Just a thought - What if Bout draw for NPS Could Be Live and FANTASY POETRY

[mistafunn]

Talking with a few poets about the NPS bout draw and a few thoughts came up.   

• What if there were a way for the bout draw to be live via the web.  There have been questions asked about how random when some teams see each other year after year.  I bring up the fact it would be a cool event to have at a team venue.   Imagine the parties you could have waiting for the draw.   WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?
• It's been discussed in passing but How about Fantasy Poetry teams for NPS.
     Calling any/ all tech junkies that would like to assist in programming a prototype.

FEEDBACK (good bad indifferent people?)
mistafunn

[simone]

These are more questions for the EC and the community, I think, but as the Host City Director for NPS 2011, I can speak to both:

• I personally think a live bout draw would be more trouble than it's worth; our already-overworked webmaster, Erik Daniel, would have to spend time setting this up so perhaps a dozen people could watch it live. If this is being seeing as an issue of honesty, well... Anyone who has questions about "how random" the draw is should remember that the chances of drawing any one team to compete against in preliminaries is about 10%; it isn't that big a statistical surprise to compete against the same team more than once in a few years. Believe me, if someone was fixing the draw, we at the host city would sure as heck be setting up those rivalries and big bouts to gain maximum exposure and publicity, instead of sitting by trying to send objective press about all the bouts.
• Fantasy teams would be super-fun if you could work out the techncial kinks over the next few months. I cannot offer any volunteers from our squad, but I'd personally pay a small fee to participate in a well-run fantasy league.

[AmyD]

The bout draw can't be done live, because it is not just a matter of drawing 84 random names out of a hat and putting them into slots. Teams with poets under the age of 21 have to be placed in venues that can accommodate them. The same is true for any teams that need accommodations for poets with physical limitations and for teams whose primary language is not English and thus need projection equipment.

Therefore, the draw is done, then checked, then re-checked before it is made public.

[Scott Woods]

The bout draw can't be done live, because it is not just a matter of drawing 84 random names out of a hat and putting them into slots. Teams with poets under the age of 21 have to be placed in venues that can accommodate them. The same is true for any teams that need accommodations for poets with physical limitations and for teams whose primary language is not English and thus need projection equipment.

Therefore, the draw is done, then checked, then re-checked before it is made public.

This. It's not a technical issue. It's a get-it-right issue.

[Billy T]

The 2007 draw was done by the patrons and performers of the Palatine Poetry Slam. Henry walked around, made us pull team names and did preleminary slotting. I have no idea how much the U-21's affected it that night, except that my team had 2 of them In the spirit of the slam, Samson gae up no details that we didn't find out when everybody else did.

[edaniel]

I would love to do the draw AT THE OPENING CEREMONY live, but Amy hit the nail on the head here (with the exception of the projector thing, they brought their own, and didn't ask me for special treatment).

Drawing a number from a hat is trivial. Slotting that number into two venues that will accommodate all the poets on that team considering both age and accessibility issues is non-trivial. It used to be done manually, meaning that the draw was done out of a hat, then entire bouts were moved to differing venues to make it work.  Then when a team (inevitably) came up with an underage poet after the draw, bouts were moved more. If absolutely necessary, a single team was swapped out.

Last year that was not possible. There were so many teams with underage poets, that this "random" draw would not result in a tenable schedule. I wrote a program that would randomize the teams, and set them into venues based on the schematic and age/accessibility restrictions without a human interaction. Its not any more random than before, but the human selection factor isn't there anymore. Even that method resulted in some error

It happens in a few thousandths of a second, and isn't very exciting to see. 

If we remove the age/accessibility factors (not saying remove the poets, more like - only allow all-ages, with accessible stages), then I would be happy to do this some other, more exciting way.

Alternately, I could program it to work like a bingo machine or something, like drawing one team a time or something, do enough people care about this?

[AmyD]

I would love to do the draw AT THE OPENING CEREMONY live, but Amy hit the nail on the head here (with the exception of the projector thing, they brought their own, and didn't ask me for special treatment).

Drawing a number from a hat is trivial. Slotting that number into two venues that will accommodate all the poets on that team considering both age and accessibility issues is non-trivial. It used to be done manually, meaning that the draw was done out of a hat, then entire bouts were moved to differing venues to make it work.  Then when a team (inevitably) came up with an underage poet after the draw, bouts were moved more. If absolutely necessary, a single team was swapped out.

Last year that was not possible. There were so many teams with underage poets, that this "random" draw would not result in a tenable schedule. I wrote a program that would randomize the teams, and set them into venues based on the schematic and age/accessibility restrictions without a human interaction. Its not any more random than before, but the human selection factor isn't there anymore. Even that method resulted in some error

It happens in a few thousandths of a second, and isn't very exciting to see. 

If we remove the age/accessibility factors (not saying remove the poets, more like - only allow all-ages, with accessible stages), then I would be happy to do this some other, more exciting way.

Alternately, I could program it to work like a bingo machine or something, like drawing one team a time or something, do enough people care about this?

I would bet that for every person who wants to see the draw happen live at opening ceremonies, there is a person who wants the draw as early as possible. These two things are obviously in conflict.

I suppose you could create some fake excitement by doing the draw, checking the draw, and then making a powerpoint animation that does a slow reveal at an exact designated time. Kinda like the NCAA tournament.

But really, you have better things to do.

[simone]

I stand corrected; thanks, guys.

To add: I, too, prefer that the draw happen as early as possible (both from a marketing standpoint and a coaching standpoint). However, doing the draw live on the web or on-location at the event site doesn't mean it has to happen at opening ceremonies.

I think mistafunn was envisioning something more like the NBA draft: awkward ties, side-bets, and a way to build interest during the off-season.