Why hide expired member ratings?

[xterramatt]

I don't really understand this... It can be frustRATING for tournament directors who may be trying to make sure people are in the right division. Their rating is also from tournaments they paid membership fees to play, so their rating should never be locked out.

All a person has to do to actually find their rating is google "FIRSTNAME LASTNAME PDGA RATING" and it'll appear in the search results. So why make it harder for event staff to make sure players aren't in the wrong division?

I understand we want people to pay for membership, but it seems illogical to hold a rating as a ransom.

I also tend to think past results should also be left out of the equation. If a player paid for his 2010 membership, those stats should continue to be available regardless of his current membership. Only results from the current year (when unregistered) should not be displayed.

I guess there's the argument that searching for past player stats can suck bandwidth) which seems about the only reason to block player stats.

A player's yearly membership should allow ratings and their record for that year to be viewable for life.

Discuss.

[steveganz]

Originally Posted by xterramatt

I don't really understand this... It can be frustRATING for tournament directors who may be trying to make sure people are in the right division. Their rating is also from tournaments they paid membership fees to play, so their rating should never be locked out.

Player eligibility based on age, rating, membership and official status is now available to all tournament directors of PDGA sanctioned events via the PDGA Tournament Manager.

Originally Posted by xterramatt

All a person has to do to actually find their rating is google "FIRSTNAME LASTNAME PDGA RATING" and it'll appear in the search results.

For members who have let their membership lapse for more than a month or two, the search results typically displays "This player's PDGA membership is not current."

Originally Posted by xterramatt

I also tend to think past results should also be left out of the equation.

They are. You can see what a player's rating was at the time of any event they played in the past regardless of whether or not their membership is current.

Originally Posted by xterramatt

I guess there's the argument that searching for past player stats can suck bandwidth) which seems about the only reason to block player stats.

That's not it. It's simply that individual statistics, including player ratings and tournament history, are a benefit of PDGA membership.

[Fossil]

Originally Posted by xterramatt

I don't really understand this... It can be frustRATING for tournament directors who may be trying to make sure people are in the right division. Their rating is also from tournaments they paid membership fees to play, so their rating should never be locked out.

Discuss.

Though we only get it mid week of the event I use the excel file that comes from PDGA central with all the players in the region whether current or not. It has their membership status, rating etc. I set up a entry excel file that uses Vlookup to check both rating and current status and flag any player that is not current or playing below their rated division. I just enter the PDGA # and Excel enters the player name and pertinent info on my event sign-up sheet. Even set up drop down lists with Division and entry fee, and non current fee to make sign up pretty well automated. I format it so it is simple copy/paste onto the Scores tab of the PDGA report. Or even link the 2 workbooks and let Excel do most of the work.

It would be nice to get it a couple weeks early but I understand they want all the recent membership renewals included. Best of all worlds would be a downloadable excel database available online, maybe without birthday for privacy reasons. Or send TD's the regional players list a few weeks early and maybe an update the week of event. But that doubles the work for staff.

[steveganz]

Tournament directors can get up-to-date eligibility information on their registered players anytime in advance of their sanctioned event at http://www.pdga.com/tournament/manager/players_view.php

Also, if you would like to get the spreadsheet earlier, all you need to do is ask. We'd be happy to send it to you a couple of weeks early if that would help.

[Fossil]

True that.
Anytime I've ask for something from Brian and the staff they have provided it or got me in touch with someone who could. The standard procedure is to get the list to a TD after the Wednesday update.

[xterramatt]

OK... how about...

For those who do not pay their dues until the first tournament of the year that they NEED to register for... allow their ratings to be visible for 365 days from that date. If they paid for an entire year, give them an entire year's worth of this service they paid for. I understand that it is not "Calendar Year" Information, but who registers for the PDGA in January? Only people who have a tournament to play. So effectively, those people who register when they need to, are effectively losing out on 1, 2, 3, even 4 months of data visibility.

You can still show that they aren't a current member, but the player rating should remain visible.

Matt

[cgkdisc]

If it's that valuable to the player, then they should be renewing and in fact the info should go dark if they don't as an incentive. Plus the player makes sure to get the first issue of the magazine.

[pterodactyl]

Why not show results for expired/deceased players? In a way, allowing the stats of those no longer with us would show homage to said players.

[steveganz]

Originally Posted by pterodactyl

Why not show results for expired/deceased players? In a way, allowing the stats of those no longer with us would show homage to said players.

We do mark deceased members as such when we are informed about it and their player statistics are displayed in perpetuity.

[xterramatt]

I'm dead.

problem solved.

Just kidding.

[xterramatt]

perhaps the disc golf year should not be January to December? We all have more important things to deal with as the first of the year rolls around. Very few people are thinking about PDGA dues when bills for Christmas are rolling in, but the discs are gathering dust.

[steveganz]

Originally Posted by xterramatt

perhaps the disc golf year should not be January to December?

That's definitely under consideration by the board of directors. It will be much easier to accomplish this when we launch our own membership registration system later this year. We'll also have an auto-renew option which is one of our most frequent requests.

[pterodactyl]

Originally Posted by steveganz

We do mark deceased members as such when we are informed about it and their player statistics are displayed in perpetuity.

That is awesome. I didn't do any research before I shot my mouth off.