Difference between revisions of "Ladle Feedback"

From Armagetron
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** Spammer!  Heh.  Um, there are some mediawiki extensions that might help.  In particular there's a countoff extension that lets you countoff until a certain date/time, and a couple of different calendar widgets.  There is also at least one complete php-based web application for handling lan parties that I looked at as possibly being useful for running the ladle (and other tournaments).  The only problem with that one is that it's setup for LAN parties so it may have certain security flaws that aren't important in a lan party but are if you want to run it on the internet.  Anyway, if you guys think there's software we can throw on any problem to help fix it, I'm game to do it.  --[[User:Lucifer|Lucifer]] 00:11, 5 September 2006 (CDT)
 
** Spammer!  Heh.  Um, there are some mediawiki extensions that might help.  In particular there's a countoff extension that lets you countoff until a certain date/time, and a couple of different calendar widgets.  There is also at least one complete php-based web application for handling lan parties that I looked at as possibly being useful for running the ladle (and other tournaments).  The only problem with that one is that it's setup for LAN parties so it may have certain security flaws that aren't important in a lan party but are if you want to run it on the internet.  Anyway, if you guys think there's software we can throw on any problem to help fix it, I'm game to do it.  --[[User:Lucifer|Lucifer]] 00:11, 5 September 2006 (CDT)
  
== Feedback for the Second Ladle ==
+
== Previous Feedback ==
;Sky
 
:for the sake of fairness. could teams not be allowed to adopt players at the last second unless theyre in the registered team? so a team doesnt get a huge boost. instead maybe have teams substitute players to adjust to the amount of players on the other team.
 
;2020
 
:Ping was a big determiner in who won the matches. Ideas suggested during the game was to split the final between two servers. Also, the captains did not make use of the challenge room in the wiki. It was all just organised before the matches, which was ok because we only have four teams of about five players each. The idea is for the system to be future-proof, scalable to hundreds if not thousands of team... I can't see this working that well with more than four teams. I think team captains should take a little more responsibillity for making sure they choose a server that suits their players. And of course, it is the responsibility of the players to turn up! Oh well... Also... it would be nice to have little animations of the highlight, specific moves, climax battles, that kind of thing... can I change the format of the recording to make it quicktime? [[User:2020|2020]]
 
;Lackadaisical
 
:Would it be possible to do the next ladle on a sunday and maybe a bit earlier? Saturday night isn't the best time to go play a computergame for the europeans.
 
  
;Meriton
+
*[[Ladle-1/Feedback]]
:The time the event takes place (start at 11:30 PM) is a bit tough for me. Might it be possible to indulge us European players and have it take place a couple of hours earlier next time? Personally, I prefer Saturday to Sunday as I have to get up early on Mondays.
+
*[[Ladle-2/Feedback]]
----
 
 
 
;Manta
 
:If we are to drop scheduled games again from not enough teams show, we should move those matches up in time instead of delaying. WS lost half their players do to the time being changed. We do need to work out the scheduling on the wiki better next time as the matches ended up being switched right before game time.
 
 
 
:The procedural changes made since the last ladle really improved things. You did a GREAT job coordinating everything 2020. Thank you! Team coordination seemed to flow very well and having an admin on hand was a big help. The team captains were able to work out any issues and the players were polite to each other. I'd say we all had fun and in the end that is the reason we all showed up. Congratulations to everyone who played!
 
 
 
:And dealing with the ping issue: Over all having a few low ping players on any one team does not make it unfair. It is when 100% of one team's players have 1/3 the ping of the other that attrition will catch up every time. (Not to bring up my 438 ping ;), lol)  An average 180s on one side vs 60s on the other can be a bit unbalanced. Similar to a 4 vs 7 player match. To solve this I don't think a single server can be found to please everyone. Germany does have some of the most active players so it would be wrong to say force them to play a US server for example.  Perhaps some ideas can be worked out before the next ladle. Playing half the games on one server then switching might cause it's own logistics issues. What are some other peoples ideas?
 
 
 
----
 
 
 
;AshitakA
 
:I think it was great... And thanks to all players and those, who made this possible.The solution for the high pings would be a server on which every player could play with equal ping. But there is no one. So i think, like you said Manta, the server has to be changed. But in a fair way. Maybe every team has to play on different servers, or every game would be played twice on two different servers. However, i look forward to the coming ladle. Have fun, all!
 
