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

[dragon-devourer]

@Conrad_Melville

Again? OMG.

@dragon-devourer

this has the restriction that new accounts start at 12 kyu,

Not true any more

Thank you for your reply Conrad But I must protest that I’ve been quoted out of context. A more complete quote would be (emphasis added):

@dragon-devourer

[Glicko-2] has the restriction that new accounts start at 12 kyu … But this is actually not true!

Thank you for noting that the 12 kyu is wrong If I understand correctly, it should be 12 kyu because of humble rank but that’s broken so it’s actually 6 kyu. So the situation is even worse than I thought! The important point is though that new accounts are starting at this high rank (12 kyu or 6 kyu, doesn’t matter) which is likely incorrect for most new accounts (too high for beginners, too low for dans). But there is no such restriction in Glicko-2 that says this must be the case, so why are we doing it?

@BHydden

the only two fair options are 1. Everyone starts in the middle and 2. Everyone can pick their starting rank.

I agree with 2 But actually 1 is unfair as beginners have to lose a bunch of times against much stronger players before they get a rank.

@BHydden

If we make dans play their way up from 30k

This would be crazy! I’m not suggesting that. New accounts of IRL Dan players would declare an initial Dan rank and they would start from there. No climbing up ranks required. Only new accounts of IRL beginners would declare an initial rank of 30 kyu. A blank declared initial rank would revert to the existing default of 6 kyu.

@Uberdude

@Conrad_Melville

… letting players pick their rank … 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.

Point 1 is exactly what I am suggesting

I agree with the “better instructions” part of point 2 But I think tsumego would be a step too far. Better to keep it simple and have something like “If you really don’t know, just leave it blank and your rank will automatically adjust after a few games”, in which case it would revert to the current behaviour and just start them from 6 kyu.

For point 3, no need to say “make a new account and choose better”. The answer is the current response of “just play a few more games and it will automatically sort itself out”. Declaration of an initial rank just sets a more appropriate starting value and so is just a way to skip the “lose 5-6 games against much stronger players” phase (or “play a bunch of boring easy games against weak SDKs” in the case of new accounts of IRL dan players). There is no need for any manual adjustment of rank by mods ever.