OK, so consistency nationwide isn't something worth striving for. We don't need any sort of sound basis for intra-section comparison so that an A or B from, say, Texas can be seeded fairly against the same rating of a fencer from New York or Idaho.
Personally, though, I want my competitive sport to be comprised of people who are not afraid of losing status. People who strive to perform at their best, not avoid challenges because they feel uncertain about the legitimacy of their accomplishments. Competition, after all, implies that someone is trying to attain something or take it away from at least one other person. If a national ranking system is a disincentive -- and I don't believe it is -- for some fencers, then those fencers don't deserve to keep their rating to begin with.
The assumption that a national ranking is a disincentive is flawed anyway. A fencer may find himself losing or gaining some small amount of status in the middle of a list of thousands, but the stay-near-home competitor can still boast of being at the top of his region.
I for one, welcome our (potential) new numeric overlords. My experience with the Chess/ELO system was very positive. When playing a game against someone with an equivalent rating you could expect a certain level strength, even if you'd never played that person before. There is no "Is that a B who got lucky somewhere?" or "Is that U someone who's been fencing in a ridicously tough division for 10 years?"
A few years ago as a C classified foil fencer, I routinely beat B fencers only to lose to other Bs or As. Always in the round before the possibility of earning a B (I'm also not the only fencer I know who has experienced this, I'm sure we all have at some point or another). In a numeric system, the point(s) earned by beating a B and lost by losing to a B or A would result in a net gain. Eventually that gain would allow me to be rated as the equivalent to a B. Aren't we trying for a classification system that makes the entire country equal?
If a small area has only a few fencers rated (using the ELO rating system as an example) 1200, eventually one or more of those fencers will break out of the pack. However as he gets stronger, the gains from beating the other 1100/1200 fencers will get smaller. Sure, he might get to 1400, but eventually he's only earning fractions with each win and losing whole points with each loss. If he wants to continue to improve, he has to go to bigger tournaments with higher rated fencers. This is the case with the current classification system. This is what coaches are constantly advising students to do.
The primary difference being that when Johnny goes to the bigger tournament, the bout committee can take his 1400 and more accurately seed him in against the others than if he'd only been able to earn a D, but had earned it 5 times.
Well, there is of course going to be some error. But the really big discrepancies that mess up a tournament (people who fence at a level 2 or 3 letters off their current classification) aren't going to change just by assigning numbers to the letters. Most of the ones I've seen in those circumstances are coming out of retirement, are not from the US, or don't compete enough to have earned the classification that most with their skill level would have earned.
Ah, but here comes a more subtle point. Our current system uses high water marks and one-time peak performances to classify people. As such we HAVE to make it very difficult to move up a classification -- otherwise random variation in performance would result in too many people being over-classified merely because they fenced a number of tournaments. This doesn't completely fix it, we still end up with people that are classified noticibly above their actual ability. On the other end we have numbers of people that are classified too low because they haven't matched up a good day with the correct tournament. They may be fencing at level X consistently, but are stuck at X-1 because we've intentionally made it difficult to become X.
With a system that allows for frequent (or more frequent) updating we can allow for changes to happen more easily as any errors thereby induced can be corrected in further modifications in the near future (rather than 4-8 years from now).
And for the less subtle point, with any of the numeric systems thus far proposed people shift up and down more often and should, generally, localize not too far off from their normal, expected performance. This results in fewer people being poorly classified, those that are being less poorly classified, and the errors in classification lasting less time.
Yes, people about which the system has little to no information will always be prone to large classification errors. That won't change regardless of what system you use. Many of the numeric systems can have allowances for that that can quickly shift people towards more accurate ratings. For the most part this isn't one of the problems for which a fix is being attempted. Changing over to any of the numeric systems don't appear to make it any worse of a problem, and I don't see how their lack of panaceaic qualities against all ills is necessarily a strike against them. :)
-B
__________________
"Oh but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
High water mark system encourage people to participate in more tournaments,
which is great for the sport in general - bigger tournaments, more money for organizers, etc.
ELO-type system will discourage higher level fencers from participating...
