The World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC, Version IV)

[Kandorith]

Sorry for my short RPs lately; it's just really bloody warm over here (Help, I'm melting! And running out of beer..... send halp! pls!).

But the weather is really testing my endurance and energy; though tomorrow life over here will return somewhat to normal so I should have more inspiration and a better mood again.

[95X]

In my attempts to do anything constructively worthwhile today, I found something that might be useful to all.

Imagine if "This Person Does Not Exist" had a searchable database of already generated images.

Turns out something similar exists at Generated.Photos. (Yes, that really is the full URL.)

https://generated.photos/terms-and-conditions
Materials available through Generated Photos can be used for personal use as long as citation including a link is provided.

[Kandorith]

In my attempts to do anything constructively worthwhile today, I found something that might be useful to all.

Imagine if "This Person Does Not Exist" had a searchable database of already generated images.

Turns out something similar exists at Generated.Photos. (Yes, that really is the full URL.)

https://generated.photos/terms-and-conditions
Materials available through Generated Photos can be used for personal use as long as citation including a link is provided.

This... is... AWESOME!

[The Sarian]

In my attempts to do anything constructively worthwhile today, I found something that might be useful to all.

Imagine if "This Person Does Not Exist" had a searchable database of already generated images.

Turns out something similar exists at Generated.Photos. (Yes, that really is the full URL.)

https://generated.photos/terms-and-conditions
Materials available through Generated Photos can be used for personal use as long as citation including a link is provided.

Reminds me of This Politician Does Not Exist, which may be useful to some people if they need an image for their nation's leaders (or football managers). It also makes random constituency names, which might be useful for people who want some quintessentially British-sounding place names.

[Farfadillis]

https://artbreeder.com/browse

[The Authoritarian Republic of Lochario]

Style modifier required? What kind of personality do you want your manager to have? What are the aims/aspirations of your team? Are they realistic? Just try to provide as much info as possible then I can see who I have.

I would like the Modifier to be positive. The personality does not matter, as long as he can turn on the team for a challenge. The aims are atleast finishing in the Top 5 of the group table. They seem quite realistic.

Do I seriously have to post my request all over again?!

[Electrum]

I would like the Modifier to be positive. The personality does not matter, as long as he can turn on the team for a challenge. The aims are atleast finishing in the Top 5 of the group table. They seem quite realistic.

Do I seriously have to post my request all over again?!

No, you don't have to post it again. If people are interested, they will telegram you. People may be busy, or may not be interested in your national team (generally people are reluctant to see their characters treated poorly, as they saw in the last page, or, because you haven't roleplayed your team/Mattijana's manager that much). I say wait a while, and if you're waiting too long then just create your own manager.

[Riennic Isles]

I would like the Modifier to be positive. The personality does not matter, as long as he can turn on the team for a challenge. The aims are atleast finishing in the Top 5 of the group table. They seem quite realistic.

Do I seriously have to post my request all over again?!

Given the way you've treated a character someone else was kind enough to lend you, I doubt there are many who are jumping at the opportunity to send you another manager to be fired without prior warning. At this point, I would suggest you make do with a character of your own creation - and when you've learned to treat characters with the maturity and respect they deserve, you're welcome to ask again.

[Valentine Z]

I am aware that Hapilopper has indeed RPed with the Valentians around. It's all good news and we have indeed discussed with it. So that's all good.

I'm only saying this because I am posting soon... hopefully later at night after my schoolwork of the day! Plan is to RP and write about the follow-up for Hapilopper, and a possible formation change!

[Sarzonia]

No, you don't have to post it again. If people are interested, they will telegram you. People may be busy, or may not be interested in your national team (generally people are reluctant to see their characters treated poorly, as they saw in the last page, or, because you haven't roleplayed your team/Mattijana's manager that much). I say wait a while, and if you're waiting too long then just create your own manager.

I posted a request for a new manager because I intended for my current one to be a caretaker as part of a story arc for a team struggling to find its way back into the football world.

No one sent anything, so I was prepared to go with a new manager I came up with. The fact that my team suddenly started winning led to a pivot in my storyline and led me to keep my manager.

That said, if I were going to RP a foreign manager, I would want to know how to RP the character in relation to my team. In addition, I originally intended to RP Franz Braddock retiring after World Cup 57 after I RPed the intent for a while and gave Cafundeu a chance to decide what to do with his character.

It's a basic courtesy.

[Blouman Empire]

Is it really that bad? The manager got sacked for bad results, it happens.

The way some of you are going on I thought he had the manager hung from a tower with a thumbtack through his bullocks. Or had rped the manager as go on a killing spree.

