Scoring problems

[dl1jbe]

SP3RXO reported some problems with the scoring logic.

CONTINENTLIST=EU,AS
COUNTINENT_LIST_POINTS=2
USE_CONTINENT_LIST_ONLY
COUNTRY_MULT

gives 2 points for AS stations but -1 (!!!) for EU stations.

[dl1jbe]

Furthermore if USE_CONTINENT_LIST_ONLY gets dropped CONTINENT_LIST_POINTS will not be applied at all.

[dl1jbe]

Part 1 of the problem got fixed by PR #189.

While thinking about the second part it showed that there is no easy solution. There are two main reasons for that:

Problem

1. It is not really clear (and not easy to see) which role a CONTINENT_LIST_POINTS should play and which priority it has if other keywords (MYCOUNTRY_POINT, MYCONTINENT_POINT , ...) are set.

2. The scoring mechanism has grown into a complicated peace of code. It started by points for my country, my continent and other continents. Due to new contests with more complex rules we added such things as COUNTY/CONTINENT_LIST and more. Besides not really defined priorities there are further problems as the continent and country lists are sometimes used for scoring points and sometimes for counting multis.

Possible solution

I would like to suggest a complete new mechanism which (hopefully) will avoid these problems and can led to a much more clean scoring code.

1. There will be two list for point scoring of a) continents and b) countries

2. In each list you can name a continent or country together with its points (e.g. EU 2 points, all other continents 3 point, DL in the other list with 1 point would give the known 1 point for own cty, 2 for own continent and 3 points for DX) . Different points for each continent/country are allowed.

3. Continents/countries not in the lists will get no points at all.

4. Country points will override continent points

Scoring will be simple:

a) Assume 0 points
b) If in Continentlist use the points from there
c) If in Countrylist override points so far by the points from the list

I suggest two new keywords:

• COUNTRYPOINTS=<cty1,cty2,cty3:points1>;<cty4,....,cty_n:points2>; ...
• CONTINENTPOINTS=<cnt1,cnt1:points1>;cnt3,...,cnt_n:points2>

More than one of each keywords are allowed in the config file. They are cumulative so you can split a long list of countries to more than one line.

Discussion

With the above changes we should be able to

a) drop CONTINENT/COUNTRYLIST_POINTS entirely from keywords (as we do not need them anymore) and ignore USE_COUNTRY/CONTINENTLIST_ONLY for scoring (but keep functionality for counting of multis).

b) change the other keywords (ONE-POINT, ..., MYCOUNTRY_POINT, ..., DX_POINTS) to use the above mechanism internally.

As far as I can see, these scheme should solve most of the cases. If not, please drop a note.

As that would deprecate some keywords I think the suggested change needs at least a new minor number (maybe tlf 1.5).

Any comments are welcome.

[dl1jbe]

See https://github.com/dl1jbe/tlf/tree/new_scoring for a proof of concept implementation.
Please use it for experiments and report any problems (or success).

[zcsahok]

Partly related: add_callarea() seems to be unused along with manise80 and callareas[].

[dl1jbe]

Looks like preparations for some EA contest. But was already dead in 0.9.10 - the oldest version I could found. The complete addarea.[ch] should be dropped.

[zcsahok]

Another point for scoring:
when reading the log file the score field is used as-is.

        if (iscontest) {
            // get points
            total = total + log_get_points(inputbuffer);

I think that part of the log is not an input field in the strict sense: it was written based on some (potentially different) rules. Logically loading should kind of replay the inputs (~band/time/call/exchange) and update score/mults accordingly. Something like the way readcabrillo is doing it. Not too nice with all the "magic" global variables, but we don't have better at the moment.

At least scoring/mults got managable with the introduction of contest defs.

[dl1jbe]

I think that part of the log is not an input field in the strict sense: it was written based on some (potentially different) rules. Logically loading should kind of replay the inputs (~band/time/call/exchange) and update score/mults accordingly. Something like the way readcabrillo is doing it. Not too nice with all the "magic" global variables, but we don't have better at the moment.

I think the origin of the above code lies in the way contest results where handled in the 80ies and 90ies. You had to hand in a written paper with your multis marked and your claimed points written. So in case TLF got points or multis wrong you could just leave TLF, correct the file and reread it in. Afterwards TLF used whatever you told.

In newer times the contest organizers are scoring multis and points by themself, so that feature really is no longer useful. I will open an issue and assign it to me.

[zcsahok]

Is there anything open for this issue?

[dl1jbe]

The problem of USE_CONTINENTLIST_ONLY (see second comment) is still unsolved. Also open is a discussion of the suggested change of country and continent scoring from 20 Nov 21.