Earlier today, the PDGA player rating and rating rank of Discussion Board users were displayed underneath their avatar. However, due to a few complaints, this information and code was removed because it is currently not possible for each user to choose whether they want this information displayed or not.

We're told that it would be moderately complicated (but not completely impossible) to track these preferences - it would just take some volunteer time/effort to write the code to do so.

Given the option to choose these display preferences in your profile, would you be interested?

jeff, not sure if you are asking if we simply show the stuff or make showing the stuff completely preference driven. showing the stuff for everyone is easy. making it pref-driven is a pain in the places-we-cant-say, and there are FAR more important website tasks for the website volunteers to be working on that making this feature pref driven.

It would be nice for the rating ranking information to be gender and Pro/Am based.

IS a vote for Pat a vote for default inclusion of the 2m rule ?

no, since Oversight Director has nothing to do with defining rules.

however, it DOES have something to do with making sure that the PDGA constitution is follwed in making and changing rules.

jeff, not sure if you are asking if we simply show the stuff or make showing the stuff completely preference driven. showing the stuff for everyone is easy. making it pref-driven is a pain in the places-we-cant-say, and there are FAR more important website tasks for the website volunteers to be working on that making this feature pref driven.



I'm asking whether people are interested in having this information displayed - ASSUMING THAT USERS CAN DECIDE IN THEIR DISPLAY PREFERENCES WHETHER OR NOT THEIR INDIVIDUAL INFORMATION IS DISPLAYED.

Why not wait until the poll closes before deciding whether there are far more important website tasks for the website volunteers to be working on than making this feature pref driven? You may be the only one of that opinion. Who knows, the response may be overwhelming that people would like to be able to view this information.

Based on the limited feedback, I think there might be many people out there who would like to see underneath a user's avatar when they joined the PDGA, what their PDGA player rating is, what their rating rank is, etc. But each individual user should be able to choose whether or not this information is displayed.

I too would like to see the info but think it should be Pro/Am divided. Even better, to rank within your home state, since these are the players you mostly compete with.

how about filtering within your home phone area code? or the domain name of your primary email address? we could do it!

or, you could let the user decide which group ranking he wants to appear: for example amongst all Am.s, All Pros, All Masters, All Women, All Jr.s, or all members, etc.

out of curiosity Pat, where are Juliana and Des ranked amongst the whole 9500 simply going by last ratings update and where is Rick Voakes the Grandmaster ranked? I want to know how much i need to improve my game for when i turn 50 and how far off that is from the front of the whole pack ;)

if you're busy and that info is on hold -- no problemo...

they are both tied for last among all 1000 rated Pro OPEN players. but they are pretty high up there among the Am Men. Rick is under both of them.

So, Pat (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=10403&year=2005), from a programming aspect how hard would it be to have the database generate ordinal numbers next to the players' names when we do a ratings search in the ratings database. In there you can select for Pro and Am. men and women, and state by state. So programmingwise, wouldn't it be pretty darn easy for whatever list a user selects to have ordinal numbers generated as well? This could be a really cheap, easy way to generate simple ratings rankings by those general parameters, but it would not rank an am against a pro or a man against a woman. Not ranking men (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=18731&year=2005) against women (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=16006&year=2005) might also help sell this to potentially ego sensitive board members!

We were talking about this whole thing at lunch and Diana (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=16006) says, well, what is his (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=5559&year=2005) rating? and I say, I don't know, something like my brother Jon's (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=10246&year=2005) I think. And Kira (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=16008&year=2005) says, well, is he nice to people? And I said, I suppose so; he always seemed nice enough to me. He used to be a referee for different sports so he probably is more into "fair" than "nice." And Kira says, well if he's fair and volunteers shouldn't that be more important than whether he is better or worse than Uncle Jon?

Yes, it should. Unless you are a 16 year old girl, better (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/player_ratings_detail.php?PDGANum=24355&year=2005) or worse (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/player_ratings_detail.php?PDGANum=16007&year=2006) than either of these two at disc golf should not really be a factor in your self-esteem.

What i meant was -- i am presently 1762* out of 9500 based on being rated at 946 -- so where are Des and Juliana out of 9500 based on their ratings of 963 and 962?

*actually i can't remember exactly because your wonderful ranking thing got pulled so fast but i think that's what it was...

What i wanted with regard to 50+ year old Dr. Rick Voakes was where he was out of 9500. Looks like he is ranked #18 based on ratings. That's AWESOME! I am a spring chicken at 43 years and 11 months 1 week -- so i can hope to maybe be in the top 20 when i am 50. Thank you Dr. Rick for keeping hope alive. (Actually my friend Fred Salaz is 50 and is in awesome shape, can throw 500 feet, and plays at a high level too, but not quite as high as Dr. Rick).

according to the ratings page, there are only about 1200 Open players.

Generating ranking numbers for lists that are already created by a current process on the PDGA site should be approved quickly, presuming it has no bearing on anything Theo is studying pertaining to server resources.