The country the character was from has the potential there to use that manager's bad experience as a story arc and talk about how the country is not a good place to be if you don't get results and how it isn't ready for their style of football

[Farfadillis]

Host announcement: I screwed up and assigned RP bonus from a couple of matchdays ago to Valentine Z when it should've gone to Valladares. I apologize for this mistake.

Per my previous post, after giving it some thought, I've decided to go with the (imperfect and pragmatic) frequentist approach and rescorinate the following matches (provided Valladares accepts, given he could come out of this with less points):

Khazajamal 1–1 Valladares
Valladares 1–2 Darkmania
Valentine Z 2–1 Floyssauu

The justification is that these two games could've reasonably been swayed by a bigger RP bonus, and nobody has RPd about these matches. The reason I don't want to rescorinate the Mercedini 1–3 Valentine Z match is that, per my previous post, it would be unfair, since from a frequentist perspective Valentine Z did not win because of the RP bonus I erroneously assigned them.

While I consider this an imperfect solution mathematically-speaking - because it is, though I've tried to reduce that as much as possible with my approach - I feel this is as fair as I can get, and some of the human element I've lately been accused of ignoring has been taken into consideration.

At any rate, apologies again, and continue roleplaying. It's been an enjoyable ride!

EDIT: Added the decision to rescorinate the third game, per Kels' willingness to manually create the tables for that group as well.

[Valentine Z]

Are the changes reflected in the scorinating thread as of now? I might need to edit my RP draft to reflect the new scores. Fortunately, I have not started writing, or are focusing too much on the scores! So for what it's worth, it's not an inconvenience to me. ^^;

[Farfadillis]

Are the changes reflected in the scorinating thread as of now? I might need to edit my RP draft to reflect the new scores. Fortunately, I have not started writing, or are focusing too much on the scores! So for what it's worth, it's not an inconvenience to me. ^^;

No, since I was waiting for Valladares' approval for it. However, I can rescorinate yours first. I'll DM you as soon as they're available.

[Trolleborg]

I'm not having MA in scorinating, but maybe if need in rescorinate only few matches in the big batch arise often, I see the next solution to exclude manual counting and table-making.

Idea is as follows. Save everything on the disk in separate files before every round - 1, 2, 3, 4. You continue scorinate all groups as usual, save them, publish results as always do. If need to rescorinate arise, then load old save and rescorinate whole round, but taking into account only groups where things went wrong, and publish their results and corresponding tables, saving them in the different file - 2b if group in question is B. At the next matchday you scorinate all groups as they are in file 2, but group B will have it's own scorinating. So you will have two, three or more independent files, but no need to make tables manually.

[Farfadillis]

I'm not having MA in scorinating, but maybe if need in rescorinate only few matches in the big batch arise often, I see the next solution to exclude manual counting and table-making.

Idea is as follows. Save everything on the disk in separate files before every round - 1, 2, 3, 4. You continue scorinate all groups as usual, save them, publish results as always do. If need to rescorinate arise, then load old save and rescorinate whole round, but taking into account only groups where things went wrong, and publish their results and corresponding tables, saving them in the different file - 2b if group in question is B. At the next matchday you scorinate all groups as they are in file 2, but group B will have it's own scorinating. So you will have two, three or more independent files, but no need to make tables manually.

That would imply rescorination of all of the group's matches. What we're going to do is keep using the file as is, but use xkoranate's table generator for the affected groups (which I believe is standard procedure?). We appreciate the input, nonetheless.

[Newmanistan]

On the topic of firing and hiring national team managers, Newmanistan will be looking for a new manager. We've had enough of choking in qualifying.

Candidate must come from a nation with a tradition of commonly qualifying for the World Cup. He/She will become commonly mentioned in RP. If interested, please TG your candidate. Doesn't matter if they are an offense or defense minded coach, we will adjust to their style.

[PotatoFarmers]

With regards to the decision made on the rescorination for the WCQ, I do say that I like the way Farf has handled the issue. Yes, it may have made things harder for the hosts, but they chose to do what was the more pragmatic approach to solve the issue.
Anyways with regards to the table, I don't mind providing the updated tables if the hosts find it difficult, since I do have the results archived somewhere with a matching table done up on Google sheets. (The only problem would be time delay due to time zone differences)

[Krytenia]

I'm not having MA in scorinating, but maybe if need in rescorinate only few matches in the big batch arise often, I see the next solution to exclude manual counting and table-making.

