Are RoRoRo's predictions too "noisy"?

It might be that we're going through a summer lull, but it has been suggested that RoRoRo's continuous updates are stifling human-human conversation by flooding the fora. I can trivially crank down how often he checks the championship states if that would be an improvement.

He does have a webpage where the predictions are all available , and that (at least used to) include an RSS feed.

As long as it keeps to its own (few) threads, I don't see a problem.

Heh yeah, no wandering over to Twixt "move of the month" thread. I still bear the emotional scars of that horrible incident.

I say keep the predictions running as you have been. It is a very nice feature to follow the various championships. It is not noisy! If someone doesn't want to follow the predictions, they can just ignore the posts. Some of us really like them.

Knowing how chatty we dvonn players are, I imagine him owning the whole front page within a few years!

I think the problem was that when some people see that a forum was updated 20 minutes ago they rush over to see who's posted what, and then are disappointed it's just RoRoRo again.

For reference, his checking frequency is presently every 14400 seconds.

Could we ask Richard to have a forum link dedicated to RoRoRo's predictions as a new LG feature to escape the syndrome just described by FatPhil which conclusion is "never mind looking for what's new in this forum, it is surely just RoRoRo updating about the championship..."? And then less people looking means less people posting and self deprecation mechanism.

This said it is nice for the ones you want to follow, but it has not the same goal as an interactive forum.

I like Carrol's idea.
I don't think it would make a big difference to let rororo check less often. And I think 14400 seconds is not to often to check.

I love this Bot!

Let me be the contrarian and suggest once every 8 or 12 hours per tournament would be enough. And I would stagger the tournaments' phases within the time period, whatever it is. E.g., if RoRoRo were examining 24 tournaments at 8-hour intervals each, he would do one every 20 minutes rather than all 24 once every 8 hours (or one every 10 minutes to check each one every 4 hours). [Yes, RoRoRo is more or less stateless, but he must have some list of which tournaments he's doing and which games in those tournaments have been taken into account, and that would be the place to record a tournament's time phase.]

My observation is that the "Latest Forum Topics" on the "Main" page, which shows only the 10 most recent topics, can be dominated by RoRoRo's updates. As I write (2012-09-03 14:12 GMT) 6 of the 10 are RoRoRo's, so the list only goes back 6 hours. I haven't checked LG in something like 12 or 14 hours (so it's really my own fault! :)) and I could be missing a post I would have liked to have seen. Another way around would be for Richard to increase the Latest-Forum-Topics list to 20, or to the union of the latest 10 and all in the last 14 hours.

Other ideas that came to mind - make the last-updated-time next to the forum name have a mouse-over text that says who's posted in what thread

e.g. (and expect textile mangling...)

Forum
Chess forum 5 h. <------- [RoRoRo the Bot in "chess.ch.18.1.1 predictions"]

I was thinking the exact opposite of staggering - make the times of the predictions more predictable for all fora. E.g. I could do any updates at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 each day (or 00:00, 08:00, 16:00). That way you can more easily just dismiss it as just another RoRoRo run more easily.

I thought of the staggering to reduce the maximum number of topics RoRoRo could have posted to in the last n minutes.

I like both ideas of fixed hours and the Title/tooltip, like Chess forum?

Now experimenting with 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00 GMT updates, let's see if it's better or worse...

I agree with Marley'sGhost that the main problem is the dissaperence of other threads on the main page (although people with other habits will have other problems.) To be honest, I would love it if there was a place where I could see a compiled vesion of the forms going back as far as I want, in which case I wouldn't mind a bit of RoRoRo spamming.

no, they're fine

I don't know about you, but I'm definitely preferring the pinned 6-hour frequency to the drifting ~4-hour cycle. It's trivial to detect a RoRoRo post without going to the particular forum now.

I think I like the new schedule better, too, although I can't articulate why.

Also, if you're not "going to the particular forum", a non-RoRo post occurring since you last looked and before (or simultaneous with or a hair after) a RoRo prediction would be masked.

I don't know if there is a perfect solution, but I do know I don't know of any.

Yes I like it better, I think the frequency is still a bit too high if you look at the number of non-RoRoRo posts in the head of the different forum.

Blame that on the humans!

Would be good if the site could show when the last human posted. If people think it is RoRoRo it may stifle response and posting if people think they will be overlooked.

For my taste there should not be too many predictions, it shifts away the attention from
real discussions.

Well, in the case of Dvonn, there are no real discussions, so there's nothing to shift attention away from!

I can drop the frequency again - 3 times daily (so half what it was when the initial comment was made). I'll need to split the runs into public ones and private ones, as I don't want the ones delivered by message to be delayed so long - 6 hours is too long already for those. So this might take a couple of days...

Do people use his RSS feed? (I.e. does his RSS feed work, I certainly don't use it, but I added the feature as it seemed a good idea

The preferrable solution would, in my opinion, be a separate forum for these predictions. Richard, do you read this? Could you add a new forum called "predictions"?

Another possibility would be a separate site for the predictions, like the sites for the Monstership, Monster Rating and Tour de LG. But would it be a GOOD solution? I don't know.

There is already a separate site for the predictions:

RoRoRo's predictions

I agree, as I already stated, with the idea of a predictions forum. However, I realised some people here use the main page and the Latest Forum Topics to see what has been posted. For them, a separate forum wouldn't solve the problem of RoRoRo filling the 10 slots.

