How about if we wait for you to do the work and then we tell that you need to change it afterwards.
With that kind of thinking, you’re ready to run for the Executive Board, Tom. 
I agree with those who say it’s about time official ratings were revised monthly, but think this should begin in March rather than January, and the players should be prominently notified in the December, January and February issues of Chess Life and on uschess.org. I was not aware of this change until today.
Bill Goichberg
As the monthly lists will start in March, the Liberty Bell won’t have this problem (whichever way we decided, some players would have entered the wrong section and/or been upset). By the time we run the Eastern Class in March, we should be able to use the March list with very few players being surprised.
Bill Goichberg
I thought Bill Hall had mentioned that he was hoping to go to monthly (online) supplements during 2007 during the August meeting (the one after the Delegates Meeting), I know it is something he and I had discussed a few times over the last year, I thought you were part of those discussions too, Bill.
Also, see BINFO 200603489 “October Supplement Build is complete”, though I don’t know if anyone on the Board ever responded to it.
I think it came up with the Scholastic Council at (or before) the US Open, too, since it might impact what ratings to use at spring nationals.
The possibiilty has been mentioned in several threads in the Forums.
I think waiting until March is a reasonable idea, though I could also see waiting until May so that it doesn’t impact the 2006-07 school year events much.
I could also see creating the January (and even March) lists anyway, but requring TDs to use them only if announced in advance publicity.
Overturning a fundamental policy that has been in effect for close to thirty years is not a routine office decision. Making such a decision without public notice and debate, or even an explicit vote by the EB, is simply bad management.
Aside from the many headaches the new policy will create for TDs, I have two basic objections to it:
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It’s pointless except as a publicity stunt. (“Look how fast we can do things now!”) Rating changes over a period of less than two months rarely if ever say anything about underlying playing strength.
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Combined with the discontinuance of hard-copy rating supplements, this will make it pretty much impossible for anyone to organize or direct tournaments without a computer and internet access. Ah, well, perhaps we have too many organizers already.
The subject (of going to monthly official ratings) definately did come up at the delegates meeting.
Printed supplements are still going to be available (for a fee). Are we going to start PRINTING them monthly? I was under the impression that they would continue to be printed on the old schedule.
Maybe the decision to do this was only made to appear like it was actually made.
As I understand it, the only thing the office will be printing and sending out is the supplement pages themselves, not all the front matter. The Top 100 lists will appear on the website, as will Tim Just’s column (assuming he keeps writing one.)
Depending on the demand for the monthly lists, I think the plan is to print them in-house on a laser printer that supports duplexing (printing on both sides) or have a small number of them printed up locally each month. They’ll probably be stapled together, possibly with a cover page on a heavier stock.
We may also offer the ability to order custom rating supplements as PDF files from the TD/Affiliate Support Area. (For example, all players in Oklahoma who have appeared in a rating supplement in the past 2 years.) These would probably be sent by email rather than downloaded from the web, since it may take 5-10 minutes to generate a PDF for a large state and many browsers might time out before then.
I disagree with point #1 regarding rating changes. I find that active scholastic players who are moving up rapidly would benefit from monthly updates of their official ratings. Some scholastic tournaments have upper sections that are restricted to players above a certain rating. At least with monthly updates there’s a better chance those improving players’ ratings will have moved up within the month to qualify them for the higher section. Also having a higher rating impacts the pairings the player gets. I have found most parents and coaches rather have the higher rating used to improve the quality of opponents in the earlier rounds.
Regarding point number #2, hard copy will be available at a cost. Some may moan and groan about that, but costs have risen. Why print 2,000 supplements if only 500 people need them?
I think the majority of active TDs and organizers who would be impacted by monthly ratings have a computer with pairing software, and internet access. Maybe they don’t have internet access at the site, but the pairing software and the most current downloaded supplement is usually enough. I can’t remember the last time I’ve actually used a paper supplement.
So what about the small club with the old school TD who doesn’t want to spend money on Swiss-Sys or Win-TD? Recently I joined a club like that. How did the TD run the club championship? Real simple: “Show me your USCF card please. Didn’t bring it? OK, What’s your name? What’s your ID number? What’s your rating?, $20 please.” He actually didn’t even have to do that much. The club Treasurer has club members’ USCF ID#. on his membership roster. It was not a big deal if the rating was off by a few points in either direction.
I agree that for scholastic tournaments monthly supplements would be a huge improvement, and are in no way a “publicity stunt.” I personally would like to see a January 2007 supplement.
Since most people seem to prefer a transition period, I would be in favor of making the odd-numbered supplements optional during the transition period, as others have suggested.