PVS Results files

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think most parents do not have issues with Swimcloud (older). I do know that the people that are like "all in the data" and rooting in myswimio can be a little weird.

We have a dad in our club who has all of it memorized for the kids faster than his own. He obsesses about his kid's standings in the club, league, etc. He has an almost unnatural obsession with a boy that is on another team and when his son gets to race against him.

I have been told that the son now acts this way too. Kids in the club have told him, it is not about this other kid - who cares, it is about your own times.

So, yea, as a parent, I find that weird and creepy. I would not love another parent knowing all my kids' times and events, etc, when I don't know them. That they are talking about my kid all the time within their family and to people that they barely know on deck. But, you see it. And they love sites like myswimio because it feeds the obsession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think most parents do not have issues with Swimcloud (older). I do know that the people that are like "all in the data" and rooting in myswimio can be a little weird.

We have a dad in our club who has all of it memorized for the kids faster than his own. He obsesses about his kid's standings in the club, league, etc. He has an almost unnatural obsession with a boy that is on another team and when his son gets to race against him.

I have been told that the son now acts this way too. Kids in the club have told him, it is not about this other kid - who cares, it is about your own times.

So, yea, as a parent, I find that weird and creepy. I would not love another parent knowing all my kids' times and events, etc, when I don't know them. That they are talking about my kid all the time within their family and to people that they barely know on deck. But, you see it. And they love sites like myswimio because it feeds the obsession.

It sounds like this person would act that way even if all he had access to was Meet Mobile and the USA swimming site. All of the actual personal information about a kid that is on these 3rd party platforms is also publicly available on MM and USA swimming. A person that obsessed would still know other kids’ times and events. What you’re describing isn’t really a privacy issue, it’s the fact that the 3rd party platforms are able to organize the already publicly available information in a way that allows people to easily do direct comparisons between swimmers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most parents do not have issues with Swimcloud (older). I do know that the people that are like "all in the data" and rooting in myswimio can be a little weird.

We have a dad in our club who has all of it memorized for the kids faster than his own. He obsesses about his kid's standings in the club, league, etc. He has an almost unnatural obsession with a boy that is on another team and when his son gets to race against him.

I have been told that the son now acts this way too. Kids in the club have told him, it is not about this other kid - who cares, it is about your own times.

So, yea, as a parent, I find that weird and creepy. I would not love another parent knowing all my kids' times and events, etc, when I don't know them. That they are talking about my kid all the time within their family and to people that they barely know on deck. But, you see it. And they love sites like myswimio because it feeds the obsession.

It sounds like this person would act that way even if all he had access to was Meet Mobile and the USA swimming site. All of the actual personal information about a kid that is on these 3rd party platforms is also publicly available on MM and USA swimming. A person that obsessed would still know other kids’ times and events. What you’re describing isn’t really a privacy issue, it’s the fact that the 3rd party platforms are able to organize the already publicly available information in a way that allows people to easily do direct comparisons between swimmers.

I agree it is not a privacy issue too. Most people would not have the time or ability to compile all the data on all the swimmers in a club/league/etc to compare one on one. USA Swimming and Meet Mobile certainly does not make that easy on its own (which is why people are so upset now about data files not being put in a public place) and third parties being able to put all this data together.

Looking at MySwimIO - I can click on my swimmer, click on the rank number and look at the other swimmers. I can then click on those swimmers and look at all their data. I can look at IMX rankings in their club and compare them to their friends, league, state, etc. Pull up all those names with a click of a button (but why is that necessary?) It encourages and plays into those crazy parents. The other sites are certainly not at comprehensive as MySwimIO in the data it is pulling and stringing together. Swimcloud shows the strength of a swimmer in their events and allows for easy matching of college teams. There is something nice about a site that visually shows a kid that they excel in distance free events. It doesn't then and go and compare them to all the swimmers that are similar to them. Swimmetry is pretty basic too. You can compare athletes if you want - I confess I did that to see if my little one was tracking similarly to their older siblings because honestly I just could not remember anymore. That was a neat function. But, it mostly just tells you the next cut times for the major meets.

