{
  "id": 135403,
  "title": "COVID-19 Update: Competition Impact, Cancellation",
  "url": "/competitions/google-cloud-ncaa-march-madness-2020-division-1-womens-tournament/discussion/135403",
  "author_name": "",
  "post_date": "2020-03-13T17:49:10.673053600Z",
  "votes": 12,
  "comment_count": 6,
  "views": 0,
  "content": "<p>Hi all,</p>\n\n<p>Given the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Winter and Spring Championships for Men's and Women's sports, we will not longer be able to hold this competition as originally intended. </p>\n\n<p>We discussed internally and could not find an effective way to keep this competition active, fair, and fun without the coming dataset we would need. It really is unfortunate to cancel the competition after it has already been launched, but we trust you understand this is truly an unprecedented outcome beyond our control.</p>\n\n<p>Each competition will remain open for its initial Stage 1 duration and conclude at that time without monetary prizes, Kaggle points, or Kaggle medals. As the Stage 1 data is public and the leaderboard could have perfect scores, we will also clear the leaderboard at its conclusion. For those of you who would like to point to your discussion posts and Kaggle Notebooks as artifacts, we'll leave the competition in closed status, like other completed competitions, and you can point to this forum post as a note of it's mid-competition adjustment. We will update the competition rules and timeline pages accordingly.</p>\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://www.kaggle.com/c/march-madness-analytics-2020\">Analytics competition</a> will remain active, as the winning criteria is not dependent on data from upcoming games. We've chosen to extend the deadline of that competition to April 30 as a result of this news.</p>\n\n<p>If you're still interested in forecasting, we happen to have two forecasting competitions active right now as a part of the M5 Forecasting Challenge (<a href=\"https://www.kaggle.com/c/m5-forecasting-accuracy\">Accuracy</a> and <a href=\"https://www.kaggle.com/c/m5-forecasting-uncertainty\">Uncertainty</a>). </p>\n\n<p>Please also know that nothing at Kaggle is currently scheduled to change - we still have a full slate of competitions and unique challenges headed your direction in the coming weeks and months.</p>\n\n<p>Please stay safe and healthy, keep calm and model on!</p>\n\n<p>Addison</p>",
  "messages": [
    {
      "id": "771054",
      "postDate": "03/13/2020 17:49:10",
      "content": "<p>Hi all,</p>\n\n<p>Given the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Winter and Spring Championships for Men's and Women's sports, we will not longer be able to hold this competition as originally intended. </p>\n\n<p>We discussed internally and could not find an effective way to keep this competition active, fair, and fun without the coming dataset we would need. It really is unfortunate to cancel the competition after it has already been launched, but we trust you understand this is truly an unprecedented outcome beyond our control.</p>\n\n<p>Each competition will remain open for its initial Stage 1 duration and conclude at that time without monetary prizes, Kaggle points, or Kaggle medals. As the Stage 1 data is public and the leaderboard could have perfect scores, we will also clear the leaderboard at its conclusion. For those of you who would like to point to your discussion posts and Kaggle Notebooks as artifacts, we'll leave the competition in closed status, like other completed competitions, and you can point to this forum post as a note of it's mid-competition adjustment. We will update the competition rules and timeline pages accordingly.</p>\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://www.kaggle.com/c/march-madness-analytics-2020\">Analytics competition</a> will remain active, as the winning criteria is not dependent on data from upcoming games. We've chosen to extend the deadline of that competition to April 30 as a result of this news.</p>\n\n<p>If you're still interested in forecasting, we happen to have two forecasting competitions active right now as a part of the M5 Forecasting Challenge (<a href=\"https://www.kaggle.com/c/m5-forecasting-accuracy\">Accuracy</a> and <a href=\"https://www.kaggle.com/c/m5-forecasting-uncertainty\">Uncertainty</a>). </p>\n\n<p>Please also know that nothing at Kaggle is currently scheduled to change - we still have a full slate of competitions and unique challenges headed your direction in the coming weeks and months.</p>\n\n<p>Please stay safe and healthy, keep calm and model on!</p>\n\n<p>Addison</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "Hi all,\n\nGiven the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Winter and Spring Championships for Men's and Women's sports, we will not longer be able to hold this competition as originally intended. \n\nWe discussed internally and could not find an effective way to keep this competition active, fair, and fun without the coming dataset we would need. It really is unfortunate to cancel the competition after it has already been launched, but we trust you understand this is truly an unprecedented outcome beyond our control.\n\nEach competition will remain open for its initial Stage 1 duration and conclude at that time without monetary prizes, Kaggle points, or Kaggle medals. As the Stage 1 data is public and the leaderboard could have perfect scores, we will also clear the leaderboard at its conclusion. For those of you who would like to point to your discussion posts and Kaggle Notebooks as artifacts, we'll leave the competition in closed status, like other completed competitions, and you can point to this forum post as a note of it's mid-competition adjustment. We will update the competition rules and timeline pages accordingly.\n\nThe [Analytics competition](https://www.kaggle.com/c/march-madness-analytics-2020) will remain active, as the winning criteria is not dependent on data from upcoming games. We've chosen to extend the deadline of that competition to April 30 as a result of this news.\n\nIf you're still interested in forecasting, we happen to have two forecasting competitions active right now as a part of the M5 Forecasting Challenge ([Accuracy](https://www.kaggle.com/c/m5-forecasting-accuracy) and [Uncertainty](https://www.kaggle.com/c/m5-forecasting-uncertainty)). \n\nPlease also know that nothing at Kaggle is currently scheduled to change - we still have a full slate of competitions and unique challenges headed your direction in the coming weeks and months.\n\nPlease stay safe and healthy, keep calm and model on!\n\nAddison",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "771066",
      "postDate": "03/13/2020 18:03:41",
