Zone Dactylo / Typing Zone

Hi folks!

As I said in my first message in the forum, we have now a good opportunity to suggest new and interesting ideas in order to make TypingZone/ZoneDactylo "great" again.

If we all work together and with the same purpose, there's an opportunity to make the championship more attractive and attract new people too.

We have 4 months to prepare the 2019 championship. More than enough time if everyone participate with ideas in an active discussion.

The section is "contests and championship", but since there is no better place, I think we can also contribute our ideas on all kinds of points thinking about the improvement of the page as a whole.

For the moment, I'm thinking about...

-Put the English language as an option of the forum. Maybe I'm wrong, but now you only can put English as default language once you're registered (having to do the process in French). I have no problems with that, but I'm sure most people nowadays who want to start participating are not French, and English is the universal language, with which almost everyone can understand each other.

-Possibility to download the program to play safely and without problems. Download the program was a big problem during years and if I'm not wrong again, the better way to get it is downloading ZoneDactylo (the French version again). I don't know exactly how to solve, but I think it'll be a huge advance to attract people (I know that many people don't participate because of problems with the download of the program).

-Ban people who are proven to cheat (Paymon Warasta for example) and delete duplicate accounts (in my opinion, asking first the person involved).

And that's all by the moment. I have more ideas, especially about monthly masters, but I will say them later, if I see this post have a good reception.

Hello,

The description of this section says "Comments and suggestions about contests" so I guess you're in the right place.

Otherwise I don't really have any idea to share for now. I know this site since the year 2008 or so, but I was very little active so I didn't follow its evolution. And I just participated in my first two masters recently.

Nevertheless, about the languages of the masters, I suggest that the two "Free" months be changed in "Other", knowing that French and English already occupy two thirds of the year.

Linsk wrote:Nevertheless, about the languages of the masters, I suggest that the two "Free" months be changed in "Other", knowing that French and English already occupy two thirds of the year.

Totally agree. In case of not wanting to make big changes, for me it's the best option (even changing the language every time).

Glevion's idea might help bring more people:

Glevion wrote:I would like to see another permanent in another random language, that would be very interesting for us hehehe .

Sorry for this 2nd post in a row, but I also think that the points system for the masters would benefit from being rethought. The current system is very severe. Compared to the number of registered users on the site, there are few participants in the championship. And yet it requires some bravery to participate knowing that, except for a handful of people, the chances of winning once a master are tiny. The idea of having your efforts rewarded with "0 points" under these conditions is, to say the least, discouraging. For this year alone, not yet finished, I have counted a dozen people who have participated in at least one master and whose only "score" is their number of participations showed on their profile.

By browsing this forum, I saw that 8 years ago this system was already unpopular, even among the best typists, and that other interesting methods of calculation had been proposed.

I give here some lines of thought:

• everyone should be encouraged in their participation by winning something, regardless of their speed
• all texts and languages are not equal in terms of difficulty (possible answer: create easy / medium / difficult text levels and give more points when it's more difficult)
• doing high scores on short texts doesn't have the same value as doing high scores on long texts because the longer you type, the more it requires endurance
• the more participants there are, the more points should be given because the more difficult it will be to defend one's rank
• the shorter the duration of the master, the more points should be earned, because we have less time to improve a score thanks to magic of repetition
• the score of each competitor could be weighted by the accuracy (number of times the backspace key was hit), if technically possible, and / or by the number of attempts

SlowMotion wrote:-Put the English language as an option of the forum. Maybe I'm wrong, but now you only can put English as default language once you're registered (having to do the process in French). I have no problems with that, but I'm sure most people nowadays who want to start participating are not French, and English is the universal language, with which almost everyone can understand each other.

-Possibility to download the program to play safely and without problems. Download the program was a big problem during years and if I'm not wrong again, the better way to get it is downloading ZoneDactylo (the French version again). I don't know exactly how to solve, but I think it'll be a huge advance to attract people (I know that many people don't participate because of problems with the download of the program).

