ranking list

[Clive Coles]

Would be interesting to know what proportion of the BOF membership is local. Anyone able to get their hands on such statistics ?

Local BOF membership may be more attractive to those who live in remote areas of the UK. i for example have to drive for over an hour before I hit my first motorway. That's why i tend to orienteer within my region as travelling times are slow. Seems pointless to pay the extra when I am unlikely to be able to recoup the cost from events I travel to across the association border. I just pay the £2 non-member surcharge.

I guess the same considerations are applied by members in Northern Scotland, parts of Wales and in Cornwall.

How about the Northern Irish ~ how often do you jump on a boat or plane to orienteer ?

[Scott]

In 2008, 27.8% of the total BOF membership were Local members, according to the Annual Report.

[Clive Coles]

Thanks Scott

I think that's a lot of members to exclude from the rankings ~ more of an issue than I thought.

Perhaps we need another poll Eddie ~ you are now the expert !

[andypat]

I feel the ranking list, if it wants to be a ranking of the best orienteers in each age class, should have a weighting towards major events.

I agree Jon. Some sort of weighting towards a "Grand Slam" of events seems fair enough. What events would you choose though?

[Clive Coles]

Let's try to avoid repeating all that has been saidby the 4~tier thread but if we split the middle tier into 2 you effectively create a category for high prestige regional events that could attract a higher ranking tarrif than your bog standard regional event. It should IMO be up to the association to nominate the events that were elevated to this status.

[paul]

I agree Jon. Some sort of weighting towards a "Grand Slam" of events seems fair enough. What events would you choose though?

It shouldn't be what class of event - it should be when competion is greatest. How about if you have 100 ranked competitors on your specific course then you get "competition bonus points"?

[Simple Soul]

I think that's a lot of members to exclude from the rankings ~ more of an issue than I thought.

I suppose there is nothing to prevent Regions from running their own Rankings on their Regional websites for their Local members, and come to think of it, Clubs doing the same. You may end up with three sorts of Rankings - National, Regional and Club, which could perhaps be thought of as three levels. Perhaps that is another thread though.

[seabird]

I've obviously been asleep on this local/national membership issue. I was still slumbering in the world of Local membership meaning you were a member of a club only - not BOF. So I was quite taken aback by recent postings on this thread.

Seems to me the price differential between the two is too great for the small difference in benefits. For must of us the only real benefit is the discount, which only comes into play if you enter at least 8 events outside the Region. Most of us won't orienteer internationally, won't suffer greatly getting two less Focus per year or not being on the rankings List,

I consider myself a pretty active orienteer and live very close to a neighbouring region yet I doubt that I will have attended the 8 events outside my region in the last 12 months to make my full membership financially worthwhile.

For me full membership was primarily about supporting those who represent us at International level (something I would never benefit from personally), and contributing to the developnment off the sport. However little I nowadays orienteer outside my region (in this country) I have no intention of becoming a local member.

I think the rules re eligibility for ranking should remain just as they are. It would seem it may be an incentive to join Nationally for at least one person!

[graeme]

I feel the ranking list, if it wants to be a ranking of the best orienteers in each age class, should have a weighting towards major events.

And unfortunately you'd be wrong. Since most people can't get to six "major" events, all such a weighting does is give a higher ranking to people who go to more major events.

You may have noticed I'm ranked above you . And we can probably agree that's a nonsense . But if you have a weighting to, say, all Level 1 events, I'm EVEN FURTHER ahead of you, even though you're British Champion, simply because I went to the JK as well.

(Actually, you probably are ahead of me in the much-more-accurate but secret ranking which is used to calculate the points but we're not allowed to see.)

[EddieH]

[quote]And unfortunately you'd be wrong[/quote]

A rather didactic statement Graeme. You may be right in this instance, but I believe Jon is right. Just a gut feeling this, but for most of the clearly overranked people I see, some unnamed regional event or 2 or 3 appear in their top 6 scores.

As fot he idea of bonus points when there are over 100 competitors - NO you might get that number at a course at a conveniently sited level 2 event where people are not putting in the extra effort. However at the Scottish Champs which is clearly (for Scots at least a prestigious event - this is where the ranking should be weighted.

