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.

Modifying Tab Settings

The primary way to modify tab settings is through the Settings Form (accessible via Admin > Settings in the navigation menu). This form provides a user-friendly interface with descriptions for each setting, input validation, and organized sections.

To use the settings form:

1. Navigate to Admin > Settings in the navigation menu

2. Locate the setting you want to modify in the organized sections

3. Read the description to understand what the setting controls

4. Enter your desired value

5. Click “Save Settings”

The form will validate your input and prevent errors or invalid values.

Advanced: Using the Admin Interface

For advanced use cases or settings not yet available in the form, you can use the raw admin interface. Navigate to the admin interface in the navigation menu (“Admin” > “Admin Interface”), then click the “Tab settings” link.

You should now be on a page with the heading “Select tab settings to change” that looks like this:

To edit a tab setting, click on it and change the “value” attribute. To create a new tab setting, click the “Add tab settings” button in the top right corner. The “key” should be the (case-sensitive) name of the setting, and the “value” should be the desired value for the setting. Be careful with spelling and values when using this interface.

Default Tab Settings

Below is a reference table of available settings. Most can be modified through the settings form; a few advanced settings may require using the admin interface.

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	Check this to make pairings publicly visible, uncheck when they are not
fair_bye	1	Check this if only unseeded teams should be eligible for a first round bye, uncheck if all teams should be eligible
use_team_codes	0	Legacy setting. Team codes are authentication tokens and are not displayed on pairings.
teams_public	0	Check this to make the teams list publicly visible
judges_public	0	Check this to make the judges list publicly visible
debaters_public	1	Check this to make debaters publicly visible on the public teams list
team_codes_backend	0	Legacy setting. Team codes are authentication tokens and are not displayed in staff views.
nov_teams_to_break	4	The number of novice teams to be included in the break (exclusive of novice teams who are varsity breaking)
var_teams_to_break	8	The number of varsity teams to be included in the break.
nov_panel_size	3	The number of judges on a novice outs panel.
var_panel_size	3	The number of judges on a varsity outs panel.
var_teams_visible	256	The number of teams above which the varsity outround is visible. For example, if it were 8, quarterfinals and above would be visible, if it were 4, semifinals and above would be visible.
nov_teams_visible	256	The number of teams above which the novice outround is visible. For example, if it were 8, quarterfinals and above would be visible, if it were 4, semifinals and above would be visible.
outround_judge_priority	0	Controls how judges are prioritized when assigning varsity and novice outrounds together. 0 (“Varsity Wings”) assigns varsity first, then novice with remaining judges. 1 (“Novice Chairs”) assigns both together by panel slot and gives novice rounds the lower draft position each slot.
gov_opp_display	0	A toggle to switch the outrounds view from displaying Gov and Opp (when checked) and Team 1 and Team 2 (when value is 2)
sidelock	0	Check this to indicate you are side-locking outrounds. When checked, the gov opps for outrounds will not be random, but will adhere to sidelocks, and will be indicated on the pairing card, and bolded on the front-facing pairing display.
choice	0	Check this to display who has choice, whether you would like this to be indicated on the pairing card, and bolded on the front-facing pairing display.
enable_room_seeding	1	Toggle to enable room seeding. When enabled, the best rooms go to the highest seeded rounds (best speaking teams).
show_outrounds_bracket	0	Toggle to display the bracket view for outrounds. When enabled, users can switch between list view and bracket view for outround pairings on the outround pairing page.
allow_rejudges	0	Toggle to indicate whether or not rejudges are allowed. When unchecked (default), the system will avoid assigning judges to teams they’ve judged before. When checked, rejudges are allowed but still minimized by the assignment algorithm. The UI will always show a warning badge when a judge has seen a team before.

Running a Tournament with a Non-Standard number of rounds

To run a tournament that has more/less than 5 rounds, change the value of the tot_rounds setting to the number of rounds using the settings form. 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, set the lenient_late tab setting to the last round number where forfeits should default to 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 a specific team in a specific 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 selects the pairings with the highest score. Penalties with the highest magnitude are the “worst” penalties. Those with values closer to 0 are less significant.

Most pairing-related settings can be adjusted through the settings form. The value of each penalty setting must be negative or zero. Positive values will produce incorrect pairings.

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 you wanted to change the penalties so that having 4 govs was half as important as it usually is, you could change the value of high_gov_penalty to -50 using the settings form. If you wanted to make it not considered at all, you could change it to 0.

To prevent seeded teams from getting the bye, check fair_bye in the settings form.