Ratings- Who should be included?

[Chexhero]

As you all know, the current ACF ratings include all participants for every tournament throughout the world. This includes ACF sanctioned events as well as international and non ACF sanctioned events. It has been brought to my attention that some people feel it's unfair that non ACF members should benefit from the ratings and have their rating posted on an ACF site. One of the benefits of ACF membership is to have your rating calculated and posted. The question is, should we post non ACF members ratings or not? On one hand, they do not pay the membership so they are not entitled to the benefits. On the other hand, as an ACF member, do you only want to see how you rank against other ACF members or do you want to see how you rank against everyone who plays? I believe that all players should be rated and their ratings can be posted on icheckers.net. However, only ACF members should have their ratings posted on the ACF site. What are your thoughts?

[MostFamousDane]

As you all know, the current ACF ratings include all participants for every tournament throughout the world. This includes ACF sanctioned events as well as international and non ACF sanctioned events. It has been brought to my attention that some people feel it's unfair that non ACF members should benefit from the ratings and have their rating posted on an ACF site. One of the benefits of ACF membership is to have your rating calculated and posted. The question is, should we post non ACF members ratings or not? On one hand, they do not pay the membership so they are not entitled to the benefits. On the other hand, as an ACF member, do you only want to see how you rank against other ACF members or do you want to see how you rank against everyone who plays? I believe that all players should be rated and their ratings can be posted on icheckers.net. However, only ACF members should have their ratings posted on the ACF site. What are your thoughts?

Well given that all players have a rating computed by the WCDF this whole duplication of effort is in my mind a waste of energy. This energy could better be used at something else like promoting, recruiting or more attention could be given to the proper preservation of draughts history by the recording of all games at all tournament and the transcribing of the games so they can be put online.

If you still insist on doing a ratings copy I would suggest removing all foreign players (including foreign players who are members of ACF) given that they would probably prefer to refer to the official ratings calculated by WCDF.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

do you only want to see how you rank against other ACF members

Yes, thats what ACF ratings are about. In order to see a proper rank among oversea players I can use WCDF rating.

I feel uncomfortable to see non ACF member names on ACF rating list. Doesn't make sense.

However, we can charge a small annual fee, if non AC members want to be there.

So ... for accurate numbers I think you still have to process all events and players and keep them on files "behind scene" but display only ACF members.

[Chexhero]

To the most Famous Dane...

I appreciate your contribution in this discussion. I do not feel my efforts are a waste of time, nor do I feel we are we are copying WDCF. ICF uses a different ratings formula than WDCF and we are simply sharing our ratings as a service to ACF members. If you prefer to go by the WDCF formula that is fine. However, the ICF formula is just as valid. I agree that there are other things that can be done to improve the appreciation of checkers. I am doing these ratings as my part to improve the appreciation of checkers and encourage you to act on your words and make some contribution yourself.

To Alex and John...

I am glad to see that you share my feelings on how the ratings should be displayed. I am hopeful that the ACF will work with me and provide ongoing current members lists so that I can filter who's ratings are posted on the ACF site. Since these ratings include two years worth of tournaments, anyone that was a member during that two year period should be included, even, if they are no longer a current member as they did pay their dues to compete in the first place. Charging a small annual fee for ratings calculations for non ACF members is an excellent idea and would generate extra revenue for ACF. Technically the WTMs are not ACF sanctioned events, but I believe any tournament or match that includes an ACF member should be included for the most accurate calculations. That being said, those who are not ACF members that compete in these WTMs would not be listed on our ratings unless they want to pay the fee.

[MostFamousDane]

To the most Famous Dane...

I appreciate your contribution in this discussion. I do not feel my efforts are a waste of time, nor do I feel we are we are copying WDCF. ICF uses a different ratings formula than WDCF and we are simply sharing our ratings as a service to ACF members. If you prefer to go by the WDCF formula that is fine. However, the ICF formula is just as valid. I agree that there are other things that can be done to improve the appreciation of checkers.

I have no preference to which formula should be used - when ratings are published there is always lots of debate on the correctness of the ratings because people expect the ratings to reflect their subjective opinion on who is the best players. This is of course unrealistic and ratings can never be more than a rough estimate of the players relative performance (no matter which formular is used). I don't think there much value in having two ratings with different formulars it just confuses things and wastes effort.

I am doing these ratings as my part to improve the appreciation of checkers and encourage you to act on your words and make some contribution yourself.

You seem to imply that I haven't made any contributions well if you search this forum you will see that I have several times analysed positions for people (I still think back fondly to the last 11-man world championship where Alex Moiseyev asked for help analysing a position and after spending many many many hours correcting the play from kingsrows opening book I received no replys to my analysis!).

If you go to this page (http://www.draughts.dk/) you will see that I started a draughts organization and ran tournaments for the last 6 six years. My pet peeve which as I mentioned is the disapparance of draughts history. I have attempted to help with this by typing many games myself (e.g If you click the games tab you will find games of tournaments, some of which I have typed in like the 2009 qualifer which I typed and made available in two days after the event that I played in myself) and I have also several times offered to the relevant people that I would type in any of the missing games from the last 10 years tournaments in the UK and Ireland in order to get these games preserved.