Examples:
1) I think that I am not feeling too well today... should I still go, fence and have fun with a slim chance of getting a good result? or should I stay home because I am risking my national rating?
2) I want to try out/practice my new move in a real tournament...
wait... I may lose some valuable points and will not qualify for the next NAC, to which I already bought air-ticket
Elo-style systems are not the only numeric systems in the discussion -- or even in the discussion paper.
-B
So is a nominated event system under discussion? This would of course prevent highly ranked fencers from being penalized for having bad days (or having a good day and then hitting the only other good fencer who'd had a bad morning in the first DE etc etc etc).
Of course that then means that for developing fencers there would be limited options for rising the rankings. Or you would have to have 'protected events' where fencers above a certain ranking wouldn't lose (or gain points) but fencers below that cut off could still gain points.
The one advantage if an ELO system is its, relative, simplicity - although that does give rise to these other issues.
So is a nominated event system under discussion? This would of course prevent highly ranked fencers from being penalized for having bad days (or having a good day and then hitting the only other good fencer who'd had a bad morning in the first DE etc etc etc).
I can't understand the basis of this perspective, and it's been shared here several times by others as well.
In any sport, competitive athletes regularly risk "bad days." It's part of the game, of staying on top. If you can't consistently perform well and avoid those "bad days," then you're not good enough yet. And if you lose one day, you work even harder to win the next. Seems pretty simple to me. No risk, no greatness.
Please. Broaden my worldview. What am I missing?
__________________ "Why do you say this to me, when you know I will kill you for it?" - Zod
I can't understand the basis of this perspective, and it's been shared here several times by others as well.
In any sport, competitive athletes regularly risk "bad days." It's part of the game, of staying on top. If you can't consistently perform well and avoid those "bad days," then you're not good enough yet. And if you lose one day, you work even harder to win the next. Seems pretty simple to me. No risk, no greatness.
Please. Broaden my worldview. What am I missing?
Track and Field, Speed Skating, Cross Country Ski.....
You compete - you get a medal or you break a record
your record still stands regardless of your performance in next events
So is a nominated event system under discussion? This would of course prevent highly ranked fencers from being penalized for having bad days (or having a good day and then hitting the only other good fencer who'd had a bad morning in the first DE etc etc etc).
Of course that then means that for developing fencers there would be limited options for rising the rankings. Or you would have to have 'protected events' where fencers above a certain ranking wouldn't lose (or gain points) but fencers below that cut off could still gain points.
The one advantage if an ELO system is its, relative, simplicity - although that does give rise to these other issues.
Absolutely all options are a part of the discussion. Reading through the applicable discussion paper that was a part of the Tournament Task Force packet is a good starting point. If something isn't included in that paper the intent was not to exclude it, it merely was omitted either through oversight or because there's a limit to how many similar options can be included in a single document.
There's also the mentioned possibility of having all events give points (strength-factored). Once you do that you can either count up all points over a given timespan, count the top N results, etc. Either of which encourage competing in many results, the latter removing some of the overwhelming (abusive) benefit of competing in 300+ events/year that the former would open up. A further refinement could be to have an aging process where results drop in value either after a desgnated period of time or gradually over time. etc., etc. There are LOTS of refinements that could be tacked on at the cost of complicating the system.
As a side note, George Masin's ELO-based system that was proposed about a decade ago did include provisions for fencers to be declared hors combat prior to the start of a tournament explicitly to protect strong (highly ranked) fencers from risk of losing points at a relatively weak event.
Quote:
Originally Posted by misha
Right.
My prev. post was about comparing "High Water Mark" / "Count All Results" systems
regardless of whether it is numeric or "letter" based :)
Count all results does not have to mean that fencing can ever hurt a rating. Look at how we currently do points for the ranked fencers in the US. There is a benefit to attending all (points) events. Yet we don't measure with a high-water mark. Depending on structure it's quite possible to have numeric systems that never punish an athlete for competing or even that ALWAYS yields a benefit (although this latter opens the way for the abuse mentioned in my response to Keith).
S-R-
Regardless of whether or not it's a GOOD viewpoint, it's clearly a common one. As such I would favor systems that remove this objection (which is clearly possible through proper system design).
