Ask Chuck Kennedy

[circle_2]

...'cept for the folks who don't play sanctioned events very often.

[lien83]

Current ratings only take into account rounds in the last 12 months since the last round played. i.e. it is a "yearly" rating.

Yes that is the case for some people...but I am talking about having a yearly average. Starting on January 07' and have a 07' rating. Just like Batting average in baseball. Especially for us here in CO or anywhere it has four full seasons; its a new year in 07' and I haven't played in a tourney for a couple months, I want to see my improvement in a rating based formula for THIS year. My rating is a 963 but that is with 90% am events. I moved up this year to open 100% and want to see my progress from year to year. Right now I have cashed in 4 of 6 events I've played in with a 2nd and a 3rd and I personally know that I am playing much better than 963 rated golf overall in 07'. Every sport in the world has a rating or system to track that season's performance independent from the previous year EXCEPT DISC GOLF

[ck34]

You'll have to do the math for yourself if you want to include only rounds from a current calendar year as it progresses. You'll get your overall 2007 rating in Jan 2008 that will only be all 2007 rounds.

[dananarama]

Will round 3 of the Greater Des Moines Challenge (for Intermediate men and women) be fixed before the next ratings calculation?

I will take full responsibilty for this. I was asked to review these items as the key personnel are tied up with worlds. My schedule has been tight with unexpected family issues to boot. Please do not blame the PDGA for this, but the poor performance of a volunteer worker that was taken unawares by his family. 15 year old, male, skater dude, nuff said..... I will do my best to review all items brought up this week end and get recommendations of for updates.

[lien83]

You'll have to do the math for yourself if you want to include only rounds from a current calendar year as it progresses. You'll get your overall 2007 rating in Jan 2008 that will only be all 2007 rounds.

I am looking at this from a fan's perspective though. When you look at any other sports yearly record or stats you can follow them through the year and watch progression, battles, slumps, highs and lows for your favorite team or player for THAT year. If I am a fan and a huge Barry Shultz fan I don't care how he did in OCt of last year...thats last season. I want to follow this year...thats the fun of being a fan and rooting for a team or player year after year. I'm not bagging the current rating system, it serves it purpose to a point but aren't we trying to progress the sport??? Don't we want more fans?? The current rating system hurts that part of progression and will never BY ITSELF give the players and fans what we are looking for in a rating system.

[ck34]

All of the individual ranking systems in other sports like golf, boxing and tennis use a full year or more of data. The do have cumulative stats for performance elements like driving, putting, shooting, first serving and batting averages specific to a year and I would fully support the PDGA providing stats like that. But not with ratings. It would have to be done for all members and would further dilute the number of rounds included. At least with a full year of data always included in a rating, more than half of our members have at least 15 rounds in their current rating at any time.

[lien83]

You still haven't adressed how we are going to adress the issue of progression and the fact that the current rating system isn't sufficient by itself for the players or fans

[ck34]

Ratings history shows the progression for each player already. World Rankings is done for top level players who travel and play enough to play each other unlike most members.

[ChrisWoj]

Chuck - You state the January rating is good enough. No, it is not. For a competitor that hasn't competed since, say, October because he plays in a northern state where winter hits early, it is including ratings from well over a year ago, from anything he might have played the year before from October to December. So that excuse is dead.

As for the fact that it isn't good enough just because you feel it is diluted, or something, because not enough people have enough rounds you need to think of it like ERA or BA in baseball. With both of those statistics you have to have set number of IP or ABs to be counted. If you look at it like that you could do it this way...

1. The rating would NOT have the latest 25% doubled, as it is a short term statistic already (personally I'm not a huge fan of that as it is, we don't see Magglio's BA for the year influenced by his play over the last month. So what if you were hurt and this is a more accurate portrayal of your skill, boo hoo, you were hurt, take a break if you're so worried, you should have anyway).

2. When the April ratings update comes up you MUST have at least 5 rated rounds to be included in the "2008 Rating" and have it on your profile. June? 10. September? August? 15. November? 17. End of year? 19 or 20. Number drops slightly because you don't have as many events after summer ends. This would keep people with only 2 rounds from having a false high yearly rating, and would give us all an accurate showing of "I did this well in 2008!"