Lastly I have spent the last 11-12 years of my life writing a checkers program severly damaging my health in the process.

If you think I should be doing more by all means let me know

[MostFamousDane]

Sune, do WCDF ratings include ACF-only tournaments? If so, why?

Well John I really don't know but I can't come up with a good reason why they shouldn't be

[Chexhero]

Famous Dane, I am in the process of trying to get together an ACF member only list. Therefore, the ratings that I spent hours a day doing won't be nothing but a "waste of time."

[Alex_Moiseyev]

I still think back fondly to the last 11-man world championship where Alex Moiseyev asked for help analysing a position and after spending many many many hours correcting the play from kingsrows opening book I received no replys to my analysis!).

Sune, I saw your comments to my 11 man ballot World Match with Tim Laverty and if I didn't say anything, this probably means - nothing much to add !

If you were looking for compliments - you have them

Joe, Sune is OK overall but few small things can be improved !

[Jason Solan]

Joe if you do get this list (one I've ask for before but never got) and send it to me, I can automatically remove the players from the list you or Eric send me.

I think a bigger issue with removing non-ACF players from the ratings list is that the ratings were already calculated with them included. So take an example of King playing in the Irish Open. While he may be an ACF member, not everyone who played there was.
Would the right thing to do be to only calculate games between ACF members or to not include the tournament at all?
Either way it's in the past and his rating would've already been adjusted from the tournament. Removing non-ACF players from the list after the fact is a start, but it's not the same as removing them from the source, which would require recalculation.

[Chexhero]

Famous Dane - I was not implying that you haven't made any contributions to checkers. I have no clue who you are or what you have done. I'm glad to see that you do contribute. All I know is that I am just trying to help and people, just like you, seem content to tear me down. You came at me calling my contributions a waste. I was simply stating that if you dont like my contributions, oh well. If you see something you think needs improvement make an effort to improve it, but don"t tear others down for thier contributions. I see a lot of people on this forum complain that we need to increase appreciation and participation in checkers, especially to keep ACF going. However, very few act on what they say. I don't have a lot of money to donate so I donate my time and effort. I have spent a lot of time and hard work on these ratings and am insulted that people would call it a waste. Who cares how a person contributes as long as they make the effort. Criticizing me doesn't do anyone any good. Its certainly not going to encourage others to contribute if they see that when you do you get insulted.

[Danny_Alvarez]

You seem to imply that I haven't made any contributions well if you search this forum you will see that I have several times analysed positions for people (I still think back fondly to the last 11-man world championship where Alex Moiseyev asked for help analysing a position and after spending many many many hours correcting the play from kingsrows opening book I received no replys to my analysis!).

If you go to this page (http://www.draughts.dk/) you will see that I started a draughts organization and ran tournaments for the last 6 six years. My pet peeve which as I mentioned is the disapparance of draughts history. I have attempted to help with this by typing many games myself (e.g If you click the games tab you will find games of tournaments, some of which I have typed in like the 2009 qualifer which I typed and made available in two days after the event that I played in myself) and I have also several times offered to the relevant people that I would type in any of the missing games from the last 10 years tournaments in the UK and Ireland in order to get these games preserved.

Lastly I have spent the last 11-12 years of my life writing a checkers program severly damaging my health in the process.

If you think I should be doing more by all means let me know

Sune , congratulations on your checkers contributions.... although many of us might not often express gratitude, i know from chatting to other people that your website and efforts are definitely appreciated. It is one of my top 3 checkers websites .... the other 2 being NC Checkers + Checker Maven .... so as you can see you are in awesome company....

BTW i think your input in the website design of the ACF should be encouraged and sought ..... your website is CLEAN ... TIDY... ATTRACTIVE
and it has a particular scandinavian zen quality that i love.... (less is definitely more in my book)
the only thing is missing to be the dream checkers website would be the infamous "splash page" i suggested b4.
once again mate, let me thank you for your efforts.
cheers
Danny

[Danny_Alvarez]

Joe, Sune is OK overall but few small things can be improved !

I suggest to Mr Moiseyev, that he who doesn't need a few small improvements, or a few gigantic ones ,

let him throw the first stone

Cheers
Danny Alvarez

[Chexhero]

I'm sure everyone means well but I just want to be clear I am open for suggestions for improvement but not criticism.

[Danny_Alvarez]

Joe, suggestions for improvement and constructive criticism are the same thing....
the other kind of criticism is the one that doesn't help .
Just remember this Joe, you cannot keep everyone happy all the time.

cheers
Danny

[Chexhero]

Danny- That is my point exactly. A comment like

I feel uncomfortable to see non ACF member names on ACF rating list. Doesn't make sense.

However, we can charge a small annual fee, if non AC members want to be there.

So ... for accurate numbers I think you still have to process all events and players and keep them on files "behind scene" but display only ACF members.

would be constructive criticism.

However a comment like "Well given that all players have a rating computed by the WCDF this whole duplication of effort is in my mind a waste of energy." is not constructive , it is demeaning. There is no need to call someone's hard work a waste of energy. The question I issued was "should we post non ACF members ratings or not?" not is my effort worthwhile.