In fact if the new level 1 regionals attracted this weighting i believe it would give them just the boost they need to be the flagship events that BOF want them to be.

[mappingmum]

all such a weighting does is give a higher ranking to people who go to more major events.

But that's exactly what the rankings and all leagues do. They don't always show who are the most competent orienteers, they reward regular attendance at events.

[graeme]

Apologies for didactics, occupational hazard of talking to physics professors
Well yes mappingmum, that is exactly what they do, and I've no problem with that. And like Eddie says, if you give a ranking boost to level 1 events, that may encourage people to go, which would also be a good thing.
But Jon's idea that would produce a more accurate "ranking of the best orienteers in each age class" is, simply, wrong.
There are plenty of good reasons to weight higher level events, but higher ranking for better orienteers isn't one of them.

[greywolf]

The arguments for and against weighting major events were well rehearsed on Nopesport, within the RWG and through the membership consultation, and in the latter two at least the majority view was against.

If you believe the best orienteers in each age class are the winners of BOC & JK (and I wouldn't disagree) then fine, but you don't need a rankings list, just go look at the list of BOC & JK winners...
...but the rankings list is supposed to be there for all regular and competent orienteers, not the few who win the big races

If you want a competition based on performance in a suite of important races, then fine, i'm sure that could be organised: 9 or 10 races a year, best 6 to count, scoring based on position...maybe it could even be branded with a snappy name, like...the UK Cup??

Eddie, there are a number of reasons (discussed at leangth here already) why some orienteers are over-ranked against others - as it happens both you and I are over-ranked vis-a vis M21s - both of us are counting points from small L2 events, but that's not the reason My best six events have a spread of 28 points, yours 51 - about 2% & 4% - many others have a similar pattern and as the anomalies are ironed out this should become the norm. If you give any significant weighting to a small subset of events it will completely unbalance the list - attend 6 nationals and you are effectively guaranteed a higher ranking than you deserve.

[awk]

I respect people who win the big races - they have produced the goods on the day rather than run loads of lowly "badge" events and had some good performances here and there. I feel the ranking list, if it wants to be a ranking of the best orienteers in each age class, should have a weighting towards major events.

So do I (respect the winners of big races). I also used to think that we should employ a weighting. But I have been persuaded otherwise (at least in terms of the best coming out on top).

In very simplistic terms, I know, but surely if those people DO produce the goods on those days, beating those who won those lowly regional events, then they will get loads more ranking points, and go top of the pile. I'm not sure of the statistical accuracy of this, but it strikes me that the quality of the field will effectively give some weighting towards those who win these races.

[graeme]

[In very simplistic terms, I know, but surely if those people DO produce the goods on those days, beating those who won those lowly regional events, then they will get loads more ranking points, and go top of the pile.

Er, no. I'll have one more go at this...

Assuming you want the list to accurately reflect who is the best orienteer

Think of each event as a measurement of how good each person is. It might be a very accurate measurement (like BOC), or an inaccurate one (a small L2 event). To understand the statistics, let's do an analogy...

Say you're trying to measure rainfall. You have accurate measurements from the Met office stations, and less accurate measurement from local raingauges all round the country. What do you do? You probably have some gut feeling that the accurate measurement should have more "weight", but that the other stations have a useful story to tell. How to do that?

What you don't do, is add 25% to the measured amount of rain at the met office reading because it was more accurate! Yet that's how ranking list weightings were always done...
What you might do is say that one lot of met office data is worth, say, 5 of rainguage data. The ranking list equivalent is to say that your BOC score counts as (say) three small events.

In fact, if you assume all courses are equally fair, and everyone tries as hard at all events, then you can calculate the right weighting : its the square root of the number of participants minus one . But those assumptions are obviously silly

Of course, only people who like stats really want the list to reflect the best people. During the event structure consultations it became clear that most people see the list as a surrogate competition and want it to encourage participation. The current system recognises this through having one secret list for generating points, and a different list for public consumption.