Why isn't First Saturday stat gathering automated?
BountyHunter23
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Agents at First Saturday hack a "registration portal" to sign in. Then agents hand their phone to a POC who enters their stats into a spreadsheet manually. They are trusted not to do anything until the start time - this is an honor system. At the end of the activity window agents repeat the manual entry process. This process is fraught with opportunity for human error and cheating. Our stats are available in the database and are accessible by Niantic.
Niantic should automatically capture the stats of all agents who have hacked the registration portal, both at start time and stop time. Results could be displayed in a shared read-only spreadsheet. The POCs work hard getting the event organized, but in this age they should not have to do data entry. They are reading the output from Niantics scanner and manually entering it into a laptop (twice). There's got to be a way to automate this!
Best Answers
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CtrlAltDuck
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Niantic does capture their own stats for the bonus AP and global ranking details you receive later, the part you're talking about is what Fev Games takes in for volunteers to verify each event, and also what many places use for handing out prizes at the event.
There's been some work to streamline the stat collection but it's up to the POCs to decide how they want to do it. As long as all requirements are met for verification it can be done a few different ways, some methods involve much less manual data entry.
Human error and cheating on the forms can only effect optional on site prizes, and whether an event as whole gets verified or not.
Also worth noting the Fev Games verification part is not optional it is needed for the event to count officially, without it Niantic will not give out the bonus AP or badge to participants.
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harkonnnen
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It has been stream lined, with now (atleast at the last few FS I have attended) you copying you stats from your profile and pasting them into an online form, then at the end your copy your stats again and paste them.
This way has eliminated the need for the details to be manually entered and made it alot easier on the POC'S. This means at most you only need to show your phone just so they can verify its you (not worried about if its your local community if they know you by face and agent name).
The AP you are later awarded is based on Niantic's own captured stats, which means even if there is a mistake on your collected data on the day so long as your participation is registered and you hack the right portal you will it will be awarded.
Personally I think its a pretty good balance atm of making it easier for agents and POC while restricting the chances and possibilities for abuse
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EvilSuperHeros
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Hmm, not everywhere. Can someone share that with the rest of the POC's for FS? We still have to wait for the POC's to show up (hopefully before double AP starts) to enter in ours. This last time I think I had the Res POC enter in my stats as the Enl one wasn't there yet.
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cluelessness
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yep, just as @CtrlAltFck said, we now have the Auto Score Sheet available for all to use if they would like. some events like to do their own thing though. This new sheet should save lots of time for those that use it. Personally, it used to take us over half an hour to check everyone in at our events and now it takes less 5 minutes with this new sheet. Maybe discuss it with your event's organiser's to make sure they're aware of it.
6
Answers
Niantic does capture their own stats for the bonus AP and global ranking details you receive later, the part you're talking about is what Fev Games takes in for volunteers to verify each event, and also what many places use for handing out prizes at the event.
There's been some work to streamline the stat collection but it's up to the POCs to decide how they want to do it. As long as all requirements are met for verification it can be done a few different ways, some methods involve much less manual data entry.
Human error and cheating on the forms can only effect optional on site prizes, and whether an event as whole gets verified or not.
Also worth noting the Fev Games verification part is not optional it is needed for the event to count officially, without it Niantic will not give out the bonus AP or badge to participants.
It has been stream lined, with now (atleast at the last few FS I have attended) you copying you stats from your profile and pasting them into an online form, then at the end your copy your stats again and paste them.
This way has eliminated the need for the details to be manually entered and made it alot easier on the POC'S. This means at most you only need to show your phone just so they can verify its you (not worried about if its your local community if they know you by face and agent name).
The AP you are later awarded is based on Niantic's own captured stats, which means even if there is a mistake on your collected data on the day so long as your participation is registered and you hack the right portal you will it will be awarded.
Personally I think its a pretty good balance atm of making it easier for agents and POC while restricting the chances and possibilities for abuse
Those works get us a reason to gather up, chit-chat, and waste time together.
Hmm, not everywhere. Can someone share that with the rest of the POC's for FS? We still have to wait for the POC's to show up (hopefully before double AP starts) to enter in ours. This last time I think I had the Res POC enter in my stats as the Enl one wasn't there yet.
The info has been available for a bit but some POCs simply weren't yet aware since the auto-sheet is relatively new, or some purposely decided to stay with the old methods for now because it's what they're used to doing.
There's now a guide on the Fev Games site that contains that sheet and other info https://fevgames.net/ingressfs/org-guide/
yep, just as @CtrlAltFck said, we now have the Auto Score Sheet available for all to use if they would like. some events like to do their own thing though. This new sheet should save lots of time for those that use it. Personally, it used to take us over half an hour to check everyone in at our events and now it takes less 5 minutes with this new sheet. Maybe discuss it with your event's organiser's to make sure they're aware of it.