"help bot" wrote in message
...
On May 10, 1:58 pm, The Historian wrote:

Phil's prattle about QC vis-a-vis titles is ironic, given his aid,
comfort and general flackery in favor of questionable claims by one
well known USCF board member.

"Support" from the nearly-an-IM is, in effect,
precisely the opposite. It's akin to lending
"support" to vegetarianism, by stating that
Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian.

**2 geniuses discuss rating systems, completely ignoring looking at what
goes on at USCF. Having done that, what can be more natural [for them] than
to mention Hitler? It hardly matters what any nominal topic is, when you
have ratings-envy. Neither genius can figure out...

Leaving aside his own well-known claims to being "nearly an IM", of
course, and his alleged 2450 rating.

Not so fast! Mr. IMnes' actual claim was that
/in Europe/ he was once a nearly-an-IM with a
[presumably FIDE] rating of 2450.

**[I love the presumably g] That if I could play a season or two at
2400 -uscf equivalent- after taking 20 years away from chess still manage
2200 OTB, then that is even possible!

That seems
to zap the idea of him claiming to have had such
a USCF rating, since the USCF has not yet
taken over jurisdiction of Europe (one cannot
predict the future, however...).

**Help bitch is sick of strong players! So sick that that like Brennan it
becomes his /only/ topic!

NOW TO THE TOPIC(S)

**Anyone interested in chess ratings could assess 3 things -

(a) Has Sloan abboragated anyone's copyright
(b) do rating ceilings and floors exist withing Elo's system, and
(c) what alternatives to USCF's 'award' system are there? [see Alekhine's
Parrot this week at www.chessville.com for a precis of an alternate system,
as declaimed by its originator]

Phil Innes




-- help bot

[...]
(a) Has Sloan abboragated anyone's copyright

Of course, Sloan does nothing but abboragate. In fact,
he has the hottest abboragator in town.

Jürgen R. wrote:
[...]
(a) Has Sloan abboragated anyone's copyright

Of course, Sloan does nothing but abboragate. In fact,
he has the hottest abboragator in town.


Pardon me. On my planet we have no word "abboragated." Pray tell, what
does it mean and what language is it from?
--

"Do that which is right..."

Rev. J.D. Walker

On Mon, 12 May 2008 10:30:28 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:


(b) do rating ceilings and floors exist withing Elo's system,

To even ask this question reflects a much deeper lack of
understanding. Hard to see how a rating system can address
deliberate sandbagging (hence the floors add-on) or cherry-picking
opponents or event manipulation (hence the rarer ceilings). This
isn't to say that the various tweaks have come close to solving the
problems.

and
(c) what alternatives to USCF's 'award' system are there? [see Alekhine's
Parrot this week at www.chessville.com for a precis of an alternate system,
as declaimed by its originator]

If the CXR ratings gained the same level of usage as USCF or FIDE
ratings, you'd have the same problems with sand-bagging and
manipulation.

A number of us have suggested publicizing and perhaps awarding prizes
for some additional metrics that could piggyback on the existing
rating system: highest rated opponent defeated, highest tournament
performance rating, etc. These might well serve as motivators for
participating in rated events.

On May 12, 12:06*pm, "J.D. Walker" wrote:
Jürgen R. wrote:
[...]
(a) Has Sloan abboragated anyone's copyright

Of course, Sloan does nothing but abboragate. In fact,
he has the hottest abboragator in town.

Pardon me. *On my planet we have no word "abboragated." *Pray tell, what
does it mean and what language is it from?

It is of Andean origin, and it is a portmanteau (to use Lewis
Carroll's delightful term) combining the meanings of "abrogated" and
"corrugated," especially when the two functions are performed by an
abbot. Not to be confused with "aborigated," which means "to be
irrigated by an aborigine."

wrote:
On May 12, 12:06 pm, "J.D. Walker" wrote:
Jürgen R. wrote:
[...]
(a) Has Sloan abboragated anyone's copyright
Of course, Sloan does nothing but abboragate. In fact,
he has the hottest abboragator in town.
Pardon me. On my planet we have no word "abboragated." Pray tell, what
does it mean and what language is it from?

It is of Andean origin, and it is a portmanteau (to use Lewis
Carroll's delightful term) combining the meanings of "abrogated" and
"corrugated," especially when the two functions are performed by an
abbot. Not to be confused with "aborigated," which means "to be
irrigated by an aborigine."