Linsk wrote:Nevertheless, about the languages of the masters, I suggest that the two "Free" months be changed in "Other", knowing that French and English already occupy two thirds of the year.

I agree with all!

I'd like too to see a new permanent contest in another language, even better if we can participate in the 5-6 main typing languages... but I suppose that impplies some changes that will hardly be implemented. But for me it's a fantastic idea.

And about the points system championship, I absolutely agree with Linsk. Well, I have a different point of view about the last point: if technically possible I'd like to see the accuracy, but not to get different points (maybe only for tie-break mode). I more or less agree with the number of attempts (or time used) but... that not an exact science (you can try more than you see using other methods). Anyway, if that happen, for me should influence very little.

Hello,

SlowMotion, thank you for your suggestions.

Put the English language as an option of the forum. Maybe I'm wrong, but now you only can put English as default language once you're registered (having to do the process in French). I have no problems with that, but I'm sure most people nowadays who want to start participating are not French, and English is the universal language, with which almost everyone can understand each other.

Totaly agree. So, I've just switched the default language of the forum to English. But it won't switch automatically for already existing accounts. You have to edit your Profile, and then change the language manually.

Possibility to download the program to play safely and without problems. Download the program was a big problem during years and if I'm not wrong again, the better way to get it is downloading ZoneDactylo (the French version again). I don't know exactly how to solve, but I think it'll be a huge advance to attract people (I know that many people don't participate because of problems with the download of the program).

Yes, but the problem is that I don't know how to solve that issue...

Ban people who are proven to cheat (Paymon Warasta for example) and delete duplicate accounts (in my opinion, asking first the person involved).

I'd like to ban all cheaters, but how I can be sure that he's a cheater?
Well, if you want I can promote you as a moderator, so that you can ban people

Linsk,

Thank you for your suggestion:

Nevertheless, about the languages of the masters, I suggest that the two "Free" months be changed in "Other", knowing that French and English already occupy two thirds of the year.

OK, I guess you're right. So, I will proceed to that change. The 2019 championship will be 4 French / 4 English / 4 Other.
That's an easy change.


But about the points system for the Masters, I think it's severe but not that much, in fact it's quite well balanced.
You'll find the explanation for the calculation system here:
http://www.zonedactylo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=176
(it's in French, but you can use Google Translate)

This competition has been intended for good typists, so reaching only the HALF of the best typist is probably not that hard.

It has also been designed so that if you're the best typist, you can still afford to miss one Master (cause you're in holidays for example) and win the championship. If you regularly win Masters, you can quickly go 100 points ahead of your competitor and then you can afford to miss 1 Master.


Let me answer to you, point by point:

everyone should be encouraged in their participation by winning something, regardless of their speed

Well, my point of view is that the Masters are meant to be a somewhat elitist competition, so if you cannot reach half of the best score, then it's quite fair for me that you get no point. If you're used to get 0 point each time, then to finally get 1 point can become a challenging goal for yourself!

all texts and languages are not equal in terms of difficulty (possible answer: create easy / medium / difficult text levels and give more points when it's more difficult)

Yes, they are not equal. But it's impossible to "calculate" fairly the difficulty of a text. Anyway, this is a competition. Even if the text is very easy, it's still very hard to win because it's easy for everyone, so you have to beat every other typist... So, getting the 100 points of the victory is equally hard in any case...

doing high scores on short texts doesn't have the same value as doing high scores on long texts because the longer you type, the more it requires endurance

Again, this is still equally hard to get the 100 points because it's a competition against typists, no matter the intrinsic difficulty of the text.
Then, some typists are better for very short texts ("sprinters"), some typists are better for long texts ("marathon runners").
So, that's important to have short and long texts. The winner of the championship has to prove to be an "all-round" typist.

the more participants there are, the more points should be given because the more difficult it will be to defend one's rank

That seems logical, but that's not true. You can have a Master with 200 participants, without Sean Wrona & Guilherme Sandrini, or you can have a Master with only 10 participants, but with these two guys... Which one would be the hardest to win?