I think that the idea is solid. Batting Average is a [censored] statistic with OBP and OPS both giving you a more accurate portrayal of an athlete's overall performance. Same goes for FG% in basketball (in favor of, say, TS% or Effic. ratings). They might not be perfect, just like our rating isn't, but they're updated frequently for each year as something that is an identifiable and easy to understand number for people to get just how well a guy did in a given year.

[ChrisWoj]

As an additional question: with every ratings update you get your rating added to your ratings history. Your old total ratings are kept, why not also have a page for each old rating to show the individual ratings that made up that particular ratings period? That couldn't be too hard to automate.

[ck34]

Understand that Roger and I do the ratings for the PDGA under a contract which is up for renewal after 2008. Any additional items would be done by PDGA IT people like Dave who I believe has higher IT priority projects. But you can certainly ask him. I believe any other version of the ratings, however well intentioned, would lead to more confusion.

[ChrisWoj]

I'm not saying it would be the most important thing in the world, it simply would be very nice.

As for it leading to more confusion... I don't believe it should. You could add a listing over the "2006 Rating" that says "min. 5 rated rounds" thus eliminating confusion for those that might be wondering why they don't have one, it could be done in size 1/8pt font in the upper right corner, similar to how most sports sites list a disclaimer like that.

Additionally you could consider it a smart marketing tool, as people would NEED a certain number of rated rounds to have a rating for the year. Therefore people that usually only compete in one or two events might compete in more to be a part of the "yearly leader board" or some such small contrivance that would be easy to put together.

If you want your rating to be listed up on the "top 1000" (or something contrived like that) you need to play so many rated rounds!

Tell me that that isn't a good way to convince a few people that play minimal events to throw a few more bucks into the pot? I think I'm on to something here, Chuck. Must be that University of Toledo edumacation.

[ck34]

Remember that the primary function for ratings from a PDGA standpoint was to determine which divisions players qualify for. Roger and I would be fine with just indicating the minimum division a player qualifies for with no ratings numbers being provided. We understand that players like seeing the numbers but that's a secondary aspect, popular of course, but secondary. Note how much time we've had to spend to answer hundereds of questions regarding small variances in personal numbers when all that's necessary for the competition system is provide your current division. Ratings have become a juggernaut for players to join the PDGA so specific numbers have gradually become important to the PDGA. So we'll see how important when additional calculations are considered to be added next time around as a member service.

[lien83]

No offense but its one of the main reasons that people join the PDGA. To have a rating and see where they stand against other competitors. This part that you call secondary; which you created, is a good system, but a flawed one. Statistics are one of the best ways for fans and competitors to feel close to the game and follow players pregressions. From what I've got, you are one of the only poeple that feels this is secondary at all and you are the one that created the system? Kind of odd when all the PDGA, a non-profit, should be doing is helping the progression of the sport and listening to their loyal and paying members

[ck34]

It's secondary from the standpoint that it's unnecessary to be as accurate for grouping players into skill levels which have statistical overlap versus a system intended to be accurate to the level we display ratings. We calculate ratings as a customer service based on as few as 5 propagators so everyone can get them, not because the process is as accurate as it could be.

For those interested in the history of the ratings evolution, Roger and I told Board member Mark Ellis around Christmas in 1998 that we were only interested in volunteering to do the ratings if they were going to be incorporated into the competition system since standards were lacking to progress from Am3 to Am2 to Am1. When the Board and competition group dragged its feet on setting rating breaks for Ams, Roger and I stopped doing them in 2001. Commissioner Pat invited us to the Winter Summit early in 2002 where Theo promised to work with us to incorporate the ratings into the Am competition scheme. This was eventually launched for 2003. We finally started getting some small compensation to do the ratings work two years ago.

If I were doing the ratings system for accuracy, I would do things that would eliminate perhaps half of the round ratings we generate today because only players with established ratings over maybe 900 would even be allowed to be props and at least 50 scores from them per course layout would be required to generate ratings at an event. That among other things would improve the accuracy of the ratings but be much less functional for a membership org with only better active players getting ratings.

