Show Kyu/Dan instead of Glicko Rating on Player Profile

I have to say that I don’t find the current rating display arrangement confusing. In fact I think it’s quite clear and doesn’t detract in any significant way from a UX point of view.

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That’s the main thing about errors in usability in systems which are already in place. You are so used to the way you know that you almost never notice how much easier it could be if you could chose another way, only when someone points out and say “Hey, things doesn’t need to be this harder. Let me show how this can be easier if we made this way instead”.

Well, I disagree. Let me point out a few more things:

  • There are right now 2 rating systems being used in OGS. Can you tell me which purpose they serve? You may say that: “Glicko is used for matchmaking and kyu/dan is showing that info in a more accessible way to everyone”. Well, in that case, you just proved my point. Because, right now, Glicko is being shown as a main info on the player profile, which isn’t what he was designed to in first place. Which makes the player ratings table and the graph, in some cases, unreadable.

  • Can read (that is, clearly understand) Glicko rating? If yes, then where/when do you learned about it? Because I can tell you one thing for sure, I didn’t learn how to read in Glicko when I learned how to playing Go. In fact, if wasn’t for OGS I would never even know that it existed in first place.

  • You said that the current rating display placement doesn’t detract in any significant way from a UX point of view, but you haven’t stated why do you think this way. Can you please elaborate more on why you think UX isn’t being degraded in this case?

  • I know this may sound rude and definitely isn’t my intent, but can you be 100% sure that all users agree with you (that is, none of them has a UX problem with the player profile)? But if you can’t, and surely neither can I, this poses a big question for both of us. What I think about this, however, is a pretty simple concept. Despite if a UX problem happens with the majority of users or with a minority of users, I feel that no one should have your usability degraded because of something that adds little or no value to some users, especially when all of them (and in this case I can tell you for sure) would be profiting from this change.

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Fundamentally I come to OGS to play Go.

This issue being discussed here doesn’t affect my ability to play hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of games.

I would content (without evidence) that the ability of my many, many oppponents’ ability to play Go against me is not affected either. I would stick my head above the parapet and go further to suggest that for most people on OGS it doesn’t matter.

As previously mentioned the rank is everywhere in one’s face where it matters - the Home page,
the Game page and also on the profile page right after one’s username.

The number rating (Glicko) is (I believe) only prominent on the Profile page in the chart and the graphs. But even with the graph, hovering over it shows both the number rating and the rank.

Does it bother me? No.

Does it affect my use of the website? No.

Do I understand number ratings? Yes - check out Wikipedia for a comparison of ELO ratings against ranks.

If there is no specific reason for number ratings on the chart and the graphs and it’s easy to change in respect of the code then sure, why not…

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It is fairly easy to change, but perhaps it should be made an option in the settings.

Only the overall rank is actually used. All the other rating are purely for information. Were they kept as ratings to avoid confusion? Would people assume that a 19x19 rank would be used when creating a 19x19 custom game?

Sorry, I worded that question a bit poorly. Let me rephrase that. Can you use the Glicko Rating as a personal mean for referencing your own skill, the same way as you do in kyu/dan?

Not exactly. Kyu/dan is only shown in the graph when your overall skill is selected. Try selecting another cell in the table, and you will see that only glicko rating will appear when hovering in the graph.

Oh, I think I see where are you coming from. It seems that we are disagreeing even on the subject of what we are disagreeing on. I will again explicit some more UX concepts that I used when formulating this suggestion.

One of the very widespread methods for evaluating the severity of an error in usability of a application (Nielsen, 1998) is to divide those problems in 3 categories, ordered from the most severe to the least severe:

  1. Catastrophic problem: which completely hinders the user from finishing its task (Example: some problem that might cause stones appearing in the wrong place on the board)

  2. Serious problem: which disturbs the user from finishing its tank (He manages to finish the task, but the experience isn’t what it’s supposed to be)

  3. Cosmetic issue: which doesn’t affect his usability in general, only annoys him. (Think of a typo or a visual glitch)

You seem to think that I am categorizing this problem as a “Catastrophic” which isn’t true. I am categorizing the way Glicko Rating is shown in the user profile as a “Serious Problem” . Why is a “Serious Problem” and not a “Cosmetic Issue” you may ask. Simple, because it’s not possible to utilize the information that Glicko is supposed to present in the way it’s supposed to be used. Therefore, it’s hindering my access to that information and a correct utilization of this information.

You could solve this by changing to a kyu/dan which is already widespread adopted ranking system, and this time you can assure the user can understand that information, since it’s expected that a user who plays Go online to understand about the kyu/dan system.

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I found anoeks original post about why there are only the Glicko numbers in the breakdown.
There is no relationship between all this ratings.

