Derby Dead Pool 2019

[Spade_Cooley 9,538]

Falling off a cliff: unnatural death bonus

Being old, falling over, going to hospital as a result, getting a virus there, dying a month later: not an unnatural death.

 

Also, I note Kevin J. McIntyre has received a Reuters US obit, but not a Reuters UK one. Those who picked him will be hoping for a C+P somewhere.

[Banana 859]

I still don't understand how a fall is unnatural. The cause of a fall would be from weakness and/or failing balance. It's not unnatural for a 96-year-old or whatever to die from a fall when the direct cause for the fall is natural.

[Handrejka 1,904]

4 minutes ago, Banana said:

I still don't understand how a fall is unnatural. The cause of a fall would be from weakness and/or failing balance. It's not unnatural for a 96-year-old or whatever to die from a fall when the direct cause for the fall is natural.

 

I agree, unless it's a Rod Hull style fall.

[Sir Creep 7,070]

1 hour ago, Banana said:

I still don't understand how a fall is unnatural. The cause of a fall would be from weakness and/or failing balance. It's not unnatural for a 96-year-old or whatever to die from a fall when the direct cause for the fall is natural.

Until gravity is no longer an issue, it's absurd.

[Deathray 2,940]

On 02/01/2019 at 18:22, Spade_Cooley said:

As soon as this site's up I'm establishing a steering committee for next year's edition, because we need to come up with a better way of processing entries that doesn't send gamerunners insane.

  

Although of mild note: Tyler Trent was only picked on two teams, and was a joker for both. Gene Okerlund was a unique, and again a joker. So 100% of all deaths so far have been captain hits.

 

I'll write much more detailed thoughts when the DDP site is sorted and you guys have time to read them, but in the interest of sparking discussion.

 

I honestly think - given the enormous size of the DDP in comparison to virtually any other deadpool - a move towards a committee of helpers from this forum (and elsewhere if necessary) working through cloud software if possible to put together the entries and process them would be, I know @msc mooted something similar in the discord on NYE. There's probably many on here who would be willing to contribute to making sure the DDP survives and taking the burden off the poor game-runners during the entry period, but simply cannot for whatever reason commit to running the entire game. 

 

Whilst I can be sure the DDP has a somewhat more efficient/complicated system (I vaguely remember TMIB mentioning excel lookup tables) than the basic spreadsheet system I use for Hares or the word document masterlists some folk round here use, it still took the equivalent of at least 2 (possibly more, it wasn't done in one go) working days to process the meagre 43 entries I had for this year and score up the entries I had for last year - so it must take up a lot of time fitting the DDP round real life commitments and as you say send you insane with the process, I honestly don't understand how you guys manage to process 593 entries even with assistance when your running the DDP without noping out or breaking down, it's a Herculean task (even sending the thank you emails alone is that) that really shouldn't be left to 1 or maybe 2 people on a good year. This may well be one of those cases of many hands make light work, if we can design a reliable workflow system so many hands doesn't fuck it up (stuff to avoid people adding names in that have already been added by other people,  .and there's cloud software around now that wasn't around when the DDP started which might help - whether they can in anyway be utilised without breaking the website I leave to those with more technical knowledge. 

[The Old Crem 3,608]

On 03/01/2019 at 00:22, DevonDeathTrip said:

 

I don't doubt it, which is why I picked her as well.  Very hard to get a unique pick with potential these days.

Maybe a rule that all unique picks have to have their profile written by the submitter - with new shared picks decided by a random draw.

Or someone put in charge of the theme league for example.

 

[Spade_Cooley 9,538]

8 minutes ago, Deathray said:

 

I'll write much more detailed thoughts when the DDP site is sorted and you guys have time to read them, but in the interest of sparking discussion.