[ChrisWoj]

Batting Average is unnecessary.
ERA is unnecessary.
Shooting % is unnecessary.
Goal totals are unnecessary.
Save % is unnecessary.
EVERY **** STATISTIC OTHER THAN HOW MANY RUNS/POINTS/STROKES YOU SCORED IN ONE SINGULAR GAME AND THE WIN LOSS RECORD THAT RESULTS IS COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.
It doesn't make it any less a **** STUPID idea to consider them secondary and essentially an afterthought. You're oversimplifying the issue here and doing a very bad job of defending your side of things. And your story didn't help your side of things. I'm sorry if all caps makes it sound rude or obscene, as though I am yelling, but I was too lazy to utilize the italics bbcode and I'm sleep deprived, so bear with my rambling.

Basically all you've done is given us where its been. What we're interested in is WHERE IT SHOULD GO. We have good ideas, you seem to think they're inane because you don't think the statistic is important other than to place a person in a division, which is ridiculous. A statistic holds the value that a person places on it. The member body of the PDGA places INCREDIBLE value on the ratings, therefore it is an incredibly valuable statistic and SHOULD be exploited as such.

[ck34]

When you've busted your butts as volunteers, you get to make the call on what you're willing to do. When you're a contractor, you do what the client wants you to. If the PDGA wants us to add more stats, we'll be glad to add it to the contract but some things must be done on the PDGA technology side based on their priorities even if Roger and I can do our part. There are all kinds of things I've wanted to do to display ratings and graphs and sorts and filters for members for the past five years. But I can't do the online work needed and the PDGA resources haven't been there.

[lien83]

Agreed...obviously some things need to be done and approved before we can roll into this Chuck. We are not asking you to do this on your own, without any help. We are looking for an open-minded response to our questions and an understanding on your end that the current system needs revamping and many additions. We the people are asking for some help from the mastermind of the rating system and FROM YOU someone who should be all about this discussion. All we are getting are haphazard, sidestepping answers that completely dodge the point of this discussion. Please completely read our posts... the heart of the matter is that statistics are very important for the progression of the sport and especially to outsiders and fans (this should be the goal of the PDGA if they truly want to grow). STATISTICS ARE HOW FANS COMPARE PLAYERS TO OTHER PLAYERS AND THEMSELVES, RATINGS AND STATISTICS ARE AT THE HEART OF THE GAME THE ONLY WAY THAT WE CAN COMPARE, CONTRAST, CHEER, AND FOLLOW THE SPORT FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. With the lack of footage and exposure for the sport stats are all we have.

[ChrisWoj]

Exactly, we're not asking you to do everything and do it NOW. We're asking for an open minded res... Oh what the hell I'm saying exactly what he said. Rock on.

[dananarama]

This is becoming more of a legitimate concern. Isn't the cutoff next week? I would like to point out that this correction has not been addressed in the span of time since the last ratings update, and for that duration all those affected have been carrying erroneous ratings.

Will round 3 of the Greater Des Moines Challenge (for Intermediate men and women) be fixed before the next ratings calculation?

[ck34]

Matter of time and money. The correction was prepared to get ready for posting in mid-July. But with Am & Pro Worlds, Gentry is split between both and the correction took a back seat. There is no one on staff capable of backing up Dave for ratings support at this time. The correction will be incorporated in the next update later this month.

[dwiggmd]

Chuck,

question from my son. will you have time to make Am Worlds round ratings correct before upcoming ratings update?

[ck34]

Both Worlds should be included in this coming update.

[dwiggmd]

thanks!

[ck34]

No events this coming weekend will get in. Too much work to get both Worlds processed along with all of the other events.

[lien83]

I was curious if the Kiss the Sky event (Aspen, CO), will be included in the next ratings update? I know that the TD's report was sent in a while ago but it still isn't posted. Thanks

[ck34]

Events that will make it in will have Official results without ratings posted online by this weekend. If it's not there by then, it won't make it in. I think Dave still has another batch to post by this weekend so maybe it's in there. It's not in any of the batches I'm working on right now.

[ChrisWoj]

*crosses fingers for Kingston*

Actually I got it sent in (TD Report) on Mon. morning. Do you go by date report is received or when money is received?

If I asked this already don't slay me, I don't see it and I've been sleep deprived

[ck34]

It's not me it's Gentry that matters.

[ChrisWoj]

Cool, thanks Chuck!