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We briefly spoke via GitHub about a month ago, and during that convo (it was in a ticket), you mentioned that the source has inaccuracies. Is there any elabora

We briefly spoke via GitHub about a month ago, and during that convo (it was in a ticket), you mentioned that the source has inaccuracies. Is there any elaboration there or do the NFL people use a different data source to do things like Fantasy and official stats?

burntsushi 8y ago
I'm not an NFL insider. I don't know what they do internally. I only know that 1) the undocumented NFL GameCenter JSON is not 100% accurate and that 2) any user of a fantasy league would notice these inaccuracies. I did a test a while back by comparing GameCenter data with Yahoo's data. Kickers tend to have the most inaccuracies: https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame/blob/master/test-data/results-yahoo-2012-play/k.tsv https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame/blob/master/test-data/... QB stats are more solid for example, but there are still minor problems: https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame/blob/master/test-data/results-yahoo-2012-play/qb.tsv https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame/blob/master/test-data/... From those observations, you can't really make any solid conclusions. But if you think about it for a bit, you might be able to reason your way to some guesses. For example, one possibility is that the GameCenter data is NFL's own construction that's only used for their GameCenter interfaces, where as places that "official" data is needed might be powered by Elias[1]. Why the discrepancy? Again, I don't know. It could be legacy software related. It could be contract/legal related. Or it could jus tbe plain old bugs. e.g., Maybe GameCenter hooks into an initial lossy but fast feed that is updated during the game, but never receives updates from a slower but more accurate feed later. Or maybe the NFL purposely inserts data canaries because they know this JSON feed is unprotected, and they intend on using those data canaries to detect folks using their data in an unlicensed fashion. I'm pretty sure IMDb does this, for example. Or maybe they just insert errors purposely to make it too costly for anyone to use this data in situations that require 100% accuracy (like fantasy football leagues). My guess is some innocuous blend of legal and legacy software reasons. [1] - http://www.esb.com/ http://www.esb.com/

burntsushi 8y ago

I'm not an NFL insider. I don't know what they do internally. I only know that 1) the undocumented NFL GameCenter JSON is not 100% accurate and that 2) any user of a fantasy league would notice these inaccuracies. I did a test a while back by comparing GameCenter data with Yahoo's data. Kickers tend to have the most inaccuracies: https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame/blob/master/test-data/results-yahoo-2012-play/k.tsv https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame/blob/master/test-data/... QB stats are more solid for example, but there are still minor problems: https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame/blob/master/test-data/results-yahoo-2012-play/qb.tsv https://github.com/BurntSushi/nflgame/blob/master/test-data/... From those observations, you can't really make any solid conclusions. But if you think about it for a bit, you might be able to reason your way to some guesses. For example, one possibility is that the GameCenter data is NFL's own construction that's only used for their GameCenter interfaces, where as places that "official" data is needed might be powered by Elias[1]. Why the discrepancy? Again, I don't know. It could be legacy software related. It could be contract/legal related. Or it could jus tbe plain old bugs. e.g., Maybe GameCenter hooks into an initial lossy but fast feed that is updated during the game, but never receives updates from a slower but more accurate feed later. Or maybe the NFL purposely inserts data canaries because they know this JSON feed is unprotected, and they intend on using those data canaries to detect folks using their data in an unlicensed fashion. I'm pretty sure IMDb does this, for example. Or maybe they just insert errors purposely to make it too costly for anyone to use this data in situations that require 100% accuracy (like fantasy football leagues). My guess is some innocuous blend of legal and legacy software reasons. [1] - http://www.esb.com/ http://www.esb.com/