[Zmud99]

Hi Folks !!

Concerning the "new features" of the vugraph i want to give you some informations about how it works and why some features seems not good as you expected...

I'm in charge of the Vugraph in Istanbul and believe me , everybody on the site ( i speak about more than 140 bridge teams ) are impressed by the work that Fred and Uday did during these 2 last months to display such a lot of informations to the players...

you have to realize that there is 4 main screens in the theatre from BBO ( open room action , close room action + 2 screens displaying standings and scores updated boards by boards in real time )...

But i have to give you some precisions regarding some points that maybe help you to understand what's happenning

1) WBF and Organizers here didn't want to display standings for the 3 first day during the play that's why standings screens were not updated at the beginning of the event..now it's ok and you can have the standings of each groups updated boards by boards but you must wait 2 or 3 boards before get them because the play restart before we have time to entered them all...so have just to enter the "standings feature" after 5 or 10 minutes or simply get out and re-enter at some time and you will see them and after they will update without any problem...

for the first match of the day (we enter standings during the night ) there will be no delay and you can reach them immediately...for the second and third match sometimes they don't appear immediately but after 5 or 10 mns they will appear correctly...

the Seniors event is not schedule at the same time ( they play 4 round per day ) and they appear just after the start ...

2) Concerning the scoreboards :

the tournament director here decided that all tables will NOT play the same set of boards at the same time ( because they don't have so much set of boards ). so some tables start to play boards 1-10 and some tables start to play with board 11-20 ...
But , and i think that you can easily understand why , for obvious security reasons , WBF and Organizers of the Olympiads have STRICTLY FORBID US to display ANY scoreboards during the play !!

and , because all the screens we display here are also display on internet in the same time , Fred and Uday have changed this feature at the very last moment to answered the official request ....so there's no scoreboards for any matches in the Round Robin phase ( except sometimes at the end of each round ) and that's why we don't enter any line-up because scoreboards are not display anyway !

the "scoreboard" feature ( with complete line-ups ) will appear from the first board for every matches of the KO phase....and you will aprecciate it for sure

3) sometimes some scores stay to 0-0 and seems to be freeze : even if tables plays different set of boards ( 1-10 or 11-20 ) , tables from the same match normally play the same set of boards to get comparisons immediately : unfortunately a lot of caddies who are in charge of this have made a mistake and have put DIFFERENT set of boards at tables of a same match : so during half of the match we don't have any comparisons and the score stay to 0-0

4) i will just finish to help people who have difficulty to navigate throw the "features"...you can of course use "next" and "previous" or "stop" button but it seems more easy to use arrow key to move throw and the space bar to stop the scroll.....

If you have any questions about it , never hesitate i will answer you each day

Hope you will keep enjoy our work

Regards

Hervé

[mrdct]

Zmud99, on Oct 27 2004, 04:50 PM, said:

2) Concerning the scoreboards : the tournament director here decided that all tables will NOT play the same set of boards at the same time ( because they don't have so much set of boards ). so some tables start to play boards 1-10 and some tables start to play with board 11-20 ... But , and i think that you can easily understand why , for obvious security reasons , WBF and Organizers of the Olympiads have STRICTLY FORBID US to display ANY scoreboards during the play !!

Actually, I don't understand what the "obvious security reasons" are. The players are all meant to be completely quarantined from electronic, voice and physical communication during each match, so how can the display of scoreboards pose a security risk over and above the existing risk of hand data from boards 1 to X being widely available on the internet once a match has commenced. I assume players taking toilet breaks get escorted and are prevented from wandering in and out of the vugraph theatre. I think the WBF have got their priorities badly wrong. They need to realise that the online audience is many orders of magnitude greater than the onsite audience and ought to be directing their resources to providing a realtime results service on the web. I look forward to seeing the scoreboard functionality in the KO stage.