 

I honestly think - given the enormous size of the DDP in comparison to virtually any other deadpool - a move towards a committee of helpers from this forum (and elsewhere if necessary) working through cloud software if possible to put together the entries and process them would be, I know @msc mooted something similar in the discord on NYE. There's probably many on here who would be willing to contribute to making sure the DDP survives and taking the burden off the poor game-runners during the entry period, but simply cannot for whatever reason commit to running the entire game. 

  

Whilst I can be sure the DDP has a somewhat more efficient/complicated system (I vaguely remember TMIB mentioning excel lookup tables) than the basic spreadsheet system I use for Hares or the word document masterlists some folk round here use, it still took the equivalent of 2 working days to process the meagre 43 entries I had for this year and score up the entries I had for last year - so it must take up a lot of time fitting the DDP round real life commitments and as you say send you insane with the process, I honestly don't understand how you guys manage to process 593 entries even with assistance when your running the DDP without noping out or breaking down, it's a Herculean task that really shouldn't be left to 1 or maybe 2 people on a good year. This may well be one of those cases of many hands make light work, if we can design a reliable workflow system so many hands doesn't fuck it up (stuff to avoid people adding names in that have already been added by other people,  . 

 

I think the meat and bones of the DDP will have to change. My two-year run was about sorting the front-end out, and I'm confident over the next six months we'll have nailed everything about the CMS and the site's design (still playing around with fonts tbh). One problem is that T-Mib handled everything alone for so long that a lot of the processes are listed only in his head, which is why I'm spooked that as soon as I try and generate the pages for this year we're going to see an utter shitshow.

 

There have been something like 15,000 celebs picked for the DDP in its entire history. Every single one of those is in a database. Do we really need to know that, say, Ronald Magill was born in Hull when he's not been alive for 12 years? No, but the way everything is set up now means that the system cannot be changed. We will have to start from scratch.

[Deathray 2,940]

28 minutes ago, Spade_Cooley said:

 

I think the meat and bones of the DDP will have to change. My two-year run was about sorting the front-end out, and I'm confident over the next six months we'll have nailed everything about the CMS and the site's design (still playing around with fonts tbh). One problem is that T-Mib handled everything alone for so long that a lot of the processes are listed only in his head, which is why I'm spooked that as soon as I try and generate the pages for this year we're going to see an utter shitshow.

  

There have been something like 15,000 celebs picked for the DDP in its entire history. Every single one of those is in a database. Do we really need to know that, say, Ronald Magill was born in Hull when he's not been alive for 12 years? No, but the way everything is set up now means that the system cannot be changed. We will have to start from scratch.

 

Sorry, I slightly misunderstood your inference in what you were opening for discussion, but I get you now. Firstly, the work you've done on the front end in modernising the website is great, and it looks a hell of a lot better than the, sadly dated, look it had a few years ago, so thanks and great work. And I can certainly understood why the processes being in someone who has now to all accounts given up not only deadpooling but the forum as a wholes head is a little bit disconcerting for a new host (not that any of this is tmibs fault, I'm sure we all recognise when you become so used to do something a certain way, it becomes second nature and doesn't need written rules). I don't think anybody when they first set up the DDP expected it to grow to the size it has done and require this much effort to maintain. I'm sure we won't see an utter shitshow.

 

Although I'm pretty sure my point about people being willing to help applies to that process too. Having 15,000 celebs in the database does indeed seem a tad bloated, especially when many of them are dead, but then again it would be a shame to loose the old DDP teams and scoreboards, so striking a balance could be the way forward. 

 

Perhaps replacing the  very old A-Z of picks pages, which are no doubt largely useless now - anyone of importance being used more recently - with links to other websites with information on them (primarily wikipedia) on the teams page and removing them from the database would reduce the back-end nightmare although whether that can be done without then having to re-do the scoreboard is something you do know more about than me? (and whether a page with that many links would ever actually load is questionable). But again a Herculean task that couldn't be done by one person. 

