PCWC Moderator's Kit (DOS version) * Preface These instructions are derived from the UNIX version. If you decide to modify the C code and require to update the README file, feel free to do so and let me know. (mailto:phil.rose@zetnet.co.uk) * Posting the contest announcement You should make a copy of the file "announce" and edit it to supply the contest number, the dates, and the word to be clued; and of course your name and email address, along with any special instructions for emailing you. Some of the jokes in it will get stale; feel free to update it. Scan the file for '?' and "#". When you are done, there shouldn't be any left. Post this file to rec.puzzles.crosswords, and save a copy of the posting for reference. Also, you should email a copy to the CCC mailing list owner, so it will be distributed as soon as possible via the list. As of June 1998 the list owner is James Lundon -- please update this item in the moderator kit as necessary. * Preparing and Posting the Ballot As the clues come in, save them somewhere, either in separate files or a single mailbox, whatever is more convenient for you. When the time for clues to arrive is up, you may wish to shuffle them into a random sequence, if it's convenient for you to do this. When the time for entries is finished, create the following clue file. (The filename doesn't matter, but we'll use a specific name to make it easy to refer to them.) 1) "entries": All the clues, explanations, and authors, with numbers from 1 to whatever. This is mostly to help you create the other files. One way to make this is to just make a copy of the big clue file (you will probably want to leave the original alone, so you can refer to it just in case, and also so you can check who can moderate the next contest). Edit it by removing message headers and extraneous stuff. Make sure each clue has an "Entrant:" line giving the submitter's name. If the clue submitter does not follow the new recommended format, you may have to construct this from the mail message's "From:" header line, or the signature. Make sure the colon ":" is present after the word "Entrant"; the scoring program needs it! Write the clues in the following format, inserting the clue number on each line where # is shown here. Note: the e-mail address is optional and its exact syntax is unimportant. # Entrant: J. Doe #) This is J. Doe's clue, which happens #) to take up two lines. This is J. Doe's explanation of how his clue works. Notice no numbers are necessary here, and this is indented by one tab. Put "--------" lines in between the clues as separators. The clue numbers MUST be consecutive from 1 onward. Bonus clues MUST be given NEGATIVE numbers from -1 on. 2) "clues" Copy just the clues out of "entries". The program "collate" will do this for you, but if you don't have this capability, you can edit the file by hand. You may want to edit the result anyway to make multiline clues look nicer by removing extra clue numbers in front of any second and later lines, and maybe separate the clues by blank lines. You might end up with: 1) Clue one (10) 2) Clue the second, which is the one after the clue that was number one (10) 3) Clue three (10) -1) The first bonus clue (10) -2) The second bonus clue (10) 3) "cluesexplained" Copy "entries" and remove the author lines. The program "collate" will do this for you. This gives a file with clues and explanations, but no author names. 4) "summary" If you will be using the numerical scoring method, make yet another copy of "entries" and delete the explanations, leaving you with just numbered authors and clues. This will be used in scoring. The program "collate will do this for you. To run "collate" - Open a DOS window. cd to the directory you created to run the kit in Assume the kit has been downloaded to this directory collate The DOS kit only caters for the numerical method of voting. Make a copy of the file "ballot", and edit it the way you did with the copy of "announce", filling in the appropriate places, to create the ballot posting. The two files "clues" and "cluesexplained" that you just created will, of course, provide the content for two of the places that you have to fill in. Especially if the ballot is large, some moderators prefer to put these two files in one posting and the voting instructions in a separate one. Do as you will. Post the ballot posting or postings to rec.puzzles.crosswords, preferably with a References line giving the Message-Id from the announcement posting. Again, save a copy of the posting, and email a copy to the CCC list owner for quicker distribution. * Preparing and Posting the Results Now the votes will start arriving. Create a directory under the directory where you've put the other PCWC materials (we'll call it "votes" here), and save each vote message into a SEPARATE FILE there. Make sure that each file is in the correct format as described in the ballot posting. Watch out for long lines that wrap; they will need attention to their numbering. When the time for votes to arrive is up, run the scoring program. For the numerical method, just do: scorenum summary votes/* results where instead of 'summary' you put the name of the fourth file created from the original entry file (the one with just names of authors and their clues, all numbered). The score-out file will contain a fairly complete posting with ranked scores and comments, with authors' names for the top one third clues. Now, insert any overall commentary of your own that you like at the top, and post the results to rec.puzzles.crosswords, preferably with a References line giving the Message-Id's from the announcement and ballot postings. Once again, be sure to email a copy to the CCC list owner. * In Case of Difficulty, Break Glass Mail me for support (phil.rose@zetnet.co.uk). This may be slow as I don't guarantee to log on every day. Also, if voters don't adhere strictly to the ballot format, you may get errors from the tabulation scripts -- or the votes may not even be counted. Make sure that the dashed lines are present, and that the votes are in the format required.