Intermediate or advanced depends sadly on if you look up or down. A 5p may still feel to be intermediate compared to a title holder.
The way to counteract may be to remind what’s the reference like for example: ogs’ users
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Intermediate and advanced players know what kyu and dan mean. So for these categories, it’s enough to say what they mean in terms of ranks.
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Lets just rather keep it short and simple, “beginner” “intermediate” “advanced” are probably enough, and those are easy to translate. Espesially for younger users (as well with mobile users) its better to use short and simple words, and avoid using “experience” as a reference to their skill level.
Or maybe, if we assume that almost every person who creates an account is either a beginner, or someone who has some idea about their own rank, it might work if the buttons are just labeled “beginner” “20kyu–5kyu” and “5kyu+” (with starting points at 25k, 13k, and 2k, or something like that)
Something thats not included in this proposal, but might be good to implement at the same time: bring back the question marks to visually indicate that an account is new and thus might have wildly incorrect rank
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Agree, I think short and simple is fine. For reference, here is how chess.com does it, and seems like the UI is mature:
I realize the conversation has moved past this, but I didn’t want to ignore the question - I think one-time ratings correction might be overkill in this case. I imagine the group of active players that has extremely incorrect rank at any one time is relatively small even in the current system.
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I think those never went away… I’m still seeing them!
Okay, I’m convinced that we can leave out the ranks entirely.
- Simpler for beginners.
- For intermediate and advanced, it doesn’t matter much anyway.
- They won’t get scared away by losing or winning a couple of mis-matched games.
- Their rank will correct quickly (ratings calculator says the swing from the first win/loss with deviation 350 is 3-5 ranks).
- Leaving it blank (even for intermediate and advanced) keeps anyone from over-thinking it, and keeps beginners from feeling overwhelmed by how much they need to learn (“I’ll never learn what kyu and dan mean…”).
- Easy to translate correctly to all languages.
I’ll do a poll though:
- Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
- Beginner, Intermediate (range), Advanced (range)
- Beginner (range), Intermediate (range), Advanced (range)
0
voters
EDIT: If we do include a range, let’s assume it’ll be hidden in hover text, per Uberdude’s suggestion up-thread. I agree that’s the way to do it. Just a question of whether we include hover text.
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I like the hover text ranges. I have voted in the polls, but any of the options given and the whole proposal in general would be a great improvement on the current system.
About the 9 stone handicap restriction - I (and others) have proposed it in the past as a way to allow beginners to play against other beginners and beginner-bots even with the rank ?(12k(6k)). In the proposal this does not seem as necessary, though it could be helpful in allowing people to quickly stabilize their rank in case of wrong initial selection.
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And so never visible on mobile? That’s good as far as I’m concerned!
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Depends on implementation, but it’s common to show tooltip text via long press on mobile
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How did we go from too long to too short? The ranks associated to the categories need to be made clear.
As a current 1 kyu, I likely would have chosen “Intermediate” if I didn’t see the ranks, and I can assure you that starting ~ 10 kyu vs ~ 3 kyu would be a different experience.
I’ve mentioned this before (here): people can be quick to label someone a sandbagger or just turn down games because you have a long winning streak.
I’d like to be able to start at the appropriate rank. Please make sure ranks are clearly marked.
As a sidenote, polls are biased and not great without a larger sample and the categorical variables needed to segment them. The results in this case are likely strongly biased by the users current rank and the experiences they’ve had starting a new account (either here or on other servers).
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Can you expand on how you feel it would be different? I’m not sure I understand.
From what I can tell through simulation, with Glicko-2 the ratings move fast enough for that kind of “error” that it wouldn’t cause much frustration. The rating calculator says it takes four evenly matched games to cross the divide:
- Configure black as 1250/10k (start deviation 350), white always same rank and deviation 75
- Black beats 10k => 6.9k
- Black beats 6.9k => 5.1k
- Black beats 5.1k => 3.8k
- Black beats 3.8k => 2.8k (deviation 160)
- Configure black as 1700/2.8k (start deviation 350), white always deviation 75
- Black loses to 2.8k => 5.4k
- Black loses to 5.4k => 7.2k
- Black loses to 7.2k => 8.7k
- Black loses to 8.7k => 10k (deviation 160)
Also, an intermediate/advanced player can just hit up a bot to fix their rank if they see the rank is off, since they’re savvy enough to understand ranks. A new 10k that beats an established 2.8k (bot) will become 2.3k in one shot.
The results in this case are likely strongly biased by the users current rank and the experiences they’ve had starting a new account (either here or on other servers).
Sure, we all have different motivations. My goal is to improve the experience for beginners. I think intermediate/advanced players can sort themselves out as long as the ratings system adjusts for them.
(But, NOT part of this proposal, I do think giving intermediate/advanced users an option to take their IGS/KGS/AGA/EGF/etc rank with a lower deviation could address the problem you’re concerned about. But one thing at a time.)
EDIT: Sorry for the early post before. Finished now.
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Another thought… whatever we do here, we could collect some data after a bit and see how well it’s working.
- Are we still seeing slow descent? If so, we can try to figure something out. If not, we can find some other way to improve the beginner experience.