[ang]

I have 2 questions for Zmud99:

1. I note that the completed scoreboards facility will be available from the KO stages, but will only those from the current session of play be available or will it be possible to access earlier KO sessions as well.
2. The board review facility was not mentioned, but I understand that was also withdrawn for security reasons. Will that be reinstated for the KO stages? If so, will it be restricted to only the current session?

Note that people are drawing comparisons with what was provided by Swangames for Malmo and want to see historical data.

ang

[guggie]

Well, it is not perfect, but it is much quicker and up to date than the official site. I look at it a few times a day (Maybe also because The Netherlands is doing fine all over;-). Anyway it is an improvement.

[Zmud99]

Hi !

concerning 1) Uday can answer to it better than me...but i think that the previous scoreboards will be only reachable after the event when the database will be completed...

2) the boards facilities like the frequency of each deal and the result of that board in each match + the diagram will be ON during the KO stage...

to answer to mrdct...i totally agree with you but the WBF met a "big scandal" 4 years ago in Maastricht because some boards of the round robin have been displayed on internet and some players reached them ( even if players have been escorted to the toilets )...i spoke to Jose Damiani and he was clear , he said to me : " no boards on internet because they don't play the same board at the same time...i don't want to face the 'chaos crisis' i met four years ago !! " and finally i understand him...Olympiads are the biggest event in the world and security problem is a key point for the credibility of that event...

i will finish in saying that José Damiani is supporting a lot BBO in each wbf event and he allow us to be the 'official Vugraph' on site...thanks to him !

i know that it's frustating not to have all the features but i think that we have to proove that we are able to handle the security problem first...

regards

Hervé

[uday]

We'll have all the data in a DB at the end of the event, so i'll try to throw together some web pages to access it, or someone can volunteer and i'll send over the mysqldump output

[ang]

I don't know if this is under the auspices of BBO, but people have been asking when Butler scores will be available.

ang

[uday]

One of the WBF programmers will, i think , do this -- at least, he has asked for a copy of the data and says that that is why he wants it.

[DenisO]

uday, on Oct 29 2004, 02:33 AM, said:

We'll have all the data in a DB at the end of the event, so i'll try to throw together some web pages to access it, or someone can volunteer and i'll send  over the mysqldump output

Hi Uday

Whoever does this, can I suggest they look at the RAMA results service for the recent European Teams Championships at Malmo. This would make a good template. The only thing I could criticise was the absence of player names in the match data pages; the URL is:

http://www.swangames...?eventid=200159

Denis

[Dwingo]

Scope for improved clarity?

If a particular deal has been played in the Other Room, the Results of Other Room is displayed on the Left Top corner , below the Names of teams. This is done in a dark blue blackground. I have difficulty reading the contract , if the contract in the other room is in the black suits.

I dont know, how it appears when this screen is projected to big Vugraph screens, but atleast on my PC Monitor it strains my eye and I find it difficult to differentiate the club from the spade. Or is it my eyes that is a problem?

Godwin

[inquiry]

I second this, it is very hard to see if the symbol is a club or a spade... but here you can easily read the level of the contract (2.3. 4, 6 etc) and the direction (who is declarer), and a look at the hand tells you whether the difficult to see symbol is a club or a spade in 98 out of 100 cases....

Still.. an easier to read symbol would be nice.

Ben

[Deanrover]

The service is markedly improved.

i) The scores are now very up to date
ii) The "movie" bug is fixed

One thing about the movie however is that you can not see play by play accounts, even if the match had been broadcast on BBO. This would be a fantastic (and logical) feature.

The general problems with navigation still exist. Many have mentioned the example of Swan Games coverage of the European Championships as an example for BBO to aspire to, and I support this.

Dean

[mrdct]

On the whole, I think the BBO coverage of the Olympiad has been pretty-much a fiasco. It seems that the old adage of "Poor Planning and Preparation leads to Piss-Poor Performance" has well and truly come into play. It seems that a combination of under-resourcing and inadequate planning on the part of the WBF, BBO and the venue in Istanbul have acted to generate this sub-standard coverage of the Olympiad.