LOL
--

"Do that which is right..."

Rev. J.D. Walker

"The Historian" wrote in message
...
On May 10, 11:31 am, Mike Murray wrote:
On Sat, 10 May 2008 09:34:49 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:

... I discovered that Ken Sloan
could offer no explanation for the complete absense of quality control
at
USCF's rating department which permitted the situation, and secondly,
that
those who proposed Tanner's award for a master title also couldn't spot
the
cheat.

Phil confuses quality control with fraud detection.

'Confuses?'

Doesn't lack of control data quality actually permit fraud? In this
instance, not only was there no quality control whatever, but an award was
made to a politico for what Mike Murray prefers to call 'fraud'.

For the first issue, clearly Tanner is responsible, but USCF's ratings
department is /as/ responsible, since after all, if you keep geting rated by
chess officials, can you be doing anything wrong?

But the 'fraud', as Murray terms it, is the reponsibility of the 'awards'
system. Not only for Tanner, but for the gent writing to in the NY Times
about getting his own award, with no apparent invigilation whatever - no
questions, no data = master title and rating floor.

What Murray wants below is for the public to invigilate the ratings of
others - rather than officials - but hedoes nothing at all to challenge Ken
Sloan or USCF about why it ain't so.

When I suggested that another ratings agency did exactly this, allow public
access to very much broader data on ratings [and much cheaper] - people
cried it down here.

Do even //paid// chess officials have any responsibilty? Apparently not.

Can unpaid chess politicos casually over-rule them and 'overlook' playing
records entirely [as in both examples above], thus deliberately engaging in
what Murray call's 'fraud'? Apparently so.

I remember Randy Bauer using that as his main plank in the election - what
is known elsewhere as competency testing. And what has Bauer done while in
office in terms of ratings? Apparently nothing.

Phil Innes


The best guard
against the latter is free and open public access to rating and event
history, and an open forum for members' questions and comments about
what appear to be ratings anomalies (named or otherwise, Phil, heh,
heh, heh).

Phil's prattle about QC vis-a-vis titles is ironic, given his aid,
comfort and general flackery in favor of questionable claims by one
well known USCF board member.

Leaving aside his own well-known claims to being "nearly an IM", of
course, and his alleged 2450 rating.

On Thu, 15 May 2008 08:38:15 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:


On Sat, 10 May 2008 09:34:49 -0400, "Chess One"
wrote:

... I discovered that Ken Sloancould offer no explanation for the complete
absense of quality control at USCF's rating department which permitted
the situation, and secondly, that
those who proposed Tanner's award for a master title also couldn't spot
thecheat.

Phil confuses quality control with fraud detection.

'Confuses?'

Doesn't lack of control data quality actually permit fraud? In this
instance, not only was there no quality control whatever, but an award was
made to a politico for what Mike Murray prefers to call 'fraud'.

For the first issue, clearly Tanner is responsible, but USCF's ratings
department is /as/ responsible, since after all, if you keep geting rated by
chess officials, can you be doing anything wrong?

The folks who receive the rating reports, enter the data and publish
the ratings can hardly be expected to determine that some of the paid
USCF members in the crosstable don't really exist, or didn't really
play in the event. And the spurious events didn't all come in a
batch -- they were nicely separated both in time and space. As I
remember, Tanner was strong enough that the fake events didn't stand
out as egregious anomalies. Some nice detective work by Sam Sloan.

But the 'fraud', as Murray terms it, is the reponsibility of the 'awards'
system. Not only for Tanner, but for the gent writing to in the NY Times
about getting his own award, with no apparent invigilation whatever - no
questions, no data = master title and rating floor.

If this second instance happened as you describe, some guy just writes
in and gets a 2200 floor -- yeah, that's a big deal, much worse. Who
was the guy?

On May 15, 9:23 pm, Mike Murray wrote:

If this second instance happened as you describe, some guy just writes
in and gets a 2200 floor -- yeah, that's a big deal, much worse. Who
was the guy?

Dan Heisman. However, I see that his floor has been removed recently.
Also, he has not played a rated game in about 20 years so it does not
matter what his floor is.

http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?10158290

Sam Sloan

On May 9, 12:54*pm, samsloan wrote:
Elo's book, The Rating of Chess Players, Past and Present, is
reprinted today.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0923891277

Professor Elo's book, long out of print and almost impossible to
obtain, has just been reprinted.

Sam Sloan

So, Sam, what about that copyright?