 

I suppose the other option is just nuking all the dead people from say 5+ years ago from the database and forcing people to google them if they really care who the fuck they are - again an option that didn't exist in the same way when the competition started and makes the reams of pages on who celebs are a bit redundant unless they're some obscure cancer mum or very minor celeb (of which there are many more nowadays presumably).  It would at least make it easier to input new names, but would need to be done carefully in order not to make the old A-Z pages (which could perhaps be removed for old competitions, with a shorter list of only the people who couldn't be found with any easy google for each year on one page? - Again a rather big job!) redundant. 

 

Kudos to you for even bringing this topic of discussion up though and recognising it needs addressing during the handover to the next game-runner/runners, I'm sure it would be easy just to hand the flawed system over and go "i had to deal with it the next game-runner can as well" or not recognise any issues in it. 

[Grim Up North 3,727]

On 02/01/2019 at 18:01, gcreptile said:

Greg Gilbert - stable on the outside, but I chose to go for him because he felt weak and ill in December. I think he can only last so long, and the delay of death through immunotherapy is already past him. Slight gamble for the latter half of the year hit

 

Deliberate?

[Sir Creep 7,070]

4 hours ago, Deathray said:

 

I suppose the other option is just nuking all the dead people from say 5+ years ago from the database and forcing people to google them if they really care who the fuck they are - again an option that didn't exist in the same way when the competition started and makes the reams of pages on who celebs are a bit redundant unless they're some obscure cancer mum or very minor celeb (of which there are many more nowadays presumably).  It would at least make it easier to input new names, but would need to be done carefully in order not to make the old A-Z pages (which could perhaps be removed for old competitions, with a shorter list of only the people who couldn't be found with any easy google for each year on one page? - Again a rather big job!) redundant. 

 

Would it be nearly as beneficial but avoid throwing the baby out with the bath water if we simply deleted the photos/images of long-ago celebs?  I'm guessing that takes up 99% more space than a few sentences of text.  Of course if that requires going name by name, it would lack a cost-benefit, unless a few of us teamed up and went through a year or two all at once.

SC

[Deathray 2,940]

2 minutes ago, Sir Creep said:

Would it be nearly as beneficial but avoid throwing the baby out with the bath water if we simply deleted the photos/images of long-ago celebs?  I'm guessing that takes up 99% more space than a few sentences of text.  Of course if that requires going name by name, it would lack a cost-benefit, unless a few of us teamed up and went through a year or two all at once.

 SC

 

I don't think this would solve the key issue - from what Spade said above - of their being too many entries in the database picks are logged on to easily find out whether a pick needs to be added or is already in the database in whatever logging system he uses? It might make the database load a little faster to remove images. places of birth and  places of death of all entries and instead only included dob, dod and a brief description of who they are, whether that makes any difference to the logging speed for our hosts will be a question @Spade_Cooley who's dealt with the system?

[RadGuy 1,614]

Reuters UK obit for Kevin McIntyre.

[Spade_Cooley 9,538]

Yeah, the photos/bios/D.O.B.s aren't really a problem per se, they're just a little time-consuming but they do add to the site's overall glamour. 

 

The real problem is, as stated previously, nothing is connected. And we've been using effectively the same system since... 2004? 2005? This is what happens.

You email your teams, all 529 of them.

There's no uniformity to the teams (some are submitted first name surname, surname first name, in a separate wordfile, in an attachment, numbered, bulletpointed....) These all have to be turned into 500-odd uniform teams formatted the same.

Spelling errors abound. Not just issues with people writing Duke of Edinburgh instead of Prince Philip, but actual abominations of mistyping. These all have to be corrected one by one.

Then the new teams have to be identified and have new codes created for them (the number you see at the end of the URL when you click a team's name on the DDP).

Then the new teams are added to a database, along with the old teams (just the ones that are currently entered, not teams that entered in previous years but not the current one).

Oh, these teams also have to have their "years entered" and "highest place" data changed as well.

The new celebrities have to have codes generated for them

Then they're added to a spreadsheet, along with the existing celebs who were previously picked (again, not the ones picked in previous years who werne't this year).

