Getting Screwed by the Bluebonnet

[Bill Lawrence]

Well folks, it turns out that if you cannot type fast enough, you may not get your beers into certain categories again this year. I finally got into the system at about 12:05pm to register (because apparently the system couldn't handle the heavy traffic as I got errors while trying to register) and I could not get a Bo Pils or a German Pils into the system because the categories were already full. There may also be other categories that are also full; I didn't stop to check as I was afraid I would run into problems in some of the other categories I was trying to enter. You know, I don't get upset when I get my ass beat because my beer is not good enough but I'm a bit irritated that I cannot even get my beers entered. I am wondering if there are clubs that are using some sort of software to upload entries into the system really quickly which is causing this problem. Anyhow, if you have not entered yet, I would advise you not to wait least the only categories left will also fill up except for the one that includes Kolaid. I know this is "just beer" but I plan several months in advance to enter certain categories and frankly it really pisses me off when I am precluded from entering less than 10 minutes after entries are being accepted especially since the system was experiencing issues which delayed my registration. I guess I should look on the bright side; at least I saved a little money and considering the categories were full likely would not have won anything entering them anyhow. Also, I now have 6 bottles of beer that I can quaff rather than wasting them by sending them in to be judged. Ok, so I am done ranting now; maybe it's time to find another contest to enter.

[James Smith]

That sucks, Bill. Know that there are paid and unpaid entries and Jimmy will be deleting the unpaids. So, you might still have the opportunity to enter in those that currently show as full.

[Walter Hodges]

The rush of people entering competitions is taking the fun out of entering. I’d be interested in knowing if there are a limited number of folks taking most of the spots. I like the one hour limit to pay. For a hobby that people are saying is dead there sure seems to be a lot of people willing to pay to give their beer away.

[Terry Olinger]

Sorry Bill, that sucks.

I only had 4 entries and not the prime categories so was able to get them entered. Seems like some clubs are going all out for competitions! Already 1190 paid entries in less than 7.5 hours.

[Jimmy Orkin]

Bill,

I am sorry you did not get all your entries in. The good news you may still get your entries in as other entrants change their entries. So you need to keep watching the medal category counts: https://bcoem.bluebonnetbrewoff.org/ind ... tion=entry

The deleting of unpaid entries is now automatic and occurs when the entry reaches an hour old and is unpaid.

The root problem is lack of judges. If we had more judges we would not need to limit medal categories.

[Jimmy Orkin]

And a couple of more thoughts. We changed the start time to noon from midnight. That made it easier for all the entrants to punish the BBO server. Perhaps it should move back to midnight or maybe 4:37am (some obscure time in the middle of the night).

We did not know what the impact to the server would be.

Perhaps we need to go to some sort of a lottery system.

[Jimmy Orkin]

Let us turn this topic into something positive.

What could the "Bluebonnet" have done to make Bill have a positive experience? What can the Bluebonnet do in the future to make Bill happy next year.

There was a server load issue. I was able to get an entry in in the middle of the storm and I had the server return a blank page. I reloaded the page and it came up.

The Bluebonnet could upgrade our server for the month of January, that might help. We could let users create their userid in advance of the entry window to remove the need to create a userid at the entry window.

Removing the medal category limits would resolve Bill's issues. What if the caps for some of filled medal categories were raised?

What else could the Bluebonnet have done better?

As I write this, there are 12 full medal categories. Some of those full categories might free up as we move through the month and entrants rearrange their entries. Watching the current medal category counts will be worthwhile.

[Jimmy Orkin]

We talked about this at the Officers Meeting last night. We had a couple of ideas.

1. I am going to start BCOEM on a big virtual server for the first day of registrations. A server that will not get congested.

2. Limit entrants to one entry per medal category. That might be a bit restrictive.

3. Once an entry is paid for, it can still be edited (including style) but not moved out of its medal category.

4. Limit entrants to 4 or 6 entries per hour.

Thoughts?

[Bill Lawrence]

Sadly, I can't think of many easy solutions to this problem. You are of course correct; the root cause of the issue is lack of judges and unless we start sending out press gangs (like the British navy) it's pretty hard to address. Just a thought though; would it be helpful to force entrants to pay for their entries at the time of submission and not let them change categories later? Whether this would be effective would depend on how much people are just throwing entries into the system as placeholders which is information I certainly don't have. Interestingly, it seems to be the light lager categories which are the biggest issue although last year I remember not being able to get a Munich Dunkel into the system. Last year, I didn't anticipate this problem so I didn't try to jump into the system at the moment it was opened up for entries like I did this year. At this writing, I really don't know what I could have done differently to avoid getting caught up in this.

I see this problem as really bad news for three reasons. First of all, if a neophyte tries to enter their first beers into the contest and runs into this they may well just say "screw it" and never try to enter again. Secondly, it would seem "gamesmanship" is playing a part in awarding steins so technical prowess could at least to some extent trump (no pun intended) brewing expertise. Finally, if a large contest like this is experiencing these problems then a smaller contest like the Limbo could also (and may have already); something to be avoided if possible. Maybe somebody like Fritz who has analyzed the hell out of beer contests could accurately predict which categories to avoid but I sure as hell have no idea what styles the unwashed masses are brewing at any given time. Oh well, "it's beer, right?", at least this is not a wine contest where stuff like this is a serious business.

[Jimmy Orkin]

We are discussing this on a BBO Slack channel. Some ideas from over there are:

• Change starting time and date either/or to a weekend or a weekday evening after work.
• Start userid registration a day or two before the entry registration.
• Judges from last year get a pre-sale code to register their entries. My contribution to this thought was you get 1 entry for each table you judge the year before. Maybe the out of town folks would make an effort to come judge it it helped them enter next year.

[James Smith]

Just a thought though; would it be helpful to force entrants to pay for their entries at the time of submission and not let them change categories later?

Bill, this was discussed at last night's meeting. While BBO is not an NTHBA issue necessarily, Jimmy is taking inventory of the concerns. We definitely agreed that doing the placeholder entry where category can be changed should be outlawed. I also agree that entries should be paid when registration occurs. I think the latter has essentially been resolved though. We also discussed the possibility that several entrants are pursuing the Master Homebrewer Program Circuit of America competition resulting in a high number of entries. Info here: https://www.masterhomebrewerprogram.com ... of-america.

This will all have to be analyzed(if someone wants to) of course.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yeah, I think doing registration a couple of days before actually submitting entries is probably a good idea if for no other reason than to lessen the system load once entry registration starts. I doubt that it will do all that much to mitigate the main issue here however. I also think moving the opening of entry registration to an evening or weekend would make things more fair as I suspect those poor sods actually having to work for a living are feeling a bit ill used (unless of course the event organizers are purposefully trying to favor us gentlemen of leisure). I suspect that favoring prior year judges would also likely be met with righteous indignation from those living outside of the Metroplex for the obvious reasons. As noted previously, the problem is getting judges and indeed our own club really doesn't do all that well when it comes to judge recruiting even though we have a respectable member roster. Seems to me that the best we can practically do is to push as hard as reasonable to get our membership judging so maybe in the future the contest will be able to logistically handle more entries.