 
 
----
 
;madmax
 
:I agree on the scheduling issue. The time, and I think specially the day arent the best. For me, Saturday night is usually for going out.  Btw, congrats to AW!!! :D
 
 
 
== Feedback for the First Ladle ==
 
 
 
=== The Quality of Your Playing ===
 
;2020
 
:I was a passenger. I moved house, was using an old computer (fps was 15), and my connection got broken 3 times while playing Shadow League in the Semi's -- aaaaarrrrrghghghghgh. Like Van, hehe, and Durka I think.
 
* Yep me 2---[[User:Durka|Durka]]
 
*heh ya I wish my connection dropped only 3 times, More like 10-15, there was a storm going on at the time--[[User:Vanhayes|Vanhayes]]
 
 
 
;Manta
 
:It was a nice surprise that my ISP didn't have their usual holiday weekend hiccups. :)  Over all I certainly could have done better, I'm not very good under pressure and my dialup connection seems to get saturated with more than 12 players on the grid. Oh and Manta sucks at sweeping :P
 
 
 
;sky
 
:well my computer already sucks haha. so i did fine until the AW match. made a lot more mistakes. only in the last AW match i was able to get like 8 or 10 points or somethin. but the other rounds there were less players playing like 7v7s or 6v6s and it was much easier to get through. also my ping was nicer. i want a pc haha. still had a great time though
 
 
 
=== The Quality of Your Team Playing ===
 
;2020
 
:Anarchic Wanderers were amazing. I never got to see much of the offence, but defence was superb. Garissimo was solid at the back, only getting beaten when the odds were 4 to 1. I saw Vanhayes pulling off a major stunt -- amazing! And Eggcozy was superb as sweeper. I had fun playing with the offence of the other teams most times; we just kept them back for ages while our offence did the biz. Superb quality of play.
 
*;[[User:Durka|Durka]]
 
*:I played for AW in the match against SL. I didn't get to see much of the amazing defense by our team. Everytime I would just bust through their middle and take up part of Sasha's def before he could make it complete. The problem was SL sometimes delayed Zop and the others from getting there soon enough...so I would be cramming part of the zone, but it would sometimes do nothing as we had no one else. SL realized this and Sasha's teammates would try and trap me in their zone. But, sometimes it did work and Zop would get their fast along with one other person and we would capture the zone fast (3 offense vs. 2 defense). It was a great team effort...4 points from winning the second match and 2 from winning the third. Well done SL and CONGRATULATIONS.
 
*'''sKy'''
 
:awesome
 
 
 
=== Getting Your Team Ready for The Match ===
 
;2020
 
:Damned messy. I couldn't get on the server for about 10 mins. We started about 30 mins late... it gets a little tedious when people are there, some playing, some just waiting for the real game. It would be nice if we could just import an entire team into a server. Have some kind of pre-grid preparation like in the film. Once teams are sorted, we just port into the server. Would be simple. Players would then turn up on time, otherwise, they just miss the boat. Trying to organise a match while playing is tough... too many distractions. Still... we managed it in the end... somehow...
 
 
 
*;[[User:Durka|Durka]]
 
*:I got to play one round with ¡LØL! because I was late. I showed up and only 2 people that were ACTUALLY on WS were playing. Everyone else was picked up "from the streets." (Example: man2d played with ¡LØL!, (WS), & SL during the tourney...just a little unfair). Also, we really needed 8 teams not 6 (there were 7, but CT didn't show). (Example: the ¡LØL! vs. WS match in the first round was actually a semi-final match so who-ever won was automatically in the finals...yet again weird. But, overall, the tourney was definately fun. Next time 2020, can we please not try and play the tournament '''ALL IN ONE DAY!!!''' Too chaotic!
 
 
 
;Manta
 
:Getting Wraith Squadron ready for each match was actually quite easy. All our players met in an MSN chat room one hour before the start time and we did all our coordinating from there. This made it very easy for us to all show up on one server at the same time. We then disconnected during game play of course. ---- Since there were ONLY 2 ladle servers and LOL & WS were the last teams paired we were forced to use Bugfarm fortress. This caused quite a bit of confusion with visiting players joining the match. Kindly, most willingly left or stayed as spectators. Also I don't believe man2d played for WS at any time during the tournament as he was on each of the opposing teams we played. Wish we had had him though.
 