My spies in Istanbul tell me that there have rarely been any more than 100 spectators in the onsite vugraph theatre (compared to 3000 - 6000 online viewers for most sessions) which suggests to me that a monumentally disproportionate amount of resource has gone into the onsite product which appears to be at the expense of the online product.

The simplest thing that appears to have been overlooked is the availability of a back-up system (most sensibly a dial-up account with a local ISP) to enable continuity of coverage for at least one table in the event that the venue's IT network fails (as it has several times during this event).

For mulit-table vugraph coverage of events that I have coordinated, I have always thoroughly tested the reliability of the network several weeks before the event (usually by having four machines all hooked up and kibitzing a table in the Main Room) and made sure I had an analog telephone line and a nice long telephone cable to one table in the event of network failure.

With only a couple of days to go before the Open Teams Final, I hope the people in Istanbul can get their act together.

[Erkson]

mrdct, on Nov 3 2004, 01:53 AM, said:

On the whole, I think the BBO coverage of the Olympiad has been pretty-much a fiasco...

I don't think so, and I would like a poll on it.

Quote

My spies in Istanbul tell me that there have rarely been any more than 100 spectators in the onsite vugraph theatre...

Yes, but onsite vugraph is an obligation, and it must be as perfect as possible.

Quote

The simplest thing that appears to have been overlooked is the availability of a back-up system (most sensibly a dial-up account with a local ISP) to enable continuity of coverage for at least one table in the event that the venue's IT network fails (as it has several times during this event).

Venue's IT network failures are unforgivable.

Erkson

[DenisO]

mrdct, on Nov 3 2004, 01:53 AM, said:

On the whole, I think the BBO coverage of the Olympiad has been pretty-much a fiasco.  .

I think fiasco may be somewhat OTT but I agree with the general sentiments. The Olympiad should be a showcase event but the coverage on many sessions, especially the KO stages has been second rate. It is totally unforgiveable to lose all internet connection for 6000 odd specs especially when we can see that e-bridge with its 50 or so kibbers is still up and running! And what has happened to the promises about coverage of six tables at every session - seems to have been totally forgotten.

Denis

[didier17]

mrdct, on Nov 3 2004, 02:53 AM, said:

My spies in Istanbul tell me that there have rarely been any more than 100 spectators in the onsite vugraph theatre (compared to 3000 - 6000 online viewers for most sessions) which suggests to me that a monumentally disproportionate amount of resource has gone into the onsite product which appears to be at the expense of the online product.

I's not true for the match i see.
Yesterday in the evening (in france), more than 450 on each table and in the week end i see more than 1500 on a match.

Yeterday I think we are more than 6500 on BBO at 21h00 in France, an at the end of retransmission this number fell.

[uday]

I dont want to bore you with my tech troubles, but i'll summarize.

As the system grows, we find new issues that didnt exist under lighter load.

The vugraphs boosted BBO attendance, and we found a new issue (the cause of the sluggishness during the early Olympiad vugraphs ) that only manifested at loads of 4500+ users (which we hadnt seen before, except once). We fixed the issue, and we're ok now. Until the next time.

In an ideal world (dream world) the big bridge organizations would take it on themselves to tap into the reach of the Internet for every one of their Tourneys, and do it professionally. Things get better each year, but arent we still using volunteers for the data entry for vugraph, for the most part? And definitely volunteers for the commentary. And a free site for the broadcasts (us, that is. We dont mind in the least, of course)

Talk to your own bridge organization. Tell them you'd be delighted to pay a larger membership fee if it would be used towards internet support of big events. If you are not part of a bridge organization , you probably are not contributing to the WBF, so you can't be too surprised that the support is weaker than you like. Or, tell BBO -- maybe we can find a way to collect $$ and use them for increased coverage at tourneys by paying for volunteers. We do this sometimes, but it is expensive, and I dont think we really have the resources.