I've long liked the idea of at least one extra forum. One where all the prodictions could go would be useful, but it doesn't need to be dedicated to just predictions. For a while I've thought about the idea of suggesting one forum dedicated to all programming topics. Discussions of Monte Carlo game state analysis, for example, don't need to be isolated in the Hex/Havannah forum, topics like that are broader than one individual game, but perhaps to marginal to warrant discussing in the general forum.

Thanks, mungo - I had forgotten that there was a separate site for RoRoRo's predictions. You are, of course, entirely right about your second statement: A separate forum would still flood the "Latest Forum Topics" in the main page, which is what I and many others use to find interresting new topics or responses. But perhaps such a forum could be excluded from display on the main page?

As long as there is a separate page for the predictions, that's really all _I_ need. With a link to that page somewhere, perhaps RoRoRo didn't need to post predictions in the forum at all? Or am I wrong again...?

At the risk of repeating myself, which I am loathe, loathe I tell you, to do, let me reiterate that since the complaints, such as they are, have been mostly that topics get pushed off "Latest Forum Topics" by RoRoRo's posts, a first step that Richard could take to ameliorate the problem would be to increase that list from 10 rows to, say, 20.
Or to the entire list of topics that have had new posts since the user last paid attention to the list. (If only we could get more intrusive web browsers.)

> With a link to that page somewhere, perhaps RoRoRo didn't need to post predictions in the forum at all?

But then how do users get notified that there's a new prediction? ...in a tournament they care about?

That's what RSS is for. Looking at my logs, it's not exactly popular :-(

fatphil.org.log.2.gz:208.115.111.68 - - [08/Sep/2012:17:31:57 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 9730
fatphil.org.log.3.gz:66.249.72.135 - - [29/Aug/2012:12:49:28 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 8743
fatphil.org.log.7.gz:208.115.111.68 - - [01/Aug/2012:15:18:09 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 6734
fatphil.org.log.7.gz:208.115.111.68 - - [02/Aug/2012:00:01:07 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 6734
fatphil.org.log.7.gz:208.115.111.68 - - [02/Aug/2012:05:13:07 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 6734
fatphil.org.log.8.gz:178.154.163.29 - - [27/Jul/2012:10:19:46 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 6243
fatphil.org.log.10.gz:208.115.111.68 - - [11/Jul/2012:05:52:47 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5260
fatphil.org.log.11.gz:208.115.111.68 - - [02/Jul/2012:13:37:26 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5259
fatphil.org.log.12.gz:178.154.163.29 - - [27/Jun/2012:02:07:38 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 4744
fatphil.org.log.12.gz:195.42.102.21 - - [27/Jun/2012:17:53:34 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 4744
fatphil.org.log.17.gz:180.76.5.168 - - [25/May/2012:19:06:10 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5244
fatphil.org.log.17.gz:208.115.113.84 - - [26/May/2012:23:49:25 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5242
fatphil.org.log.17.gz:208.115.113.84 - - [27/May/2012:05:22:01 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5242
fatphil.org.log.17.gz:66.249.71.36 - - [22/May/2012:06:17:38 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5497
fatphil.org.log.18.gz:38.107.179.238 - - [18/May/2012:09:33:40 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5504
fatphil.org.log.19.gz:208.115.113.84 - - [10/May/2012:06:25:51 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5231
fatphil.org.log.21.gz:208.115.113.84 - - [25/Apr/2012:07:53:40 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 5981
fatphil.org.log.24.gz:85.17.29.107 - - [04/Apr/2012:11:08:04 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 6772
fatphil.org.log.25.gz:178.154.163.29 - - [01/Apr/2012:07:12:44 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 6519
fatphil.org.log.26.gz:208.115.113.84 - - [26/Mar/2012:04:37:04 +0300] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 6522
fatphil.org.log.27.gz:208.115.113.84 - - [11/Mar/2012:18:09:01 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 6291
fatphil.org.log.29.gz:178.154.163.29 - - [02/Mar/2012:05:09:01 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 7283
fatphil.org.log.30.gz:66.249.71.74 - - [22/Feb/2012:16:41:07 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 8770
fatphil.org.log.31.gz:178.154.163.29 - - [15/Feb/2012:12:01:34 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 9540
fatphil.org.log.33.gz:38.107.179.240 - - [04/Feb/2012:22:43:05 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 9783
fatphil.org.log.36.gz:178.154.163.29 - - [14/Jan/2012:02:23:46 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 11767
fatphil.org.log.36.gz:208.115.113.84 - - [09/Jan/2012:23:02:17 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 11751
fatphil.org.log.36.gz:88.70.214.98 - - [12/Jan/2012:09:26:23 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 11767
fatphil.org.log.39.gz:208.115.113.84 - - [20/Dec/2011:18:29:39 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 11272
fatphil.org.log.40.gz:85.17.29.107 - - [14/Dec/2011:12:24:49 +0200] "GET /rororo/predictions/rss.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 11279

Which looks like one WBSearchBot, an DotNetDotCom/ezooms bot, a google bot, and a few unknown hosts from around the world.

Another option would be to post links to one forum topic. In the general forum a Prediction thread could be started and RoRoRo could post links like this:

New dvonn.ch.21.1.1 prediction

A new link could be posted every time an update was done.

This would not flood the "Latest Forum Topic", everyone could easily follow the predictions that are interesting, and Richard doesn't have to be involved. It would be one click more than today, but I could live with that.