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Post 31 Aug 2015, 3:13 pm

I was thinking that someone (and since I came up with the idea it would likely fall to me likely) who has a surplus of time on his hands these days (again, that description would likely befit me) should transcribe all (or most of) the Redscape games to record, and put them in accessible files, game by game, move by move, country/player by country/player. And maybe it could even be searchable. I'm not too knowledgeable on how this would work but I'm sure it could be done, somehow.

Then, we could gather our own "stats": which countries won the most often, who our MVP's are, etc.

Of course, it would likely take an inordinate amount of time, but we would not necessarily have to go back too far, would we? Maybe all the games played on Redscape since it was "resurrected" or back to a certain year (I dunno, 2010? 2009?) It's up to you all.

Personally I do not know much about website design and so forth. But it could start out pretty simple, and always be "tarted up" later.
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Post 31 Aug 2015, 5:06 pm

Jim,

I admire your zeal and opportunity. I certainly don't wish to dampen your enthusiasm, though the Cynic in me sure does! In fact, we used to have similar listings in Redscape, several years ago. However, when this site was "redesigned", a lot of the information got somehow misplaced and/or lost. Some of it was resurrected a few year ago, only to fall victim to another administrative accident. I'm not sure how far back any site backups extend at this point, but the latest incarnation is the Archive forum (viewforum.php?f=93). It doesn't really list player stats, as far as I can see. So your project would be breaking ground.

Frankly, we've gone back and forth about this kind of thing over the years: To have ratings or not , how they should be assigned and tracked, etc. The ranks all players now have are based more on games played, regardless of outcome. At least, that is my recollection.

Back in the day (i.e. 10+ years ago), it was a hot topic. Of course, that was when we used to regularly have 25 or more Dip games running simultaneously, not including tourneys and other types of games. I'm not convinced of their merit, but perhaps if we instituted a clearly laid-out ladder based on merit (for example), it might actually draw more players to the site. We all like to see ourselves progress over time, right?

Now the DiplomaticCorp website has a pretty decent rating and tracking system (ELO, modified for more than the original 2-player games). There are possibly some implementations of PhP-code for ELO already "out there", but would still probably require a good bit of programming, and I, for one, do not program in PhP. Do you, by chance? It would certainly not be fair or realistic to ask that our current Web Site landlords pony up the cost for such an expansion on their own.

Speaking of rating systems, I ran across a really good theory-based overview of multi-player rating systems. You can read it here on the Gamasutra web site:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3428/rising_from_the_ranks_rating_for_.php?print=1

Well, I can see I have drifted off course once again, as you were only asking about starting up a system to track game and player performance results over time. I say "go for it!". You could start out by establishing a Redscape "Rule" that GMs should turn over to you all player results after each game, including tourneys. Track the data in Excel if you like. You could then publish results periodically on a dedicated Redscape forum. If it starts generating enough interest, we (or you or somebody) could look at expanding it, if necessary.

George
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Post 31 Aug 2015, 5:38 pm

Hmm, that's a rather interesting idea...I'll keep that in mind. In the mean time, I will at least take down the games (standard ones I'm mostly interested in) that are under "archives 2013 to present" and see what I can get.

We can never tell what the future will bring of course!
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Post 31 Aug 2015, 7:00 pm

If you can get in touch with GMChristine, she may have much historical data for you. I don't know if you'd actually want it since most of those players are long gone but, it might give you an idea of what has been done before.

We haven't done anything with updating ranks since the re-set, either. Yes, that always caused a heated argument but I imagine that someone with the inclination to set up a system would have a shot at selling it to Brad & Neal. It would require external tracking but changing member ranks isn't really that hard. I've even figured out how to create new ones - you wouldn't necessarily be constrained by the ranks we have. I'm running a separate system with driver ranks for Speed Circuit; why not a different system for current Dip players? Start from scratch.

George, I know you brought this up before. We're still in the same place regards numerical rankings - they'd have to be tracked separately. On the plus, since I now know how to create ranks, more possibilities may be opened up.

Just know what you're getting into, Colin, before you start. The folks who keep things running here are not computer gurus. Brad and Neal care for this site a lot but they can't provide much technical support. The project will be yours and you'll be doing most of the heavy lifting.
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Post 31 Aug 2015, 7:05 pm

Oh yeah, I am now wearing the 'Dirt Track Racer' rank, shelving my Dignitary title (temporarily anyway). Based on the rank system I created for Speed Circuit, we won't have any F1 drivers for a decade or more :mad:.
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Post 31 Aug 2015, 8:25 pm

SLOTerp wrote:If you can get in touch with GMChristine, she may have much historical data for you. I don't know if you'd actually want it since most of those players are long gone but, it might give you an idea of what has been done before.