I am not familiar with Swimstandards, but it sounds like MySwimIO.

I agree the data is out there. And you are going to have parents that will love having the ability to know if their Larla is faster than your Larla on the team. These sites just make that weirdness easier. In reality, as a parent you have zero need to know that kind of information in age group swimming. You should be focusing on times - your own swimmer's times.

I know my swimmers are not happy about the Swimcloud issue. That has them most concerned. They would like a site (any site or app) that has their information and shows them their next cut time with UpToDate times. They rest of it they could care less about. Yes, they look up a swimmer before a race sometimes to see if they will have some good competition, but they don't care that much about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most parents do not have issues with Swimcloud (older). I do know that the people that are like "all in the data" and rooting in myswimio can be a little weird.

We have a dad in our club who has all of it memorized for the kids faster than his own. He obsesses about his kid's standings in the club, league, etc. He has an almost unnatural obsession with a boy that is on another team and when his son gets to race against him.

I have been told that the son now acts this way too. Kids in the club have told him, it is not about this other kid - who cares, it is about your own times.

So, yea, as a parent, I find that weird and creepy. I would not love another parent knowing all my kids' times and events, etc, when I don't know them. That they are talking about my kid all the time within their family and to people that they barely know on deck. But, you see it. And they love sites like myswimio because it feeds the obsession.

It sounds like this person would act that way even if all he had access to was Meet Mobile and the USA swimming site. All of the actual personal information about a kid that is on these 3rd party platforms is also publicly available on MM and USA swimming. A person that obsessed would still know other kids’ times and events. What you’re describing isn’t really a privacy issue, it’s the fact that the 3rd party platforms are able to organize the already publicly available information in a way that allows people to easily do direct comparisons between swimmers.

Amen! Names, ages, and times are available everywhere. It is public information and if you participate in a sport, that information will be out there. If someone is going to be obsessed about something, they can and will do it just as easily watching the result from meet mobile. Are LSCs going to ban meet mobile? is USA Swimming going to ban themselves from showing results? What about the video boards at meets that show swimmers names and their times during the meet? Has anyone gone to the meet host and tell them to not show the swimmers names? What about banning heat sheets? Professional sports players must be pretty upset having their names on their jerseys and college athletes should fight to not have their recruiting information, years of eligibility, etc made public.

One sentence from USA Swimming is what this is about, and the interpretation by some LSC's by USA Swimming was incorrect. It states, "LSC shall not publicly post files that have personally identifiable information."

Their message about PII was solely about date of births. That can easily be removed and result files published. Hopefully USA Swimming releases an update to correct this with LSCs. Feel free to contact your LSC's and ask them to contact USA Swimming for clarification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most parents do not have issues with Swimcloud (older). I do know that the people that are like "all in the data" and rooting in myswimio can be a little weird.

We have a dad in our club who has all of it memorized for the kids faster than his own. He obsesses about his kid's standings in the club, league, etc. He has an almost unnatural obsession with a boy that is on another team and when his son gets to race against him.

I have been told that the son now acts this way too. Kids in the club have told him, it is not about this other kid - who cares, it is about your own times.

So, yea, as a parent, I find that weird and creepy. I would not love another parent knowing all my kids' times and events, etc, when I don't know them. That they are talking about my kid all the time within their family and to people that they barely know on deck. But, you see it. And they love sites like myswimio because it feeds the obsession.

It sounds like this person would act that way even if all he had access to was Meet Mobile and the USA swimming site. All of the actual personal information about a kid that is on these 3rd party platforms is also publicly available on MM and USA swimming. A person that obsessed would still know other kids’ times and events. What you’re describing isn’t really a privacy issue, it’s the fact that the 3rd party platforms are able to organize the already publicly available information in a way that allows people to easily do direct comparisons between swimmers.

I agree it is not a privacy issue too. Most people would not have the time or ability to compile all the data on all the swimmers in a club/league/etc to compare one on one. USA Swimming and Meet Mobile certainly does not make that easy on its own (which is why people are so upset now about data files not being put in a public place) and third parties being able to put all this data together.



