On Apr 7, 11:00=A0am, "jeremy.p.spin...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"
<jeremy.p.spin...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> An analogy I would make is with grades at a university. These are
> taken very seriously; there is no doubt more possibility for
> corruption than in the USCF rating system. There are people who have
> cheated the system in various ways, no doubt even including people
> giving money for grades in rare cases.
>
> There is not any organized attempt to determine whether an
> individual's grades were tampered with. When it does come to light, it
> is usually very much like Sam's case; someone cannot understand how
> this individual received such a grade, and pursues the inquiry. We
> certainly have no special checks on our honor's list students.
>
> I would not expect to find that the USCF has better system for catchin
> abuse than a university.
>
> As for quality control, the university and the USCF do very much the
> same thing. They monitor inflation/deflation of grades/ratings, and
> use various tools with varying degrees of success o try to make sure
> they do not get out of control.
Just to make this clear, let me say that the analogy is not to a
student cheating. A student cheating is a reasonably common event, and
the university is fairly vigilant. This is like the procedures in
chess to guard against a player cheating during the game.
The rare event is a TD/professor or graduate student cheating. This is
(I hope!) a very rare event, which is why there is not much attention
in either the chess world or the university to it. It is more serious
than a student/player cheating despite the rarity, and can do more
damage. In both cases, it is an issue of the people we trust to make
the system run actively undermining the system. It is usually exposed
in both cases only due to some accident, not because of fixed
procedures in place which guard against it.
Jerry Spinrad
>
> All in all, the USCF rating system is one of the few things the USCF
> has gotten right. There are many worse areas to focus on, and it seems
> strange to pick on the ratings system as a major feature of USCF
> incompetence. The magazine, management, and promotion are all far more
> im****tant problem areas.
>
> Note to those who remember the distant past: I still feel that the
> lowering of K factor for high rated players is not a good decision.
> However, I would not call this incompetence or abuse; simply a
> disagreement.
>
> Jerry Spinrad
>
> On Apr 6, 8:23=A0pm, The Historian <neil.thehistor...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Apr 6, 6:11 pm, "jeremy.p.spin...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"
>
> > <jeremy.p.spin...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > > This was the incident which I praised Sam for in an earlier post. It
> > > is amazing that this could be summarized as a case where a board
> > > member was forced to resign because of a dispute with the rating
> > > committee. This was a pure and simple case of ratings fraud. There
is
> > > nobody at fault here except for the board member.
>
> > > It is easy to say that the ratings committee should catch this, but
> > > very hard in practice. There are too many pieces of data coming in
to
> > > check whether every one is legitimiate. The rating committee's chief
> > > job is to set up a good system, not to police it. Every rating
system
> > > can be manipulated by a cheater placed in a position of trust. It is
> > > rare for a TD to cheat in this way; unfortunately, it is not the
only
> > > case. I do not hold the rating system or the rating committee at
> > > fault, just as I would not hold the national basketball league at
> > > fault if a referee is found to be in the pay of gamblers. The fault
is=
> > > all on the trusted individual.
>
> > > For those who tout FIDE's superiority in all things, FIDE has had
> > > ratings manipulations schemes as well. In this case, Sam did a good
> > > job exposing a cheater; blaming it on anybody but the cheater (in
> > > particular, making it seem like the cheater was a victim!) is a very
> > > strange way of looking at the case.
>
> > > JerrySpinrad
>
> > I agree the fault is on the 'trusted' individual, but one can make the
> > case there should be some sort of oversight applied to title
> > applications. I haven't the faintest idea of how this should be done,
> > or indeed if USCF needs to place such oversight in place following
> > Tannergate. P Innes, as usual, doesn't make any sort of argument one
> > way or another other than waving his hands and screaming.- Hide quoted
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