The more we talk about the naming of the grades the more I realise this is very subjective.
If you are ranked in the top-positions you think a R95 rating is barely acceptable, but in reality it's barely acceptable for people playing in this top positions only. That's why they can choose to set a limit for their games. But there are quite a few out there that think a R90 rating is still very acceptable and that do not feel spoiled by a NMR every now and than. Esp. if they have put an auto-hold, so the NMR has absolutely no effect.
And usually both groups can play here without any problems. Problems only arise if players have different expectations about the game. And you can use the filters or passwords to avoid these.

Maybe it would be a better idea to remove the wording all together so everybody can use the ratings as is, and not some "forced" interpretation.

I have changed the hor.php.
It shows now quite a lot of numbers. You can view the difference the ^3 factor makes to the ratings. 1st row is ^1= the normal (noCD+noNMR)/2, 2nd is ^2, than ^3, ^4, ^5, ^6, ^7.
You can see how this stretches the original noCD+noNMR/2 for example from 96 to 89 in ^3 or down to 77 in ^5.

Oli, the problem arises when you award people a rating on 90, 90%, RR90, etc., and classify this as a good thing when the reality is that they average an NMR per game. 90% is a good grade on a literature paper, or a calculus exam, but it's horrible for Diplomacy. I think it's doing a disservice to everyone to call 90% a "good" rating. Your suggestion of removing the attached language is a good one, but it's disappointing to know that you think that 90% performance is acceptable behavior.

I think Retillion put it best a few pages back, or perhaps on the other thread, where he started that if your wife is faithful to you 90% of the time, that's not a good score. And the point of this exercise I would hope is to provide incentive to players to improve their reliability so that all players in the community benefit. Once again there seems to be a driving force here to assure that the mediocre, the lazy, and the spiteful players go unnoticed, unpunished, and worse, encouraged to continue behaving this way. If you ignore this element in the ratings, then no matter how clever you make the math and the scores, and the statistics, you're still just putting lipstick on a pig.

@RUFFHAUS: I just try to view at the ratings from different perspectives.
I would agree to Retillions statement, but I know at least 1 cupple that thinks 80% is sufficient...So everthing is hightly subjective.

I'm a highly casual player at heart, so I really have no problem with sub-par ratings. But I understand the need for the more experienced players to be able to lock players like me out of their games. But the roots of this site are deeply grounded in casual-fun.

I can totally understand the need for a competitive scene here, but I don't want to call other players "Bad" players just because they follow annother standart. So I think it's best just to remove the "name-calling". If you are unexperienced you do not care, and if you keep playing and want to start a more competitive career here you will learn soon enough about the standarts of the group you choose to play with.

Another point that should be made here is that while an NMR is bad for a game, a CD is significantly more than twice as bad because it leaves the nation in a state of decay and creates unnatural power vacuums across the board. In addition a CD is often more than just two turn NMR for the nation, it's every turn that the game goes without a replacement. In my opinion a CD situation should account for each phase missed, and then carry an additional penalty for the game abandoned.

Perhaps one way of addressing this would be to have players forfeit their points invested in games that the CD in to include the baseline of 100 that all players carry. It's one thing to bet points, and lose a game, and allow players to have that base of 100 . That's actually pretty good idea. But players walking away from games should lose those points off of their guaranteed minimum. This would serve to minimize the amount of games that they can go on to adversely affect and give them incentive to repair their reputation. I still think that asking for a ratio of two good deeds to each screw up is a good idea.

and the reason to simply post numbers is strengthened!
Oli may think 80% is a fair rating
I may think 98% is a fair rating
Ruffhaus thinks anything less than 100% is crap
and nobody is wrong! All the more reason to post simple statistics and let each person decide for themselves. It also avoids any sort of good or bad "label" being placed upon people based on this subjective personal opinion.

@RUFFHAUS: that's how it works already. If your country went in CD you do not get your points back. Even if below 100. They stay in the pot.
Also a CD gets a NMR in addition to the CD for each turn nth at no one else took your country.

@Tom: that's how I think now too.
But should we just use the NMR+CD / 2 without any additions or should we use a ^X factor to spread the top-heavy system. Or should we use something completely different?

my opinion...no formulas, simply a players statistics (plus the possible penalty added spoken of above)

Oli, it's not the player you call "Bad", it's his reliability.

No, it's the subjective interpretation of his rating that calls a player "Bad".

I think there's a limit in what can be called "subjective interpretation". You don't think Tomahaha be a "puppet" just because his profile so calls his skill rank, do you? Nobody does. Who would?
I believe we should trust our members' brains. I believe we can't refrain to tell our members the truth about their RR (especially to those who could improve it), just because there could be 4 brainless people out of 4800 misinterpreting it.
Isn't the goal of this whole thing having better games by improving the average reliability around? Then you can't tell everybody their RR is ok. It's a lie.

Bump.

Pardon, I couldn't follow properly the last half of this conversation.
May I know briefly what's new?

We removed the possibility to "ballance" your rating by taking over open spots in ongoing games. The RR is now just a representation of how many phases you missed and how many times you CDed compared to the total phases played and total games played. You can check the new calculation in your profile-page.

Yes, thanks Oli.
The RR now is a real measure of reliability, and this is a good thing.
You improve it only through committment.

Anything else changed?

That's the main difference.

The old rating did put a penality on the maximum games you could join if you CDed in too many games. This is still in effect, but there is no rating or calculation or number (or even "name") for this. If you CD or NMR too much you get a penality that you can remove by taking open spots (like bevore).

Among 21 new games, only two are currently set with (loose) RR restrictions.


"
if adequate tools are available but are not being used, then perhaps the problem is that players who create games are more concerned about filling their games than about making sure the players are reliable
"
Joseph the Most Excellent, 27 Feb 2014.


I've been hoping that the new RR system should've been a bit more popular...
Unfortunately, 2 months from then, we can now recognize that Joseph was right.

For what it's worth, I no longer join games without restrictions. It's not just NMR and CD I'm tired of. I'm also tired of players who rarely communicate in press games.

Perhaps it is only natural that Diplomacy players should separate organically into two classes: those who only want enough players in their games and are willing to bite the NMR bullet on the one hand, and those who are willing to wait in order to play a quality game on the other. And if this separation is quite natural, then we would be wise to cater to it.

For what it's worth, in my 'Cloak and Dagger' series, I ALWAYS use a reliability rating of 80% or better. Games have been extremely low on NMRs (blue moon), almost no CDs (1, maybe 2, over 12 games, which I think is good for this site), and now I have a pool of highly-dedicated players in this series, including many of the top players on this site. (Past players in the series are continually encouraged to return for future games and runs.) I find the RR settings quite beneficial.