I also stumbled upon an user to illustrate it a bit.

Correspondence Breakdown

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Ptro you have delved deeper into those graphs than I have ! :smile:

I’ll take a big step back and agree that the chart as ranks rather than numbers is more accessible.

However for me the chart is something that I actually ignore and I wouldn’t miss it if it were not there. But I don’t consider that it detracts from the design/layout of the page so I’m not bothered.

On that page the only statistic that is vaguely interesting for me is the overall graph showing rank/rating

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Yes. For someone who has only played 9x9 you might expect the overall rating to be the same as the 9x9 rating. However, I would guess that the overall rating is calculated using your opponent’s overall ratings which will include 13x13 and 19x19 games. This would account for the difference.

It would be useful if a developer could confirm this, or even better let us see the relevant back-end source code. :slight_smile:

Whether you use glicko or kyu/dan doesn’t really matter a whole lot to me. Both are easy to understand on a fundamental level: the higher the number (regarding kyu as negative), the better you are.

Supposedly one handicap equals one kyu/dan rank, which is roughly 60 Glicko score, a little less with weaker players, a little more with stronger players, due to Glicko being logarithmic. However, in the end both scores are just numbers. You can’t express someone’s strength purely with a single number, so it does appear to be a “cosmetical problem” rather than a “serious problem” to me. In no way does it disturb me from finishing my task (playing go against other people and having a rough estimate of who of us is the better player based on some numbers: both perfectly undisturbed), but it does seem to annoy some people.

What I have a “serious problem” with, is that this is my rating table:

It does not make sense to me that my ‘overall rating’ (which one would generally assume to be the average of all nine the categories) is higher than every single individual rating. It therefore clearly is not the average, so what is it then? I play almost exclusively correspondence and 19x19, so I can accept that the other ratings are not up to date, but then why is my 19x19 correspondence rating 150 points (or 2.5 kyu) less than my overall performance?

This is what makes the table unusable, not whichever arbitrary ranking system it’s using.

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Wrong assumption.

As I understand it, each rating is calculated from the pool of games in that rating, separately.

If you click on the rating itself, you can see the progress of your rating in that category, as the separate thing.

Since a different set of games goes into each rating (including your overall one, which includes all games) and there are a different set of opponents associated with each, they do not roll up - the are separate related but independent calculations telling you how you are going in each pool.

As I understand it.

GaJ

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That is wrong.

We have one rating system, and it is Glicko. Our performance is tracked and rated using this system.

From it we calculate a rank, to allow us to have easy to understand and compare with other sites ranks.

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I think that toomasr has pointed out the one real problem with the current table and system.

He wants to use his 9x9 rank to find games with other 9x9 playing people using their rank.

It has been asserted (IIRC by @anoek) that our overall rank is what is used in finding games.

If that were true, then toomasr’s method would not work.

However, others (IIRC @Sarah_Lisa ?) have pointed out evidence that our game matchups in fact are using the sub ranks. toomasr’s method backs this up. I presume he gets a different rank for himself when he creates a game depending on the game type that he creates[1]

And if that is true, then it is indeed a big gap that we don’t get shown what our sub-ranks are. We would need that information to properly find the right players to play with.

The argument would be this:

1 Game matchups are based on my sub-type of game ranking
2 But nothing tells me what my sub-type rank is, I have to calculate or workaround to find out.
3 That sucks.

This only holds up if ‘1’ is true.

If ‘1’ is not true, then there is no practical purpose to know the equivalent rank of your sub-type rating. The trend of the Glicko rating is all you need to know: going up or down etc.

GaJ

1: I haven’t tried this myself, maybe I should. Maybe I will.

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I had a quick look at the custom games tables. The rank shown there is always the overall rank, not a rank derived form any of the breakdown ratings.

I tried for myself with my very different corresponding ratings. All 3 games shown the overall rank.

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In that case,

  1. @toomar’s elaborate method would seem to be for nothing.

  2. There is no point in showing the rank equivalent of the glicko rating for the sub-types. That rank is not used for anything.

GaJ

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I was pretty sure that someone would probably get confused with this definition, but I didn’t wanted to extend the text any longer. You example is fundamentally wrong on what you are considering as a task which depends on the rating table. The ratings table was created, from at least what it seems right now, to complete the following task: “I want to see and compare my ranking in different board and different speeds”. When talking about the rating table, this is the task being considered, since it’s the only one that could answered by using it.

What is or isn’t a task is considered a task in UX is a bit complex subject, and to my opinion beyond the scope of this forum. But simplifying a lot, think this way : Tasks are question that the users asks in his mind when using a site/app. One site, most of the time, never serves only one task. The player profile in OGS, for instance, serves many many tasks, example: “I want to see my history, where do I see it?” “I want to see my reviews, where do I see it?” “I want to see my ranking development over a time, where do I see it?” If still unclear for you please say it, so I can clear any misunderstanding.

