[hitec100]

I see what you are saying, and agree to a point.

I don't think there should be a separate rating system for women or old men.

I don't think there should be a separate rating system for old men either.

I think having one system that is consistent for all players at the same time allows more accurate comparisons among other players and amongst a smaller group.

You can compare results accurately, but I'm not sure what the point would be. The results would always show that women as a group don't throw as far as men.

The additional problem of a separate system with such small numbers is that a couple of rapidly improving players could easily skew the ratings in a given area as compared to the rest of the world. The larger the number of players involved in rating any event, the more accurate the number will be.

Apparently, Chuck says separating the scales (or aligning the scales, actually) would be as easy as adding 75 all the time. Not sure if I totally understand that -- I don't think men and women are always a constant value apart, all the way through the group, but that's what he says. That would take care of your concern here, if you agree with him.

And I would be insulted if I was in a group that was considered to be so far off the scale that a new scale was needed.

I wouldn't expect that if newcomers were told the scale wasn't the scale, after all. If new women players thought the scale was actually only the men's scale, I would expect them to think whatever happened on the men's scale was irrelevant to their performance, and I think they would be right.

I do think that this change might be difficult for a number of existing women players, though, because they could take offense at the change and assume the reason is what you stated. It would have to be clear that the reason is not because they are off the scale, but that they shouldn't have been on a men's scale to begin with, that it is inherently unfair to them. (Not sure the PDGA communicates with its members well enough to make that clear, though, so maybe this is the biggest hurdle!)