I will start responding on world ranking rules comments in the
World Ranking rules topic.
This topic was intended more for ranking comments like "Why is Mr X before me in the ranking?", "How is my point calculated?" and "The ranking sucks!".
Funny is that I haven't got a single comment from Europeans that the ranking in 2003 is skewed in the USA (Californian) direction. This because of the worlds in California was the largest point producer. Never heard any complaints about Maurus Strobel and Chris Hart (some of the fastest skaters in the world) are ranked low. And they have never complained about it. They just realize that, "Hey, seems like I didn't compete enough last year. Better change that for 2004." And so they have. They don't automatically blame the ranking for not having a higher placement in the ranking. They blame themselves.
All this about I beat him so I should be higher ranked is so hard to judge. I did beat Ramon Königshausen last year. Now he is one of the fastest racers in Europe. Unfortunatley I'm far from that myself. Some competitions you do well other you might not. It's so complicated that I will not even try and explain it all. It may depend on the discipline, the course, the weather, you traveled all day before, it's your home spot, got a new board, wrong wheels a.s.o. a.s.o.
The ranking will reflect the world ranking rules. If you are a very good slalomer and you have competed the minimum requested of you then I would be surprised if you where not at the top of this ranking. If you haven't competed enough your point will not be accurate. The average point can give a hint of the caliber of the racer but having few competitions may skew even that. Tay Hunt for example has the best average of everyone since he did very well in his only counted competition last year, the Worlds. This doesn't mean he would have been number 1 if he had competed more. The more you compete the harder it is to maintain a high average. His "true" ranking is imossible to know until he competes more.
It's true that the top amateurs can be placed before pro's in the ranking. Or even an amateur that competes a lot can be before a pro that competes rarely. In the second case it's not the am's fault but rather the pro's fault for not competing enough. In the first case an Am running home a lot of top placements will get well awarded. Better than some of the medium pro's. But this you will not be able to do for more than one season. Beacuse then it's up to the pro's and prove yourself. It may also be a good thing to show that it is not because you call yourself a pro that you will be faster than all the better Am skaters. Even though you will always have an advantage racing pro in general. I think this is ok. If you want to call yourself a pro and race with the pro's you will be awarded positivly even though you may be slower than many Am's.
The so called "Legends" class already exist in the ranking rules. The age limit is set to 45 and up for the moment but we don't have a good measurement of what the age limit should be. For the moment some of the fastest skaters out there are quite old...