Team Names - Idea to Eliminate Confusion
 

I see posts about teams being erroneously credited with competition scores, or those scores being omitted due to similar team names.

Has anyone (KCBS?) considered assigning a unique Team Number to a team for the purposes of registration and scoring? The team could still use the name at events, but scores would be recorded and tracked by Team Number.

This would be easy to do if a team is required to use the number at registration. A work around would be needed for teams from other sanctioning bodies or no affiliation. How prevalent is regular participation of non-KCBS teams at KCBS events (emphasis on "regular")?

Already suggested to use the he'd cooks kcbs member #. If team is not kcbs points don't count anyway. Don't know why they haven't gone to this.

Are points awarded to the team or head cook? I f a team uses different head cooks, who would get the points under your scenario?

I am sure that many have suggested it. I have personally suggested it to, at the time, current board members.

An id number for teams would be great. It doesnt solve all my problems because of teams cooking multiple sanctions, but it would solve a lot of problems. I am sure that KCBS is spending a lot of someone's time cleaning up the results each week for the team of the year. I am also sure that if they were as transparent as bbqrace or national bbq rankings, we would see the same issues that we see with both of those sites.

I dont know if the new system will allow for ID numbers, but I am encouraged by the talk of an API for the new system. dont know if that will be public, but if it was it could open up a whole new world of possibilities to report on kcbs data. it would really be awesome.

A team has one head cook. May not mean he/she is always there but they are still registered as the teams head cook. There's only one head chef at a restaurant and he/she isn't always there but is still head chef. Others may be pastry chef etc. and may be in charge when the head chef is not there.

A some teams have more than one head cook. You dont have to force the issue with just using the member ID. just create a team ID and use that.

then a team can have many members. No big deal.

Yep, that was my line of thought. The ID should be tied to the team, not an individual's KCBS number.

I agree that there should be a team number separate from the head cook's KCBS number. Right now any number would be better than the system in place now.

There are too many teams with similar names and then there is always is the possibility of misspelling of the teams name with the creative names we have all come up with.

Having a team number should also make the data entry quite a bit easier. It appears to be a no-brainer.

To be honest, I have no idea why KCBS has been so resistant to the idea. I know that several people have suggested it. It is database 101 stuff to use an id for teams.

I would imagine part of the issue with not adopting ID numbers, which seems the simple answer, is that teams are not required to be KCBS members to cook at KCBS sanctioned contests.

So the scoring and tracking process has to account for the occassional team that would not have any KCBS member ID's for their cooks, nor would the team have a team ID, if they were only assigned to KCBS members

If you are not a KCBS member you are not supposed to earn TOY points anyway. It would make the TOY stuff so much better to have ID numbers.

basically if the change was made, most teams would never notice anything.

To earn toy points you must be a member in good standing. By using kcbs # it's eay to check. Adding a team number just makes more work. You can have 10 head cooks but you cook under the same number.