      "content": "<p>To everyone who has put in a lot of work into this competition as well as participated in it through the years. This is very unfortunate but the decisions have been taken in the best interests of the players and the public.\nThere's always next year. 😢 \nStay safe!</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "To everyone who has put in a lot of work into this competition as well as participated in it through the years. This is very unfortunate but the decisions have been taken in the best interests of the players and the public.\nThere's always next year. 😢 \nStay safe!",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "771078",
      "postDate": "03/13/2020 18:18:03",
      "content": "<p>Disappointed but understandable. When you say \"nothing at Kaggle is currently scheduled to change\", is this competition expected to continue to be held next year as well? (not asking for promises, just asking what the expectation is).</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "Disappointed but understandable. When you say \"nothing at Kaggle is currently scheduled to change\", is this competition expected to continue to be held next year as well? (not asking for promises, just asking what the expectation is).",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "771079",
      "postDate": "03/13/2020 18:19:25",
      "content": "<p>We've hosted the competition for seven years running and certainly hope to host it again in the future!</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "We've hosted the competition for seven years running and certainly hope to host it again in the future!",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "771083",
      "postDate": "03/13/2020 18:21:13",
      "content": "<p>👍 </p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "👍",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "778688",
      "postDate": "03/18/2020 16:39:36",
      "content": "<p>We hope to see this competition next year.😐</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "We hope to see this competition next year.😐",
      "votes": null
    },
    {
      "id": "778827",
      "postDate": "03/18/2020 19:18:11",
      "content": "<p>We hope to see this competition next year.😐</p>",
      "rawMarkdown": "We hope to see this competition next year.😐",
      "votes": null
    }
  ],
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": 771066,
      "author_name": "skillsmuggler",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "03/13/2020 18:03:41",
      "content": "<p>To everyone who has put in a lot of work into this competition as well as participated in it through the years. This is very unfortunate but the decisions have been taken in the best interests of the players and the public.\nThere's always next year. 😢 \nStay safe!</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 771078,
      "author_name": "kaito510",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "03/13/2020 18:18:03",
      "content": "<p>Disappointed but understandable. When you say \"nothing at Kaggle is currently scheduled to change\", is this competition expected to continue to be held next year as well? (not asking for promises, just asking what the expectation is).</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": [
        {
          "id": 771079,
          "author_name": "addisonhoward",
          "author_url": "",
          "post_date": "03/13/2020 18:19:25",
          "content": "<p>We've hosted the competition for seven years running and certainly hope to host it again in the future!</p>",
          "votes": null,
          "replies": []
        },
        {
          "id": 771083,
          "author_name": "kaito510",
          "author_url": "",
          "post_date": "03/13/2020 18:21:13",
          "content": "<p>👍 </p>",
          "votes": null,
          "replies": []
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": 778688,
      "author_name": "amitravikumar",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "03/18/2020 16:39:36",
      "content": "<p>We hope to see this competition next year.😐</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    },
    {
      "id": 778827,
      "author_name": "",
      "author_url": "",
      "post_date": "03/18/2020 19:18:11",
      "content": "<p>We hope to see this competition next year.😐</p>",
      "votes": null,
      "replies": []
    }
  ],
  "raw_markdown_by_id": {
    "771054": "Hi all,\n\nGiven the COVID-19 outbreak and resulting cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Winter and Spring Championships for Men's and Women's sports, we will not longer be able to hold this competition as originally intended. \n\nWe discussed internally and could not find an effective way to keep this competition active, fair, and fun without the coming dataset we would need. It really is unfortunate to cancel the competition after it has already been launched, but we trust you understand this is truly an unprecedented outcome beyond our control.\n\nEach competition will remain open for its initial Stage 1 duration and conclude at that time without monetary prizes, Kaggle points, or Kaggle medals. As the Stage 1 data is public and the leaderboard could have perfect scores, we will also clear the leaderboard at its conclusion. For those of you who would like to point to your discussion posts and Kaggle Notebooks as artifacts, we'll leave the competition in closed status, like other completed competitions, and you can point to this forum post as a note of it's mid-competition adjustment. We will update the competition rules and timeline pages accordingly.\n\nThe [Analytics competition](https://www.kaggle.com/c/march-madness-analytics-2020) will remain active, as the winning criteria is not dependent on data from upcoming games. We've chosen to extend the deadline of that competition to April 30 as a result of this news.\n\nIf you're still interested in forecasting, we happen to have two forecasting competitions active right now as a part of the M5 Forecasting Challenge ([Accuracy](https://www.kaggle.com/c/m5-forecasting-accuracy) and [Uncertainty](https://www.kaggle.com/c/m5-forecasting-uncertainty)). \n\nPlease also know that nothing at Kaggle is currently scheduled to change - we still have a full slate of competitions and unique challenges headed your direction in the coming weeks and months.\n\nPlease stay safe and healthy, keep calm and model on!\n\nAddison",
    "771066": "To everyone who has put in a lot of work into this competition as well as participated in it through the years. This is very unfortunate but the decisions have been taken in the best interests of the players and the public.\nThere's always next year. 😢 \nStay safe!",
    "771078": "Disappointed but understandable. When you say \"nothing at Kaggle is currently scheduled to change\", is this competition expected to continue to be held next year as well? (not asking for promises, just asking what the expectation is).",
    "771079": "We've hosted the competition for seven years running and certainly hope to host it again in the future!",
    "771083": "👍",
    "778688": "We hope to see this competition next year.😐",
    "778827": "We hope to see this competition next year.😐"
  },
  "source": "meta"
}