One of the reasons we all missed that exciting last quarter in the last Vanderbilt (when Meckwell came back to win 70-something IMPs in 16 boards to knock our Jacobs) is that there were not enough volunteers to do the data entry for both matches. So the ACBL TDs had to choose which one to put up. I helped them to select the "other" match But we shouldnt have had to choose.

The Istanbul guys have been pretty good about posting many matches at once. Some exceptions in the early days (volunteers again) and once, I asked them to show only one match (while i was trying to figure out the cause of the sluggishnes ) . Once , a team withdrew, and there was nothing to show.

Fiasco is a strong word.

[spwdo]

Hi,

i thought of a minor improvement also.

Seeing lately several broadcast about vugraph playing details like " (Broadcast): so the play in that room is very very very...slow...apologize for this...
(Broadcast): appeal just change 4 imps and a missunderstanding in the official scorecard for the other 26 imps
(Broadcast): Concerning Board 20...we asked Bocchi and he replied that China's player discarded his !H then Bocchi's !H became good enough to permit him to discard from dummy...so the score is ...
(Broadcast): 4!S just made )

Looking at these broadcast, maybe it is a good thing to have a chatoption to vugraph spectators only.

When someone is inside a tourney , there is no use for these broadcasts to be displayed. Im not talking about events to come(shedule) xx is playing in xx min in xx room.


Marc

[fred]

The following reality check is brought to you by the people responsible for the Istanbul fiasco. These people, and the role they played in creating the fiasco, are listed below:

1) Uday (programmer).

For the past 2 weeks he has been working at least 18 hours a day trying to keep our server running. He has had to overcome problems like:

- our service provider was providing poor service in terms of network connectivity and speed
- our service provider was providing poor (and sometimes evasive) service with respect to technical support
- the Internet connection at the playing site in Istanbul was unexpectedly unreliable (before the tournament we had been assured that this would not happen)
- our other programmer (me) was in Istanbul and not in a position to offer much help since I had other responsibilities.
- the person who runs our office (Sheri) was in Istanbul and not in a position to offer much help since she had other responsibilities. Uday therefore had to deal with all office matters while we were gone.
- the numbers we experienced caused unexpected strain on our server
- last minute "security concerns" by the WBF meant a lot of last minute programming by both Uday and myself. This also resulted in our having to limit the standings data that had been planning on making available.

By the way. We have good reason to believe that Uday has made a change that will have a positive impact on the speed and stability of your connections.

2) Wojela, marekw, libido, marcin (Bridge Base Poland):

These VOLUNTEERS have worked day and night for 2 weeks as our core operators. Some last minute funding meant that I could pay for their airline tickets, but they covered all of their other expenses themselves.

3) Nafiz (organizer)

He and Wojela were doing the best they could to organize enough operators for at least 6 tables per session. Before the tournament started, Nafiz was our liasson with the Turkish Bridge Federation. He arranged for each BBO vugraph table to have it's own physical room at the playing site.

Nafiz, our Turkish yellow, is a warm and wonderful host, not only on BBO, but also in his own country. He lives in Ankara, not Istanbul. He paid all of his own expenses during the past 2 weeks.

4) Zmud99 and gamb (vugraph at playing site)

They worked just about as many hours as Uday each day and had a lot of responsibilities (some of which they had not expected). It was Zmud's initiative that got BBO to be the official vugraph of the WBF. He also arranged for the WBF to pay us to create the new standings facilities (money=good - we tend to spend it on you). He spent much of September and early October testing these features. The WBF was paying Zmud and gamb for their work.

5) Other VOLUNTEER operators (including jjsb who was PLAYING in the Olympiad)

6) Scorers (people type in the results of every board - 5 of these I think). They were being paid by the WBF. The Olympiad is a massive tournament that generates a massive amount of data.

