opposing team and send the team a match request
8) Other team reviews and either accepts (match starts with one less step than at present), declines (match terminated) or amends (suggests different players from their team)
9) If the team amends in 8) then the original team can accept or decline, as normal.
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5imon
Of course, you are right. I didn't think through my example. Instead of entering your player's name, just a click on the players to match and fill in their criteria fields. This is what I have envisioned and furthering this idea to GameKnot has my full endorsement.
This does not interfere with the decision making process of either captain to make or reject a challenge, it simply makes finding a team to challenge more efficient.
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Sounds great. I hope you can get it up and running. I am sure that many captains will sign such a petition.
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That first process assumes that your starting point is knowing which of your own players you want to find a match for. What if instead you want to set up a match with a particular team?
1) Click 'challenge team' and be shown available players on that team.
2) Enter time to move, max rating difference etc.
3) Select desired players on opposing team.
4) Click a 'find me a match' button
5) It searches and shows matching players on your own team.
6) Select desired players and propose match.
7) Other team reviews and either accepts, declines or amends as above.
8) If the team amends then the original team can accept or decline, as normal.
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5imon
Speaking only for myself, I have not used this method of finding a match in 12 years as captain. Perhaps this would be of benefit to others, but I would hate to complicate the request to GameKnot to the point where they are not willing to implement our plan because it is too complex. I would rather go only with the original idea to find a match for my players in the hope it will be simple and easy enough to understand that GameKnot will implement the plan. I will, of course also endorse your additional idea if the majority likes it, but my vote goes for the original idea only.
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ok
Let's stick with the first only. If implemented then we can always send in another request later.
Can we get a good list of people who support it? It would be great to add their names to the bottom of the request.
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5imon
You can count me in as the first endorsement of your plan. I hope many, many other captains will join us.
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Just to say that I submitted the idea. I didn't include a list of names as I thought that bevo_xv and shirlmygirl was hardly a quarum.
I don't think we get any feedback so now we just have to wait and see if Caissa smiles upon us.
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Thank you 5imon
I don't think there is a lack of interest in your idea. I believe captains who have been around for a long time have seen this idea floated so many times, only to see it sink into the black hole of GameKnot suggestions, that they are reluctant to get their hopes up once again.
Thank you, 5imon, for bringing this improvement to GameKnot's attention once again. As you said, we will just hope for the best.
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What usually happens with a suggestion that GameKnot doesn't really want to entertain is that they respond that it has been referred to the "Development Committee", whoever that might be, if there really is such a committee. After receiving such an answer, I don't really expect a positive response from GameKnot. The last suggestion I made to GameKnot was that all timeouts be removed from a player's record that occurred more than three years ago. I don't think I even got a response to that one. But to remove all old timeouts would certainly help in determining the chance of a specific player timing out. Some players have huge timeouts, I have seen them in the hundreds, but they are well back in their records. Give those players a break, is what I say.
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Advanced Player Search
Found today a new tool to seek a suitable opponent for one of our player that has 90-day rating over 150 points over present rating. It's Advanced Player Search. I can have a list of players that have same situation. Would be very helpful if there were a search option "Only players that are available for team games"! Now need to check one by one but it helps a lot!
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My experience with Advanced Player Search has been disappointing. Most of the time they are not on a team, and when they are, they have no available team games so their signal is not on. Sorry if this puts a damper on your enthusiasm, Tapanis, but perhaps it will work out for you. I do a lot of extensive searching through the teams to find my players suitable opponents.
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With regard to my post above, Tapanis' statement that, ""Only players that are available for team games", would be a great option. It is difficult to get GameKnot to make such changes.
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I use the Advance Player Search quite often for players I struggle to find matches. When searching, I always start out within 20 points below and above the current and top 90 day ratings. I also put a minimum of 100 points in the team rating, that way it's easier to find those on a team. Of course not all of them will be on a team now, but it narrows down the list.
I also put in a minimum of 100 finished games, to avoid brand new players, and a minimum of 2 active games, which can help with avoiding those who are hardly active and not on a team. I might also set 'Makes Moves' to 'At least once a day' to avoid really slow players, but if the search has low results then I'll make tweaks to those search numbers.
I think I actually find what I'm looking for 80% of the time, which is pretty good. Granted it takes some time, and I may have to wait a bit for responses in some cases, but it's been helpful for me when looking for those tough matches.
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Thanks for the advice, Joe. Shirley.
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I am a strong advocate of using the Advance Player Search as Joe described. It is especially
effective finding multiple games for those hard to match mates, like high 90 day ratings and/or
high rated players (over 2000).
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Hi Hamot
I might be looking at it from a different perspective but most e-solutions require historical, current, and updating of information. Gameknot is not willing to let others use their data.
AdammBomm
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