ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

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Brian Towers
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ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Brian Towers » Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:25 pm

Swiss Manager has a useful function which allows the automatic download and incorporation of various rating lists including ECF standard and rapid.

This was working a month ago but now attempts to do this give an error saying there is a server error.

SM is looking for the file here: https://www.ecfrating.org.uk/v2/new/api ... atings_csv

Going to the relevant page on the ECF website it says this
ECF Website wrote: All Rated Players (2sec 4Mb) Revised June 2021
Latest:
JSON : https://www.ecfrating.org.uk/v2/new/api ... ating_list
CSV : https://www.ecfrating.org.uk/v2/new/api ... g_list_csv
Which suggests that SM is just looking at the wrong web address for the ENG ratings. However while "fixing" this by copying and pasting the correct address into the SM Import Ratings page does successfully download the ratings file in the program the resulting function is broken and it does not find the ENG (and ENGR) ratings for the players. Has there been a change in file format along with filename?

Personally I'm OK because a few weeks ago I successfully downloaded the June ENG files via SM and cunningly copied the two files SM creates to a backup location and can just copy them back to their proper location, restart SM and everything works just fine albeit it with ENG ratings for June rather than July. Other arbiters who haven't run a tournament for a while may not be so lucky.

Once these problems are fixed (it was all working a few weeks ago) there is another potential SNAFU arbiters need to be aware of:
ECF Website wrote:There is a limit on the amount of processing time per day per internet class C network address. The maximum processing time is currently 10 minutes per day, reset every midnight GMT, but may be changed without notice. Processing time and limits are provided in every JSON response.

19th July 2020 [email protected] Cirencester
If you need to update SM with the latest ECF ratings then don't leave it until the last minute. Do it a few days before and do it in the morning to avoid frustration because there is a 10 minute download limit per day.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Brian Valentine
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Brian Valentine » Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:43 pm

This is something we are trying to upgrade. The file changed when we added online ratings to the system. There will be other changes as we move the online rating administration onto the OTB system. Unfortunately this all takes longer than we would like.

Brian Valentine
Manager ECF rating

Brian Towers
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Brian Towers » Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:30 pm

Brian Valentine wrote:
Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:43 pm
This is something we are trying to upgrade. The file changed when we added online ratings to the system. There will be other changes as we move the online rating administration onto the OTB system. Unfortunately this all takes longer than we would like.

Brian Valentine
Manager ECF rating
Is making available (again) the file which Swiss Manager is expecting too complicated? You already make available a JSON and a CSV file so the concept of making more than one file available is not completely foreign.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Joseph Conlon
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Joseph Conlon » Tue Jul 20, 2021 4:28 pm

Funnily enough, I noticed that exactly the same happened with UTU Swiss (when on Saturday I went to download the July list in preparation for my Sunday event). As above, I just used the June list which I had already downloaded. A fix to UTU has now gone live which downloads the correct file again.

The other July change seems to be that rating files, once uploaded, are no longer instantly visible on the ECF Rating database. In previous months the games would be visible instantly even if the ratings did not change until the end of the month.

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Adam Raoof
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Adam Raoof » Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:07 pm

Thanks to Heinz Herzog for fixing this now with the latest update, and to Rob Willmoth and Rob Hammond for pushing this to the front of the queue!
Adam Raoof IA, IO
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Brian Towers
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Brian Towers » Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:42 am

Adam Raoof wrote:
Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:07 pm
Thanks to Heinz Herzog for fixing this now with the latest update, and to Rob Willmoth and Rob Hammond for pushing this to the front of the queue!
Seconded.

Nice to see the power this forum has
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:45 am

Brian Towers wrote:
Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:42 am
Nice to see the power this forum has
All less than 30 of us !

https://www.chess.com/blog/timpeterwall ... lish-chess
In recent weeks I have been the target of a prolonged campaign of character assassination by a handful of individuals on an obscure and unrepresentative online talking shop, who were determined that I should not be elected as a Silver Members’ rep. (The total number of active participants on that forum is less than 30. Compare that to the many thousands of people who read and interact with articles on Chess.com, for example.)

Brian Denman
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Brian Denman » Fri Jul 30, 2021 6:56 pm

Am I right that a player's grading history has now disappeared?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Jul 30, 2021 7:07 pm

Brian Denman wrote:
Fri Jul 30, 2021 6:56 pm
Am I right that a player's grading history has now disappeared?
The grade history is still there.
http://www.ecfrating.org.uk/v2/new/play ... de=109590A

What isn't accessible is the archive of detail results.

They seem to have set the address www.ecfgrading.org.uk to point at www.ecfrating.org.uk

That's all very well but the archive of detailed past results should be preserved rather than discarded.

Brian Valentine
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Brian Valentine » Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:04 pm

I'm prepared to be proved wrong, but the aim was to upload all the old history onto the new rating site. If Brian can pm me with what he can't find on the new site, I'll make a deep dive for him.

Brian Valentine
Manager ECF Rating

Tim Spanton
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Tim Spanton » Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:05 pm

Brian Valentine wrote:
Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:04 pm
I'm prepared to be proved wrong, but the aim was to upload all the old history onto the new rating site. If Brian can pm me with what he can't find on the new site, I'll make a deep dive for him.

Brian Valentine
Manager ECF Rating
I've found the info for both Brian and Roger and sent them links!!!

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Sat Jul 31, 2021 8:36 pm

Tim Spanton wrote:
Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:05 pm
Brian Valentine wrote:
Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:04 pm
I'm prepared to be proved wrong, but the aim was to upload all the old history onto the new rating site. If Brian can pm me with what he can't find on the new site, I'll make a deep dive for him.

Brian Valentine
Manager ECF Rating
I've found the info for both Brian and Roger and sent them links!!!
It sounds like this might be what I am looking for. I have a (fading) memory of what the layout was like on the old site, but really need screenshots to describe it. Does anyone have any screenshots of the old site?

From memory, you would be able to click on and browse through results by year for an individual. For some reason, I am finding the new site much harder to use than the old one.

I also frequently get this "Sorry, details are not available for old grades".

And I still don't get why some places show my grade back to July 1994, and some parts of the database only show the grade back to 2000. Is that the point when the details of individual games started to appear online?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Jul 31, 2021 8:55 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Sat Jul 31, 2021 8:36 pm
And I still don't get why some places show my grade back to July 1994, and some parts of the database only show the grade back to 2000. Is that the point when the details of individual games started to appear online?
A national grading system as opposed to separate regional ones dates back to around 1986, probably coinciding with the BCF Office acquiring a computer. In its earliest form, local graders were required to submit consolidated results, in other words just player identification, number of games played and grading points scored where grade would be points divided by number of games. In some cases the local grader's submission took the form of a printed or written list. During the late 1990s, graders were encouraged to submit detail results game by game and these, along with archives going back to 1994 were used to build the first web based version. It would appear records from 1986 to 1994 were not available in a form that could be easily captured. The printed grading lists have presumably survived somewhere but they would need to be scanned and processed to extract individual detail. When your back up medium is 720k or 1440k floppy disks, the archive issue tended to be forgotten.

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Adam Raoof
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Re: ECF Rating Database broken for Arbiters

Post by Adam Raoof » Thu Aug 05, 2021 10:29 am

Swiss Manager should probably have it's own thread, but just to say I can run it on a memory stick, it is so compact. However literally the only reason I still have a Windows PC is to run SM for chess organisation. Has anyone managed to run it on Linux or Chrome OS?
Adam Raoof IA, IO
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Don’t stop playing chess!

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