I agree with pente_gon: instituting rating floors immediately based on current rating will completely undermine the point of changing the rating system, as every player will be able to remain close to their current rating. I think the solution should be to apply the rating floor to each player after they've played a certain number of rated sets under the new rating formula (20, perhaps?), or just not having rating floors at all. Of course, I have no idea how hard that would be to code as opposed to just applying the rating floor based on everyone's rating at a certain date. The problem with that is that if it's a future date, people can just stall to preserve their rating, and if it's a past date, that will be arbitrary and most likely not equitable.
On a more opinionated note, I also believe that rating floors are unnecessary and unnatural. The USCF uses rating floors to keep old people paying their yearly membership fees so they can hold on to their 2000+ rating no matter how much worse they become. Perhaps if a player maintains a 2200+ rating for 50 rated sets under the new system, then they can have a rating floor of 2000, but we shouldn't have lots of floors and they shouldn't be easy to obtain.
Edit: I just reread all the replies in this post, and it looks like rainwolf is indeed waiting for ratings to become established post-change before creating floors. If that is true, then I have no real issue.
Message was edited by: karlw at May 1, 2019 7:43 PM
It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
The code is ready to deal with rating floors (and just as easily turned off) but I do share pente_gon's and your opinion that they counter the coming changes in the rating system. I'm in favor of leaving them out completely or at least postpone the floors until a later (TBD) date.
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Re: Draws in ratings
Posted:
May 1, 2019, 10:07 PM
FWIW, I almost posted this yesterday in response to pente_gon.
I agree completely.
Same with karlw and rainwolf I think.
Although I mentioned them as a compromise solution, I'm against rating floors in practice.
Rating floors work against an accurate, responsive ratings system. They were instituted to make people feel good once their ratings began to decline and, like karlw says, to keep them paying members.
As a chess aside, I became an A player by beating an expert who had been at his ratings floor for years. Playing a person who is at their rating floor is a way to get easy points to pad your own rating.
This means that ratings floors are a source of inflation whenever added to an Elo system though. As we're getting rid of a major source of inflation, it is a bit odd to add a known source at the same time.
Sometimes it's the sugar to help the medicine go down though...
Re: Draws in ratings
Posted:
May 1, 2019, 11:44 PM
Well, I brought them up since they were mentioned in the long thread. If the majority opinion is against them, that's fine by me. However, I expect that without them we'll relatively soon be back to the old ratings ceiling issue we had pre set based ratings, though perhaps at a slighly higher rating level than previously, since we've had inflation, at least in TB Pente. In the variants and live Pente, not so much.
Retired from TB Pente, but still playing live games & exploring variants like D, poof and boat
As of now, draws are being considered in rating calculations (modulo severe bugs), and there are no rating floors (modulo a future compelling argument).
As someone who doesn't really care what their rating is, the only reason I appreciate them is that I can get at least a clue as to the proficiency of an opponent as compared to myself, although my game often fluctuates wildly between mediocre and pretty good on any given day. That being said, I have personally felt that my rating, at least, has seemed a bit inflated, so the inclusion of rating floors would probably only serve to boost my ego over time rather than give an accurate representation of my actual skill at the game.
My opinion? No floors and let the chips fall where they may. Win, lose or draw, as long as I get to play, I'm a happy man.