7) The WBF. They spent a lot of money and gave us free access to their employees and facilities at the playing site. WBF President Jose Damiani, along with several other WBF people, have been huge supporters of the BBO project.

7) Me (programmer)

During late August, all of September, and the start of November, the primary project that Uday and were working on was the new standings features.

Our original plan was to NOT allow BBO users to access the standings facilities - only people in the audience in Istanbul would be able to see this data. We changed our minds a couple of weeks before Istanbul started, but there was not enough time to create a nice interface for filtering the information or customozing the appearance of the screens (it was important for us to release a new version quickly since the "autoupgrade" process puts addition strain on our server).

So I apologize for not giving you a nicer interface, but at least I gave you the ability to access the data. The interface will be nicer in time for next year's World Championships.

I also apologize for the bad background color for the "other table result". Color coding the background color of this field was a last minute change. The colors I picked looked nice on my laptop, but I should have tested them on other PCs. In the next version you will be able to choose whatever color you want (and the default will not be dark blue anymore).

I was the one who made the decision to put the standings information in the BBO client program's window (as opposed to a separate window or on a web page). Believe it or not, I actually thought about this decision before I made it. I suspect that those of you who criticized this decision do not understand all of the issues I had to consider (or the time that I had).

Those of you who compare us to Swan are comparing apples and oranges (besides the web/no web thing, there were roughly 4 times as many tables to score in Istanbul as there were in Malmo and we were constrained by "security issues" that did not exist in Malmo).

8) Commentators and organizers of commentators (I don't know how many people fit into this category, but it is well over 100 for sure).

These people are all VOLUNTEERS. Some of these are among the best players in the world and are normally paid hundreds of dollars per hour for their bridge services. For several reasons these people often had little or no warning as to which matches were going to be broadcast. This made their task difficult (especially for the organizers).

In my opinion, the tone of some of the e-mails in this thread does a serious disservice to the fine people listed above. We were all doing the best we could under difficult circumstances (most of which were out of our control) to provide you a FREE service of the best possible quality. Sure we could have done better in some areas, but we will know that for next time.

We really are trying hard.

I also do not like the suggestion that we "hype" things in the lobby news that, because they are not perfect, are not worthy of being "hyped". Nor do I like the suggestion that we "broke our promise" to you by not providing you with the 6 tables at all times that thought there would be. In some cases this was due to the fact that we did not have quite enough volunteers. Later in the tournament it became a matter of survival - the load of 6 tables put an additional burden on our poor server. I we had "kept our promise" nobody would have been able to log in.

Constructive criticism is always welcome. We try listen to it and a lot of our members' suggestions eventually find their way into BBO. The pace at which we improve our software makes our "competitors" (many of which are not free sites) look like snails.

There is really no need for a bunch of "We do appreciate free BBO, Fred" followup posts and e-mails. I know that most of you feel this way. Those of you make rude posts about our hard work likely appreciate us too. No need to apologize - just please be a little more careful with your choice of words (and do a quick reality check) next time you have something to say.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Deanrover]

"Those of you make rude posts about our hard work likely appreciate us too."

Fred, I think you are taking this far too personally. No one has personally attacked you, Uday, Sheri, Herve etc. on this post.

I have not noticed anyone claim that you are not working hard.

When you claim that BBO could not aspire to Swan's coverage of Malmo as they are apples and oranges, I think you miss the point. Swan's coverage included features such as the ability to click on a team name and and have all their results listed. Since all this data had already been entered into the system the fact that there were 4 times as many tables as in Malmo is really irrelevant.

The fact is that the coverage has been disappointing in many ways. Yes, I appreciate it and yes it is much better than before. But we have the right to point of specific areas that could be improved upon.

I am 99% certain that no one is that people are posting in here in order to disparage your work. On the contrary, because BBO usually achieves the highest levels of excellence, this creates exceptional levels of anticipation and then an innovation has significant flaws it is bound to be disappointing. I hope that you can take the criticisms here in a constructive light and implement some improvements.