- Are we now seeing the opposite? If so, maybe we add some text (as you suggest), or maybe we allow users to specify a rank.
(etc.)
(I.e., I think this can be a bit iterative…)
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Sure. There are players that refuse to play agains folks that don’t have an established rank. This makes it more difficult to find games when you’re an experienced player that just created an account.
Case in point: people just started a thread about this today. 
an intermediate/advanced player can just hit up a bot to fix their rank if they see the rank is off, since they’re savvy enough to understand ranks
Not really. Knowing your approximate rank and knowing that you can leverage a bot to rank up are two different things. You are familiar with the system, but that wouldn’t occur to me naturally unless someone pointed it out to me.
Sure, we all have different motivations. My goal is to improve the experience for beginners. I think intermediate/advanced players can sort themselves out as long as the ratings system adjusts for them.
I don’t believe delving into the intricacies of my past bad experiences helps further the discussion much.
Rather, could you expand on why you don’t want to put the ranks at least for the Intermediate / Advanced? I don’t see how that makes the system more user-friendly for Intermediate / Advanced players.
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This proposal (with or without explanatory text) does nothing to directly address that problem. All players will still start with a ? rank.
(After this system is in place for a bit, maybe those with established ranks will be less worried that ? means a beginner in disguise?)
(NOT part of this proposal, but: maybe we could have a “New Users” group that all new users are added to (but can leave at any time), and other community ambassadors are in to help them find their way.)
(NOT part of this proposal, but: maybe (some of?) the automatic site-wide tournaments should allow provisional players.)
Not really. Knowing your approximate rank and knowing that you can leverage a bot to rank up are two different things. You are familiar with the system, but that wouldn’t occur to me naturally unless someone pointed it out to me.
Good point. I think there are lots of things that could improve the new user experience.
(NOT for this proposal, but maybe there could be a Getting Started guide? And/or a checklist of things to try?)
could you expand on why you don’t want to put the ranks at least for the Intermediate / Advanced? I don’t see how that makes the system more user-friendly for Intermediate / Advanced players.
It doesn’t. It makes it more user-friendly for Beginner players. That’s the main benefit.
I agree that it is slightly better for Intermediate/Advanced new-users to have ranges. But, only slightly, because:
- Their rank will still be provisional and shown as a
?. (That problem won’t be fixed by this proposal.) - It will only take 4-5 games for them to move from one starting point to the other, if they selected the wrong one. (This doesn’t seem too bad to me?)
(Probably, the right thing to do is give Intermediate/Advanced players an opportunity to provide their rank, after they click the button. I feel like that’s what would be necessary to solve the problems you want to solve. But I’m not seeing the need to make that part of this proposal?)
I think having three streams instead of one is forward progress, and having ranges available in hover text (or if you click on the ? image, or whatever) is sufficient guidance for now.
It seems like you disagree, but maybe we can just try it, and then collect some data?
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(NOT for this proposal, but another idea… we could have a “find your rank” challenge interface pop-up (as an option) for provisional users. Maybe all they select is time control and the interface picks a bot with a rank that will help determine the user’s strength. After the game, they can do it again.)
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Maybe i am not aware of some progress in the bots world, but interesting beginners bots still have to be created. Seems to be quite a challenge.
Anyway lot of newcomers are shy to play with humans and try bots at first which is not really something i would like to promote myself as i do believe that playing humans is far more interesting.
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Maybe to give up on the question mark (so not distinguishing at first sight provisional ranks) could help against a possible discrimination?
The original spirit (on kgs) was to help challenges to be accepted as the ranking is not affected by playing with them, but if it is not efficient in this way then just don’t put it.
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I missed the part of the hover text. I agree. If we have it in hover text, then I don’t see any problem. My main point was that just using the words “Intermediate” and “Advanced” is not clear.
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I closed the polls.
For starting ranks, after a 20/19/19 votes:
| label | num votes | top pick | top percent | weighted average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 20 | 20 kyu | 40% | 22.4 kyu |
| Intermediate | 19 | 10 kyu | 42% | 11.8 kyu |
| Advanced | 19 | 3 kyu | 42% | 2.4 kyu |
Weighted average is a nice wisdom of the crowd solution, in which case the closest “round” (divisible by 50) ratings are:
- Beginner: 750 (21.8k)
- Intermediate: 1150 (11.9k)
- Advanced: 1750 (2.2k)
For including ranges (as hover text), after 13 votes, seems like it’s close to a three-way tie between putting the range:
- 38% everywhere
- 31% nowhere
- 31% only on intermediate and advanced (not beginner)
I’m reading this as 69% want a range at least for those two, and 62% don’t want a range for Beginner. Or we could have hover for all three, but that’s my reading.
- Beginner range: not shown, 25 kyu+ to 12 kyu
- Intermediate range: hover, 16 kyu to 1 kyu
- Advanced range: hover, 4 kyu to 9 dan+
I’ll update the proposal at the top, too.
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Yeah, that’s interesting, or if not give up entirely on question mark, at least always show the rating system’s best guess for the rank. So new users start with “21.8k?”, “11.9k?”, and “2.2k?”, instead of “?”, “?”, and “?”. Could be done as a follow-up.
@anoek, WDYT?
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