Glicko-2 does not require accounts to start at 12 kyu. So why do we do that?

[Uberdude]

@Conrad_Melville

The reason for the abandonment of letting players pick their rank, from what I heard from older moderators, was that it created way too much work for mods getting requests to adjust players’ ranks.

I’d solve that with:

1. People can pick starting rank but it still has very low confidence so will adjust quickly
2. Better help and instructions on the pick your rank page so that they get it right. You could even have a few tsumego.
3. A policy that admins simply say “No, make a new account and choose better” to such requests and stick that in the FAQ.