 
 
=== Team-Captains and the Challenge Room ===
 
;2020
 
:As admin of 2020's T-room it was ok... but a bit stressful. Loads of people, including non-captains and noobs entering. The text area was too small and too many people were talking. Some were asking me to die so that they could join the game -- as if we were meant to be playing! Some of the non-captains were useful since they could leave the T-room and search for players like Xevi for Crazy Tronners, and the state of play in matches.
 
:Team-captains did the job well though, challenging one another, then setting off to do their matches. However, I think we should have waited until everyone knew who was playing who and where before leaving. The only real way of doing this is building a simple interface with challenge-board, etc so that people could see if they were challenged and whether they accepted etc. Still.. on the whole, it worked.
 
 
 
 
 
;Manta
 
:While using the T-room was problematic it did serve it's purpose well and its probably the only 100% sure way everyone has to communicate. 2020 took down the chat-server while he played which is understandable but we really need one up at all times for team captains to check in on each other while another match may still be ongoing. THANK YOU for all your work 2020, the ladle would not have been the success it was without you!
 
 
 
=== Anything else? ===
 
;2020
 
:Could have done with more matches. Also, losing teams could have played one another. In fact, we probably had time to play a round-robin affair. What was best about it is that we ended up with a winner. We trusted team-captains, and they pulled it off.
 
:My wishlist? Somehow keep teams together, maybe with some kind of pre-grid preparation room like the film. If this runs simultaneously to gameplay, you can be playing around in some server, and then when your team is assembled and ready, you are notified and requested to port to the proper server where your team assembles against the opposing team. Also, some kind of software to automate the challenges. The chat-facility was not good enough... too much noise...
 
:It is all to do with timing. As a first attempt, I think it was successful. The trick is... how to make it better...
 
 
 
 
 
;Manta
 
:--- Having the ability to lock a server to a certain number of players ahead of time. While letting there be room for a couple of spectators so backup team members can standby but keeping riffraff from joining. --- Letting a small majority successfully kick someone, without having to distract all the players with the vote. --- Have shuffle down AND up enabled to allow team placement. --- Have more servers available. --- Personally I liked the month long idea but I must say having the games all on one day seemed to work better. But this also made it very hectic and with elimination, losing teams only got to play one match after the effort of getting everyone coordinated. --- Over all I'd say the ladle was a great success and everyone had a great time which is most important.
 

Revision as of 05:45, 5 September 2006


Ladle Info | About | Challenge Board | Tools | Operations | Results | Statistics | Voting | Bowl


Please write your comments below about your experience of the event. You can also add comments about how it could be better... This information may be useful for anyone who tries to do such a thing again... We have to discuss stuff so that a decision is made -- check out Talk:Challenge Room

Feedback for the Third Ladle

Manta

Each ladle keeps getting better and I think we had a great turnout. It's nice to see so many different teams participating. However I'm beginning to think we should do a way with team captains deciding the matches on game day. Once again the first match started almost an hour late do to delays by team captains. And I'm not blameless here either. We really need to just go with the lineup we have already decide upon ahead of time in the challenge page. Many good players are sadly getting burned since they are told to show up at a certain time only to be informed to wait around for decisions to be made.

Also for my location the timing of this match worked out to being on a Sunday morning on one of the biggest holiday weekends of the year. Could there please be a little more consideration for players living in the Americas next time. WS was at 4 players because of this. Thank you to those who generously volunteered to help. It would also be nice to have it scheduled a few hours later on in the day but even as it is the players located in China can't easily make it.

On another point: I am beginning to think there is no fix for this issue of disparaging ping difference. After just a few weeks of hosting my own server I have noticed that most players located in Europe (but not all luckily) refuse to play on servers where they do not get a 50 ping. Their first comments are generally "this server is $@%&*, I have a 190 ping" and leave. Heck I play with 350!! of course not as well as I would like. Because of the size of the land mass many Americans average a 190 ping on THEIR OWN servers!!! I'm sadly beginning to get some VERY unfavorable impressions of certain players. And lets not forget there are some people left out not matter what such as the Chinese players. No one will play on their servers since we do nothing but bitch. but they "QUIETLY" put up with 300 - 400+ pings NO matter the server and they still play well. We could learn a lot from them.

The only way I can see to fix this advantage of pitting teams in the ladle with such different pings is for people to stop unilaterally refusing to play above a 100 ping. And the other is teams need to actively recruit members from all parts of the world. This is an internal game after all.

Sorry if I offended some people but I think this needed to be brought up and I tried not to mention any names.


Reply to above: I don't mind a high ping, I can play with that. What i do mind is servers that have sudden lag jumps for everyone that make it luck whether you win or lose.

For the ladle: First of all, it was fun. A lot of fun, actually. One thing that annoyed me was the fact that a certain someone started taking over all organisation just an hour before the thing started. Suddenly we had two conflicting brackets (2020 already posted his version ages ago, Ladle Brackets was useless), a certain someone joining the server my team was on wanting to tell us what to do, and other things that only delayed it IMHO. Of course, that guy wasn't in IRC which would have made it easy to communcicate, but went in and out of servers just at he liked.

In the end we still got great matches (though I sucked even more than usual). I think having the wiki more organized and have one IRC channel all ladle- related people are in will prevent such conflicting information. —Wrtlprnft 01:19, 4 September 2006 (CDT)

This crazy person running back and forth was me (Durka). Either I was off on the time or you guys were, but I'm pretty sure it was me. As you say up above wrtl, you say that I started taking over all the oranization just an hour before the thing started. Well at 12:27 pm PST which is 7:27 pm GMT (3 minutes before the scheduled start) WS and WPN were gonna leave because nothing was going on. They had been waiting since around 7:15. At that moment I jumped into CT Wild Fortress and found meriton sasha wargasm and sebol and told them to go into a server to play in the ladle. I couldn't believe that 3 minutes before the Ladle 2 of the teams were just playing some CTWF and not participating in organizing the event. That match ended up working fine. Then as time passed by WS decided to go to Bugfarm - LoD server figuring that they were going to play an AW team. They went there, then about 5 minutes later some of them came back to my server asking where the hell AW was and they didn't want to keep waiting. Now 2 minutes after the start time I jumped into your server telling you guys that WS was waiting in LoD server. I kept saying it and saying it and I realized I got really annoying and left and went back to the server WPN was in. Now we were getting pissed off that we didn't know who to play. I jumped back into the server with the million AW's (by the way congrats again :D) and asked for the team captains from both teams (A and B) to come to my server. Then I left again. Thankfully, gari and lacks came to my server and I told them what was going on. A team went to LoD server and B team came to Wild West Fortress (which was the most unstable server when it came to lag...but we couldn't go to U.S. fortress because that was even more screwed up). Anyways, from that point on the Ladle worked well. SORRY FOR JUMPING INTO YOUR SERVER AND SHOUTING THINGS TO THE AW PEOPLE, but I guess you guys had the timing off. It wasn't an hour before, it was actually past the start time and people were getting annoyed. But again, sorry for being a jerk. --- Durka
According to this you created that brackets page at 6:39PM GMT, which is 49 minutes before the first round was supposed to be played. It did contain information conflicting to what 2020 had posted earlier, which confused at least me.
We were waiting for you, too. Most (or maybe all) AW players were in #armagetron on freenode for communicating. None of the captains of other teams was, although that was how it was supposed to happen.
IRC just happens to be a good way for a big amount of people to talk without depending one one single server and while being totally independent of operating systems and the like, and it was decided very early that this was to be the channel for team captains to chat with. Noone read it, apparently. I hope this will be more clear for the next ladle.
O well, what happened happended, no need to throw anymore accusations, we should just learn and organize it better next time. —Wrtlprnft 14:30, 4 September 2006 (CDT)
Ya I did that 49 minutes before it started, but I never went into Armagetron until about 20 minutes until it started. O well. I had talked to 2020 and he said he couldn't put up his T-Room as he did before so I offered to convert my server. I thought we would be using that. I did go into IRC but not #Armagetron. I used Joda's thing and went into #theladle about 15 minutes before the event and no one was there. I guess this is all a learning process. We will get it right eventually. --- Durka 17:28, 4 September 2006 (CDT)
That would explain a lot. We didn't use #theladle at all. We only created it last time because there was some other discussion going on in the main #armagetron channel, so we wanted to avoid confusion.—Wrtlprnft 17:39, 4 September 2006 (CDT)

I agree with Manta about team-captains... timing is tricky, I just opted for first sunday of the month; and in europe the final ends at round about midnight which is getting late for a Sunday night game... ping will always remain and issue, but it is best solved if players put in a little effort, research the servers they wish to play on, inform their team-captain, who eventually makes a decision as to what server to play on based on the average ping of the players... i like your solution about enlisting players from different geographic locations, but it is already tricky enough forming teams...

I agree with wrtl about ping-spikes, and I would have thought captains would choose servers that they know they can trust... and I like the idea of everyone being invited to IRC, with separate chatrooms for different teams... yeah... sounds useful... -- 2020 07.45 4 September 2006 (GMT)

2020

Wow... The standard of play was high... I was at the bottom of the scorecard in most games... The fact that we managed to play any games was, quite frankly, amazing. My team-mates were superlative in their skills. The first game against WPN was chaotic, and I subbed myself off half-way through because my ping was god-awful and my skills just can't cope; we won 2-1. Because of the confusion in organisation, I ended up playing in the second team-challenge versus Shadow League, which was a huge game; again we won 2-1. It came down to an all-AW final, and again the moves being pulled were astounding; AW won 2-1 ehhehe.

I had great fun, mostly because I was skyped with Ghableska. I was in hysterics with the initial dis-organisation, haven't laughed so hard in ages... didn't know who was in what team... who were the opponents... where we'd play... it was completely crazy... If I hadn't been connected to ghab, I think I would have ended up crying, but as it happened, I just laughed and laughed.

Man of the tournament for me was Alex, from AW. At one point, we were trailing badly in the third match against SL I think, and they had three against our two Madmax and Alex, and somehow, they held their nerve and turn it around for a win... Alex defended valiantly many times, saving the team from defeat. His defence was questioned by many, but if they can't break it, then it works, IMO. I can't say what the other team-mates were doing, especially offence, since I so rarely took part, and we won quite a lot... I would be happy for another player to be nominated for offence...

Right... as for the organisation... A shambles. With all this technology, we have tiny little one-liners, at some point I had to have a server open to chat, another window to look at the servers, a window to IRC to chat, another couple of windows to check brackets, challenge boards... it was complete chaos. Before the event I was heartened when I saw the challenge board was finally being used.. but the course of play was not followed... team-captains did not stick to the plan... they ended up wandering about challenging other teams, telling players where to go and who to play... I have to thank those involved who actually managed to get anything happening, I think special attention goes to Lack for trying to keep things together, Van and wrtl. We had weeks of preparation, feedback invitations, and yet... chaotic... I am tempted to agree with the detractors of self-organisation, and agree to sign away my trust in human beings.. in blood...

However, I think we can learn from this. The more active people are, the more experience we get, and the more we can learn. I intend to contact various players, talk about things, and develop a system which is flexible, yet easy enough to manage that it can work. I believe the central weakness is that players panicked, team-captains did not get their teams together, nor did they register together at the right times, and make essential decisions together. I believe one or two individuals took it upon themselves to try to organise everyone, and not just their own teams. Self-organising only works if people share the responsibillity of organising, and this comes down to team-captains, at least in the current configuration. I resisted the urge to take charge, since there were too many cooks already IMHO, and I had put plenty of effort in setting it up with wiki et al... on the night, I just want to be a player, play with my team-mates, and trust my captain...

I think there is hope. I had a laugh, there were a few good games, and all done within a few hours. A little unstable, perhaps, but I think the toddler is taking a few first steps...

No knocking how well Alex did play (without him, AW-A would never have gotten to the finals), but how could the "Man of the Tournament" come from the losing team? I guess you could say that AW-A had to play a tough game to get into the finals while AW-B had a bye. So I'm going to say that Alex and Lackadaisical were "Co-Men of the Tournament." Lackadaisical was the one that was getting into my def when WPN played AW-B in the first round. Mazuffer did get in once, but it was always lacks. Twice by pwnage, 3 times by holing. But still, AW-A would not have been in the finals without Alex. WD both of you guys. --- Durka

Organization

meriton

I was acting captain for SL. The chief issue I had with organization was there were many channels for organization. Specifically, there is the wiki, the team captain server, the IRC channel and in-game chat. The channels disagreed on many matters, sometimes even with itself (For instance, there were more teams on the challenge board than in the brackets page.)

Documentation was so bloated and disorganized everyone considered a different subset. Some team captains were also not well prepared (in my case, this was because I was elected replacement captain 10 minutes before the first match). Also, some channels are inadequate for coordinating stuff. For instance, in-game chat on a full server where everyone is talking, and where the other team captain is busy playing most of the time. A team captain room that is empty most of the time. An irc channel announced in a poorly visible location (buried under tons of other stuff). And the wiki that isn't updated and buries essential info under tons of nice-to-know.

I suggest to consolidate and purify these sources of information and dispose of the inadequate ones:

  • abolish the team captain chat in favour of the IRC channel
  • no in-game organizing except for trivial matters
  • clean the wiki. Let's create a single page with all rules and only rules.