-B
__________________
"Oh but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
So we (I shall assume you are not also not a NAC div1 top 32 regular ) appreciate it when a serious competitor turns up at an event. Under the current system a competitor who qualifies for Div1 (or II or III) has nothing to lose by turning up at a small open or a C and under or whatever. Every other competitor gains something by them being there.
Depending on the points system it is easy to see a situation where the strongest fencers in the area (especially if the area is full of weaker fencers) is not going to risk having a bad day at a comp that may really muck up there ranking. In fact it might be in their interest to skip all the local competitions and take a long drive every month to a neighbouring region.......
Now the devil is in the detail of course, so a truly national points system might work, of course it might equally skew qualification to divisions with many of the strong fencers. Turning up and losing your first/second DE at mercury cups might provide more than enough points to squeeze out fencers from other regions that didn't have as many high point competitors.
So my two concerns;
A points system may penalize those 'better' fencers who make the effort to get out and compete at smaller local competitions.
A points system does not (simply by being numerical) allow accurate grading across the nation.
OK. But you still haven't addressed the fear itself, the protection of a rating.
Yes, of course it's a sad day to see your position bumped. Especially if you're right on the edge of qualification for an important team or competition qualifier.
But that's an inherent risk for any serious athlete, isn't it? And don't we want the best of the best to fight their way to the top?
__________________ "Why do you say this to me, when you know I will kill you for it?" - Zod
Also to be considered is the ready availability of local tournaments. Those fencers who are in backwards area can be lucky to have one local tourney a month--and that being a several hour drive whereas the fencers in the hotbed areas can chose from several local tourneys every weekend! Any system that is based on cumulative points from all tourneys really doubly handicaps these fencers since they have a less available pool of tourneys PLUS chances are that they live in an area where top coaching/bouting and frequency of bouting is practically non-existent. In time I can see the potential where fencing will become more and more isolated in large cities (NY, LA, etc) and the struggling fencers in podunk will fall by the wayside. The hapless podunk fencer will really begin to feel that he can't compete (but wants to be more than just recreational), no place for him in 'the system' so he quits. Every fencer loses then. In other words, any new system that doesn't consider the geographical variances and skews towards the hotbed areas, is ....'flawed'.
If a numeric system of all fencers is desired, maybe it should be based on some sectional type of format (Including a revision of sectionals into something more equitable) rather than national; and from there X advances or whatever.
OK. But you still haven't addressed the fear itself, the protection of a rating.
Well until the system has been changed I can't, of course.
All I am observing is that the devil is in the detail - assuming that the concerns listed above are considered while the system is being planned out the fear of them being a problem will not be realised.
As Ouiyt posted above there are lots of things being considered and talked about - which is all good.
Frankly I can see the benefit for an extended points list that would cover not just Div1 NACs but also DivII and III NACs and the largest regional opens. However expanding such a system down to every nook and cranny of the USFA schedule seems to be a recipe for confusion and cock ups.
Since the problem that apparantly needs to be addressed is attendance levels at certain NACs (and then the seeding within those) surely an approach that focuses on that problem would be best?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sciurus-Rex
Yes, of course it's a sad day to see your position bumped. Especially if you're right on the edge of qualification for an important team or competition qualifier.
But that's an inherent risk for any serious athlete, isn't it? And don't we want the best of the best to fight their way to the top?
....but at the local level (and dare I say it) Div II and III we are not really talking about serious athletes. Or rather we are talking about athletes who take it as seriously as they feel they can, not as seriously as they actually could if they wanted to find out just how good they could actually be if they took it as seriously as they could if they were truly as serious as they could seriously be.
Or rather we are talking about athletes who take it as seriously as they feel they can, not as seriously as they actually could if they wanted to find out just how good they could actually be if they took it as seriously as they could if they were truly as serious as they could seriously be.
Initial theory to explain the "disincentive" assumption, or fear of points-based rankings: Some fencers here are heavily invested in tangible rewards structures and can't imagine a system that involves potential downward adjustments. In other words, give us opportunities to win stuff with none of the risk of losing anything.
