[tournament-org] Club names

[Geoff Kaniuk]

I think there are several facets to the question surrounding club names:

1. How does a club  affiliate to the BGA and get a name?
2. Why does the BGA not ask new members to specify a club?
3. What club name should be used when one enters a tournament?
4. What club name should be displayed on the ratings list?

I cannot contribute much to 1 and 2. I can only assume that somewhere 
there is a list of official club names - and maybe the default is the 
club list shown in http://www.britgo.org/clubs/map

Firstly I think it may be useful to explain how things work with GoDraw, 
EGD, and the Rating list.

Regarding 3.
In principle, players can enter a tournament specifying any club name 
they like. That club name gets fed into GoDraw. Club names for GoDraw 
have to satisfy a simple syntax and may not contain digits. The pairing 
system uses the club name for one purpose only - to avoid pairing 
players below the bar from the same club. There are always a few players 
who are not affiliated to any club, and these are entered as No Club. 
However all players with club name No Club are not prevented from 
playing each other.

Some players who are not affiliated to a club will give the name of 
their Town or region. I think this is useful as then one can see these 
isolated areas and perhaps put people in contact.

The BGA publishes tournament results and these show the club name used 
by the players.


Regarding 4.
When results are submitted to the EGD for rating, the club name has to 
be converted to a 4 letter club code.  For this reason it was natural to 
develop a club name/code table. The assignment of codes is arbitrary but 
EGD maintainers prefer that the codes bear some resemblance to the club 
name. The codes were initially letters but as France has numbered this 
was changed to allow digits in the codes.

The assignment of club codes is managed by the maintainer of the draw 
program. The BGA publishes its club name/code table, but I not know of 
any other country that does so.

The EGD database is not aware of of club names, just club codes. The BGA 
display of the rating list converts the club code back to a club name 
using the published club name table.

This means that the club names seen in the rating list agree with the 
club names found in the published tournament results.

Where a player enters a non BGA tournament stating  country as UK but a 
club name not in our list then the rating list will indicate that the 
name shown is actually a code.

Correlation with real club names
Some official club names are very long. For example:
Lancaster Royal Grammar School
Cambridge Junior Chess and Go
London School of Economics and Political Science

These long names are abbreviated for feeding into GoDraw and display on 
our rating list.

Neil  has raised specific questions - I have commented below [[ ... ]]

Geoff

33 Ashbury Close, Cambridge CB1 3RW 01223 710582

On 25/02/2019 14:09, Neil Sandford via tournament-org wrote:
> This discussion originated in a conversation with Geoff K when I was having problems with versioning of GoDraw and it relates to the 'No Club' scenario ( should we encourage or discourage the use of 'no club' if the player has got a club). The question I would like discussed is this:
> 
> Who is responsible for selecting the club name to be used for registration and where does that club name come from? 
[[
The player is respnsible.
]]
A peek inside GoPlayers.gdi and GoClubCode.gdi will make this point 
clearer when you find clubs called 'Poznam' and 'Silver Springs' and 
even 'CODE13Ma' there (It turns out that is Marseilles, not Manchester, 
but my guess is CODELon is London).
[[
A better source is the list published in the Documentation section of 
the GoDraw Page  at http://www.britgo.org/downloads/godraw/

in the link: Download Club Names
www.britgo.org/tourmansys/tournaments/sharedsys/club-table-UK

This is the file used to convert club codes to names in the rating list. 
My aim is eventually to make this file the only source of club names for 
GoDrawand Ratings.
]]
  I would not fancy giving tournament directors (TDs) the ability to 
select a British club name from either of those sources.
[[
In my view TD's should not be selecting club names.
]]

> 
> The players register their own club info when they enter a tournament (unless the TD is using the Tourman form that extracts information from the EGD)
[[
The TD normally does not enter players using that form. The players use 
the form to enter themselves and are free to modify the club name.
]]
> 
> That club info can be altered by the TD.
[[
I do not think this is a good idea. However, sometimes players will 
change a club name to try to avoid playing others from frequently 
visited clubs. This should be discouraged as the mechanism exists to 
prevent a group from playing each other.
]]
> 
> It can also be altered by Geoff in his role looking after communication between TDs and EGD.
[[
The ratings officer needs to ensure players are correctly identified in 
EGD. Said person will change the club code if needed, not the club name.
]]
> 
> And, finally, because there is a field in the form that Geoff uses called Country 
[[
EGD requires a 2 letter country code to be submitted.
]]
it seems that he occasionally gets to deal with members of Marseilles Go 
Club, because the player used that field to submit their Nationality 
(UK) at an Italian congress but the field is supposed to be for the 
country where the tournament was held. And their club is in France.
[[
Not true.  The country field is required by EGD for the player's 
nationality.
]]
> 
> Finally, there is nothing to allow all this information to be synced - if a Go club tells me that they have changed their name and want it changed on britgo.org, there is no way of propagating that knowledge to other future TDs or the historical record that Geoff has. So, we frequently find Somewhere Town and Somewhere (and possibly Somewhere University) being used interchangeably.
[[
I think syncing would be a major headache.
If a club changes its name there is nothing to prevent this information 
from appearing in the club-code table for use in future tournaments.

A cull of the existing list would be useful as I am sure there are a 
large number of clubs that are no longer active.
]]
> 
> Any initial thoughts?
> 
> Neil
> 
> 
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