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Topic: 2013 World Championship Commentary (Read 6795 times) |
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Fritzlein
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2013 World Championship Commentary
« on: Nov 17th, 2012, 2:38pm » |
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The past few Arimaa World Championships have seen a rapid evolution towards more and better live audio commentary. This has happened entirely through volunteer effort. I am tickled pink that strong players are willing to donate their time and expertise to make games easier to follow and more enjoyable for less-experienced players. The Arimaa community rocks!
The reach of all this volunteer commentary is multiplied by having a radio relay. There are plenty of folks who don't want to be bothered to download TeamSpeak and/or to log in every game, but who enjoy listening to the feed that automatically plays if they have the game open.
The joy can be spread yet further if commentary is recorded either as pure audio or (much better) synchronized audio and video with (best of all) someone using the client expert mode to play out lines the commentators are discussing. Recordings of past World Championship games are a resource for new players and a tool for gaining new coverts to Arimaa.
The relaying and recording haven't attracted as many volunteers as providing the commentary per se. I guess for starters relaying/recording isn't as fun as hearing yourself talk, but I suspect the hurdle is more technical. To commentate, you only have to do one thing; get Teamspeak working. Relaying also is easy to do, although it is fussy to get set up the first time. From my own experience, there were times in past years when I would have been willing to record video except that I didn't know how. I am optimistic that if there were organized support for these duties, volunteers would indeed emerge to do them. Such is the awesomeness of the Arimaa Community.
Is there anyone with a bit of technical know-how who is willing to figure out how to do these things and then turn around to help others do them? If so, it would greatly extend the reach of the great commentary we get.
My experience is that when you make it easy to pitch in, lots of folks pitch in. Among those of us who are watching the tournament games, there will be some who think, "As long as I'm here, I might as well commentate/relay/record in order to increase the general enjoyment." But this thought only makes it to action if the path is easy. What is necessary is a broader spreading of technical expertise.
Therefore I am seeking a Commentary Czar. No, not in order to lay down the law and settle disputes of who is permitted to hold the microphone when six commentators show up. The community already handles this well by letting the highest-rated commentator lead the show. Rather I am looking for someone who is a believer in commentary, who will be logged in for a lot of the tournament anyway, and who will help would-be volunteers do as many of the jobs as possible.
Yes, there will be games with no commentary. There will be games with commentary and no relay. There will be games with commentary and relay but no recording. But a dedicated Commentary Czar could do a great deal to push us further along the chain than if we simply asked for volunteers to sign up in a Google document, as has been our plan in the past.
If you are interested in being the Commentary Czar but don't already have all the expertise, Omar and I will help get you up to speed on everything you need to know, and if you like, arrange for dry runs in December to make sure everything is working. Indeed, some of the expertise-spreading that I am envisioning has already happened in the past couple of years, so you might already know more that I do.
Any takers?
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99of9
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #1 on: Nov 18th, 2012, 5:20am » |
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Are there written instructions somewhere for best practice relaying and recording?
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #2 on: Nov 18th, 2012, 12:01pm » |
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on Nov 18th, 2012, 5:20am, 99of9 wrote:| Are there written instructions somewhere for best practice relaying and recording? |
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Good question! I only know of Omar's instructions for TeamSpeak. http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/teamSpeak.html
For the radio relay, I'm not sure who Omar got up and running besides me; he got me configured via a couple of e-mails and a phone call.
For the video recording, I vaguely recall that several people tried a hand at it in 2011, with varying qualities of output, but that Omar took the job entirely on himself in 2012. The attitude "If you wan't it done right, do it yourself" might have been feasible when the $100 entry fee cut the field to 11, but of course it doesn't scale to a low entry fee and 32-64 players. With a tournament format that is open to the community, we have to find a way to open the doors for community participation.
(Another thing that doesn't scale: in the past the radio relay would periodically get garbled and Omar would have to go reboot something. I have talked to him about setting up a way for someone else to be able to reboot the radio. We probably don't want that procedure to be completely public, so that no goofball reboots the radio every ten seconds for fun, but there could be a broader dissemination than relying entirely on one person.)
