Boards weather contest -- plan for 2013

M.T. Cranium

I promised a discussion thread for the monthly forecast contest that we hold on the weather forum.

First item of business, to settle the hosting duties for 2013. I have organized the contest since about 2009, and could say that it has been a fairly light burden, no big workload, no nasty correspondence, just a few minor issues that people seemed to accept as solved. So it would be no problem to continue this for another year, but at the same time, new blood is always a good thing with one or two possible exceptions (one thinks of the 1933 German elections) and so if anyone would like to have a go at this, and the group are generally in favour, we should sort that out now with over a month left to the possible time of transition.

Meanwhile, the 2012 contest will run its course and looks to be a very close race this year. The rest of this thread opener will just review some of the policies in place, a new organizer could of course start totally fresh but these are the current policies and some suggestions about what changes might be worthwhile if I continue to organize this.

First of all, we get into the odd very minor flap about entries that are too late coming from regular contestants. Instead of the current policy, I am proposing to change to a set penalty by date of entry that will force contestants to make my decision for me. In other words, you can enter as late as you want, if you can live with the penalty. My proposal is to give a standard 10 point penalty on the 2nd of each month (I would love to move the deadline up one day and make the first a late day as with almost every other weather contest around the circuit, but I think our habits here are by now too ingrained), then after that, the penalties would increase to 25 on day three, 40 on day four, and 60 on day five, reaching 100 on day six so that the only point of entering on day 6 would be to maintain a place in the contest(s). This will be more draconian than my very lenient penalty systems to date, and will hopefully have the desired effect of getting all entries in by the 2nd at latest. There may be occasions where all the deadlines are pushed back because of weather, holidays or other interruptions, same scoring penalties would apply. And I would continue to regard the start of each day as effectively 0300h to give forecasters time to get in from the pub where most forecasts are obviously being constructed. So to clarify, the penalty for the late day would run 0300 on 2nd to 0300 on 3rd, etc.

Scoring the elements would remain the very popular mix that it is today (he said without the slightest bit of proof). The bonus scoring would continue to be based on 10% groupings by rank, so the size of the group would depend on the turnout, all year it has been in the 40s so the groups have been 4 (with ties).

I would add the feature of keeping track of seasonal competition and announcing winners of each season. This means that the December contest will start off that new feature. The annual contests (Boards.ie award and MTC award) would continue as before to be based on best 10 out of 12 and all 12 entries in calendar year 2013. A new four-season award would be on offer a month in advance based on a simple points system for seasonal contests. These by the way would not involve any extra contest questions or entries, just a scoring system based on the monthly values. The way that the four-season award would work is simply this -- you win a season, you get ten points. The top ten are scored down the line to one point. At the end of the four seasons, I add these values up and the highest total is the four seasons winner. We'll see how it compares to the annual contest ranking despite the one-month difference in timing.

The "minimum progression" rule has worked well, in my estimation, to provide some equality of the months to smooth out the vagaries of which months are dropped from the best ten out of twelve, or missed entirely. The rationale for this system is available in the Jan 2012 contest (post #1).

So, the floor is open for discussion. Take your time, nothing needs to be done or decided until well into December.

Sponge Bob

I ll create a google spreadsheet for this if you wish and change the form each month so it goes directly in the right place. Each entry timestamped. Verified with a done post.

Sponge Bob

Forgot to mention, my December forecast will be my last, I'll be retiring from the monthly competition. So I'll have no skin in the game thereafter.

cherryghost

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Forgot to mention, my December forecast will be my last, I'll be retiring from the monthly competition. So I'll have no skin in the game thereafter.

Why so?

Sponge Bob

Time consumption.

catch.23

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Time consumption.

You mean you don't just make up some figures off the top of your head?! :eek:

Sponge Bob

Speak for yourself.

M.T. Cranium

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I ll create a google spreadsheet for this if you wish and change the form each month so it goes directly in the right place. Each entry timestamped. Verified with a done post.

Sounds like a plan. Let's give it a dry run in December, I will miss making up those tables (not).

Sponge Bob

Grand , if you have a special gmail address like MTBoards registered i'll lash up the sheet and the form with placeholder questions and share it with that gmail address ( your address will be the 'owner' so you have the permision setting authority but I can edit it for as long as you let me)

Everybody can 'see' it and the url does not change.

We did a dry run early this year as an example you wil recall.