How many classified fencers (redux)

[Supermom]

This question was posed a couple of years ago, where it generated much discussion about the relevance and merits of the USFA classification system, but not much in the way of meaningful numbers. Does anyone now know how many A's and B's, etc. there are in the USFA membership as a whole? If not, can anyone make an educated guess, based on available data, as to the relative percentages at the present time ? I know the numbers are in constant flux, so an intelligent guesstimate would do the trick for this statistics hound...

[Philistine]

From This Thread in October of 2003, Oiuyt provided the following:

Classification  Epee                Foil                     Sabre
A              116       0.82%      211    1.49%        83  0.59%
B              281       1.99%      353    2.50%       160	1.13%
C              534       3.78%      534    3.78%       295	2.09%
D              876       6.20%      666    4.72%       466	3.30%
E           1,336       9.46%      934    6.61%       741       5.25%
U         10,982       77.75%   11,427     80.90%   12,380	 87.65%

--Philistine

[Supermom]

Thanks, Philistine!

For others who may be interested, Oiuyt also posted a link to the BoD document which has lots more statistics:

http://www.umass.edu/rso/fencing/BoDAgenda102503.doc

[Ordway]

What's a little misleading about those statistics is (as far as I interpret them) they are per weapon - so the percentage of Us is "percentage of USFA members who are U in this particular weapon".

What I'd be interested in knowing is what percentage of USFA members has a rating (at each level) in ANY weapon, vs. how many are unrated in EVERY weapon.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by Ordway

What's a little misleading about those statistics is (as far as I interpret them) they are per weapon - so the percentage of Us is "percentage of USFA members who are U in this particular weapon".

What I'd be interested in knowing is what percentage of USFA members has a rating (at each level) in ANY weapon, vs. how many are unrated in EVERY weapon.

Just need to look at a different chart.

Note, these figures are from the 2002-2003 membership demographics booklet and are as of 7/31/2003 (and the numbers are different from what I posted in October of 2003, so perhaps those were 7/31/02 data?). According to Table CLAS12 (summary of classifications of competitive fencers, showing overlap in classifications) 9,195 out of 14,394 competitive members (63.88%) were unclassified in all three weapons at that time.

I can get you numbers for any triplet of classifications (eg epee B, foil C, sabre U, etc.), although with all of the data 2 years out of date.

-B :)

[Feraud]

What I found amazing about this report is that there are actually more “A” rated Foil fencers than Epee fencers, if I didn’t see it here I’d never have believed it.

[rcmatthews]

One thing that I see looking at the data is that the percentages of sabre fencers are generally half of the percentage of the other weapons, i.e. 5.25 % of fencers are E's in sabre, While 9.46% have E's in foil. Conclusions:

1) there are less sabre fencers than everyone else (most probable)
therefore
2) sabre ratings are harder to acquire due to 1

[tchwojko]

1) there are less sabre fencers than everyone else (most probable)

I think you mean there are fewer sabre fencers.

Or do you mean sabre fencers are lesser than the other weapons.

(Fewer of a quantity, less of a whole.)

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by Feraud

What I found amazing about this report is that there are actually more “A” rated Foil fencers than Epee fencers, if I didn’t see it here I’d never have believed it.

But exactly the same number of Cs! ( And more Ds and Es ).

The vagaries of staistics.

[needle]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Just need to look at a different chart.

The statistic that would make sense to me with regard to U's would be the number of fencers classified as U in this particular weapon who have competed at least once in this particular weapon. Otherwise, the A-E statistics are meaningful, but U statistic just gives us the average patient temperature per hospital

[Supermom]

Go look at the tables in the document in the link, which I posted again below, and you will get more answers and explanations than can be gleaned from that one chart. For example, there ARE fewer sabre fencers than foil and epee among classified fencers. 5,103 (36% of the total competitive members) are classified in at least one weapon. Of those classifications 3,143 are in epee, 2,698 are in foil, and 1745 in sabre. The numbers don't add up to 5,103 because some fencers are classified in more than one weapon. Endless fun to be had trolling through the numbers if you have a spare week or two, even if they are a couple of years out of date...

http://www.umass.edu/rso/fencing/BoDAgenda102503.doc

[rcmatthews]

No, I mean exactly what I said. There are less of sabre fencers than there are of foil or epee fencers. However in the syntax of modern English it is commonplace to drop the "of" because it seems superfluous and does not flow well. Please do not correct just for the sake of being a jackass.

What I meant was that there are fewer people who attempt to fence sabre than the other weapons due to various reasons (i.e. starting with foil, having an image of brutishness caused by less skilled fencers) thus accounting for the fewer ratings in sabre.

[tchwojko]

Rcmatthews, I'm sorry. I didn't correct for the sake of being a jackass, I corrected for the sake of a joke.

I'm sorry if the correction irritated you. I'm also sorry if the joke wasn't funny. (I apologize for that quite often.)

If you'd like to get back at me you can invoke any of these pet peeves: use an acronym, avoid using punctuation or capitalization, or use the phrase "could care less."

But "less of sabre fencers" still doesn't make any sense to me.
(I should have said "less of a continuum, fewer of a discrete number" maybe?)

(Usage note at http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=few)

Regarding the classification statistics:
The As through Es are clear enough, but doesn't the U represent two different fencers? Most fencers with an A through E can probably be assumed to be a competitive fencer. However, a U may simply be somone who signed up for membership. It might be interesting to know how many of each of those classifications fenced at some minimal number of tournaments.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by tchwojko

Regarding the classification statistics:
The As through Es are clear enough, but doesn't the U represent two different fencers? Most fencers with an A through E can probably be assumed to be a competitive fencer. However, a U may simply be somone who signed up for membership. It might be interesting to know how many of each of those classifications fenced at some minimal number of tournaments.

