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Today, by clicking on "All Ratings" on the Home Page a ranking list appears, but it is faulted...

1. The first three people on the list have all a rating of 3000, but they haven't logged in since three years - this ratings list really is a joke. They even have more rating points than davidswhite... Therefore I demand that players who haven't finished a certain number of games during the last x months should be purged from this "All Ratings" list.

2. The ratings list should be extended; today it ends with rank number 2000 (player "hinrich", with a 1600 rating). I suggest that all active players should get a rank on the ratings list.

dcroll wrote:Today, by clicking on "All Ratings" on the Home Page a ranking list appears, but it is faulted...

1. The first three people on the list have all a rating of 3000, but they haven't logged in since three years - this ratings list really is a joke. They even have more rating points than davidswhite... Therefore I demand that players who haven't finished a certain number of games during the last x months should be purged from this "All Ratings" list.

2. The ratings list should be extended; today it ends with rank number 2000 (player "hinrich", with a 1600 rating). I suggest that all active players should get a rank on the ratings list.

Not to split hairs here, but I highly doubt that you will influence Greg by demanding anything. I know that would turn ME off.

Tim

After http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/demand I saw that "demand" is something like an "order"; or "to claim a right to something".

I'm not a native speaker of English and I often don't know the exact word I actually wanted to use - now I want everybody to know that I *wish* those changes.

I finally came to the realization after 1500 games played on this site that ratings don't mean much: if you check some of the players who have 2600 and above ratings their USCF rating is usually class B or lower class A; which is where I am at only my rating here is around 2200 most of the time. The best advice is to take your ego out of it and enjoy the free site and meet alot of good fun players from around the world.

Yours in Chess,

Mic

That thought has crossed my mind several times, but in the end I always come to the conclusion that you really shouldn't care that much about your rating.

I used to list the top 10 rated players on the home page, but that just lead to a lot of people registering several accounts and cheating to get to the top. So for the longest time I didn't even post the standings. I think if I try to do anything to make it more prestigeous, it will just inspire more people to manipulate their ratings.

gmiller wrote:That thought has crossed my mind several times, but in the end I always come to the conclusion that you really shouldn't care that much about your rating.

I agree, Greg. It's just a number. It doesn't mean much, if anything. As they say in sports, "That's why you play the game."

Tim

Wow! This is the first post on this topic in awhile, eh?



Anyway, I agree. The ratings are somehwat inflated, true. And really, who cares about them that much anyway? It likely is just an 'ego' thing.

But I am curious about one thing:

About how many active players are there on the site, Greg?

Just curious.

Don't know. I don't really have an easy way of finding out.

gmiller wrote:That thought has crossed my mind several times, but in the end I always come to the conclusion that you really shouldn't care that much about your rating.

That's why I like Net-Chess the most! Greg is so relaxed with so silly issues like rating (and computer cheating) and time outs.

You can complicate the rules and install watchdogs and invest lots of time and thoughts but it never will change a thing:

• Anyone who wants to inflate his rating finds a way to do so.
  Anyone who wants to cheat with chess computer usage finds a way to do so.
  And time outs you can't prevent at all.

Net-Chess is just plain chess. And that's good!

Just give as few incentive as possible. This is easily the best solution to prevent the most cheating.

Edit:

gmiller wrote:Don't know. I don't really have an easy way of finding out.

Well, it all depends on the definition of active.

Since you keep track of the Game End Date you easily could do a count on all players who have a game end in the last six month.

I deduce from your quote that you don't log the last login date. But surely another possibility would be to enhance your DB and to consider all players active who logged in in the last 30 days.