Below is an explanation of the newly added Top Bells feature. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them in this thread!

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Top Bells feature

The Bell treasure hunt on ACC began in 2010. KingK made a TopBells ranking list outside of ACC quite a while ago, which was taken over by GoldenCelebi after KingK didn’t have time for its upkeep anymore. It was a popular feature, but getting it integrated into ACC allows for more functionality.

A new link has been added under "AC Community" in the left sidebar: Top Bells. This new feature shows a list of Bells found and missed and a list of all Jackpots found and missed. Additionally, the Top Bells rank number is show next to the Bells under "My ACC" and in the profile. We’ve tried out adding the rank number to the Bells that are shown below every post, but the general consensus was that this was too much in your face, so it was removed again.

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Jackpots list

The Jackpots list is simply a list of all Jackpots found since the treasure hunt commenced in 2010. Whenever a Jackpot is found (or missed), the list is being updated. So, from now on, whenever the Jackpot is being found, we’ll know straightaway who the lucky finder is. If the list has been updated but no recent Jackpot is shown at the top, we’ll know someone missed the Jackpot - but it won’t show who, that would be too cruel.

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Top Bells list

Above the Top Bells list, the user(s) who found and missed the most Bells are shown, your current rank is being displayed and the parameters that restrict the list are shown.

The Top Bells list shows all users with the number of Bells they’ve found and missed. The list has been sorted on total number of Bells found, so we can safely assume that Aurora6 will always be at the top of the list.

Keeping the Top Bells list manageable

Showing all ACC users will make the database explode isn’t possible, hence a way to restrict the number of users on the list had to be devised. The current parameters to achieve that restriction are shown above the Top Bells list.

The minimum number of Bells you need to have found to appear in the list is 100. So, if you’ve found no Bells yet, you won’t find yourself on the list.

If you haven’t logged in for more than 180 days, you will drop off the list. If you log in after this, you will reappear on the list after it has been updated the next day.

If you have found at least 1,000,000 Bells, you won’t ever drop off the list. You’ve earned yourself a permanent place and even if you wouldn’t login for ten years, you will still be listed. Not that you would know, but others will.

Using the above parameters, the list is long but still manageable.

Ranking

Everybody who has found the same number of Bells, has the same rank. That’s the obvious bit. However, ranking can still be done in different ways. For Top Bells, “Dense ranking” is being used. This is just a choice, if many people don’t like it, we can change it to normal ranking. An example should explain it all:

User               #Bells    Rank   Dense-rank
Aurora      50,000,000      1           1
BellLover         10,000      2           2
BellHater         10,000      2           2
BellDontcare    10,000      2           2
Minumom          5,000      5           3
Maxidad            4,000      6           4

The difference between Ranking and Dense ranking is that Dense ranking has no gaps in the ranks and Ranking has. Ranking will give a better idea how many users are in the list, but it won’t be perfect either, because there are many users with 100 Bells.

Within a group with the same rank, users are ordered by UserID. This makes the long-time members be listed first; seniority gives perks.

Updating and changes

Besides ranking the users base on the number of Bells they’ve found, the Top Bells list also shows alterations, just like KingK’s and GoldenCelebi’s list did. Once per day, the list is being updated and compared with the list of the previous day. As a result, the user(s) who found and missed the most Bells between those last two updates are shown at the top of the page. Additionally, all individual changes are shown within the list.

The updating will be done by a scheduled job which runs at a set time every day. If the job hasn’t run for some reason, the updating can also be done manually.

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*Stickying*

I noticed in the Change column right after the Missing Bell Total column, someone had a change with an arrow going down. How do you do that? Can't the total you miss only go up?

I noticed that as well and was really chuffed that it actually became visible. This was the result of the person finding a Wisp ad. It would have gone unnoticed if they had missed more Bells within the same time period, but apparently, they didn't.

Ohhhh I completely forgot about the Wisp ads! Thanks!

The Jackpots list was automatically updated whenever a Jackpot was found. However, this was so time-consuming that in two of the three Jackpots that were found, the query timed out. This resulted in zero Bell values for Jackpots that were actually found.

The Jackpot finders have now received their Bells, but the automatic updating of the Jackpots list has been deactivated and for the time being, some of the staff can manually update the list. So if next a Jackpot will be found, it may take a while before the list has been updated.

We're working on making this process automatic again, and hopefully less time-consuming.

Just wanted to say how great this feature is, and the time and effort put into setting this up for the community is hugely appreciated! I'm not too pleased about being informed that I've missed three jackpots before, though.

Unstickying