The journey · Chapter 6
Operator refinement
An editor pins a 2025 opening game’s date and ground. The model rebuilds around it and moves one other game. The record lists changes without guessing why.
Human edits
A generated fixture is a starting point. People can pin a game’s date or ground to meet a request or deal, then rebuild the rest around it.
The model records that process. Its one published example demonstrates a 2025 edit. No operator edit has been published for 2027.
Pin the details
An editor writes a lock pack: requests naming a game, detail, required value, reason and source.
The demonstration has two requests for Carlton v Richmond in Round 1. Pin the date to 13 March 2025 and the ground to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). The recorded reasons are “Fixture opener date” and “Fixture opener venue”.
A lock is a must-follow instruction. The rebuild cannot move that detail.
Rebuild the fixture
The model first checks the requests for conflicts. The demonstration recorded none.
It then rebuilds from the first affected step: Step 2 in this example. It uses the earlier version’s rules plus the locks, and re-runs every later step.
Games return unchanged because the rules keep them there, not because the program skips them.
The record tracks progress and the time limit. This run stopped at its limit without proving no better answer existed. Re-running it might therefore give a different result.
Keep the new version
The result is a new version with its own fingerprint, labelled operator edit. It names the earlier version, which stays unchanged.
It also records the editor’s change to the locked opener: 14 March became 13 March, with the reason “Fixture opener date”.
Compare the versions
The recorded comparison, also called a diff, shows:
- All 207 games matched across versions. None was added or removed.
- Carlton v Hawthorn moved from 20 March to 17 March. Its round, ground and home club stayed the same.
- Carlton’s break from the pinned opener to Hawthorn fell from seven days to four. Hawthorn’s break from its previous game fell from six days to three.
- Home-game counts and ground assignments stayed the same. The report records interstate travel as unchanged.
No request named Carlton v Hawthorn. The comparison records its move during the rebuild, but cannot explain why the program chose that game over another. The site does not guess.
There are three permitted explanations: asked for; asked for but not met; moved during the rebuild, with no request naming the game.
What the site shows
Each operator edit appears under its earlier version in the timeline. You can read the requests as recorded, see moved games first, and inspect changed rule results. Expand the unchanged-games count for the rest.
The order is: what was asked, what moved, and what the rule checks found.