Here is an idea that I think may be new, although it is so simple, I would be surprised if it hasn’t been suggested before.
Why not automatch “?” players only against other “?” players? Can’t that be coded as a special rule? It seems like that could be done without any change to the underlying ranking system. The pseudo-rank of 6k could remain as a baseline for the system to calculate people’s ranks, but it would play no role in automatching. This would give beginners their best chance of a fair game, and it would certainly relieve them of the discouragement they must now feel because of a string of crushing losses from much stronger players.
This idea would also have the advantage of greatly reducing the number of games that much stronger players must play against beginners (due to the fact that the rank-range restriction does not exclude “?” players), which has been the source of another whole stream of complaints calling for changes to the rank-range restriction.
This idea might not have worked in the pre-COVID days, when OGS got about 250 new registrations a day. However, when I stopped moderating, almost a year ago, new registrations were still at about 900 per day (down from a high, in my observation, of about 1,200). Since many players will remain unranked for more than their first day, I think the pool should be sufficient for automatching.
This is not a perfect solution. I don’t think a perfect solution exists. A significant number of “?” players are experienced players new to OGS or alt sandbaggers. However, such under-the-radar players would exist in any system. If it is technically possible to implement this idea, it would eliminate two problems without any change or upset in the ranking system.