Actually i misread the player ratings page (http://www.pdga.com/player_ratings.php): it was divided by Pro Men and there are 1266 players listed on the pages rating that sub-division of the PDGA membership.

My 946 puts me on the page displaying 710 thru 759 of 1266 (at first i couldn't figure out why Des and Juliana didn't appear and then realized it was only listing Pro Men even though they would be way above me and Chuck.)

So although 50+ year old Dr. Rick is 18th out of 1266 Pro Men, he would be 18th out of the 9500 or so members involved in the December ratings update if the page allowed us to view ratings overall rather than exclusively by one of four sub-groupings (Pro Men, Pro Women, Am Men, Am Women). Wouldn't it be easy to add a feature to enable us to sort the ratings data by Overall Ratings amongst All Divisions as well as having an option to sort by Am Jr. Boys and Am. Jr. Girls? I can look up for example Amateur Women (http://www.pdga.com/player_ratings.php?offset=0&division=F1O&order=rat ing) and see that Nicole Frazer is the #2 ranked Am Woman in the country (based on ratings), but why can't i look up to see who the highest ranked Jr. Ams (based on ratings) are?
If i were a Jr. Am. headed to Worlds -- that is info i as a Jr. PDGA member would want to know...

Ranking by Age divisions, older and junior, within those existing Am/Pro and Women/Men rating lists have been requested of our technology folks for at least 4 years but hasn't been a high enough priority project for the volunteer resources available.

The one thing you miss with our current ratings page is highlighted by that example of Nicole Frazer. (http://www.pdga.com/player_ratings.php?offset=0&division=F1O&order=rating) You can instantly see that she is #2 among women but you might not realize that she is #1 among junior girls < 16.

Ha! Somehow Kelsey (http://www.pdga.com/player_ratings.php?offset=10&division=F1O&order=rating) moved up from 18 to 13 in the last two days. Must be from dropping non-renewals off the list or something.

bruce, alll that stuff is do-able. not as easy (obviously) as a simple ranking of all players, but doable. the biggest issue is that the PDGA only classifies players as Pro or Am, and as Men and Women. there is no built-in segregation of "divisions" because so many players qualify for and play in multiple divisions. that makes the the technical approach more difficult, but still doable.

sounds like Theo is right on top of it though, so we'll let him and the Ratings Committee decide what is best for us all. i spose.

if i told you exactly where Des's and Juliana's and Rick's ratings were ranked in the world, i would probably get in trouble for revealing personal information about players :o

but i can say this:

a player rated 962 is currently ranked 963rd in the world
a player rated 963 is currently ranked 928th in the world
a player rated 776 is currently ranked 7,727th in the world

you will have to do the rest of the thinking on your own :cool:

sounds like Theo is right on top of it though, so we'll let him and the Ratings Committee decide what is best for us all. i spose.




The PDGA is a team process, rarely "lone gun" action. Most members should expect nothing less. Individual actions that occur are within the realm of their hired or elected authority which none of us posting on this topic have. However, I do have the option to invite Pat to join the Ratings Committee.

and thats an option i am considering. however, unless there is some reason to believe that all ideas will be honestly and fairly considered, i would rather just continue apply my efforts and available time on IT project for the PDGA website. considering the popularity of the rankings that briefly appeared, the finality with which they were ordered removed, and the subsequent attacks on the their validity, there hasnt been much so far that convinces me that fresh input is truly welcome.

i am keeping an open mind about the idea though.

If I gave up over how many times my ideas have been shot down or not approved, I would never have done anything for the sport. I've never run for nor been elected for office in disc golf at any level. Everything accomplished has been by executing a proposal, communicating it, and persuading individuals or teams with the authority to approve or implement the proposal.

I'm one vote on the committee that says 'no' for overall ranking (versus percentile) but there's Theo, Hoeniger, Gentry, Roger, and Kretschzmar as active committee members (Nick is an inactive member). Your assertion that the ranking was popular may not be accurate based on the negative email and mostly negative reaction from PDGA BOD and staff, some more about how it came about rather than the content. Displaying ratings and rankings by the posts is much more of an issue than the info showing up somewhere.

if i told you exactly where Des's and Juliana's and Rick's ratings were ranked in the world, i would probably get in trouble for revealing personal information about players :o

but i can say this:

a player rated 962 is currently ranked 963rd in the world

<font color="blue"> m'kay -- thanks. i guess i'd be offending those who complained about your posting of those overall rankings (based on rating) if i extrapolated and explicitly stated that Juliana Korver (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=7438) is ranked 963rd out of 9500 PDGA members based on 2005 year-end ratings </font>

a player rated 963 is currently ranked 928th in the world

<font color="blue"> Wow, by co-incidence it then looks like Des Reading (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=15863)
would be about 928th -- were i to try and rank her based on ratings. </font>

a player rated 776 is currently ranked 7,727th in the world

<font color="blue"> I know you don't mean Dr. Rick Voakes (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=2632) -- because his rating of 1017 puts him in the top 18 (http://www.pdga.com/player_ratings.php?offset=10&amp;division=MPO&amp;order=ra ting) of all Open Pro players, even though he is 50+ years of age :eek: And Slyvia Voakes (http://www.pdga.com/tournament/playerstats.php?PDGANum=3360) is ranked at 848... </font>

you will have to do the rest of the thinking on your own :cool:



<font color="blue"> ok, so basicly instead of removing the ratings data set available to all of us -- it stays available because it is deemed appropriate -- but the rankings digested from that info can't be digested for us because a few people became upset by the simple objective numerical data regarding their performance in competitve PDGA events and shot off loud emails to the powers that be. Then those guaging membership attitude about it misguidedly decided it was unpopular or inaccurate? or was it about bandwidth? if the latter -- why is that dumb "Reged" field still over there to the left of our posts?

Looking at the ratings data sorted by the 4 subgroupings presently available to us with a click (http://www.pdga.com/player_ratings.php?offset=0&amp;division=FPO&amp;order=rat ing) of the mouse
-- where would Des and Juliana (ranked 1 and 2 out of Pro Women based on ratings) fall amongst the 1266 Pro Men?
or, i guess it would be out of the total set of 1373 Pro PDGA Players [1266 (Pro Men) + 107 (Pro Women)]
</font>

What is the present status of this "issue?" ;)

I take it that these rankings aren't gonna be displayed. However, are you saying that they probably won't even be availalble?

If so, that is pretty lame. Why not just have a page where this info is sorted by all members, by gender, and by age categories?

If there are other ways to rank people, show those also.

I thought Pat prepared a cool graph a while back that showed the number of members in each 10pt ratings range? That was great. It allows a member to see where they (or anyone else with a rating) fit in the distribution including their approximate overall rank. There's no individual overall ranking number shown next to anyone's name and the visual distribution picture provides context similar to a percentile regardless how many members are current at the time. Separate graphs by pro/am and men/women like our four lists would also be helpful.

I thought you were a numbers man. Percentiles aren't real numbers, they are second rate derivatives. :p

We want numbers!!!!!!!!!

the graph was nice but a simple numerical sort by categories (overall, juniors, etc.) would be nice. Otherwise -- why are the 4 presently available sort-by-rating categories (Pro Men, Pro Women, AM Men, AM Women) not being pulled?

are you suggesting the data needs to be private/generic then?

we are a Professional Disc Golf Association but we don't want where we fall amongst the larger group of Professionals published :confused:
Isn't this a competitive sport/organization? :confused: :confused:

We've wanted them, too, for several years now. Pat has already indicated he could do them for the existing 4 sort lists of Pro/Am and Men/Women but it will take quite a bit more time to do the age range sorts. Doing those and applying rank numbers should not be controversial. Theo at least needs to know the project is proceeding out of courtesy and making sure there aren't any server issues that may be relevant.

Displaying those results in other locations on the site like the posting area will require discussion and approval.

Otherwise -- why are the 4 presently available sort-by-rating categories (Pro Men, Pro Women, AM Men, AM Women) not being pulled?




Nothing wrong with these at all. We want more subsets. I'm just suggesting in the mean time that the graph was excellent and did the job for what it was intended. Not that it should be the only improvement.

We've wanted them, too, for several years now. Pat has already indicated he could do them for the existing 4 sort lists of Pro/Am and Men/Women but it will take quite a bit more time to do the age range sorts.



<font color="blue"> wouldn't making available the sort-by-overall standing (across divisions) category that many members are interested in take little (if any) time to make available? </font>


Displaying those results in other locations on the site like the posting area will require discussion and approval.



<font color="blue"> so how much discussion occurred prior to the posting of the 'Reged' and 'Location' information to the side of our posts was given the green light by committee approval? </font>

I believe those are part of the default layout of the DISCussion Board software which I think might be freeware.

my bad,

a player rated 1017 is currently ranked 27th in the world

wow, who'd'a thunk we have two Dr Voakes, two Rick Voakes, but that those total three people in two genders?!?

i dont mind getting shot odwn or unapproved. just as the "how" proved important with displaying info on the message board, the "how" is similarly important in the shooting down.

can you show your math? i get 18th counting down from the top...

i dont mind getting shot odwn or unapproved. just as the "how" proved important with displaying info on the message board, the "how" is similarly important in the shooting down.



wow, that's an astute point, magnaminously made, and worthy of careful contemplation -- especially by those in positions of power!

see below, there was some sort of wierd system performance issue when i posted that forced me to hit the STOP button and repost. did someone add some new code somewhere? :D

the difference is the membership expiration date. believe it or not, there are so many 2005 members who are late in renewing that it is skewing the rankings (oh! i said it!) of the presentation on the members page. so i am using 2004 instead of 2005 in my calcs, at least until a higher percentage get their checks into the office.

Let no good point go uningnored... :p