Posts:
172
Registered:
Jan 23, 2002
From:
Forest Grove, Oregon
Age:
47 Home page
Manual Entries into Game Database
Posted:
Dec 9, 2005, 10:42 PM
Dweebo, many times I get togethor with friends over the board and we record the positions and outcomes of our games. I'd like to enter these into your database for archival and review purposes. Maybe enter it under a site code of OTB or something?? it's not just these games either. I've got some older PBEM and really good brainking games I'd like to get in there also. How hard would it be to have a "Record" feature instituted on the dbase gui? maybe it's a feature that can be added for donating members or something? I'd certainly use this feature as I suspect more than few others would as well. I have a bunch of really good games that dissapeared from IYT when their server crashed never to be seen again...though I'll never play there again, I'd like the peace of mind knowing that any other tourney or specialty games I play on other sites or OTB can be archived. It's definately handy when trying to determine how to improve my own game by analyzing my mistakes.
Posts:
542
Registered:
May 9, 2002
From:
Northeast USA
Re: Manual Entries into Game Database
Posted:
Dec 11, 2005, 12:28 AM
Hey BRF, this is a pretty good idea!
The only thing I'm not sure I agree with is to have a Record button or feature directly accessible to the masses that would automatically update the database. It could be abused. However, it might be cool if a game could be submitted to Dweebo (or a site admin) in the proper format, then it can be examined quickly to see if it's a legitimate submission request and one-click submitted by Dweebo into the database.
As far as the format goes, it would be cool to hear from Dweebo what the proper format actually is. But if I were to take a guess -- if you click the txt link on a game in the database, you can see the game in a text file format with some header information at the top. Incidentally, this appears to be the same format that is generated by Mark Mammel's WPente program. So, in theory, you could just play through the game on the WPente client, save off the text file, and email it in for submission!
On a side note, any word on the status of recorded games played at various recent OTB tournaments such as the 2004 Championships at Las Vegas? Have these made it into the database or will they any time soon?
Posts:
172
Registered:
Jan 23, 2002
From:
Forest Grove, Oregon
Age:
47 Home page
Re: Manual Entries into Game Database
Posted:
Dec 12, 2005, 5:50 PM
I'd rather not have to use a third party piece of software to create the games and then import it. Nothing against Marks prg, but I don't use it to store games and it would be an unnecessary 2nd step since it still has to get imported into Dweebo's Dbase anyway. Besides, Dweebo has the perfect interface for entering the games manually (now I do agree if you are an avid user of Mark's pente prg it would be nice to be able to upload the txt file you already have as well...but this wouldn't help me out at all and probably would only help out a select few folks who use Mark's prg this way). I'd prefer straight database entry from the GUI, it's quick and easy to use already...instituting a snapsnot or record feature seems a natural extension.
Also I don't see a problem with having a Record feature in the dbase, especially if it were just for Donating members. What donating member is going to abuse the entry privilage?? and even this feature could be setup to be dbase friendly making sure to ask questions like "Are you sure the move sequence is correct?", and "click yes to add entry" just to make sure no accidental's entries get sent in. Addressing your concerns maybe even a "Save Game - pending administrator approval" to absolutely nullify any abuse of the feature. I question whethor or not this policing would be needed though especially if this were just for donating members who specifically asked dweebo to be added as "approved" for database entry. Anyone else wouldn't be given the option, it's the general populace I'd be worried about.
As far as the recorded games you were asking about I'm not sure who has that?? my guess would be Partica knows. I know they do exist though, those guys at the tourney wrote the game coordinates down. If we could get this feature implemented I'm sure these types of recorded games that are just floating around would begin to find their way into the dbase.
So Dweebo, what do you think? what would it take to get this idea going on?? lots of time\effort??
Posts:
1,032
Registered:
Dec 16, 2001
From:
Powell, OH
Age:
37 Home page
Re: Manual Entries into Game Database
Posted:
Dec 12, 2005, 6:43 PM
It is definitely a good idea brf. Originally when I created the database way back when I wrote the code with the intention of allowing other sites to record games to it, it basically is setup to allow different file formats and to add another one you just have to write a small piece of code to parse/format that and get it into DSG. But it has ended up always being a more manual process, I wrote programs to extract IYT games into a text format, then import them into DSG, wrote a program to convert PBEM games and Mark and I coordinated the text format to work with his program. Mark also wrote a program to grab BK games and he formats them so they can get into DSG. We vaguely talked about using XML a long time ago but nothing ever happened with that, no great need.