Looking at MySwimIO - I can click on my swimmer, click on the rank number and look at the other swimmers. I can then click on those swimmers and look at all their data. I can look at IMX rankings in their club and compare them to their friends, league, state, etc. Pull up all those names with a click of a button (but why is that necessary?) It encourages and plays into those crazy parents. The other sites are certainly not at comprehensive as MySwimIO in the data it is pulling and stringing together. Swimcloud shows the strength of a swimmer in their events and allows for easy matching of college teams. There is something nice about a site that visually shows a kid that they excel in distance free events. It doesn't then and go and compare them to all the swimmers that are similar to them. Swimmetry is pretty basic too. You can compare athletes if you want - I confess I did that to see if my little one was tracking similarly to their older siblings because honestly I just could not remember anymore. That was a neat function. But, it mostly just tells you the next cut times for the major meets.

I am not familiar with Swimstandards, but it sounds like MySwimIO.

I agree the data is out there. And you are going to have parents that will love having the ability to know if their Larla is faster than your Larla on the team. These sites just make that weirdness easier. In reality, as a parent you have zero need to know that kind of information in age group swimming. You should be focusing on times - your own swimmer's times.

I know my swimmers are not happy about the Swimcloud issue. That has them most concerned. They would like a site (any site or app) that has their information and shows them their next cut time with UpToDate times. They rest of it they could care less about. Yes, they look up a swimmer before a race sometimes to see if they will have some good competition, but they don't care that much about it.


Just because you don't care about that information, doesn't make everyone that does, obsessed.

Maybe their swimmer is a dual sport swimmer and they want to compare to see the progress others that are not are doing this season to measure the impact not coming to all swim practices is affecting their swimmers times.
Maybe they have been working with a coach on their fly and want to see if that is being effective versus others in their age group that are just doing regular practices.
Maybe you child isn't dropping this season and you want to see if it is just your swimmer or maybe it is their swim group.
Maybe your child isn't dropping this season and you want to compare to other team swimmers in your area to decide if you should make a switch.
At the high school level, you don't compare your swimmers times against others on their team? You don't look at the times that from those recruited ahead of your swimmer in years to see what they swam?

A lot of coaches use and appreciate these tools also. USA Swimming does not provide analytics tools so many coaches have paper, spreadsheets, etc to figure things out manually.

Please don't lump everyone into a one size fits all category. While most parents are razor focused on their kids and compare times, it is not a jealous or unhealthy obsession, it is a competitive sport.

Look at all the stats for other sports like baseball, soccer, football. Anything that can be calculated is. Heck, even cross country and track data is compiled and athletes compared.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone used SwimIntel? Our coach has set up a demo - looks like it could be a helpful tool for college recruiting.

[Anonymous]

Are there any PVS officials on this thread that can clarify what is going from their point of view?

[Anonymous]

The PVS board minutes from August 19 note that this is due to the results files containing personally identifiable information (PII): https://pvswim.org/bod/25-08-19-bod-minutes.pdf.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PVS board minutes from August 19 note that this is due to the results files containing personally identifiable information (PII): https://pvswim.org/bod/25-08-19-bod-minutes.pdf.

Right, that’s already been pointed out, but numerous people have also said that you can click a button to remove DOBs from the results file. Kids’ names and ages are already publicly available on MM and USA swimming’s site so the privacy argument has to just be about the DOBs, and it sounds like that’s easily rectified.

[Anonymous]

I'm interested in hearing from PVS officials that the only reason they won't post results files is because those files contain swimmer DOB. The board meeting minutes say PII, but we don't know if PVS is referring to DOB, or even DOB only, or something else they think is PII. If DOB only, sounds like easy fix: PVS mandate that results files can't contain DOB. If a file contains DOB, then PVS tells the meet host to remove DOB and resubmit the file.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm interested in hearing from PVS officials that the only reason they won't post results files is because those files contain swimmer DOB. The board meeting minutes say PII, but we don't know if PVS is referring to DOB, or even DOB only, or something else they think is PII. If DOB only, sounds like easy fix: PVS mandate that results files can't contain DOB. If a file contains DOB, then PVS tells the meet host to remove DOB and resubmit the file.

