Tag: Stats Page

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Minor Updates to Wait Wait Stats Page

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While listening to the last Thursday’s edition of Too Beautiful To Live, Luke Burbank made a snarky remark that he hasn’t won on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! for something like 35 shows. Even though that comment was not intended to be a factual statement, it did make a light bulb flicker in my head. The panelist statistics box includes the last time that he or she last won or was tied for first place and it would take a bit of time to go through the full appearances list to count the number of shows since the panelist has won or tied for first. That afternoon, I started playing around with a couple of SQL queries to pull that information and filter out things like Best Of and repeat show appearances and got something that gave me a proper result. That night, I …

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Throwback Thursday: An Interesting Look Back at the Stats Page

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For this Throwback Thursday, I decided to have a bit of fun with the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Stats Page and decided to try viewing the current and old versions of the Stats Page from a view vantage points. When I was developing the three versions of the Stats Page, I never really targeted and tested it against text-based web browsers, including Lynx and W3M. Sure, I viewed the page for kicks here and there, but never took it to be a key demographic. With that said, I decided to see how the current version of the Stats Page looks like when viewed on the aforementioned text-based web browsers. In this case, W3M’s rendering engine does the Stats Page a bit more justice by properly handling table cells and spacing between each block of shows. 

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Say Hello to Wait Wait Stats Page, Version 3.0!

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I’ve been waiting quite a while to say this: Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Stats Page Version 3.0 is now live and ready to use! First and foremost, one thing that you’ll notice is that the Stats Page’s address is now just http://wwdt.me. After reviewing the structure of the new Stats Page, I wanted the URL to reflect both the site design’s and the site structure’s simplicity. I have set up redirects for the old address, http://wwdt.me/stats, to point to the new address. That way, if you have any bookmarks or links to the site, the links will continue to work. Also, the Stats Page’s name has been simplified to just be, “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Stats and Show Details.” If you read the sneak peek of the new Stats Page, you will notice a few cosmetic changes that have been made. First, …

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Progress Update on Wait Wait Stats Page Version 3.0 Development

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Over the past week, I have been working on adding a few small touches and fixing a few lingering bugs on the soon-to-be-released Wait Wait Stats Page Version 3.0. One of the small touches that I added was to the graph displaying each panelists’s point spread. The graph now includes the count of number of times a panelist has scored that amount above the corresponding score. Below is what the graph looks like for Alonzo Bodden: You will also notice that I have also included the score for each panelist appearance listed below the graph when you view the detailed panelist stats and what position the panelist finished. The other new addition to the each of the show details are arrows next to each host, scorekeeper, panelist and guest that links to their respective details page. I still have a bit clean-up left to …

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Previewing Wait Wait Stats Page Version 3.0

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Update: I have finished re-writing the code that generates the panelist score breakdown graph and it will be deployed along with the new Stats Page. If you follow me on Twitter (@questionlp), you may have seen my recent tweets about a new version of the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Stats Page, including two sneak peek screenshots. For over a year, I have been dabbling with new design options for the Wait Wait Stats Page, as well as fighting with the original code to add a few new features that have been requested over the years. In the past two months or so, I finally sat down and started sketching out a new design and working in earnest on wireframes and prototypes. It was one of my New Year’s resolutions to get a new version of the site coded and published. Looking at the …

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Links to Newer WWDTM Shows on NPR.org Not Quite Working

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Due to a very recent Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! site redesign on NPR.org, and restructuring of the URLs for shows starting with January 2006, links for those sites on the Stats Page no longer bring up that specific show on NPR’s site. Up until recently, the URL format for each individual show (starting with the 2006-01-07 show) on NPR.org was: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=35&prgDate=<four-digit year>-<two-digit month>-<two-digit day> Now, individual show URL format includes some unique identifier slapped in the middle of the URL: http://www.npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/<four-digit year>/<two-digit month>/<two-digit day>/<unique identifier>/?showDate=<four-digit year>-<two-digit month>-<two-digit day> Until I can work out a way to programmatically generate links to individual shows after 2005 to include that unique identifier, those links will just end up redirecting to the main Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! site on NPR.org. I apologize for the inconvenience. /sigh