If any letter goes astray throughout this entire process, the database will not work and refuse to generate DDP pages.

 

See how fucked this is?

[Spade_Cooley 9,538]

3 minutes ago, Phantom of the Midway said:

Reuters UK obit for Kevin McIntyre.

Respect to those who gambled on him. Had a feeling he might get one thanks to the short nature of his previous role.

[drol 11,957]

Off the mark with the B-team.

[Deathray 2,940]

9 minutes ago, Spade_Cooley said:

Yeah, the photos/bios/D.O.B.s aren't really a problem per se, they're just a little time-consuming but they do add to the site's overall glamour. 

 

The real problem is, as stated previously, nothing is connected. And we've been using effectively the same system since... 2004? 2005? This is what happens.


You email your teams, all 529 of them.

 There's no uniformity to the teams (some are submitted first name surname, surname first name, in a separate wordfile, in an attachment, numbered, bulletpointed....) These all have to be turned into 500-odd uniform teams formatted the same.

 Spelling errors abound. Not just issues with people writing Duke of Edinburgh instead of Prince Philip, but actual abominations of mistyping. These all have to be corrected one by one.

 Then the new teams have to be identified and have new codes created for them (the number you see at the end of the URL when you click a team's name on the DDP).

Then the new teams are added to a database, along with the old teams (just the ones that are currently entered, not teams that entered in previous years but not the current one).

Oh, these teams also have to have their "years entered" and "highest place" data changed as well.

The new celebrities have to have codes generated for them

Then they're added to a spreadsheet, along with the existing celebs who were previously picked (again, not the ones picked in previous years who werne't this year).

If any letter goes astray throughout this entire process, the database will not work and refuse to generate DDP pages.

 

See how fucked this is?

 

Yes! That's quite frankly beyond fucked. No wonder running the game sends folk doolally. 

 

Theoretically, could it be made so that people submit teams via the website, and it searches for the names that are already in the database and updates the years in comp and highest placing t teams? Which would at least cut down the workload? Unfortunately. I'm not a web developer so don't know how realistic a solution that is?

[YoungWillz 21,060]

Don't forget the subs for those who go in the latter stages of the previous year!

 

Horrid job.

 

Must be a way of electronically submitting as Deathers suggests.

[Spade_Cooley 9,538]

17 minutes ago, Deathray said:

 

Yes! That's quite frankly beyond fucked. No wonder running the game sends folk doolally. 

 

Theoretically, could it be made so that people submit teams via the website, and it searches for the names that are already in the database and updates the years in comp and highest placing t teams? Which would at least cut down the workload? Unfortunately. I'm not a web developer so don't know how realistic a solution that is?

 

To be honest, when I advertised on Upwork for a programmer to have a look at the site, this is what I was thinking. You enter by going to the site when entries are open, type your team name and 20 picks, a fuzzy search then looks to see if they've been picked before (and because it's fuzzy it knows that Prince Phillip is the same person as Prince Philip) and we're done. However, the cost I was quoted for setting a system like this up was pretty silly (£400 was the usual figure). So, really, what we need is someone on here who knows programming.

[Spade_Cooley 9,538]

18 minutes ago, YoungWillz said:

Don't forget the subs for those who go in the latter stages of the previous year!

 

Horrid job.

 

Must be a way of electronically submitting as Deathers suggests.

Yeah, imagine my joy when Ricketts and Whitfield went in the same hour....

[Toast 16,149]

There's no uniformity to the teams (some are submitted first name surname, surname first name, in a separate wordfile, in an attachment, numbered, bulletpointed....) These all have to be turned into 500-odd uniform teams formatted the same.

 

Then it's a good idea to specify the exact layout required.  Alt.obituaries deadpool does this.

There will still be a few who don't pay attention, but if most of them come in the same format it should help a bit.