Maybe the Commentary Czar's first act could be to get some written instructions put together, in the service of making it easier to volunteer. Or maybe someone else has other ideas of how to promote commentary, relay and recording? If anyone has a vision, feel free to step up. I know for sure that some members of the community are strongly in favor of the audio commentary and would pitch in at some level to support it, even if they are too shy to want to be "in charge" of anything.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 18th, 2012, 12:05pm by Fritzlein » |
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omar
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #3 on: Nov 25th, 2012, 9:20am » |
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For best practice on recording, I made a document showing the settings that I use when I record videos. It generates pretty compact videos with good quality. The document is here:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/video/ZDSoftSettings.pdf
For relaying, there are some instructions that I have in emails, but since it requires passwords to do the relaying, I'll share those only with a few people who have stepped up to help with the relaying.
I've been experimenting with Mumble lately and it has come a long way since I tried it out a few years ago. I am considering using that instead of TeamSpeak this year. Especially if I can find a headless relay program for it that can run under linux. You can try it out from mumble.com. If anyone knows of a linux program that can act as a Mumble (or Teamspeak) client and relay to an Icecast server, please let me know.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 25th, 2012, 9:24am by omar » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #4 on: Dec 1st, 2012, 10:37am » |
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Do people have thoughts about how well the commentary signup sheet has worked in past years? There were a fair number of cases in which people showed up to commentate without having signed up; should this be discouraged and/or banned? Should there be a formal process for designating official commentators, and if so should it be based on rating, taking turns, or something else? I have my own ideas about how to run things, but I definitely want to hear from past commentators and potential future commentators about what works for them.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 1st, 2012, 10:37am by Fritzlein » |
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chessandgo
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #5 on: Dec 17th, 2012, 2:23pm » |
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I will almost surely not have time to commentate this year 
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Arimabuff
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #6 on: Dec 21st, 2012, 4:00pm » |
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on Dec 1st, 2012, 10:37am, Fritzlein wrote:| Do people have thoughts about how well the commentary signup sheet has worked in past years? There were a fair number of cases in which people showed up to commentate without having signed up; should this be discouraged and/or banned? Should there be a formal process for designating official commentators, and if so should it be based on rating, taking turns, or something else? I have my own ideas about how to run things, but I definitely want to hear from past commentators and potential future commentators about what works for them. |
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Commentating an entire game alone can be exhausting, I believe that the more people show up the more likely things will work out, without much dead air that is. The only thing to discourage should be rude behavior and inability to control oneself. Has that happened already? Has someone crossed the line of commentating decorum? Not as far as I know.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #7 on: Jan 5th, 2013, 6:08pm » |
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If we have the problem of too many commentators stepping on each other's toes in the finals, we can work out a system then. For the preliminaries I believe we should make it as easy as possible to commentate, including allowing people to show up and commentate on the spot, whether or not they have signed up, although we can still have a sign-up sheet to help coordinate things.
Adanac expressed some interest in helping commentary run smoothly, so as his just punishment reward, I hereby designate him the Commentary Czar. Please help him out however you can. Remember that it was the commentary/relay/recording that caused Omar to burn out in 2011, with the result that we had only a small tournament in 2012. This year commentary is on a free-will, best-effort, as-much-as-we-have-volunteers-for basis, precisely to prevent anyone from burning out.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 5th, 2013, 6:09pm by Fritzlein » |
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Adanac
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #8 on: Jan 5th, 2013, 9:16pm » |
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Here are the guidelines I'll propose for the World Championship commentary as the new "Commentary Czar". I've never been a Czar before 
Preliminary Rounds
There will be 20 games/round in the preliminaries so there will likely be far more games than commentators. Feel free to commentate frequently in the early rounds, because there have never been more opportunities to practice than this!
The guidelines for the preliminary rounds will be:
- If a game in progress has no commentary, log into TeamSpeak and do it. Don't be shy.
- If the game already has a commentator, usually that person will welcome a co-commentator if you decide to join in. But...
- If someone signs up as the Main Commentator on the spreadsheet then that person will get to decide upon the format, including the option to go solo, split duties 50/50 with a co-commentator, or any other arrangement.
- You may only sign up as the Main Commentator for 2 games per round. The role is assigned to the first person to sign up. You may sign up as co-commentator as often as you wish (unless the Main Commentator wants to go solo). And you can commentate as often as you like for the games that don't have official commentators -- that should occur frequently during the preliminaries.