I remember now something similar, from high school: Administrators, responding to a plethora of 4-point grade averages and lots of valedictorians, declared that the next year those students who wanted the title would be required to take honors courses and college-prep tests. There was a great uproar from those who didn't want to see their cushy As from Home Ec (a cliche example) devalued by comparison.
Sound about right?
If that's a problem at the upper levels of our fencing community, then I say something needs to be fixed anyway. We're supposed to be producing the best of our community for world competitions, not people who are afraid of a bad day.
__________________ "Why do you say this to me, when you know I will kill you for it?" - Zod
Last edited by Sciurus-Rex; 08-16-2006 at 10:29 PM..
With a system that allows for frequent (or more frequent) updating we can allow for changes to happen more easily as any errors thereby induced can be corrected in further modifications in the near future (rather than 4-8 years from now).
(This adresses the whole of your post, I'm just quoting the essential part for brevity.)
I agree that the main problem with the current system is with the rare updating. But rating updates after more tournaments requires a better system. (Most likely, an online system.)
And then we're back to square 1.
So maybe what we need is not a better rating sustem, but rather, a way to update ratings more often. Our current system could be altered to fit more updates, or we could go to a points system (ELO, etc.) or a specific rating system. Assuming the same refresh rate, I imagine that no system would be clearly better than the others.
If that's a problem at the upper levels of our fencing community, then I say something needs to be fixed anyway. We're supposed to be producing the best of our community for world competitions, not people who are afraid of a bad day.
The problem is that a high level fencer with a disincentive to fence in local events (that he would have fenced in under the current ratings system) then weakens the event (assuming he doesn't attend). This lessens the experience for those who DO fence in the event.
And while we know the the ELO ratings system is VERY accurate for chess, it's a bit of a stretch to say that it would be equally accurate for fencing. Fencing is a more complex activity than chess, given that it involves more people in a given event (two fencers and a ref), has more degrees of freedom, and should vary more from day to day and opponent to opponent matches than chess (though I know chess does also vary some day to day and opponent to opponent).
I agree that the main problem with the current system is with the rare updating. But rating updates after more tournaments requires a better system. (Most likely, an online system.)
I hadn't realized it wasn't being taken as a given that any of the numeric systems talked about thus far would require an online system. I believe they all involve updates after either all or, minimally, many tournaments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrbiggs
So maybe what we need is not a better rating sustem, but rather, a way to update ratings more often. Our current system could be altered to fit more updates, or we could go to a points system (ELO, etc.) or a specific rating system. Assuming the same refresh rate, I imagine that no system would be clearly better than the others.
How do you see our current system modifiable for more frequent updates? Classifications degrade monthly? It's already the case that upward mobility is a possibility at all tournaments, so it's hard to increase the availability there.
Keropie- Can you find a better equivalent that we should be examining? Or better, a number of equivalent (or near-equivalent) sports/games that might have already tried to answer the same questions?
Something that would be useful to the discussion would be looking at what solutions other organizations have tried. I'll start it off with a few links.
Wikipedia discussion of PGA rankings (note: the PGA uses an aging system similar to that described in the poker link above, I'd guess that this is where the poker people got the idea)
-B
__________________
"Oh but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
How do you see our current system modifiable for more frequent updates? Classifications degrade monthly? It's already the case that upward mobility is a possibility at all tournaments, so it's hard to increase the availability there.
I was thinking that the way you get classifications would change, but the classifications themselves would stay the same.
For example, you'd get the rating of anyone you beat in a DE minus one if that's higher than your rating, and if you lose to someone two ratings lower, you drop one.
I don't know if that would work, I'm just thinking something along those lines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oiuyt
I hadn't realized it wasn't being taken as a given that any of the numeric systems talked about thus far would require an online system. I believe they all involve updates after either all or, minimally, many tournaments.
I just assumed that the costs to update classifications efficiently after every tournament through paper would be too high.
) appreciate it when a serious competitor turns up at an event. Under the current system a competitor who qualifies for Div1 (or II or III) has nothing to lose by turning up at a small open or a C and under or whatever. Every other competitor gains something by them being there.
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