Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH
I got a few things to say here, on various items of discussion.
1) I am definitely planning on doing some rewriting of the Excel sheet, when I catch some time (let's call it after Easter, maybe after Championship as a nice place to key off of). Top priority is to do some speed upgrades and code simplification--if you've looked at the macros, most of 'em start with "figure out how many X are in this and set up accordingly" in some form or another. List and random picks are next. Follow that up with some automation of error-checking (which I REALLY need some help with...the automation part, at any rate) and should be good to go. Oh, and did I mention that said sheet won't work with a group larger than about 20 players? That's also included in that top priority.
Might be a good idea to work as a small group on this and get one version for Excel and one for GDocs, play around with both of 'em and see which one works better. Let's say a week before IRI as a target for a beta release, so IRI FF can test the system out.
2) I was thinking seriously about taking over for Ed in the current format--first thing on the list was to switch all district areas to two drafts each, plus DCMPs. Cuts out about 40 drafts right there, maybe more, we're down to 1-2/day with a shorter season
3) Second thing on that list was to rework the waiver system entirely and make it almost self-running (for late-add teams at least.) I also happen to have an Excel sheet for that, but it isn't automated. Wish it was, but I'm not that good of a programmer. I've been tossing ideas around on that with at least one other person.
4) I'm also thinking of a couple tweaks to the point values, trying to balance out how well they'd work with how the points are intended to work. Maybe even reduce some of the scorers' work.
A couple of other general comments: Not everyone has Google Docs access or accounts, necessarily. Because of that, I don't think running the drafts there is a good idea--I have access, etc., but don't like to use them because, IMO, they're actually LESS capable than the comparable MS Office products. However, a lot of the setup work--picklist collection, pulling team lists from FRC, etc. can probably be done there, no problem. Especially if there was a way to password-protect individual tabs, and have one with a "pull from this point in all other tabs"--but I'm not sure that exists.
I know I could use an automated team-puller, but I'm having a hard time integrating that into Excel. But if I can pull a GDoc... might be worth it.
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1. Eric, send me all your stuff, I'd like to take a look at it.
2. Getting access to google docs is as simple as making a google account, if you don't already have one of those you're a bit behind in the times
3. Currently, there's no way to password-protect individual tabs, but that shouldn't be too difficult if theres a master google doc that only scorers/draft runners have access to.
Point Tweaks: I'm not entirely sure how balancing would work, but changing loses back to 0 points would simplify things greatly. Also, increasing elim ranking points to automatically include win points would ease scoring, since win points could be easily calculated automatically from FIRST's ranking page. QF's stays the same, add 4 points to Semifinalist, add 8 points to Finalist, add 12 points to Winners. If a team took it to 3 matches and then lost, they'd lose out on 2 points, but that's not a huge deal if everyone is scored the same way.