The "how long have you played?" question is disrespectful

OGS Development
21

I think most people would find the time slider to be quite informative(though might not be so accurate), especially for new players. I think the slider is just as offensive as those online life expectancy calculator/ or a teacher who told the student the median grade of the class, which is not very offensive after all. (though some might argue how dare you estimate my life base on my living habit…, but it there any other simple way to do so?)

Plus if someone have played longer than the time indicated on the slider to obtain a certain rank, then it’s same as telling them that they might might not be as devoted as other player/they’re studying it the wrong way. People should view it as a well-intended advise instead of something offensive.

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22

In the USCF chess ratings, I believe provisional status stays for 20 games. 5 does seem a bit low to me, too. However, I believe that the provisional rank is not calculated by elo. Those 20 games are just to find the elo you will start at. I could be wrong, though.

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For those of us who only play correspondence, completing 20 games would take if not forever than at least a couple of months. As there is not much of anything one can do on OGS while provisional (there are no ladders for provisional players and practically no tournaments), I don’t think increasing the limit would be a good idea.

Additional restrictions on qualifiying games suggested by @spatula make sense but they also could make it harder to find opponens. I had absolutely no problems finding qualifiying games on OGS with my current account, but years ago I’ve had pretty bad experience elsewhere. Not everyone is eager to play newcomers with uncertaing rating and the more restrictions there are the uglier things can become.

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Back to the topic.

Yep, I do not think it would. As I understand it, the slider is here mainly to help those who have little or no idea about their strength. And changing labels as you describe would be asking them how strong they are. That’s exactly what they don’t know. Some would inevitably answer they are “stronger than most professionals” and the rest either over- or underestimate their ability depending on their temperament. :slight_smile:

Changing “how long have you played” to “how many games have you played” or “how many games have you won” might work, but I don’t know if it’s any less offensive. :wink:

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25

Hello,

In my opinion, this question is not disrespectful at all and I personally would not change anything and would keep it as it is.

In my opinion, this question should not be offensive to any rationally thinking person. I can find it offensive only to hypocritic person.

Please lets understand questions like that as helping tool, not as measurement which is “deciding fates of our lives”. :wink:

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26

Like i said already I don’t think it’s that big of a deal after all. However I disagree with how it is now because it’s a weird question to ask anyone that’s not a beginner, new site joiners are forced to lie. It’s strange to select on a timescale(with an incorrect value) instead of the rank directly.

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There’s no reason to insult the OP. First of all, the OP explained quite clearly and politely what the problem was and second of all, this has nothing to do with being “rationally thinking” or “hypocritic” (or “hypocritical”).

Is it possible that you have no idea what hypocritical even means?

I am in favor of not changing the slide, but I am in favor because of weighing the pros and cons, not by denying that noone could possibly see a con in an outcome I prefer.

I am not in favor of people using “rationally thinking” for “has the same opinion as me”.

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Hello Wulfenia,
I am sorry, but I did not intend to insult anybody and I still do not see insult in my post, I was only expressing my opinion. I am sorry I also do not know what is meaning of “OP”. I have to disagree, but I really see difference between rationally thinking being and hypocritically thinking being. (I am sorry for mistake, English is not my native language.) In my opinion rationally thinking being can see difference between “helping tool” and “final judgement”, while hypocritical being will take everything word by word to the tiniest letter and will use “tool” as “ultimate truth” standing above any and all to decide, including above any “logical reasoning”. Tool should not function as law or ultimate truth.

I am also not in favor using “rationally thinking” for “has the same opinion as me”. Do you suspect, this principle was used in my previous post? If I would say statement that “In my opinion, any rationally thinking person would agree, that spruce has usually green needles”, would you think, I am again using this principle? I do not see any indication, that I think this, it is just expression of opinion, what I think, that “rationally thinking person” would think. :slight_smile: And same it is in my previous post.

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29

Motylek,

English is not my native language, either. However, I have already told you that you probably don’t know what “hypocritical” means and instead of doing the obvious thing and looking it up in a web dictionary of your choice, you insist that the OP (which is a common internet abbreviation for original poster or original post) is “hypocritically thinking”.

According to wiktionary “hypocritical” means “characterized by hypocrisy” and hypocrisy is explained here:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hypocrisy

So, you have been repeatedly insisting that the original poster is either lying or engaging in an activity that they criticise in another. This is completely unwarranted and objectively insulting. Probably even you don’t like to be called a liar.

Furthermore, it is an empirical fact that many people feel unwelcome due to issues similar as those described in the original post, i.e. the feeling that others deem them inadequate. Your decision that they simply should not feel this way because you don’t feel that way is not supported by any fact or logical reasoning except that you regard yourself as center of the universe and call your own feelings “rational”. And this is why I say that you regard “rationally thinking”= “the same opinion as me”.