Well, I don’t think you have read my point entirely, just the bold question. Cause if you did had continued for a few more lines you would that notice that this is precisely what I am arguing about.

  1. Just by having a discussion about what ranking is being used in different situations already show crystal clear to me that really exists a big UX problem in the ratings table. The user shouldn’t even have to consider a possibility like this. It should always be clear to him what is his ranking being used, since this is a fundamental information when playing Online Go. I’ll put this question under discussion again: what purpose is the ratings table is supposed to be serving right now? Is it really being successful in it?

  2. Well, this simply doesn’t makes any sense. First, this information is already being shown, so the problems that could be avoided by hiding it already exists (see point 1 and also reread your mention about Sarah_Lisa). Second, the information is being shown in a way which few people can understand (please look for what I am considering as “understand” before discussing about the use of this word), which makes unusable for the most people. And yes, I do know how this may seem contradictory in a first look, but please consider that it’s always necessary to consider the multitude of background from with OGS users come from, and that different users have different assumptions even when using the same interface.

I also would like to point out that I am not only discussing about the player ratings table, since the graph (in some cases) also privileges Glicko instead of kyu/dan.

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In that case, I still don’t see how I wouldn’t be able to compare my rating to yours: if my number is higher, I’m stronger, if yours is higher you’re stronger. If it’s higher by a lot, it’s a lot stronger.

Inherently kyu/dan ranks also don’t mean a whole lot. Someone is 5k on this site, 10k on that site, 1d in his local club, it’s pretty arbitrary. I just discovered that even on this site alone we’re using 10 (or maybe 16?) different pools that don’t correspond with each other. So I don’t see a huge problem with comparing Glicko instead of kyu/dan.

I can understand the desire for consistency across the site though, so I agree on that point that it’s better to show the same kind of rating everywhere. I think that’s the main issue on this question, rather than that there is something that’s difficult to understand about the glicko rating.

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Indeed, if a simple 2 by 2 comparison wasn’t possible than it would be a “Catastrophic problem”, not a “Serious Problem”. The issue with “Serious Problems” is that you can finish what you want, but you must work around the problem. The user is led to expect a direct path to the result, but there is none available.

Again, let me use another example: Imagine if to login in OGS you had to first enter on the about page. You never expect to login in any website to be on the about page. It does work perfectly, if you input the correct information you are successfully logged in. But do you really think that is a expected behavior from a user standpoint?

The problem when using Glicko to show information in the user profile instead of kyu/dan is that isn’t expected from a Go player to understand Glicko (again, not only just read it, but fully make use of it), while it’s extremely expected from a user to understand (same definition as above) kyu/dan. And because of that, the user can’t utilize the information in a way that is expected from him. Again, how can this not be a “Serious Problem” ?.

It never was about the complexity of Glicko, but rather how it doesn’t allow such a intuitive use as kyu/dan does. If OGS at least did provide the user with enough information about the Glicko system so that he can utilize the same way he currently utilizes kyu/dan (such as a info box for instance) than there would be no reason for this topic even exist in first place.

I will use another example to illustrate my point, in hopes that this time it can be fully comprehended. The metric/imperial system. Can you utilize both of them, even if you are just versed in one? Sure. Can you easily understand that 20 feet is bigger than 10 feet, or that 100 meters is bigger than 50 meters? Sure. Can you translate measurements between the two? With some help, but sure.

Now, here is the catch. If you born and grew up only utilizing the metric system (my case for instance), can you have the correct dimension of what 80 feet represents? No, I don’t have a clue. It’s it bigger than a football stadium or smaller than car? I don’t know. Could I search for the information and then figure it out? Sure. But then, if right now isn’t anymore 80 feet, but 135 feet instead. Do I truly have the dimension of what 135 feet means? No. I could guess based on the 80 feet information, but even then would not be very accurate. Now, If you come to me and says “135 feet is equal to 41,148 meters.” then I would, without a doubt, have an extremely good dimension of what you are talking about.

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You know what, I think I have come to agree with this statement:

The table of rating numbers for different game types should be displayed as rank”.

Can anyone succinctly summarise why this should not be the case?

I vaguely recall in the past an argument why it isn’t that way, but I can’t remember what that argument is.

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From what I can recall quickly, someone said that the devs thinking it’s misleading, since it’s using different scales. What, for me, doesn’t make any sense, since they are already showing the same information, but in a not so friendly manner. Someone versed in Glicko should be able to reach the same conclusions that they are trying to avoid the users from doing it in the first place.

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The official statements about that.

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