Idea is as follows. Save everything on the disk in separate files before every round - 1, 2, 3, 4. You continue scorinate all groups as usual, save them, publish results as always do. If need to rescorinate arise, then load old save and rescorinate whole round, but taking into account only groups where things went wrong, and publish their results and corresponding tables, saving them in the different file - 2b if group in question is B. At the next matchday you scorinate all groups as they are in file 2, but group B will have it's own scorinating. So you will have two, three or more independent files, but no need to make tables manually.

That would imply rescorination of all of the group's matches. What we're going to do is keep using the file as is, but use xkoranate's table generator for the affected groups (which I believe is standard procedure?). We appreciate the input, nonetheless.

I think what Trelleborg's insinuating is that in the second file, you have the affected group. Of course, if we're doing that we could have a "branch" file made up of only the affected group, deleting the rest of the teams.

Don't think this would help the recent issue, though, as it pertains to more than one prior matchday.

[Trolleborg]

That would imply rescorination of all of the group's matches. What we're going to do is keep using the file as is, but use xkoranate's table generator for the affected groups (which I believe is standard procedure?). We appreciate the input, nonetheless.

I think what Trelleborg's insinuating is that in the second file, you have the affected group. Of course, if we're doing that we could have a "branch" file made up of only the affected group, deleting the rest of the teams.

Don't think this would help the recent issue, though, as it pertains to more than one prior matchday.

Precisely that, on both points.

Recent issues is non-remediable right now, but if such a things occured regularly even with a most conscious and diligent hosts, it's wise to look around for a solution.

[Valladares]

-snip-

First off, I would like to commend Farf (and the rest of the hosting group) for the honesty, transparency, and pragmatism with which they have handled their hosting and the issues that have appeared so far. In the opinion of someone who has already had his hand at hosting all three WCC events, it is not easy for someone as host to stand up, come up to the community, and say "I screwed up at X thing" when they have made a mistake. This should be a reminder that hosts are people like any of us who have volunteered to undertake the role of hosting any kind of event for the enjoyment of the community in the hopes that they are capable enough to pull it off, have been accepted by that same community, and as such are not infallible or exempt from making a mistake.

Now, regarding the re-scorination issue, I would be lying if I said I wouldn't want to give up a point for the sake of winning five more. Am I frustrated because I think I have done an effort to get better results? Maybe. But then I look at my current rank and I consider the thought that those can be perfectly feasible results for my team (hey, I'm playing this WCQ as the seventh seed in my group, I shouldn't be expecting a lot!). And besides, there's still that unpredictable R named "Randomness" around. With all those factors considered (I see Valentine Z saw no problem with re-scorination of their game, however this won't really have any weight on my judgement since ValZ's interests might not be orthogonal to or clash with mine), and also based on the fact that WC hosts are chosen by the community and with that they're entrusted with reaching a comprehensible solution to any and all issues that might come up, I will accept whatever course of action the host, in this case Farf, chooses to follow. If I end up winning five more points, so be it. If I end up losing one, so be it too.

[Farfadillis]

I (and I'm sure my co-hosts too) appreciate the kind words. Per Val's post, I've chosen to go ahead and rescorinate the affected matches. Results will appear shortly.

EDIT: All results have been corrected. Curiously enough, two of the three rescorinations produced the exact same score. The game that has changed is Khazajamal-Valladares, which went from a 1-1 to a 2-4.

[Filindostan]

Well, technically speaking, saved xml files generated by xkoranate generate the results used to calculate tables for round robin matches. We'll just need an XML editor (notepad works too) to recreate it.


Kindly note that the number before the result are N-1 where N is the matchday being scored.

In this example, I simulated a rescored match with Team A winning 3-2 against Team D second row of string. Original result was Team A losing 1-2 to this team.


Which is displayed in the scorinator screenshot above. After making the save, when I scored the matchday 3 games, the table calculated would be based on the values of the tableData information at the time of scoring. As the rescored result already reflected in the saved file, MD3 tables reflected that result (eg. Team A winning all three matches as of MD3)


Of course, MD1 and MD2 tables will be kept as is in the file, unless the source file is edited as well to reflect the rescored result and table changes. Here is a sample of the text that would appear in the Xkoranate program:

Of course table generators would help as well to regenerate the table after a certain set of results.

Presenting the above option as an alternative in case the hosts want to keep the files they were using at the start before the need to rescore matches. Just make sure that you have a backup of the original file to avoid inconveniences should the file corrupts.

[Farfadillis]

I've just tried it and it's creating the correct tables. Thank you!

[Krytenia]

That's really useful Filindo. I'll have to remember that one!