"Kenneth Sloan" wrote in message
...
Oh dear...where to start?

David Kane wrote:

...
As I said, the number who receive points that way is minimal. I think it is
an odd practice, to say the least, but it's inflationary effect is very
small. Some
of those receiving points that way are the older players who have stopped
playing games in the NWSRS, so it has no effect other than symbolic.
The bump occurs once or twice per year and the number of points added is
small.

OK

On the other hand, people playing at their floor pump points into
the system every tournament. Also, the initially imputed rating
is in most cases higher than the USCF - it's changed over the years
and the details have never been clear. But for most age groups its
higher than 50*Age.

That can be seriously wrong for Seniors...
50*Age is probably too low for anyone aged lower than 20.

I thought that is what the USCF used (for kids). Again I haven't looked
into the details but it is a possible explanation for
different ratings.





Also, consider the "bonus point" mechanism for inflating the ratings.
Imagine two identical pools of players, but players in pool A play
twice as frequenctly as those in Pool B. Ratings in Pool A will inflate
faster than those of Pool B. My guess is that our pool is more active
than the USCF Pool.

You are assuming that the net effect of play is inflationary. That's
certainly not the usual starting point for most Elo-based systems.
Unadorned Elo is usually a deflating system. If the bonus point system
you are using is more inflationary than necessary to buck the natural
deflationary pressure, perhaps you need to fix it. In the current
USCF system, the bonus points threshold has been adjusted to be
mildly inflationary, by design. We have a political mandate to
re-inflate ratings to the 1997 standard.

You completely miss the point. Simply, the bonus point
mechanism will inflate the ratings differently depend on the
activity level of the players. So it is a possible explanation
for why the scales do not align exactly.

Personally I don't think bonus points make sense for
this pool, but I don't see it doing significant harm.


And ratings of players who play more frequently in the NWSRS will
not have the lag that their USCF ratings have.

What lag? USCF events are now rated the same day they are played.

If people play one USCF event per year and 10 NWSRS events per year,
then their NWSRS rating will be up to date; their USCF rating will be
old. Given that players of this age improve, the NWSRS rating will be
higher.

The rating formulae do not factor in the time (though probably could
or should for kids) At these ratings, ratings are determined over ~10 games,
and the formulae makes no distinction whether they were played last week, or
3 years ago. But the predictive value of 3-year-old results is very low when
you are talking about a 9-year-old.


There have
been comic misjustices in tournaments where USCF ratings were used -
e.g. one boy won the "biggest upset" prize every round even though
in the NWSRS system he had the highest rating and was winning
as expected. But his USCF rating was several years old, and
600 points out of date.

Probably because he was playing "rated" chess under a competing system which
reduced his incentive/opportunity to play in USCF-rated events.
It's a bit twisted to discourage USCF play...and then use USCF ratings.

I agree that it would have been more intelligent to use ratings
from the more accurate NWSRS system for that award. But
that would have undercut the organizer's purpose to "sell" USCF ratings.
It's a free country. No one was coerced into playing that event,
and the organizer was allowed to do whatever he wanted.



I don't believe trying to align the scales would have any practical
advantages.

Depends on what you mean by "align the scales". Elo points out a need
for a national rating service to attempt to keep the rating scale stable over
time (so that historical comparisons are at least in the right ballpark).

The same requirement holds for multiple systems at the same time. If the
scales overlap at all, it's nice if "2000" on one scale roughly matches "2000"
on the other scale.

Note that that is NOT the same as saying that every individual should have his
rating adjusted so it's the same in both systems. In fact, that is the mark
of a bad ratings administrator! if a player is active in both systems, and
OTHER means are used to effectively align the scales, then the player's two
ratings should be reasonably close, and there should be NO NEED to "adjust"
one or the other.

Systems which *use* USCF ratings, but which do not submit their events for
USCF rating, are doomed to create these "comic injustices".


People who play in the NWSRS are ranked quite accurately
by it. If people want to know what their rating would be in the
USCF, they could look for USCF events and play in them.
Or they could look at ratings of players who play in both and
try to figure out a correction. You're starting to sound a bit
like those "innumerate" folks you deride. Do I have to remind
you that ratings are not an absolute scale?

BTW, do you also denigrate online ratings, ratings from other countries,
etc that are not under your control? Or is it the particular fact
that this one facilitates an active scholastic chess scene that has
you so upset?