Advanced Topics

MIT-Tab's TabSetting module allows tournaments to modify the internal logic of how mit-tab works. This article will document ways that you can use tab settings to improve your tournament.

For each of the modifications below, you will have to know how to create or modify a tab setting. In order to do that, first, navigate to the admin interface in the navigation menu ("Admin" > "Admin Interface")

You will then be taken to a page titled "Site administration". On that page, click the "Tab settings" link. You should now be on a page with the heading "Select tab settings to change" that looks like this:

Modifying a Tab Setting

To edit a tab setting, click on the one that you want to modify and change the "value" attribute

Creating a Tab Setting

To create a tab setting, click the "Add tab settings" button in the top right corner of the page. The "key" should be the (case-sensitive) name of the setting, and the "value" should be the desired value for the setting

Default Tab Settings

Here are the default TabSettings unrelated to the power-pairing calculations (those related to that can be seen at the bottom of this page.)

Note: Some may already exist on your server, some may not. The code will use these settings if provided regardless of if it showed up in the interface before you created it

Name	Default value	Purpose
cur_round	1	Control the current round of the tournament. Don't modify this
tot_rounds	5	Number of in-rounds at the tournament
min_speak	0	The minimum speaker score allowed to be submitted by the tab staff
max_speak	50	The maximum speaker score allowed to be submitted by the tab staff
max_eballot_speak	35	The maximum speaker score allowed to be submitted by an e-ballot Note: This value will be allowed. In other words, if the value is 35, a 35 does not have to be justified to tab staff but a 36 does
min_eballot_speak	15	The minimum speaker score allowed to be submitted by an e-ballot Note: This value will be allowed. In other words, if the value is 15, a 15 does not have to be justified to tab staff but a 14 does
lenient_late	0	The latest round where people who do not show up are given average speaks instead of speaks of 0 by default. Note: This only applies before the round. If you change this after the round was paired, it will not take effect. You can manually allow a lenient_late in the admin interface. Docs coming soon.
pairing_released	0	1 if the pairings are publicly visible, 0 when they are not
fair_bye	1	1 if only unseeded teams should be eligible for a first round bye, 0 if all teams should be eligible

Running a Tournament with a Non-Standard number of rounds

To run a tournament that has more/less than 5 round, change the value of the tot_rounds setting to the number of rounds. If you don't do this, the gov/opp count optimization will not work, and pairings may get messed up.

Dropping a Team with Average Speaks

By default, when teams forfeit, they are given speaks of 0 and ranks of 7. To override this behavior, create a tab_setting with the key lenient_late. The value of the tab setting is the last round number where the default behavior of a forfeit is average speaks. For example, setting it to 1 would default any forfeits in round 1 to use average speaks. Setting it to 4 would make it the default behavior for rounds 1-4.

To override the default behavior for the round, navigate to the admin interface and click on the "No shows" link. You will now see a list of links formatted as {Team name} was a no-show for round {round number}. Find the team and round that you want to override, check/uncheck the "lenient late" option, and click "save".

Modifying the Pairing Algorithm

The pairing algorithm uses creates minimum weight maximal matching algorithm to create the round. You can read more about the algorithm used here. What this means is that the pairing algorithm isn't a list of specific rules. Instead, it generates every possible pairing for the round, gives a score to each pairing, and then selected the pairings with the highest score. Penalties with the highest magnitude are the "worst" penalties. Those with values closer to 0 are less significant.

Note: The value of the setting must be negative. Otherwise your pairings will be very bad.

Here are the settings you can create, along with their default values:

Tab setting name	Default value	Description
power_pairing_multiple	-1	For each position that the pairing is shifted from the "ideal" power-pairing, it's multiplied by this number
high_opp_penalty	0	One team will have to opp more than half of the rounds + 1 (e.g. 4 opps at a 5 round tournament)
high_gov_penalty	-100	One team will have to gov more than half of the rounds + 1 (e.g. 4 govs at a 5 round tournament)
higher_opp_penalty	-10	One team will have to opp more than half of the rounds + 2 (e.g. 5 opps at a 5 round tournament)
same_school_penalty	-1000	Both teams are taking protection from the same school
hit_pull_up_before	-10000	A team who has hit the pull-up already will hit the pull-up again. (Note: Teams that have already been pulled up will never be considered for the pull-up)
hit_team_before	-100000	The two teams in the pairing have already debated each other

So, if I wanted to change the penalties so that having 4 govs was half as important as it usually is, I'd change the value of high_gov_penalty to -50. If I wanted to make it not considered at all, I'd change it to 0.

If you would like to prevent seeded teams from getting the bye, set fair_bye to 1