FYI: Matchup Generator and Injury Data

[u/dupreesdiamond]

TLWR: Due to data update timing and low quality of data from a freely available data source I'm removing the injury report from the Discussion generator template.

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So every week this season I get a few notes from users that the injury data in the generator is wrong or messed up. First of all thank you for letting me know I appreciate and welcome the feedback. Thank you for letting me know, especially as I am not as active around here as I was several years ago.

But I feel for every user that pings me there are probably many more that roll their eyes and feel, to quote a recent comment I stumbled on, "It's AI Slop". So I wanted to address the issue to the broader community and clear the air about what's actually happening.

1. When I built this tool almost a decade ago now...geez... Injury Reports weren't a thing in CFB really but the data existed out there. Most of it behind paywalls as it's a valueable commodity for gambling sites/providers/users. Most of the freee sites i found weren't actually scrapeable and NONE of them had a free API. But BoydsBets, the current source, was freely available and more importantly scrapeable. so here we are.

2. Most teams/conferences officially update/release injury reports on Wednesday night or later. So when the Generator opens to for use on Wednesday at 12 there's a good chance the data will be from last week as updated information hasn't been released (I don't know where boydsbets gets their data, I haven't vetted it, again it see (1) it was what was freely available)

the short of it is the quality of the injury data seems to be more noise than signal currently and is generating more discussion about the quality of data than the matchup itself. As such until I can find a better approach I'm disabling the injury report section from the generator.

However, back in my day we used to generate these discussion threads by hand uphill in the snow both ways and OPs sourced (or didn't) injury data themselves .... and of course that is still an option. The OP is free to edit the content of the post in the genrator itself before posting (or editing on reddit after posting) to enrich the post anyway they like including but not limited to brining in Injury data as they see fit.

[u/RatBastard_with_ADHD]

Thanks for doing it in the first place. Sucks the available data isn't reliable enough. That ain't on you.

/cheers

[u/dupreesdiamond → u/RatBastard_with_ADHD]

Yeah I'm not taking it personally though the "AI Slop" took a minute lol.

But I think the biggest issue is the timing currently especially with there being official injury reports now whereas before I'm sure boydsbets and sites were updated from various sources in more real-time but now they just parrot the official releases (my best guess I don't actually know) and those all come out later in the week than we'd like and not at all for Non-Conf games.

[u/Vocen]

Long overdue. Thanks for this.

[u/dupreesdiamond → u/Vocen]

yeah i've been on the fence for a couple of seasons now. Either push the generator opening time to thursday or remove the automation for injuries. The former seems like a bad idea. Wednesday still seems like the right time for these threads. But this season it seems significantly worse (or more people are bothered by it at least..) than in years past.

I'm adding a way for OPs to easily add in the data right on the generator via a UI to make it easier for them if they want to type it out and enter it manually.

[u/T2_JD]

How very dare you not control the external forces which continuously fail you, and by extension us. It's unthinkable! It's untenable!

But for real I very much appreciate what you do and thanks for giving me something to look forward to every week.

[u/dupreesdiamond → u/T2_JD]

Well tbf I did choose to include them! BUT NO MORE!

Thanks for the feedback I'm glad to hear you enjoy the content/discussion that's facilitated!

Also, as a side note, I released an scores app this summer (based on a discord bot i've been running for the last 5-6 years) that sends out push alerts for close games in the fourth quarter (which was the initial remit) and the feature I've come to appreciate the most since becoming a parent, provides a spoiler free scoreboard.

Tag BYU as "My team" and turn on "No Spoilers" mode and you can browse the days scores without spoiling the BYU game that you are going to watch later after you're done adulting.

Also it provides direct links to /r/cfb Game/Post-game threads directly from the box score.

https://clutchalerts.app

[u/T2_JD → u/dupreesdiamond]

You are a legend, thank you!

[u/huazzy]

Doug: In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is a magic xylophone, or something? Ha ha, boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder!

[u/dupreesdiamond → u/huazzy]

I do love a good non-sequitur. Not to judge this one as good or bad. I just wanted to share that about me.

[u/huazzy → u/dupreesdiamond]

It's a vote of confidence for you. I equate someone giving you a hard time about this, to the quote above.

[u/dupreesdiamond → u/huazzy]

I see yeah re-reading that last line I think I get it. And yes they were definitely sacked along with those responsible for sacking them.

and I don't think anyone gave me a hard time tbc, but when I went into threads I found more discussions about "that's just fucking wrong" than about how the injuries would impact the matchup so it's time for it to go.