Time to make dan ranks weaker?

[yebellz]

@Tarot

Score should obviously be a factor. But in an early resignation the score estimator should be severely off, so would playing the game out, at least to endgame, be better for your ranking?

Score and manner of victory (i.e., timing-out vs resigning vs final score) are not factors, and they should not be factors in computing ratings.

Here are some reasons why they should not be factors:

1. Incorporating score as a factor would change the game significantly. A player winning by a solid margin would be discouraged from “playing safe” while ceding some of their margin. A player losing by a slim margin might even be discouraged from playing bold moves that could potentially reverse the game given the risk of further widening the margin.
2. Incorporating these factors would be complicated and controversial. Difficult, and likely arbitrary, design decisions would have to be made. Rules like “10 points equals one rank” are very rough (and bad) heuristics at best.
3. Worse of all, depending on exactly how this was implemented, players could potentially abuse the system in various ways, e.g., (potentially) resigning to avoid a large margin of defeat, lengthening a hopelessly lost game, timing-out to escape a worse rating impact, etc.