After 6 or 8 messages on the number of USCF's active adult rated players -
the following has been resolved Martiniak/Innes.

Subject: [fide-chess] USCF active membership numbers, then and now


I am not trying to resolve a massive spreadsheet of all categories,
which does not incidentally record active players. Why Tom couldn't
simply post a 5 digit number here is unknown.

Because nobody actually knows.

Thanks Tom!

Nolan's response was the simple:
"However, it is true that only around half of the roughly 21,000
regular adult members have played a rated game in the last 12 months."

He never told you anything about all the adult members.

Huh? If I understand you, for some other categories, of unknown extent, the
playing rate is also unknown.

At least one other person has pointed out that regular membership
does not mean adult membership.

I'm not sure that wasn't a tongue in cheek comment - that just because
they are over age 19 doesn't mean they act like adults. It would be
extremely rare for a non-adult (junior) to join as a regular member by
paying $49/year when they could pay $25/year for the exact same
package of benefits. There are probably some small number of juniors
in the Life membership category also.

My questions were very simple. I now know several things.

a) 'nobody actually knows'
b) that Mike Nolan's number was an estimate, not a measurement
c) his estimated numbers do not reflect all adult members
d) it is unknown what proportion of adult number his estimate does reflect
e) no one knows anything about 1970 either, except from writes at that time
//eg, Horowitz.

The questions are simple, (a) how many adult members played rated
chess last year, and (b) how does that compare to 1970?

Nobody knows. You don't know. Mike Nolan has never answered that
question for you - he only answered how many regular members played,
and only gave a very rough approximation.

Fine!

If you want to do a comparison over time, simply compare the actual
paid members.

Don't make it complicated again and tell me what I want. I already know the
answer to my questions, which is that USCF doesn't know how many of its
adult members have played a rated game in the past 12 months.

I also understand you to say that Mike Nolan's figures are an estimate only,
and not of all adults.

That data is readily available and you can even do a
spreadsheet over many years for comparison purposes.

Please stop diverging about some data set which would in fact /not/ answer
my questions.

Mike Nolan might
be able to get the data you are looking for with regards to 2005,

Which was my initial question to him.

but
it is impossible to figure that out for 1970. So, use the data that is
available. Those numbers should provide a comparable statistic.

Of what? If its a matter of choosing 2004, then that would do as well, even
though there was an apparent 8,000 member drop between 2004 and 2005.

Thank you in any case for trying to answer my questions. I find it a bit
remarkable that 30 people don't know their active core market size, not even
to be able to suggest to me that Nolan's Numbers are off by any specific
amount - eg, if there were really 27,000 adults at about 50% activity rate,
which would resolve to 13,500 as an estimate.

Phil Innes