im not so familiar with access... i use openoffice all the way. but if yours is working and somehow web-based we could start with that.
we´ll finish our part with the php this weekend and will hopefully be able to type in some results then. since my friend is making it object-orientated (exp? /based?) it should be easily expandable to make it capable of seeding and pooling and then pairing. in theory that is. but i guess from what i´ve seen its gonna work fine.
but guys.. really nice to see some community work here.. thats what i expected to happen for some time.
Winner: 100 points
Second: 70 pts
Third: 58 pts
4.: 45 pts (if the game for 3rd place is not played both players receive 45 pts – as in current IFPA system)
5.: 40 pts
6.: 35 pts
7.: 30 pts
8.: 25 pts (if consolation round for quarter final loosers is not played all players receive 25 pts – as in current IFPA system)
9.: 23 pts
10.: 21 pts
11.: 19 pts
12.: 18 pts
13.: 17 pts
14.: 16 pts
15.: 15 pts
16.: 14 pts (if consolation round for round of 16 loosers is not played all players receive 14 pts – as in current IFPA system)
Advantages
• This system creates insensitive for players to play the consolation rounds.
• More detailed results will improve the quality of future rankings.
Inconvenience
• This system will require more data to be computed.
sorry guys, i had to be offline and clearminded for an important crtification-test. but now that i´m through with that i can start to fill in data into the db.
i´ll have the whole thing on my notebook in frankfurt.
since i dont expect too many people reading this so short pre-worlds i´ll take all the stuff i got with me.
Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 137 Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:40 pm Post subject:
1st - I’d like to thank Grischa for motivating this discussion!
Sorry for this long winded post but I finally took the time to read this thread and I’m bringing myself up to date on 5 pages of discussion. I’ll try to be brief in the future as I make an effort to follow the forum more closely, now that I am the statistician director for the IFPA.
2nd - Can’t thank Chris Siebert enough for devising the original IFPA ranking system, John Leys for implementing it, and Matti Pohjola for consulting on that whole process. I’m sure I’m leaving folks out and sorry for that.
3rd - Okay, I am the new statistician director for the ifpa and I think it is time to take the ranking system up two or three notches for *this* footbag season. It sounds like we have a lot of motivated individuals that are already teaming up to help that happen. I took over the ifpa stats position from John Leys when he moved on to be rules director for the IFPA.
Many suggestions and here finally is my input...
1. All places should count and be weighed differently.
I agree all places should be worth different points and this can be implemented for next/this year’s tournaments I think.
However, I like the idea that there is some limit as to who earns points. Finishing in the top half earns points at Open* tournament simplifies things. It allows us to move forward faster with more important upgrades to the current system.
There are two reasons for this I think.
1a. I think players need to earn points toward seeding and when tournaments are open you need to prove yourself at a minimum level in order to earn points. Finishing in the top half is simple to calculate.
1b. That leads to this 2nd point – ease of implementation. There is an enormous amount of data that needs to be processed – gathered, validated, calculated, communicated. Doing this for every single player at every sanctioned tournament is time consuming. I think the burden this puts on the system may create a bottle-neck in development at this stage. Basically, the benefits of doing this don’t yet outweigh the cost. Example: processing the date to calculate the score for the 154th ranked doubles player out of a total of 168 players?
Let’s put the icing on after we bake the cake, shall we?
* Pretty much all footbag tournaments are ‘Open’ tournaments although I’ve seen many ‘Open’ tournament titled incorrectly. e.g., I’ve seen the term ‘Invitational’ (an event by which competitors must be invited and/or must qualify for) used often in the title of a tournament that is actually and ‘Open’ tournament. If you qualify to play in a tournament in some way, then you have already ‘proved’ yourself according to some standard and therefore you may earn points towards a rank without victory in any match.
2. Tournaments can be weighted based on quality of players attending as wells as based on prestige. The World Championships should always carry the most significance relative to others. Then tournaments like Euro Champs 2nd. But we can also implement a system by which the players can make a real difference too. I envision a future where tournaments lobby players/teams/clubs to attend their events. Why? Because getting the most respected players in the world to commit early to attending your event – this helps promote, and attract other players and spectators. The IFPA is all about empowering the players and this is one thing that can help do that.