the shorter the duration of the master, the more points should be earned, because we have less time to improve a score thanks to magic of repetition

Rewarding equally the short-duration & the long-duration Masters is also important for rewarding an "all-round" typist.
Some typists start quite slowly a new text, and can improve a lot within a few days thanks to the magic of repetition (as much as doubling the initial score...). On the other hand, some typists get a very high score on the first try, but will not improve their score that much.
So, a short-duration Master will give an advantage to the latters, whereas a long-duration Master will give an advantage to the formers.

the score of each competitor could be weighted by the accuracy (number of times the backspace key was hit), if technically possible, and / or by the number of attempts

Well, if you make a mistake, your score is already hugely impacted because you lose a lot of time hitting backspace... And finally you still produced a perfect text, without any error (because you corrected them), so I don't see the point about giving a penalty.
And the number of attempts is not something that you can measure reliably. Someone can make unlimited attempts on a side software to improve his skills on the text, and then when he's prepared enough, he can start using the Typing Zone program... so it will seem that he had only a few attempts, whereas in reality he had a lot.

Regarding the languages in the masters, if a third party is "Other", how will you manage fairly the length of the texts, knowing that there are only 3 different lengths and not 4?

jeandid wrote:Well, my point of view is that the Masters are meant to be a somewhat elitist competition

OK, understood. Thank you for the detailed answer anyway.

jeandid wrote:I'd like to ban all cheaters, but how I can be sure that he's a cheater?
Well, if you want I can promote you as a moderator, so that you can ban people

Yes, I know that you can't be 100% sure unless it was a very clear case. But well, always there are ways to try to approach that absolute reliability.

And... well, about your proposal, I accept, now I'm a little more aware of this competition than a few months ago. The only thing is that I'll be in that position only for help, without any responsability of make a big or a little work.

Linsk wrote:Regarding the languages in the masters, if a third party is "Other", how will you manage fairly the length of the texts, knowing that there are only 3 different lengths and not 4?

Maybe introducing another type of game? It occurs to me for example: 3 English, 3 French, 3 other and 3 ... very different type of play as numbers or something else that right now I can't think of it (any ideas?). Deleting too the "2 days training time" (2 days and 3 days are very close) in order to configure better the new proposition.

Something like this:



Thanks for your answers, for make those little changes and I hope that you're still active and listening to more ideas.[/img]

Well, why not!
It seems to be a smart idea. I have to study this proposition.

Indeed, the 2 & 3 days are close. We could merge them into 3 days.
But...
What would be the ¿?

This point is very important, since if I don't know it, I cannot take any decision.

jeandid wrote:Well, why not!
It seems to be a smart idea. I have to study this proposition.

Indeed, the 2 & 3 days are close. We could merge them into 3 days.
But...
What would be the ¿?

This point is very important, since if I don't know it, I cannot take any decision.

You don't have to take any decision now! I mean, I think we are working in 2019 championship, in 3 months we'll have more ideas, you can read it and think about all with calm and choose the best option. In fact, I'm going to propose another table with the championship, haha.

Why don't connect all times in one? For example 4 days, cause is the average more or less (or 5 days if you think is better). About the ¿? I was thinking about numbers, but numbers is not a kind of type that deserves more than 1 master / year. So... I was thinking about a difficult code text with symbols ([]{}?¿"!ª) for example. If not... well, another option could be (the insert image) to replace the three "¿?" by 1-numbers, 2-other.



Some clarifications:
-"Other" should be one different language every time.
-Moderators should check the proposition texts in order to preserve the seriousness and formality. So, no stupid texts without sense, no texts already played in the past, etc.

Can we get the option to change our vote for the master text after we've already voted?

deroche1 wrote:Can we get the option to change our vote for the master text after we've already voted?

In my opinion, I find it more necessary that you can't vote until ALL the texts appear.

Anyway... we should talk a little bit about the next championship if we want to make things better, especially jeandid and the collaboration of everyone else.