[Pedro67 232]

9 hours ago, Spade_Cooley said:

 

To be honest, when I advertised on Upwork for a programmer to have a look at the site, this is what I was thinking. You enter by going to the site when entries are open, type your team name and 20 picks, a fuzzy search then looks to see if they've been picked before (and because it's fuzzy it knows that Prince Phillip is the same person as Prince Philip) and we're done. However, the cost I was quoted for setting a system like this up was pretty silly (£400 was the usual figure). So, really, what we need is someone on here who knows programming.

We get DDP for free, and get much pleasure from that comp, and so many spin off games. I really appreciate the enormous time and effort that the hosts have put into it in my relatively short time entering teams.

If £400ish is the price for making Spades, or any future hosts life easier, and the site better, then a 'go fund me/ bank pay in option, would certainly see a £20 start off donation from me.

IMO a small donation is a fair price to pay in gratitude for what get out of it.

[drunkasaskunk 194]

On 03/01/2019 at 22:08, Banana said:

I still don't understand how a fall is unnatural. The cause of a fall would be from weakness and/or failing balance. It's not unnatural for a 96-year-old or whatever to die from a fall when the direct cause for the fall is natural.

 

Falls do not kill people as a rule.  It is usually STOPPING falling that causes the damage

[drunkasaskunk 194]

 

Re: databases and running the game.

 

Firstly, do we need photographs of picks?  We either all know what Prince Phillip looks like or none of us know what this week's cancer mum looks like, so the photograph doesn't serve much purpose

 

Secondly, how about making it a requirement that picks have a wikipedia page and that a link to that page is included

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(Queen_drummer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(Duran_Duran_drummer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(American_football)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(tennis)

 

Thirdly, make it a requirement that the EXACT title of the Wiki page is used as a pick  , eg Roger Taylor (Queen drummer) or Roger Taylor (Duran Duran drummer)  and NOT "Rodger Taylor (queen)" or "Roger Tailor (durran Durran percusionist)

 

This may also help cut down (although unfortunately NOT eradicate) non celebrity cancer mums from our celebrity Ghoul pool.

 

 

 

[Banana 859]

35 minutes ago, drunkasaskunk said:

 

Re: databases and running the game.

 

Firstly, do we need photographs of picks?  We either all know what Prince Phillip looks like or none of us know what this week's cancer mum looks like, so the photograph doesn't serve much purpose

 

Secondly, how about making it a requirement that picks have a wikipedia page and that a link to that page is included

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(Queen_drummer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(Duran_Duran_drummer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(American_football)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(tennis)

 

Thirdly, make it a requirement that the EXACT title of the Wiki page is used as a pick  , eg Roger Taylor (Queen drummer) or Roger Taylor (Duran Duran drummer)  and NOT "Rodger Taylor (queen)" or "Roger Tailor (durran Durran percusionist)

 

This may also help cut down (although unfortunately NOT eradicate) non celebrity cancer mums from our celebrity Ghoul pool.

 

 

 

 

Making it a requirement that picks must have a Wikipedia page COMPLETELY changes the rules of the game and isn’t a suitable solution. 

 

Also @Spade_Cooley, I do believe £400 would be an achievable goal for a fundraiser and I do also believe such a change would drastically reduce the stress of running the game. Could also put a donation advert on the homepage of the site for the meantime. I’d pledge 20 loonies along with Pedro’s British coin to get it rolling and I do I would assume there’s be many others who are also willing as well. 

[The Old Crem 3,608]

2 minutes ago, Banana said:

 

Making it a requirement that picks must have a Wikipedia page COMPLETELY changes the rules of the game and isn’t a suitable solution. 

 

Also @Spade_Cooley, I do believe £400 would be an achievable goal for a fundraiser and I do also believe such a change would drastically reduce the stress of running the game. Could also put a donation advert on the homepage of the site for the meantime. I’d pledge 20 loonies along with Pedro’s British coin to get it rolling and I do I would assume there’s be many others who are also willing as well. 

Maybe for those who have no English Wiki entry a link has to be provided with details about the person including their age. Could be a newspaper article or a specialist website talking about list of people.