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I know I'm new here, but I like the protected ratings idea. I play at chessworld and a friend of mine who beats me regularly (my chessworld stats with him are 6 losses, 2 draws and 1 win) signed on there recently for the first time and was given a provisional rating of 1400. At chessworld I am around 1740, so I know that his chessworld rating should be well above that. I'm sticking with unrated games against him until his rating is more accurate, but what about the 2200 player he is about to draw with? The nice guy that he is responded to an invitation from my friend and now stands to lose a huge amount of points because of the way it works over there.
The problem I see with getting points for good play is that it only works if points are also taken away for bad play. Its not that I don't like people to have higher ratings, its just that ratings only seem to matter if they reflect an accurate assessment of play. Otherwise why have ratings at all?
One of the big complaints about online ratings is that they are inflated and don't mean anything. I know I'm not a 1700 player, and if I had a USCF rating I would bet it would be several hundred points lower than my chessworld rating.
I'd like to see wbsites try to somehow get the ratings closer to actual ratings, maybe if some members have published BCF/USCF/whatever ratings, it could provide a baseline. For instance, say there are 100 members, 20 of whom have published/confirmed ratings with their organisation and the average is about 100 points lower than the Queen Alice rating. All ratings could be dropped 100 points and even though we would all have lower ratings, they would mean more since they would be more commesurate with our BCF/USCF/whatever ratings. That would give a player like myself some sense of real world use for the ratings. Instead of saying 'I am rated 1700, but thats a chessworld rating which doesn't really mean anything', I could say 'I am rated 1600 by an organisation which has ratings which are in line with the USCF ratings'.
Regardless, I think this is a great site and I know the administration has put a lot of thought into it and done a lot of work to make it so, thanks.
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| I am rated 1700, but thats a chessworld rating which doesn't really mean anything |
The problem is that ratings are not absolute and universal, they only apply to the group of players that belong to the entity that computes them.
For example, imagine all the members of Queen Alice have a USCF rating lower than 1200. These people will start playing and soon there will be some players that will show more strength than others. Since the rating system cannot judge chess skill but only game outcomes, those players will get rated higher and higher as they continue to win games. Soon you will have players rated above 2000, even though these same players will be easily beaten if they play a USCF tournament.
See my point? As the site grows and more players of different levels join I'm sure the ratings will get more accurate, keep in mind that just a few of us played 25 games and became established members, most players today have still provisional ratings, which of course mean even less than established ratings.
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Which is exactly why I think it would be neat if there was some way to make the ratings more universal. Such as using a variable based on the average difference between USCF ratings and Queen Alice ratings for players who hold both ratings, and applying that variable across the board to all members.
Regardless, I understand that the more people there are the more useful and accurate the ratings system will be, I just wish there were a way of judging my USCF rating based on a rating I might hold online.
Anyways, I don't want this to sound like I'm complaining in any way or anything, Queen Alice is quickly becoming my preferred net CC site for a variety of reasons.
BTW, sorry the last post was nearly unreadable, I am still getting used to the formatting on these forums.
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| it would be neat if there was some way to make the ratings more universal |
I think it is too early in the life of this site to be able to do that.
In any case, your friend rated 1400 is surely in the provisional phase (or whatever they call it over there), he probably didn't play enough games to have a meaningful rating. I'm pretty sure after he draws against that other 2200 player he'll get a good raise.
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I guess I'll just have to be more patient and wait for my rating to get more realistic. 
But what about a fixed loss of, say, 5 points when losing against an unrated/provisional player? That way established ratings are still protected somewhat.
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