Everybody Swims!!

Swimmers, thanks for the feedback on this thread. The comments are good for us to see. To Matt S. and Barb P. (and other lurkers who haven't mentioned the same comments), I have data-mining software that polls each web site when I bring it up, searching for new information. So, I'm aware of the CMSA and MD web site postings. As I mentioned earlier, the short-course season is much too big for me to handle (and I think that the meets posted on the CMSA and MD sites, that aren't in the database, are the SCY varieties) at the moment. I've been concentrating on LCM and SCM courses only because the number of meets is reasonable. The goal is to include all courses and meets at sometime in the future. This is just the first step. As for the results formats: The most universally-accepted is the USA-Swimming-defined SDIF (Standard Data Interchange Format) file. It can be produced by HyTek's Meet Manager OR by other competing meet management software. Because the database is handled by HyTek, they also accept two other file formats -- the HyTek zipped backup file and the CommLink file. These files are produced largely automatically after the meet director has entered the swimmers info & run the meet. They contain the fewest errors and represent the least investment of time for me. I'm happy to deal with other formats, however. It's just that the rest of the formats require that I do manual conversions to the SDIF files. THIS INEVITABLY LEADS TO ERRORS. As Jim can verify, I recently submitted a meet from Texas that I had manually converted where I listed both male and female swimmers as female because I mis-interpreted a character in the posted results. This may be carrying the unisex thing a bit too far. So, Barb, it's not that I won't use the PDF files. I'd rather invest the work than have the meet excluded from the database. It's just that it would save me time and embarassment if I could just pass the meet directors results file directly to the database. For a small meet, I can do the conversion in about 60 minutes; for a zone meet it has taken me 3-4 hours to do the conversion. But, please, keep advertizing the database. As coaches, or swimmers, take a printout of the top 25 or 50 or whatever with you to big meets to give yourself or your swimmers instant feedback. Talk it up to other swimmers. Put links in newsletters and on web sites. It all helps Keep after meet directors and LMSC officials to submit results. Let me know if there is a club web site that posts results that may not be on a Zone web site or an LMSC web site. I'm pretty aggressive about tracking down these results & will follow up on your tips. !!!I WANT TO MAKE THIS AN INDESPENSIBLE TOOL TO THE USMS SWIMMING COMMUNITY!!! mel

Swimmers, thanks for the feedback on this thread. The comments are good for us to see. To Matt S. and Barb P. (and other lurkers who haven't mentioned the same comments), I have data-mining software that polls each web site when I bring it up, searching for new information. So, I'm aware of the CMSA and MD web site postings. As I mentioned earlier, the short-course season is much too big for me to handle (and I think that the meets posted on the CMSA and MD sites, that aren't in the database, are the SCY varieties) at the moment. I've been concentrating on LCM and SCM courses only because the number of meets is reasonable. The goal is to include all courses and meets at sometime in the future. This is just the first step. As for the results formats: The most universally-accepted is the USA-Swimming-defined SDIF (Standard Data Interchange Format) file. It can be produced by HyTek's Meet Manager OR by other competing meet management software. Because the database is handled by HyTek, they also accept two other file formats -- the HyTek zipped backup file and the CommLink file. These files are produced largely automatically after the meet director has entered the swimmers info & run the meet. They contain the fewest errors and represent the least investment of time for me. I'm happy to deal with other formats, however. It's just that the rest of the formats require that I do manual conversions to the SDIF files. THIS INEVITABLY LEADS TO ERRORS. As Jim can verify, I recently submitted a meet from Texas that I had manually converted where I listed both male and female swimmers as female because I mis-interpreted a character in the posted results. This may be carrying the unisex thing a bit too far. So, Barb, it's not that I won't use the PDF files. I'd rather invest the work than have the meet excluded from the database. It's just that it would save me time and embarassment if I could just pass the meet directors results file directly to the database. For a small meet, I can do the conversion in about 60 minutes; for a zone meet it has taken me 3-4 hours to do the conversion. But, please, keep advertizing the database. As coaches, or swimmers, take a printout of the top 25 or 50 or whatever with you to big meets to give yourself or your swimmers instant feedback. Talk it up to other swimmers. Put links in newsletters and on web sites. It all helps Keep after meet directors and LMSC officials to submit results. Let me know if there is a club web site that posts results that may not be on a Zone web site or an LMSC web site. I'm pretty aggressive about tracking down these results & will follow up on your tips. !!!I WANT TO MAKE THIS AN INDESPENSIBLE TOOL TO THE USMS SWIMMING COMMUNITY!!! mel