On Sat, 2004-11-27 at 04:17, Rich Dailey, N8UX. wrote:
> Come'on peoples... all this talk about realtime scoring, and no one
> has posted a score on the leaderboard yet?
I think the problem is that serious entrants aren't going to take the
time to manually post scores during the contest. We're going to have to
have something where the contest software [0] can automatically transmit
occasional updates without the operator's intervention during the
contest. A bit of setup *before* the contest - if it's not too complex
- would be fine.
I suggest a protocol be created for the transmission of real-time
scoring data. Contest programs or addins for them would be designed to
output updates in this format, and leaderboard servers would be designed
to accept such transmissions.
I propose that updates be sent as email messages to an address specified
by the server operator. The update would be transmitted as a text file
attachment in a specified format, which might look something like this:
<UPDATE>
<TIMESTAMP>19:23</TIMESTAMP>
<CONTEST>CQWWCW</CONTEST>
<CATEGORY>SOABHP</CATEGORY>
<STATION_CALL>W9WI</STATION_CALL>
<OPERATOR_CALL>W9WI</OPERATOR_CALL>
<OPERATOR_CALL>WB9NME</OPERATOR_CALL>
<CLAIMED_SCORE>1875424</CLAIMED_SCORE>
<OFF_TIME>1440</OFF_TIME>
<160Q>5</160Q>
<80Q>56</80Q>
<40Q>228</40Q>
<160Z>3</160Z>
<80Z>12</80Z>
<40Z>26</40Z>
<160C>4</160C>
<80C>25</80C>
<40C>60</40C>
<160P>19</160P>
<80P>140</80P>
<40P>489</40P>
<SOAPBOX>W9WI is a lid!</SOAPBOX>
<SOAPBOX>and so are you...</SOAPBOX>
</UPDATE>
Timestamp, Contest, Station_Call, and Claimed_Score fields would be
mandatory; any update missing one of these fields would be ignored.
Other fields would be optional. If Operator_Call is missing, it's
assumed to be the same as Station_Call. (for multiops, it can appear
more than once) If Category is missing, SOABHP is assumed. Off_Time is
in minutes. Numeric fields (like 160C) are assumed zero if missing.
If a field is transmitted more than once, (either in the same update or
in subsequent updates) the last data sent would overwrite any previous
data. (EXCEPT for the operator_call and soapbox fields in which new data
will be appended to previous data)
It would be up to the scoreboard server operator to decide how to
display received data.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com
[0] or an add-in of some kind. With TRLog you can direct an automatic
backup at regular intervals to any valid filename. A separate program
could occasionally read this backup and create a file suitable for
transmission to a leaderboard server. Presumably other contest
applications are capable of similar automatic backups. This would allow
the creation of leaderboard clients without requiring modification of
the CT/NA/TR/etc. software applications. Of course, if the applications
wished to include internal leaderboard support that would work too...
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