This may also help create more buzz as events compete to earn a new level. Analogous to European Football perhaps, where teams move in and out of the Champions league*, footbag tournaments may move up or down in level from year to year based on the higher ranking players they can attract.
* I think European football teams move in and out of divisions on a yearly basis based on performance. Forgive my ignorance if the terminology is incorrect.
3. Lest we use this as an excuse not to do anything for ourselves...
Chris Siebert said in relation to the web based tournament in a box idea...
“This is EXACTLY what we need! Anything short of web-based, start-to-finish running of footbag net tourneys is a waste of time.” and also...
“Now, who can do it? Who is a computer programmer with about 100 hours to spend on this project? Another BIG volunteer question.”
I’d rather not knock Chris because we’re all guilty of this I think. But, his comment is such a great set I have to crush it down . Let’s see if I whiff on it – you decide.
Okay, I want to say 2 things in regard to this.
3a This is NOT exactly what we *need*, but it is exactly what we *want*. Anything short of this is NOT a waste of time because we can do damn well until we get this. We can create something that works now, although less elegant perhaps.
3b Sorry but this is not a 100 hrs project. This is a *several hundred* hrs project at least - just to get it implemented. Once it’s up and running the maintenance will still be never ending. Therefore, until footbag.org has a dedicated ‘team’ of programmers that not only can develop systems but also maintain those, tools like this will not be built quickly.
While we can’t underestimate what footbag.org, planetfootbag, etc. already provide for us, we also can’t underestimate the work it takes to continually upgrade these tools **lest we use this as an excuse not to do anything for ourselves**.
4. IFPA and footbag.org - consolidate systems
I saw many comments that suggest driving the Euro ranking system through footbag.org, the IFPA, and the ranking system already in place. I am really glad to see this and I completely agree. We need to work on this together for the benefit of the entire world footbag community. Seems we have motivated people that can supply real input from around NA and Europe. We don’t want to duplicate data and processes because this would at least double our maintenance challenges.
IFPA rankings track the country of each player. In the future we should be able to automatically filter a rank for players within their own countries. Of course, you can manually do that already. However, there are things we need to tweak to make this more accurate when broken down. For instance, IFPA rank may not account for all tournaments in France. Details to be discussed I think.
5. Full and correct names of all players. Just another reason for centralizing this system through the IFPA, footbag.org, and sanctioning. We need a central database where the players themselves are responsible and able to maintain their own detailed contact info – Name: full, correct, country representation, club affiliation, gender, contact info, yada yada.
6. Player’s best 4, 5, or 6 tournaments count
On a worldwide level I agree there should be a limited number of tournaments which count towards a player’s ranking. Perhaps each player’s best 4, 5, or 6 events/year.
For example, currently if you attend 4 events to my 20 you get points from 4 events while I get points for all 20. If you finish 1st to my 2nd at those 4 events you may still be ranked lower than me. We can improve on this and I think we all agree in principle. Now, we need to agree on the limit. I like 4 to start with! thoughts?
7. IFPA Statistician Committee
Net: Chris Siebert, Matti Pohjola, Eric Wulff (director), John Leys (still by default).
We need we need some women voices on the committee. Who do you suggest I contact for this? Julia perhaps?
Anyone else interested? Of course, we’re not taking everyone because we need to keep the committee to a functional size. Let me know – ewulff@footbag.org
8. Data Input and Gathering
Jan Zimmerman said:
“maybe it shouldn't be matti and chris running after the results of tournaments but the players themselves bugging the directors. if the directors are too lazy it shouldn't be the ifpa's responsibility to run after them the whole time.”
So true! This will likely remain the case for a little while but I’m already seeing this change. Players are starting to speak up.
Furthermore, as stats director it is my job to communicate to the IFPA sanctioning committee those events that do not report results up to the standard required of them in order to gain sanctioning. Results at an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM MUST include...
1. every single player – 1st to last place in every event
a. name spelled correctly
b. country of citizenship
I can’t stress enough that 1st place is absolutely no more important than last position and every in between. We need stats for various other things besides ranking. Besides, some of our lowest level players now are the future of our game. They must be respected - recognized and accounted for in our community.
9. Freestyle committee
We need a freestyle ranking committee. Of course, that’s a thread for a different forum index, eh? Jan, surely you can appreciate this. My job as ifpa statistician will ultimately be to oversee two stats committees – one for freestyle and one for net. Currently I’m really wearing many hats as the IFPA Net Statistician but I want to become more of a project mgr only. Perhaps you’d be willing to consult me on forming a freestyle statistician committee? Who to approach, yada yada...
10. Status of the database and the European rank system
Last post – July 13 - and it sounded like ya’ll were ready to release a test version of some web based tool for this. What’s the status on that?
Joined: 23 Sep 2003 Posts: 288 Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:27 am Post subject:
First off, thanks a million to Eric Wulff for taking over this job. I still see the world rankings as an important step for the sport, now more than ever. Can a "World Rankings" link on footbag.org be far off?
Eric, my quote was taken a bit out of context. I was trying to tell the euro players there is no need to re-invent the ranking system as it is already in place. Clearly the ultimate goal is for everything to be web-based for ease and efficiency. If I thought the parts that make up that system were a waste of time I wouldn't have spent countless hours on it already!
But you also point out the same problems I and everyone else did: data collection, reporting, and crunching. Ranking systems have come and gone for these exact reasons. We can all talk about being diligent, but without easing the flow of information we will hit the same walls over and over.
All I am saying is this:
1. Take all the hours that each tournament director spends navigating different means of tournament sanctioning, player seeding, bracket running, and data reporting.
2. Add those to the hours we spend tracking down and sorting data.
3. Add the many hours you will spend crunching all the data.
In one year you will easily have hundreds of hours of labor. This is the best argument for getting the whole process web-based. It will make the sport easier to direct (absolutely critical as directing currently sucks!), and it will save valuable time in all steps of the process.
Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 131 Location: Helsinki, Finland
Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:50 am Post subject:
Great post Eric! Thanks.
I have to comment some things. Sorry for being slightly off-topic by considering not just european system but the whole IFPA as well. Also note that I certainly don't want step on anybody's toes. These are just my thoughts.
Eric Wulff (ewulff) wrote:
1b. That leads to this 2nd point – ease of implementation. There is an enormous amount of data that needs to be processed – gathered, validated, calculated, communicated. Doing this for every single player at every sanctioned tournament is time consuming. I think the burden this puts on the system may create a bottle-neck in development at this stage.
This enormous work of gathering, calculating, and validating is just why centralized system here at footbag.org is needed. IF we could standardize inputting results from tournaments into this system-to-be we would save loads of manual work. By standardizing I mean a web-form for submitting results, for example. With this kind of form it would be easy to validate the data (check that all the necessary info is there) AND more importantly bind the players to their unique member-ids at footbag.org. Everybody eligible for ranking points is an IFPA member and has a member-id. No checking of mis-spelled names etc. needed anymore. The points would automatically go to right players (members).
Furthermore, if validating is done right there, also the calculating part can be automated. Just implement the formula used in excel as php-routines or whatever. And then, store the points right to the member database at footbag.org, and showing up-to-date ranking should be just another database query away.
No doubt, this would require some work. But it's still far away from the whole Tournament-in-a-box implementation.
Eric Wulff (ewulff) wrote:
3a This is NOT exactly what we *need*, but it is exactly what we *want*. Anything short of this is NOT a waste of time because we can do damn well until we get this. We can create something that works now, although less elegant perhaps.
True. It's never waste of time. But, whatever we create, it would be very nice to move towards Tournament-in-a-box type of thinking. So, that all these things done here and now would serve the future needs as well. If something is hacked now and then after a couple of years started from scratch again, it has been in vain. Note that developing the ranking system itself (I mean all the calculating formulas and point distributions) can be somewhat separated from all these data gathering issues!
I, for one, have volunteered to be part of building any of these systems. As said, I can hardly put several hundred hours into it. But there are others, as well.
The main thing, though, is that while the hours are limited there's no use rushing into implementing anything by first thought and then land face-first and start all over again. That's what eats the time up quickly. Decisions on what and when are needed in 'da committeez'.
Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 137 Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:13 pm Post subject:
Hi all, I realize my post above somewhat rehashed points already made. On a certain level I want to let you know what I agree with and don't agree on. Seems we all mostly agree on what a ranking system needs to be, whether it be a Ranking System for European players or the world or whatever.
Chris - point well taken. Unfortunately I used your quote as an example but it wasn't meant to be taken to literally - which is how I used it.
Most importatnly I want to stress this - I'd like to see us take the best from the IFPA system and also take the best from that which has been developed for the European rankings so far and combine them. Create a single system that can be used for overall world rankings and that can also be filtered for regional rankings. Eventually, hopefully sooner than later, whatever system we develop then can be implemented as a completely web based tool at footbag.org.
Joined: 23 Aug 2003 Posts: 351 Location: San Carlos, CA, USA
Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:10 pm Post subject:
Russ Arsenault (Calumniate) wrote:
i think an access database would be a start. reports could be easily created and posted to the web
Russ, nothing personal, but that's just a misinformed opinion. We have a database, already, and we have all players in the database. Let's just add the data we need so we can automate this once and for all. Even if in the beginning it's manually entered. I just need someone to give me explicit requirements so I can develop (or find others to help develop) what we need on our central database.
You're right it was pretty misinformed. I think I failed to read the last 4 pages of posts lol.
If you want to add a ranking system into the data you have, I'm for it. Quick question, is the ranking and seeding for freestyle in the same state of disarray? I find it surprising that you have the eating habits of freestylers on file but not ranking points j/k
Data will always have to be manually entered to some degree, but if we could standardize the minimum amount of info that needs to be collected at tournaments it would be a great start.
Joined: 23 Aug 2003 Posts: 351 Location: San Carlos, CA, USA
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:22 pm Post subject:
Russ Arsenault (Calumniate) wrote:
You're right
That's said a lot.
Quote:
...is the ranking and seeding for freestyle in the same state of disarray?
A little off-topic, but, it's in worse shape. The problem with freestyle is that there's much less head-to-head data and we don't play off the bottom half (whoever gets cut from the first pool is tied for 32nd or whatever place that is -- sometimes upwards of 30-40 people can have the same position; we would have to have "consolation pools" to even begin to sort them out).
So when you combine the lack of head-to-head data with the fuzziness of pool formats (even among the top 16) with the fact freestylers are young and therefore often can't afford to travel, it gets really complicated really fast.
Grischa Tellenbach (grischa.tellenbach) IFPA Member
Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 323 Location: Paris, France
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 10:19 am Post subject: Improve the IFPA ranking system
Bye bye freestyle, back to the original issue of this thread.
-------------
I started this thread because of the way the seeding was done at this Euros. It was mainly random seeding. The major problem was that there is no ranking data available of most players. Some were new players, but the majority were *known* players, who just don’t finish in the top half of the few international tourneys they are attending.
In order to improve the situation for the next years, there are mainly two options. 1. creating a separate European ranking system, or 2. integrating more (all would be best of course) European tourneys in the IFPA ranking system.
Integrating everything in one system is clearly the more intelligible solution. Linking all data directly to the players through their unique member ID’s on footbag.org seems a very interesting way to handle this issue. But to improve the quality of the computed data more tourneys in Europe need to be sanctioned by the IFPA. (it is of course the responsibility of tournaments directors to apply for sanctioning)
In the same time all players from the first to the last place should earn points individually in each tourney. If we continue to award points only to the players finishing in the top half a lot of players will remain without any ranking points. And the situation will not improve sufficiently.
While seeding players, as tournament director you don’t really need a ranking system for the top players. You probably already know how to seed them. If Manu is in, he will be seeded 1st. But you really need / would appreciate a ranking system to help you seeding the players who are not top seeds. That is why all players participating in a tourney should be award points individually.
We can try in the first place to limit the points each player can obtain to his 4 best results point wise. I think this number could easily be changed in the future, if its proven to be insufficient.
In the long run tourneys should be weighted according to the quality of the players attending. But for the time being we should stick to the prestige acquired through previous editions. As it is an amateur sport it is too unpredictable to know which top players will attend which tourney. Hence basing the points of each tourney is worth only on the players attending is not rewarding enough the work done by the organisers.
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. Let’s see if I whiff on it – you decide.
Keep drinking! 
j/k