One interesting thing is that up until maybe a year ago there was actually code up live on DSG that would allow anyone to import a game through the web (send in a text version of a game), but of course no one knew how and no one ever did it, it was undocumented.
I would LOVE to get some of the live tournament games into DSG, I poked and prodded people a few times but never got anything.
Now, I think I agree that it would be best to allow you to enter in a game by having an interface with a game board and text fields for the other info. I also agree it sounds like it would have to be a donor feature. We might have DSG admins that look at games after the fact just to make sure no one is entering junk, but I doubt we would get too much of that, especially if you paid money to access it.
In terms of the details, site/event could be specified by the user and could just default to OTB, probably would also not allow any of the already used sites or events. I would probably record who entered the game in the database and output that in the text version.
It doesn't seem like it would be all that hard to implement, but of course there are a bunch of other things I need to do, I really want to get turn-based going and live for all players but I haven't even touched it in months, still alot to do on that. After the holidays I "might" have more time on my hands since I don't think I'm taking any classes, but who knows.
You have contributed alot to this site brf so of course I want to help you out with this, plus it is a cool idea. I will put it on the TODO list of course and hope to get to it next Spring after turn-based is going.
He-he, you could always play yourself in a live game and get them in that way No please don't do that!
Posts:
172
Registered:
Jan 23, 2002
From:
Forest Grove, Oregon
Age:
47 Home page
Re: Manual Entries into Game Database
Posted:
Apr 11, 2006, 10:29 PM
Taking this one step further on some things you already mentioned I'd also like the ability to add a filter to the search results within the database. currently you can do a players name, site, P1 or P2 as winner, event, etc. Frankly, in the quest of trying to improve your game there are alot of games stored in that database that are horrible. No respectable player would make some of those "best" moves. So in order to make the most out of the best of what is in there, it'd be really nice to select a group of people and only use those players games as the search criteria. say something like the top 10-20 players on the site for example. Many times I've also wanted to research a certain players past response in a given situation and that person may have more than one player name within your library of stored games....again this filter addition would allow me to see ALL of their played games when this happens not just one user name at a time. With the addition of filters your chances of trying to find a more stronger move (in my opinion) have increased immensely. As an afterthought it'd be nice to save these custom filters in a pulldown or associate with the user's acct somehow so as to not have re-enter them.
Dweebo I know you're busy as hell and won't be getting to any of this tommorow but I'm just laying it out on the wishlist, the database is a cool tool, It has the potential of really helping you improve your game. I'd just like to take some of the work out of the process and make it more useful\efficient those %'s are deceiving as hell and many times will lead you down an inferior line.
Posts:
172
Registered:
Jan 23, 2002
From:
Forest Grove, Oregon
Age:
47 Home page
Re: Manual Entries into Game Database
Posted:
Apr 3, 2007, 9:58 PM
Dweebo, well it's next spring are we any closer on this request?
also I noticed Fencer now lists a little link on the upper right corner of every game that says 'DSG code'. How is this to be handled with your side of things? The reason I ask is I'm now running My St. Patty's Day Tournament there and I'd like to get all those games into your dbase (as would aaru I imagine want to do the same with his monster tourney). If this 'DSG code' could be uploaded or something like that that'd be pretty cool too. I'm just not looking forward to having to download 150 or so of these files and send them too you as a third party to import each one....but let me know how that's to be done and I'll deal with what works. -Brf
Posts:
1,032
Registered:
Dec 16, 2001
From:
Powell, OH
Age:
37 Home page
Re: Manual Entries into Game Database
Posted:
Apr 18, 2007, 4:42 PM
No closer, sorry brf.
As for brainking, yes fencer added that code so we can more easily pull in game data from his site to the pente.org database. I plan to pull in all the games from aaru's tournament and we can do yours as well.
I have to email fencer and ask him to change a couple of things but it looks like it should be pretty easy to automate it.
No please don't do that!