Another thing to note is that up to (and including) 12/31/99 there were the courtesy classifications (earn a classification in one weapon and you automatically received the classification 2 below in the other two weapons). Eventually all of those classifications will age out, but there are still some E and D classifications in weapons that their holders have never touched, much less competed in. And there were more of them back in 2003 than there are today (3 agings later).

In any case, the USFA doesn't track how often people fence or how many times they have fenced. So while such information might prove useful in refining our analysis, it isn't available. One thing to note is that the 14,000-old number is people who hold competitive-type memberships and already discounts associate members of all the various flavors.

-B :)

[broncofencer]

It also would not include those with a fence for fun membership as they are not able to gain a rating even if they earn it without upgrading their membership. I don't think the U is misleading though because it shows the number of fencers not rated in that weapon. I can't buy a membership for epee only or epee and sabre so I still have the U in foil. This method does illustrate that in sabre ratings are more difficult to come by. Most of the people these numbers were designed for understand why those ratings are harder to come by as almost every division in the USFA has a tough time getting high rated or large sabre tournaments.

[peet]

The #s from FRED, as of today, of 8609 fencers:

    A    B    C    D    E    U/None
F   55  141  321  440  641    7011
E  171  272  317  357  487    7005
S   48   87  120  183  331    7840


    A       B      C      D      E      U/None
F  0.64%  1.64%  3.73%  5.11%  7.45%    81.43%
E  1.99%  3.16%  3.68%  4.15%  5.66%    81.37%
S  0.56%  1.01%  1.39%  2.13%  3.84%    91.07%

Good stats because:
-- Everyone in the FRED database is (or at least once was) a competitive fencer
-- It's from today


Bad stats because:
-- Not every competitive USFA member is in the DB
-- Not all areas of the country are equally represented
-- Some fencers in the DB may no longer be actively competing
-- Lots of other little reasons...


Now just wait until my buddy gets done with his stats work on FRED's results and bouts data (incl. pools and DE bouts), and we'll really feed the stats hungry. Think: "Joe Fencer has a .231 average against B rated fencers in final 8 bouts of an A2 competition".

wheeee!

-p

[rcmatthews]

Ok, because such things interest me, I am going to expand on my usage of the word "less". From the article that you posted a link to, I found this.

The traditional rule holds that fewer should be used for things that can be counted (fewer than four players), while less should be used with mass terms for things of measurable extent (less paper; less than a gallon of paint). However, less is used in some constructions where fewer would occur if the traditional rule were being followed. Less than can be used before a plural noun that denotes a measure of time, amount, or distance: less than three weeks; less than $400; less than 50 miles. It seems that the phrase is "less than". I

In my original construction, I merely injected "sabre fencers" between the "less" and the "than". IMHO, you are wrong.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by peet

Bad stats because:
-- Lots of other little reasons... :rolleyes:

-- Poor data entry by event organizers... Noting the triple-A (A04 in all) fencer that participated in the Keystone State Games last month and another site that lists things such as the E04 he earned in epee, E05 in sabre, D05, in foil, E05 in epee this season. Seems unlikely that he's actually a triple-A.

Yes, I know about the disclaimer. But just to re-emphasize....

* Ratings in FRED are NOT official, and are subject to USFA and division policies. The USFA is the final authority for fencer ratings.

-B :)

[peet]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

-- Poor data entry by event organizers...

Definitely.
Now, if only my firm had gotten the contract to do USFA tournament and membership stuff, FRED would use the official data, and event organizers wouldn't enter fencer ratings at all, thereby eliminating another way for things to go wrong.

Oh well, too bad for me & FRED.

Noting the triple-A (A04 in all) fencer that participated in the Keystone State Games last month and another site that lists things such as the E04 he earned in epee, E05 in sabre, D05, in foil, E05 in epee this season. Seems unlikely that he's actually a triple-A.

Yikes. I'll have to look into that one.....
(thanks!)

-p

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by peet

The #s from FRED, as of today, of 8609 fencers:

    A    B    C    D    E    U/None
F   55  141  321  440  641    7011
E  171  272  317  357  487    7005
S   48   87  120  183  331    7840


    A       B      C      D      E      U/None
F  0.64%  1.64%  3.73%  5.11%  7.45%    81.43%
E  1.99%  3.16%  3.68%  4.15%  5.66%    81.37%
S  0.56%  1.01%  1.39%  2.13%  3.84%    91.07%

Good stats because:
-- Everyone in the FRED database is (or at least once was) a competitive fencer
-- It's from today


Bad stats because:
-- Not every competitive USFA member is in the DB
-- Not all areas of the country are equally represented
-- Some fencers in the DB may no longer be actively competing
-- Lots of other little reasons...


Now just wait until my buddy gets done with his stats work on FRED's results and bouts data (incl. pools and DE bouts), and we'll really feed the stats hungry. Think: "Joe Fencer has a .231 average against B rated fencers in final 8 bouts of an A2 competition".

wheeee!

-p

Are those in the DB marked as U/none people who actually have competed in that weapon?

Notice that in epee, the number of A´s and B´s far outnumber the high-rated in the ROV weapons. I would assume that this is due to the volatility of epee, it is less difficult for an epeeist to get a single very good result, far above his usual ability.

Also: 80-90% of all fencers have the lowest possible rating. While those fencers tend to fence less than the E-and-up cohort, it still makes for competitions where many competitiors have the same rating.

If there were more rating levels, at least two things would happen:
1. Competition organizers would have fewer rating tiebreakers to deal with, simplifying ranking matters.
2. It would be easier for the beginning fencer to reach the first few rating steps, which probably would enhance beginner retention.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson