[2006] What's wrong with the world ranking system?

[Donald Campbell]

there are some folks who have problems with the way the system is done now
where are the problems?
could we all chime in to see what might be wrong or what could be done in a different way?
constructive discussion only-no b.s. nor personal shit.

let's go!

[Ramón Königshausen]

Guess you're talking about this proposal that dropped into some people's inboxes today...hm

I haven't spent much time in studying it. My fear is that we will probably get two (or even more) ranking systems. Some will prefer one, others the other one and so on - confusion included...

I don't know if you wanna publish this proposal here, since it's been sent to, maybe selected, people to give a feedback.


It shall be up to the creator...



rmn

[Donald Campbell]

actually i would like to know why there might be the need for somebody esle to create another system.what's wrong with corky's system?

[Pat Chewning]

I see the following problems with the system:

1) There is not a decision-making body or person empowered to award the various levels of races. The current system is a free-for-all discussion on the internet trying for concensus but rarely achieving it. Possible solution: An elected or appointed body of decision-makers for each region who can accept bids from race promoters and assign the appropriate level (Major, Prime, Main, etc). National organizations and the ISSA could be leveraged (if they were real working entities instead of just an internet forum).

2) There are lots of ideas about what criteria should be used for awarding the various levels of races, but no written guidelines or "rules" for applying the decision. Possible solution: The "Regional Directors" for each area come up with a written set of rules and guidelines for what criteria are important for awarding race levels.

3) Some regions (e.g. The USA West) are not proactive and timely in setting race schedules, bidding for the World Ranking race levels, and cooperative in sending in race results. It appears that the USA West is waiting to see what Hackett and McCree come up with -- and then the USA West will likely ask for high World Ranking levels for those races, regardless of missing the advance-notice deadlines. It's more of a "let's do our own thing" attitude, then complain after we see the World Ranking results. Possible Solution: Change the way the World Ranking levels are awarded so that regions can apply for these on short notice. Another solution: Award some World Ranking race levels to a race-series even before they have the details on location, date, events, etc. (e.g. Award One Prime and two MAIN to the series that they can then designate the particular race to a particular level).

4) Inequity in race levels per region. Possible Solution: # of high-level races are apportioned to each region based on membership of racers in the regional skateboard racing association. (Associations need to be created and slalom racers need to embrace the idea of joining.)

[Pat Chewning]

actually i would like to know why there might be the need for somebody esle to create another system.what's wrong with corky's system?

Your words say a lot. Too many people think of this as "Corky's System" and not "our system". No slam on Corky. But the attitude exists that the World Ranking System does not belong to us and is not in our control (or even in our control through a representative).

-- Pat

[Martin Siegrist]

natural selection.........

[Andy Bittner]

For what it's worth, and acknowledging that this post really isn't about the World Ranking system, I'd like to comment on Pat's suggestion of formal organization. As the guy who attempted to start the U.S. Slalom Skateboarding Federation, several years ago, I came face to face with the problem that makes formal organization so difficult in this market. Unfortunately, the majority of the players in this sport are under the very sorry misconception that, if an organization is a non-profit organization, it doesn't take much money to run that organization and that organization doesn't need to make money. Even racers who call themselves "professional" seem to think that membership in an organization that dedicatedly advances their interests should only cost them about $25 a year and that, for that $25, they should also get a t-shirt and other swag that will ultimately cost the organization almost all of the $25 they were paid. Until a majority of serious slalom racers realize that, in order to be big, we need to think big, play big and pay big, slalom skateboarding will remain a sideshow aspect of an already sideshow sport. I organized a charter Board of Directors that included Jack Smith, Gareth Roe, Terry Kirby, Gary Fluitt, Alan "PsychoLloyd" Sidlo, Joe Iacovelli, Brian Parsons, Carl "C-Money" Kincaid, Ricky Bird, Chris Raezer and Steven King. I was very excited by that start. I figured I'd roped in the "A-Team". Unfortunately, even a significant portion of that group couldn't be bothered to stay in touch, answer questions, advance and discuss relevent and possible solutions or agree upon a reasonable operating structure and financial picture. I tried to have people see that non-profit sporting organizations like the USGA (golf), NCAA (college athletics), USTA (tennis) and many very successful others are not shy about their need for money or in their efforts to raise it. Non-profit organizations do not achieve success by trying to remain as small as financially possible or by trying to not "bother" the people they represent, for financial support. I have years of experience as the business manager of a national, not-for-profit trade association, and know what operating a 501(c)3 or (c)6 takes. Without a fundamental shift in the perspective of most of it's adherents, slalom skateboarding still isn't there. It could be, but it isn't.

[Etienne de Bary]

Corky's work is efficient, parameters seem well balanced, ... one is free to invest a few years work in trying create one more convincing, i guess it would end up quite the same but with alt managers... then what ?

[Chris Favero]

the problem may not be the ranking system in and of its self,but having an org to help the promoters.it is nuts putting a race together and having some sort of marketing materials that are cohesive and professional would go a long way with a local governing body.some sort of consortium of experts would go a long way towards organizing a race calendar and ranking events.my 2 cents,cf
p.s.could add some credibility too

[Pierre-Yves Ritschard]

the system works, it is in fact better that what is found in downhill where a lot of different bodies don't interact.

i don't see the motivation behind trying to change this, the consensus is working as of today since there aren't too many parties involved, the decisions on points seem usually fair.

i'd think that trying to get involved in ISSA would be a better idea than trying to start from scratch and repeat the same mistakes as is usually done, doing this we will end up with several different "world champion", one for each ranking system.

[Rick Stanziale]

nothing

[alavoine jean paul]

I see the following problems with the system:

1) There is not a decision-making body

A democratic one, representing every country on the same level, the first step towards which being representative national skateboard federations... where French would be the official language??? Just kidding.

[Hans Koraeus]

Here are my answers to some comments on problems with the current World Ranking system:

1) There is not a decision-making body or person empowered to award the various levels of races. The current system is a free-for-all discussion on the internet trying for concensus but rarely achieving it. Possible solution: An elected or appointed body of decision-makers for each region who can accept bids from race promoters and assign the appropriate level (Major, Prime, Main, etc). National organizations and the ISSA could be leveraged (if they were real working entities instead of just an internet forum).

There are proposed rules of how this should be done. Start by reading this Setting Region Competition Statuses. It's true that there is no decision-making body, because there is no such body ready to take it on yet. I would have liked it but I will not stop doing things because it doesn't exist. It's not true that there are no person empowered to award the various levels of races. If the people in the regions can't handle it the World Ranking Administrator will do it. Again, if I trusted that all regions could/would have done it there would have been no ranking. The system is built up to work with or without a decision making body beacuse otherwise... no ranking.

And don't think there would be less critisism if a body like ISSA handled statuses. The discussions and problems deciding will still exist.

2) There are lots of ideas about what criteria should be used for awarding the various levels of races, but no written guidelines or "rules" for applying the decision. Possible solution: The "Regional Directors" for each area come up with a written set of rules and guidelines for what criteria are important for awarding race levels.

See the guidelines here. Same link as above. I think guidelines are good because you can't have rules taking into account and measuring it all. We still have to judge it manually, with rules or not. The guidelines are there to help organizers promote their events.

3) Some regions (e.g. The USA West) are not proactive and timely in setting race schedules, bidding for the World Ranking race levels, and cooperative in sending in race results. It appears that the USA West is waiting to see what Hackett and McCree come up with -- and then the USA West will likely ask for high World Ranking levels for those races, regardless of missing the advance-notice deadlines. It's more of a "let's do our own thing" attitude, then complain after we see the World Ranking results. Possible Solution: Change the way the World Ranking levels are awarded so that regions can apply for these on short notice. Another solution: Award some World Ranking race levels to a race-series even before they have the details on location, date, events, etc. (e.g. Award One Prime and two MAIN to the series that they can then designate the particular race to a particular level).

The World ranking has worked so far in USA west. If the people in the region don't care then other Americans will do it for them. In the end if nobody cares the World Ranking Administrator will do it for them. We can not have special rules for any specific region. We are all using the same rules. It's a very free system. They do what they want with their statuses as long as they follow the rules everybody else has to follow.

I'm afraid I must have to say your solutions above are very bad. They both heavily break the rules that are set up. Why create new solutions for a problem that is already handled in a good way with the current rules.

4) Inequity in race levels per region. Possible Solution: # of high-level races are apportioned to each region based on membership of racers in the regional skateboard racing association. (Associations need to be created and slalom racers need to embrace the idea of joining.)

Again, good idea but I will not let a world ranking depend on it before it exists and is usable.

Too many people think of this as "Corky's System" and not "our system". No slam on Corky. But the attitude exists that the World Ranking System does not belong to us and is not in our control (or even in our control through a representative).

Why is it important who's system it is? Is it not how the system work and how you can be involved in developing it. I would love to hear someone explaining how to create that "our system". Our tax system was created by "a Corky". The attitude exists that the tax system does not belong to us and is not in our control (or even in our control through a representative). What's new under the sun?


The grass is always greener on the other side of the valley.

Whatever ranking there is some people will always think that they have better ideas for an ultimate solution. But unfortunatly there are no perfect rankings. I have been through a couple. You just have to learn to live with the less good parts and try to use it to your advantage.

With my system it forces racers to travel. It also forces organizers to fight for statuses. It pushes for people to interact. It's a tough road to select but I took it because I thought it was the way forward I believed in. The system has also been changed a lot on its way during the years thanks to all the input on this forum. Even though I write the rules, the ideas and solutions are born in the interactions on this forum.

Some might not be happy that it takes so long to get to the top of the Pro World Ranking. Others say they like just that. Pros and cons. Pros and cons. You can never avoid it. Because someone can come up with a con it doesn't mean the system is bad. It's just brings forward a negative aspect of a system which always have a positive aspect to balance it up.

All choices I have made in the world ranking system has been done with a lot of thought towards the core philosofy behind it all.

So, what's wrong with the ranking?
Not more than with any other ranking. I'll stick to the current until someone else is ready to show that they are ready to take on the challenge with managing a new World Ranking system.

The mess in the downhill world with multiple organisations, multiple world champs, multiple rankings is bad for the sport. They would need "a Corky" to just give a shit about organisations, politics, regional cups and just create a ranking with it's only philosofy to be fair to all riders whatever the external "political" factors. We have all those political factors in our sport too. That's what Andy Bittner is talking about. That's why ISSA is not up and running like it should have been several years ago. Too bad but that's life. We are in a very delicate situation with our slalom skateboard world. What we do will decide weather it will become a future mess or not. It's all up to us. So let us all do the right thing and tone down our egos. It's hard but I'm sure we would all be proud afterwards. Let us get to a result where all egos could be proud and say that they where all a part of making it work.

[Claude Regnier]

It's time for a gorverning body. We are actually overdue. Andy likely remembers my fear from some of the names on his list. Not because they are bad people but would they be willing to push the Usssf forward.

We had a meeting with a gentlemen a couple of weeks back and he alsoadvised us to get a world association going as well a national org to push it forward.

Anyone interested post here. Perhaps this year we schedule some meetings in Paris as well as a few other venues while people are together.

It needs to be done.

Things have changed for the Hacket/Mmcree contest series so unless there is another change in the future it's dead for now. Mark we hope you get better.

The Issa rules and regulations are pretty good and could likely use some adjustments and modifications. Corky's system is good for now. He's done a lot of work to bring it this far.

When there is a respected world or then you will have a ranking system that most will find suitable. Forget about trying to please everyone, it ain't going to happen.

[Pat Chewning]

Sorry to everyone that I posted a few minor problems I see with the World Ranking system. I misunderstood the intent of the original posting. I thought we wanted to discuss whatever problems there might be and see if improvements could be made.

Evidently the system is perfect. Just ask all of the East Coast USA folks who were clearly in control of setting a status of a recent race event ........ and are fully satisfied with the system.


Original Posting:

there are some folks who have problems with the way the system is done now
where are the problems?
could we all chime in to see what might be wrong or what could be done in a different way?
constructive discussion only-no b.s. nor personal shit.

let's go!

Actually I believe several people are confusing the following two ideas:
1) The ISSA World Ranking System has some problems and these should be addressed within the framework of the ISSA World Ranking System.
2) The ISSA World Ranking System has some problems and should be replaced (or augmeted) by a new XXXX World Ranking System.

It is idea #1 that I thought I was addressing, not idea #2. There are too many good things about the present system (not the least of which is a hard-working manager of the system) to throw it away and start over.

[Jadranko Radovanovic]

It's time for a gorverning body.

Claude we are thinking the same.

And we started to work some things out.

the problem is, that is now a bit late to regulate things and have a body for this season.

But we can start now with the preparing and be ready for 2007.

Our Ideas:

Make a body where everyone can participate with a Membership.

From this pool, you make some groups of perhaps 5 people.
This people will be selected by all members.

The representatives will go in some of this groups:

- a group for the SS.com Forum.
- a group for the Status decisions. (for each region one group)
- a group for the SS.com front side.(post news, and keep the whole front side running with information about the Races, Ranking, Racer's and so on.)
- a group for the SLALOM magazine.(the sponsor for this magazine is ready and there are some volunteers (two) who want to help this thing going on, what we need are more people who want to write)
- a group who create a WorldCup Series (The Event's in the World Cup Series will all have the same point's, it will need a seperat Ranking System for this. The present World Ranking System will be still there)

That can be a first start.
And the Ideas must be worked out. I don't think that it makes sense to come together and talk about this things without some paper work and regulation which are done on paper.

I think we need to create new Topics in the ISSA Forum. Where everyone who is interested in joining this Organisation can give his/her thoughts.

Normaly in an international organisation, the members are national organisations or clubs. But we can try to look it will work with private persons as well.

I would like to coordinate this things and prepair the paper work. Switzerland has a good rights system, that's way all the big international organisations are here (IKRK, UNO, FIFA, Olympic commitee and so on)

Shortly my background:
I work for the Quality-Management in a company with 110 employes. My Job is to analyse the company together with the employes and than create new prozesses for the daily business. I organise this year the Grueningen race for the 7th time (started when i was 14 year's old) I have a good team behind me. (Stefan; who is electrical engineer, he can programm in all possible computer languages. Jasna; which works for a bank and do an higher education in business administration. She speaks French, German, English fluent and speaks a bit Italian as well. And there is a Marketing Company called Killo&Gramm which organise together with the City of Zurich the car free day. I can every time ask them whatever i want. And at least there is Jani Söderhall who i can call every time and who can give some help and advises.

/J-Rad

[Claude Regnier]

Pat, I don't think you need to say your sorry to anyone. Changes need to be made. Almost everyone agrees.

I was one of the guys voicing opinions about some changes that should have been made to the status for the lost points in the East this season. Clearly there should have been rules in place to move the status from one canceled event to a replacement event. I don't blame Corky for not allowing it to happen. I didn't like it at the time and still don't. The rules were there and no one took the time to ask the What if? question prior.

Now we know better. Everything in ISSA and the Our (Corky's) Ranking System needs to be gone over with notes taken and expose as many what if? maybe, ends and butts as we can.



Well said Pat - It is idea #1 that I thought I was addressing, not idea #2. There are too many good things about the present system (not the least of which is a hard-working manager of the system) to throw it away and start over.

J-Rad that is some very good information you posted. You are right. Our goal should be to have it all ready for 2007. Switzerland is the home for most major organisations as they have the best tax breaks for such things.

We have been pretty busy since Peter sent the proposed changes and once a few things are completed here at the sk8park I will have some time to make notes. I will also pull out my ISSA copy.

J-Rad I will see you in Paris.

[Hans Koraeus]

Sorry Pat if I my answers were too harsh. It's of course nothing personal against you. For me it's just questions. And I also thought we were talking about the #2 option.

I don't know how many times I have said that no ranking is perfect. Neither is the current. And that's why it has had its evolution since the start. It changes all the time. And often because of ideas coming when the reality knocks on the door.

There are now rules of how to handle cancelled events. It's just that I have had no time posting them yet beacause of other priorities. There are also some info of how you can seperate Pro and Am statuses for an event that is also good to know about. Both topics will soon be posted in the World Ranking forum. For now I have finally posted the 2005 World Rookie Ranking. Things are going forward behind the scenes. Sometimes it will just have to take its time so I don't break down.

When it comes to ISSA there is a whole forum for this. Go there and have a look. You will see that many topics have been handled already. If Jadranko wants to make a new push I'm all for it. Members already exists. I also think we need a "real" governing body set up. Why not in Switzerland if that is a good place. We have talked about where to place such an international body before and then wanted it in a neutral place so there is no European/American politics in it. But we need both side of the Atlantic pushing for it. Otherwise it will not work.

So far the World Ranking is on its own. It's not an ISSA World Ranking. It can't be until ISSA starts running and there is a descision to make it just that. That is why there has never been any ISSA symbols together with the ranking. It has always only been called "World Skateboard Slalom Ranking".

And finally, this was a topic to get hold of all the problems people might see with the current world ranking so don't stop. I will do my best to explain why things are like they are and in the best case someone will come up with new useful improvements.

[Vincent Berruchon]

Everybody seems to agree that it's time for the ISSA to become an organization with a real decision system, something that could be more official to represent all the actors of the sport (racers, industry, organizers).

We have to be united. I hope that everybody could agree on something, especially from the two sides of the Atlantic.
All the slalom actors from all over the world should be concerned so we could have a real international association with local representatives.

Corky, Danny and other : Bravo again!
The World Ranking system is working good. Doing something new from scratch to do the same would be a bad idea that would make things fuzzier than they are

[Etienne de Bary]

i think you must be right Vincent, ... until now Jani has used the SS.com financers as a limited decision college, ...
If we want to go forward we have to go thru the "evaluating the respective weight of each nation" process and make quotas, this process would be very destructive and painful since some of us don't think so much of the sport out of their country...
To make it clear: if we made a serious evaluation of the respective weight of Switzerland and USA in the sport, i suspect most US racers would refuse to admit the results, and this would weaken ISSA and this forum.
i suppose one could base the quotas on the top 20s racers (men and women) or so. Do we apply a parity system ? i'd say yes, i mean that would be a step ahead...

[Jani Soderhall]

Everybody seems to agree that it's time for the ISSA to become an organization with a real decision system, something that could be more official to represent all the actors of the sport (racers, industry, organizers).

I fully support these ideas and I think the best would that I step back and let J-Rad or anybody else who feel ready for it take my place and take the necessary actions to get it going.

I'll try to help where I can, but I cannot and shouldn't be the one driving this movement.

...hmm, maybe we'll start a new thread in the ISSA forum on this topic.

/Jani

[Etienne de Bary]

Anybody else ???

Hey, let's drop this for 8 hours, it's only europeans here now, let's have some reactions from the other side before we go ahead...

[Stefano Bellingeri]

Dear all,
I agree on that. What will be the next steps? How it will be possile to realise this project?
Should we have national racers responsibles to form a Board? How should the organisers enter the board? How will the sponsors enter in the board? What weight should be given to them? Mmmhmm it sounds challenging and all we deserve it, tough anyway.

Stefano

[Claude Regnier]

There is no need for you to step back. Everyone appreciates your work and I'm sure most people would prefer that you were part of the continued development.

If you are too busy on the other hand? We should have a mix of old and new. Each Country will need their own leaders. People who will work on national governing bodies to help operate and organise events.

We have many capable people around the globe as well as many that are not. Etienne is right about needing more of a voice from North America however. Where is everyone? I can't believe so many of you are silent. Even if you don't have the time to be part of managing or running an NEW/Updated ISSA we value your imput. Wether you like it or not it is what really needs to be done.

Everyone goes on and on about how to make things better. This is the 1st. step and long overdue. Don't forget it does not need but a few changes to meet up with the times.

[Hans Koraeus]

For you who wants to continue the ISSA subject let's get over to the ISSA forum section.