Benalla

Well, the difference between 66% and 75% is 9%, so it's a matter of degree. I've seen speeds less than half the winners on occasion (and complaints about the resulting score). Lowering the percent does focus on relatively small numbers of points between pilots who have already dropped 250 point to the winners. Dropping 340 points to the winners instead of 250 so you can claim a few dozen points against another pilot who is waaaay out of the money seems like it might be worthy of re-thinking as it only solves an ego problem with very slow finishers wanting to feel like they did better than a long landout or another very slow finisher. You pay a price in more important parts of the scoring formula (because math!) to create points spread at the bottom of the daily scoresheet. We need to look at all of this holistically. You can't push on the ballon on one side and expect it not to bulge out somewhere else.

A little adjustment to 75% doesn't matter as much as the assymetry of devaluation that BB describes, but it does create tension for other considerations.

9B

At 18:02 18 January 2017, JS wrote:
Flying again today?
Jim


Yep!

On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 4:30:06 PM UTC-6, Tom Claffey wrote:
At 18:02 18 January 2017, JS wrote:
Flying again today?
Jim


Grid time and prelim tasks for all 3 classes set for 1/19/17
https://www.facebook.com/ussoaringte...34720150264868

ENOUGH scoring BS. Let's keep the thread focused on what's happening in Benalla.

If you want to discuss/argue FAI vrs USA scoring then start another thread.

Go Team USA!

On Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 2:30:06 PM UTC-8, Tom Claffey wrote:
At 18:02 18 January 2017, JS wrote:
Flying again today?
Jim


Yep!

Thanks, Tom!
From what I've seen, don't think Sammy The Snail will be going home with you. I know Kerrie doesn't like him.
Jim

On Wednesday, 18 January 2017 21:44:13 UTC+2, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Well, the difference between 66% and 75% is 9%, so it's a matter of degree.

No it isn't. If winner flies 100 km/h, you score speed points from speed range of 66-100 km/h. That is 34 km/h range. Diminishing that to 25 km/h means 26% reduction, not 9%. So you are in effect taking away quarter of point spread awarded to fastest "lone wolf".

There is simple scoring formula that is understood by most, the GP scoring. If that is what pilots like, it is available.

Sure, you can take a percentage of a percentage, but it kind of misses the bigger picture about how scoring math works and what the tradeoffs are. You can't just talk about one objective in isolation. You have to check snider how they play off against each other.

If your goals a

1) Not penalize landouts so much that coming up 2km short knocks you out of the contest - especially if you are unlucky enough to be the only landout for the day. This is the case being discussed where scoring encourages staying in gaggles most of the flight.

2) Award points roughly proportional to speed/winner's speed.

3) Not have long landouts score more than the slowest finishers.

4) Allow for wide variations in finishers speeds and still have proportional scoring as in #2.

You have a problem that is constrained such that you can't maximize all the constraints at once. My personal view is id rather compromise on #4 a bit and somewhat on #3 in order to optimize more around #1 and somewhat on #2. The reason is because doing that helps prevent a bit of bad luck from knocking a pilot totally out of contention (the gaggle incentive problem).

Increasing weighting on #3 and #4 might be good if you are optimizing for score differentiation in the bottom half of the scoresheet, but they also contribute to separating the bottom half from the top half because slow finishers and landouts get even fewer points.

In the US rules we used to have 400 max points for a land out which allowed finishers to get points differentiation down to 40% of the winner's speed. We've upped it to 60% now.

I don't know if 75% is too much, but it's pretty clear that if you want to reduce incentives for taking risks flying away from the gaggle, reducing the penalty if it doesn't work out would help - as was demonstrated to clearly by Sean's situation, which was exacerbated by how IGC devaluation works where a lone landout gets 300-plus points. Miss the last thermal getting home and drop from 3rd to middle of the pack. It's no wonder people elect to stay in the glider tornado even though they mostly claim that they hate it.

One person's perspective FWIW.

9B

"check snider" -- "consider"

(autocorrect)

We see a lot of that these days - knowing the rules going in and
complaining about the results later. If you land out, you're not gonna
win the contest. Note: I did NOT hear Sean complain about this and do
not intend to imply such.

On 1/18/2017 12:44 PM, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Well, the difference between 66% and 75% is 9%, so it's a matter of degree. I've seen speeds less than half the winners on occasion (and complaints about the resulting score). Lowering the percent does focus on relatively small numbers of points between pilots who have already dropped 250 point to the winners. Dropping 340 points to the winners instead of 250 so you can claim a few dozen points against another pilot who is waaaay out of the money seems like it might be worthy of re-thinking as it only solves an ego problem with very slow finishers wanting to feel like they did better than a long landout or another very slow finisher. You pay a price in more important parts of the scoring formula (because math!) to create points spread at the bottom of the daily scoresheet. We need to look at all of this holistically. You can't push on the ballon on one side and expect it not to bulge out somewhere else.

A little adjustment to 75% doesn't matter as much as the assymetry of devaluation that BB describes, but it does create tension for other considerations.

9B

--
Dan, 5J

Ok, let's imagine score formula that gives 900 points to all finishers and remaining 100 points are awarded according to speed. No more gaggles, problems solved?

Wrong. Nothing changes. Same pilots will win and others loose. All we change is point spread between pilots. If winner of the whole competition gets 10000 points and last one 6000, new formula gives 10000 to winner and 9500 to last one. Point spread is very small, but it is as difficult to make any difference by flying as before. Next we start calculating decimals.