In terms of infrastructure, some servers listed appeared not capable to host a full team without lag fluctuation. It would be good if the servers could be checked in advance.


I totally agree with that. I also think we somehow need to make sure information from different tournaments doesn't get confused. I suggest we create new pages for every ladle, like:

Ladle-4
Main entry page with information like the date and where to sign up
Ladle-4/Team List
List of all teams, with a short blurb on how to sign up, but not more
Ladle-4/Rules
That's the page meriton referred to.
Ladle-4/Brackets
Information about who will play who. This should be the only place where brackets are published (besides IRC, but please keep it up to date as stuff can get lost easily in a crowded IRC channel)
Ladle-4/Navigation
The template to navigate inside the 4th Ladle, and only there

This would also eliminate the need to delete all the old information or ban it into the history, it would still be available. —Wrtlprnft 06:12, 4 September 2006 (CDT)


Sounds good Meriton. Perhaps there is too much information... which is why I have deleted things. I think we could probably ascertain what the guidelines might be now... the problem will remain if team-captains don't know what's what. The problem is essentially human, how they make use of any system. With self-organising, this problem multiplies; much easier to have authority, centralisation, and rules and judges, etc... which just sounds like too much boring, serious, work-like, stuff...

Indeed, Wrtlprnft, that sounds much more efficient. So far we have the root page, Tronic and the main branches, Spoon, Ladle, Bowl, and Cup. I originally had the whole Ladle thing all on one page, but I think this confused people so I separated it out. I like Meriton's call for a single page. Hmmm... We can put in links to the root page, Tronic, to the various versions of the competition, including the current one, Ladle-4. Regarding sections... I have a few questions...

  • We need Team-list, but remember this is provisional and is not accurate to the actual players who turn up that night... how do we compensate for this...?
    • I think the team list can't be a replacement for captains keeping track of their teams, but it can help teams asses how many players there are and if they need to recruit more or maybe split the team if it gets too full. The date needs to be fixed and in a prominent spot, maybe directly on the team list page, so people who sign up know the time they're supposed to play. —Wrtlprnft 07:44, 4 September 2006 (CDT)
  • We need a challenge board, so that captains can determine provisional play-offs... again this is not accurate because it depends on the teams that turn up...?
    • The layout I posted above isn't meant to be fixed, it's just my idea. Feel free to add pages. I think the Main Ladle Page should clarify exactly what the pages are for, similar to my post above —Wrtlprnft 07:44, 4 September 2006 (CDT)
  • I think we need a place for captains to gather... I have left it up to the teams to self-organise how they get together... what is important is that team-captains turn up somewhere and register their teams, say how many have etc, and confirm they are ready for the play-offs. Can we create chatrooms for each team on irc?
    • There isn't a limit on how many chatrooms you can have in IRC, so you can have as many as you want. Maybe a #tronic-ladle for everyone involved and then a room for every team. More doesn't sound sensible to me as following multiple chat rooms takes time to get used to. It would just end up in conflicting information. —Wrtlprnft 07:44, 4 September 2006 (CDT)
  • Can the Ladle-4 page contain the simple procedure captains and players follow, with links off to the team-list, challenge-board, and irc?

The basic problem as forseen by many, is not knowing who actually turns up. So, if the brackets are determined too early, there is not enough flexibility in the system to deal with present and actual situation. Essentially:

The Basic Problem: the difference between preparations and actual events
Preparations for the Event Actual Event
team-lists with prospective players actual players who turn up, including unaffiliated players
challenge board for provisional play-offs actual brackets: who plays who and where
players arranging their own meeting team-captains only room to register

How is that information, number of players and groupings, gathered? My solution is based on trusting team-captains. I tried stressing this point, to the point where I was accused (perhaps jokingly) of spamming the forums, but still captains don't quite understand their role. 2020 4th September 2006, 14.23 (GMT+2)

    • Spammer! Heh. Um, there are some mediawiki extensions that might help. In particular there's a countoff extension that lets you countoff until a certain date/time, and a couple of different calendar widgets. There is also at least one complete php-based web application for handling lan parties that I looked at as possibly being useful for running the ladle (and other tournaments). The only problem with that one is that it's setup for LAN parties so it may have certain security flaws that aren't important in a lan party but are if you want to run it on the internet. Anyway, if you guys think there's software we can throw on any problem to help fix it, I'm game to do it. --Lucifer 00:11, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

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