- If the Main Commentator (as per the spreadsheet) is late, then others can fill the void. The Main Commentator automatically re-claims the duties once logged into TeamSpeak.
Elimination Finals
After 6 weeks, the number of games per round will be drastically reduced. There will eventually be more volunteer commentators than games available. During all games of the Elimination Finals:
- Up to 4 people may sign up to commentate for each game. If more than 4 people sign up then the following priority system will be used to determine the four commentators. The person with the highest priority will be the Main Commentator:
(1) Omar Syed
(2) The tournament director, Fritz Juhnke
(3) By highest WHRH rating, for players with more than 5 Human vs. Human games
(4) By highest Gameroom rating for players with fewer than 5 Human vs. Human games.
- The Main Commentator gets to decide upon the structure of the broadcast (i.e. freestyle where anyone can jump in, a structured broadcast with an anchor, etc.). This is the same privilege as during the Preliminary rounds except that the Main Commentator cannot choose to provide a solo broadcast (unless you're the only person in TeamSpeak, in which case we'll make an exception). Remember that the time controls get longer as the tournament progresses so you'll definitely be glad to have those co-commentators!
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Arimabuff
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #9 on: Jan 6th, 2013, 12:59pm » |
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I don't think I'll sign up at all this year. I just can't plan that long ahead. I have people coming unexpectedly that as a good host I have to entertain, I have last minutes things that take priority etc... I am guessing that you'd rather I didn't sign up and then show up than the reverse. Also it's most likely that I'll only commentate on part of a game when I am available, so I'd advise you to make room for that possibility in your czar edict or whatever you call it.
I mean just because you are a czar doesn't mean that you have to be Ivan The Terrible now, does it?
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Adanac
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #10 on: Jan 6th, 2013, 3:57pm » |
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Anyone can sign up as a co-commentator for every single game in the tournament. And the limit of 4 commentators per game is just a formality. I don’t think we’ve ever had more than 4 people sign up for the same game in the three years we’ve been doing commentary. And if you’d prefer to just show up and do spontaneous commentary, I’m sure there will be at least 10 open games per preliminary round that will need a commentator, maybe more. Not very many people signed up for commentary last year and there are 20 games per round this year. The formal rules are just proposals and nothing is official yet. The basic intent of the first 6 rounds is to give everyone at least 2 games per round as Main Commentator, with the freedom to choose whichever format they like, including the option to do a solo broadcast (and not many people like to do those). And solo broadcasts shouldn’t be used in the finals when multiple people will want to volunteer for each game.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #11 on: Jan 7th, 2013, 7:25pm » |
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on Jan 6th, 2013, 12:59pm, Arimabuff wrote:| I don't think I'll sign up at all this year. I just can't plan that long ahead. |
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There is one good reason to sign up in those cases that you are able to plan ahead, and that is to ensure that the radio relay is turned on. If the relay isn't turned on, people can only listen to the commentary by joining Teamspeak. The nifty feature whereby anyone who opens a game automatically gets an audio stream is something that has to be enabled by a TC, but they can't know that it should be enabled if nobody signs up to relay, and folks won't know that they should relay if nobody signs up to commentate. If you show up unannounced, your commentary will still be very welcome and appreciated, but your audience will likely be smaller.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 8th, 2013, 7:33am by Fritzlein » |
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Adanac
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #12 on: Jan 7th, 2013, 8:53pm » |
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I was completely wrong about the number of commentated games. We already have commentators for all 20 first round games.
Remember that each game can have 1 commentator + 3 co-commentators so it's not too late to sign up for the games. If you'd like to co-commentate any of the games, just add your name after the other co-commentators, separated by a comma. If you'd like to be the Main Commentator, virtually all games are still open for that role.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 2013 World Championship Commentary
« Reply #13 on: Jan 8th, 2013, 7:38am » |
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on Jan 7th, 2013, 8:53pm, Adanac wrote:| We already have commentators for all 20 first round games. |
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Actually, the two games with Asian players (alien1020hk and 99of9) still have neither a main commentator nor a co-commentator. Most of North America will be asleep!
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