Yes, that would be great to have her back again. I wonder where she is. She was a pretty good GM.

We haven't done anything with updating ranks since the re-set, either. Yes, that always caused a heated argument but I imagine that someone with the inclination to set up a system would have a shot at selling it to Brad & Neal. It would require external tracking but changing member ranks isn't really that hard. I've even figured out how to create new ones - you wouldn't necessarily be constrained by the ranks we have. I'm running a separate system with driver ranks for Speed Circuit; why not a different system for current Dip players? Start from scratch.

George, I know you brought this up before. We're still in the same place regards numerical rankings - they'd have to be tracked separately. On the plus, since I now know how to create ranks, more possibilities may be opened up.


Well, our current "ranks" are fairly innocuous and not performance-based, of course. Aside from the point tracking that is done on DipCorp, I like the point tracking "pot" system used on vDip, which lets you wager all or a part of your rating points in a game and get rewarded or penalized, based on performance. But that would require even more sophisticated programming, as well.
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Post 01 Sep 2015, 4:58 am

georgeatkins wrote:
SLOTerp wrote:If you can get in touch with GMChristine, she may have much historical data for you. I don't know if you'd actually want it since most of those players are long gone but, it might give you an idea of what has been done before.


Yes, that would be great to have her back again. I wonder where she is. She was a pretty good GM.

She used to track completed games for Chad at the old site for rank purposes. It would be a treasure trove of information if she still has it. I tried pinging her maybe a year ago but never heard back. I think here husband was 'Prince Scribe' and perhaps her son was on the site as well?
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Post 01 Sep 2015, 11:40 am

I would not need to track actual members' ranks, if that would become complicated. But I would like the games and the moves that happened during them.

There has been a lot of postal play of Diplomacy in the years prior to email games; and both have been tracked the point of extensive statistics. How many times Austria has won, the percentage of time Germany is eliminated, etc. I do not see a need to rehash the ranking system or whatever ranks we're on now.
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Post 02 Sep 2015, 6:18 am

I think you could do this with games from the current archive and going forward. That's a lot of detail but we don't play all that many games here, so doable. If you're just looking at standard it may not have much value as there just aren't many games of it here - that's all moved to the auto-judges.

I believe all Christine tracked was rank information (# turns played and NMR's) so even if you got a hold of that it may not prove very useful to you.

Now if you could skim data from the auto-judges... there are over 13,000 completed games at VDip and over 50,000 at WebDip!
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Post 02 Sep 2015, 6:45 pm

Yeah that would be pretty amazing. Because I understand that detailed stats are kept on postal games played from the 1960's until it faded (because of the "rise of the machines" you could say) in the 1990's. There are apparently thousands of them in North America and in the UK in English. Maybe I could find some from there. But I wouldn't know where to look...

It would just be interesting, I had though, if there was a database that would include, if not every game, then at least a boatload of them, move by move. I wonder if such a database already exists for the snail-mail postal games? (or did I ask that already)
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Post 04 Sep 2015, 1:50 pm

I know there's a database of old Diplomacy 'zines from over the years. But I forget the website exactly. Not sure if someone has posted that already.
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Post 04 Sep 2015, 1:50 pm

By the way: "auto-judges"? What are those?
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Post 04 Sep 2015, 6:33 pm

JimHackerMP wrote:By the way: "auto-judges"? What are those?


Judges (auto-judges)are computer programs designed to adjudicate orders that players submit via email or user interface. The older judge programs (some still extant) required arcane syntax. New versions, such as the php-based judges (WebDiplomacy and VDiplomacy) and some of the sites listed below, provide a user interface that makes order writing about as simple and error-free as possible.

http://diplom.org/Online/judge.html
http://usak.asciiking.com/
http://vdiplomacy.com/
http://www.dipbounced.com/
http://stabbeurfou.org/
http://floc.net/dpjudge/

Then there are stand-alone "judge" programs that players use to run games or to play a position, such as Realpolitik and its "successor", RealWorld.
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Post 04 Sep 2015, 6:49 pm

So, there's no more sending in orders to a neutral human, who has to work them out by hand, in these games? You sort of "log in" and type in your orders and bada-bing! it resolves them?
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Post 04 Sep 2015, 10:26 pm

Well, you still have deadlines. hen the turns are resolved, presto!