Input from PyAstro 2016

The organizers of Python in Astronomy 2016 used Entrofy to do their own participant selection. Here's a rough summary of their process and their suggestions for improvement, as transcribed by Daniela.

• used ipython notebook instead of the GUI
• might want to have an ipython tutorial on how to do the participant selection in a more programmatic way, rather than from the GUI
• in notebook, could use notebook sliders and bokeh?
• in web interface: only the selection is highlighted, if there are few participants selected out of a large pool, this will not be obvious
• need a set of guidelines on how to format the google form so that it gives the information required: e.g. minimize free-form text, make drop-down lists or item sets, form needs to determine set
• want to be able to assign numbers to categories instead of strings
• want to have an easy way of taking floats and making them into ranges (want the user to decide on ranges based on the float value)
• more control over continuous ranges
• in general, make the interface easier to use
• make it easy to adjust weights and categories on the fly
• would like to compare distributions from different outputs
• would want figures also in python layer, not just JavaScript interface
• maybe an object that defines the input of the entrofy procedure: e.g. change weights as attributes, re-run easily via something like entrofy.run
• output as a table or something similar, such that inputs can be easily copied, small changes made and then run on the new copy
• result could be object that yields the score, the set of selected participants, etc.
• it should be easier to do the second layer after participants have been accepted, but others have declined
• awkward to pass in the pre-selected result
• would be useful to have an easy way to be able to remove someone from the table and then select more, for example via a column "skip