Honestly, I think PVS thought they could just slide this through and didn’t realize that the impact on a legitimate recruiting tool like SwimCloud would get people’s attention. My swimmer also enjoys the other sites but rendering SwimCloud useless as they move into the recruiting area is a big blow and really hurts the PVS athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm interested in hearing from PVS officials that the only reason they won't post results files is because those files contain swimmer DOB. The board meeting minutes say PII, but we don't know if PVS is referring to DOB, or even DOB only, or something else they think is PII. If DOB only, sounds like easy fix: PVS mandate that results files can't contain DOB. If a file contains DOB, then PVS tells the meet host to remove DOB and resubmit the file.

It all stems from this sentence in the LSC Affiliation Agreement, which states, "LSC shall not publicly post files that have personally identifiable information."

If you google PII, the first thing it mentions is name, but as we all know names of swimmers are everywhere. That was NOT the intention of USA Swimming and the director of Technology confirmed that yesterday. Why the LSCs didn't pick up the phone to get clarification, we don't know. They should realize if the intention was to keep names out of any documents, that it would be impossible. They are on heat sheets, psych sheets, meet mobile, USA swimming's own website, score boards, pdf results. etc. You can see the entries for each swimmer on your team in team-unify after they are submitted.

LSCs were supposed to be meeting with USA Swimming on Thursday, but no information has been released from that, publicly. Meanwhile, the battle of USA Swimming to stop people scraping their site for results has gotten much worse, which they are completely aware of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm interested in hearing from PVS officials that the only reason they won't post results files is because those files contain swimmer DOB. The board meeting minutes say PII, but we don't know if PVS is referring to DOB, or even DOB only, or something else they think is PII. If DOB only, sounds like easy fix: PVS mandate that results files can't contain DOB. If a file contains DOB, then PVS tells the meet host to remove DOB and resubmit the file.

Honestly, I think PVS thought they could just slide this through and didn’t realize that the impact on a legitimate recruiting tool like SwimCloud would get people’s attention. My swimmer also enjoys the other sites but rendering SwimCloud useless as they move into the recruiting area is a big blow and really hurts the PVS athletes.

Totally agree PVS thought they would slide this through. It was buried in the back of the meeting minutes and seemed no discussion on the topic occurred. With the way PVS has been delayed in posting meeting minutes, I guess we’re even lucky we were able to view the August minutes.

[Anonymous]

Mako meet has now been posted on Swimcloud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm interested in hearing from PVS officials that the only reason they won't post results files is because those files contain swimmer DOB. The board meeting minutes say PII, but we don't know if PVS is referring to DOB, or even DOB only, or something else they think is PII. If DOB only, sounds like easy fix: PVS mandate that results files can't contain DOB. If a file contains DOB, then PVS tells the meet host to remove DOB and resubmit the file.

It all stems from this sentence in the LSC Affiliation Agreement, which states, "LSC shall not publicly post files that have personally identifiable information."

If you google PII, the first thing it mentions is name, but as we all know names of swimmers are everywhere. That was NOT the intention of USA Swimming and the director of Technology confirmed that yesterday. Why the LSCs didn't pick up the phone to get clarification, we don't know. They should realize if the intention was to keep names out of any documents, that it would be impossible. They are on heat sheets, psych sheets, meet mobile, USA swimming's own website, score boards, pdf results. etc. You can see the entries for each swimmer on your team in team-unify after they are submitted.

LSCs were supposed to be meeting with USA Swimming on Thursday, but no information has been released from that, publicly. Meanwhile, the battle of USA Swimming to stop people scraping their site for results has gotten much worse, which they are completely aware of.

easy money on the table for the take, if USAS wants to make different pricing tiers for swim times API; the free tier can start with X number of request per hour/throttling.