A modest proposal for MSA rating display

Running Chess Tournaments
1

At present, the Member Details screen in MSA has two columns, “Current Published Rating” and “Published Rating Effective on 2005-04-01”.

For players who will not appear in the April supplement, only the first column appears.

I assume that, beginning April 1, there will be only one column for everybody, “Current Published Rating”. I also assume that, beginning around May 20 (whenever the June rating list is released), there will again be two columns, “Current Published Rating” and “Published Rating Effective on 2005-06-01”. Thus, every two months, there is a one-column format for about 50 days, followed by a two-column format for about 10 days.

The following suggestions would, I believe, simplify the format, and make it easier to understand and more useful for organizers and players. (Might even make it easier for the programmer, as well.)

A. Change the column headings to “Published Rating Until 2005-04-01” and “Published Rating Beginning 2005-04-01”.

B. List both columns for all players, including players who will not appear in the April supplement. For players with no new activity, the two columns would contain identical information.

C. Keep the two-column format at all times. The February and April ratings would continue to be displayed until about May 20, after which the April and June ratings would appear instead (with appropriate heading changes).

D. Change the top sentence from “Tournament directors should use the current published rating unless otherwise announced in all pre-tournament publicity” to “Tournament directors should use the published rating corresponding to the starting date of the tournament, unless otherwise announced in all pre-tournament publicity”. The remaining sentence, “For unofficial rating information” etc, can remain as is.

I think this suggestion offers several advantages:

  1. The format would be uniform from player to player, and from day to day.

  2. Useful information would remain available longer. (Somebody might want to know, on April 4, what ratings “should” have been used in a March 27 tournament.)

  3. The screens need be changed only once every two months (on about the 20th of odd-numbered months) instead of twice (on the 20th and again on the 1st).

  4. Timing is less critical. As it stands now, you’d want the format to change from 2 columns to 1 at almost exactly 12:01 a.m. on April 1.

What does everybody think?

Bill Smythe

2

Your suggestions sound reasonable. I’m in favor of them, since it does tend to clarify when the rating displayed is going to be effective.

Now I also wonder why, at least in the case with my son, the rating shown in this display doesn’t correspond to the rating calculated from the last tournament according to the tournament history.

And I’d also like it if I could just hit Enter after typing in a name at the Member Name Search box instead of having to orient my cursor to the Search box. It’s easier to stay in the text box and just hit the Enter key with my little pinky!

Radishes

3

The most likely cause is that his most recently rated event either ended after 2/28/05 or was rated after March 15th. Those were the cutoff dates for the April Supplement.

I think Laura has the ENTER key serving as a SUBMIT key on the revised version of MSA, I don’t know what she did to get that to happen, I could not figure out how Gary Prince trapped out the ENTER key in the first place.

4

You can still keep your fingers in the keyboard without touching your mouse. Hit the “Tab” key after typing in the name then, hit ‘Enter’. You’ll just have to use both of your pinkies in this case.

5

Oh! So I get double the exercise! Good idea! :laughing: