[FF]: Season Long Format Change Discussion

[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.

A single master list of all the teams held in each event by each player/team is HUGE, particularly if it's publicly available. I know I used to collect and post that info, but with me having somewhat less time these days, it's a little harder. All I had to do was to score the teams, put in the scores (manually, in my case) and re-post the sheet.


Tell y'all what. After CMP, we open up a thread(or two) specifically for SLFF programming (and/or other changes)--what's bein' worked on, who's workin' on it, what the status is, stuff that's ready for betas with last year's stuff or the Magnolia Regional, all that good stuff. 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.