Incidentally, I don’t feel unwelcome by the slider, but I am actually able to understand that this is just my personal feeling and not a fact about the welcomeness of the slider.

I personally regard your reuse of the word “hypocritical” after I told you that you don’t understand it and your unelightened self-centeredness calling itself rationality as offensive, and the completely unwarranted use of a smiley doesn’t help with this impression.

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Wulfenia, it looks like you need very detailed answer, so please forgive my longer post.

Hypocritical means (according to source of my choice) “behaving in a way that suggests one has higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case”. Somebody, who is developing his go skill in slower tempo than average go player and then feels being disrespected when facing slider where is time/strenght relation, is definitely hypocritical, because he simply rejects fact, that he is developing in slower tempo than he should and is clearly pretending, that his standards are higher, than they are, he rejects, he is under norm. I do not know, why do you not see this obvious case of hypocritical thinking, Wulfenia, but I am convinced, you are wrong on this.

Wulfenia, you are wrong also in another part of your post, because I not even once, not to mention repeatedly insited, that original poster is lying. I also did not mention, that original poster is hypocritical. You probably do not like to be called liar too, right? :slight_smile: (Just rephrasing your own words.)

Wulfenia, you are wrong in third part as well. I did not decide that somebody should feel some way, because I feell some same way. I never made connection between how I feel and other people feel. I was only expressing opinion what I think, but you are already in second post insisting that somebody is feeling somehow, because I feel somehow. Please think about this … Object from group A can have opinion about some other objects from group B without being member of group B. I never mentioned, that somebody is thinking/doing something based on how I think/do something. I just have independent opinion. You are fourth time wrong also in stating that I am regarding myself as center of the universe.

You seems to be obsessed with comparing me to self centered being. You do not know anything about me, so how could you judge me? :smiley: You do not even know when I smile or how I smile, so how could you know when my smile is completely unwarranted? :slight_smile: But please lets not discuss further about me, ok? :wink: And please lets make clear, that I did not even once wrote anything like, “because I am rational, everybody else is rational only if he thinks, what I think”. Only you are saying it, Wulfenia, not me. You are continuously trying to put your words into my mouth.

Motylek

31

My two cents. The slider isn’t insulting, it’s just too optimistic for many of us. And as a native speaker of English, I would not call the hurt feelings of those who underperform relative to the slider to be hypocrisy. So I agree with Wulfenia on this one.

Perhaps the word you seek is “delusional”, though it would not be particularly helpful to bring that idea into the conversation.

1 Like
32

Hello Saxmaam,

I think, context of my original post was a little lost due to “kind of emotionally engaged intervention of Wulfenia”, so I will try to better explain idea of my first post. I was not stating, that “the hurt feelings of those who underperform relative to the slider” should be called hypocrisy. Even rationally thinking person can be disapointed if he realizes, that his performance is below some standard. However meaning of my statement is:

“Those, who are performing below standards and now they will realize it and then they would also not want to accept it and reject it instead while stating; no no no, this is wrong, I am on or even above standard and this slider is wrong; those people are hypocritic and those people will very likely feel offended.”

Those, who are rationally thinking and despite they are performing below standard, they can see it, they could think about what to do to be better. People like that will very likely not feel offended. It could be even that they are playing go just for fun and they have different goals in life than being better at go.

I am against removing or widening interval, which will result in less accurate evaluation and only positive effect would be, that at least 95% of population will fit into it and so they would feel being content, even despite their subpar results.

I hope, I explained it better and I hope, you now see, I did not mean to say anything in direction of your quote.

Motylek

33

Motylek, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the aptness of “hypocrisy” to describe this situation.

Best wishes, Saxmaam

PS - examples of hypocrisy:

The television evangelist who rails against homosexuality was arrested for soliciting a male hooker.

Jayden’s feels that his father is hypocritical because Dad sleeps with his girlfriend but doesn’t allow Jayden’s girlfriend to sleep over.

Sarah calls Jane an alcoholic, but Sarah drinks like a fish.

A certain politician wants to do away with food stamps and welfare, but he worships his mother, who pulled herself out of poverty with the help of food stamps and welfare.

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34

Teacher gave to class results of math exam. John’s result was showing, he is subpar, but John rejects result and instead John demands that teacher will change exam mechanic, so John’s result will show, he is at least on standard or better, because John’s bad result is fault of teacher.

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Right. we disagree

36

This may be one of those instances where an internet conversation has gone off the rails from its original discussion which, while maybe not resolved to everyones satisfaction… would seem to have reached a nice place to wrap up the discussion to keep things from getting too far off-track.

If you disagree with this assessment then please drop me a note, if there is some other topical discussion to be had related to it then lets start a new thread, in the meantime… I’m going to close this one down.

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