Groups
When the contestant is a team rather than a person.
Groups are managed above the roster on an activity's Participants tab: add one by name, then set it on each person's row.
What a group is
Several people competing as one, inside one activity. A group submits, it spends one submission allowance, it holds one row in the ranking, and its grade goes to every member.
Its members are not contestants themselves. Somebody competing in a group has no row of their own — a row per member would score the same points twice in one table — and their own row on the board is their group's.
A group of one is legitimate. It is how you give one person a name and a description in a ranking.
The rules that follow from it
- A person is in at most one group per activity. It is recorded on their membership, not on their account, so the same person may be in a group here and on their own next door.
- If somebody is in a group, sending as the group is compulsory. It is never a choice offered at submission time; the Server decides it from the membership.
- Staff are not grouped. The control is disabled for a grant that runs the activity, for the same reason the ranking leaves them out.
Moving somebody moves nothing already sent
A submission stamps its group when it is made and keeps it. You may move somebody to another group at any time, and it changes what happens next and nothing that already happened — a board read an hour ago still reconciles with the board now.
The allowance
A ceiling binds a contestant, not a person.
- In a group, it counts that group's submissions.
- Outside one, it counts what the person sent while not in a group.
The second half is the one worth knowing: counting everything somebody ever sent would charge them for their old group's spending, and counting only the group's would make leaving a group a way round the ceiling.
Naming the members on the board
On the activity's settings tab, name the members of a group on the ranking. On, a group's row carries its roster under its name; off, it carries the group's name alone. It changes nothing in an activity where nobody competes as a group.
A system group
A group can be marked systemic. It contributes no contestant and no results — the same rule that keeps staff out of a ranking, one level up — and it still submits and still spends its allowance, which is what makes it useful for checking an activity from the inside while it runs.
Removing one
Deleting a group leaves the people who were in it; they simply compete on their own again. A group that has submissions cannot be deleted at all: that stamp is the record of what competed. Mark it systemic instead — that is how a group is retired.