There are some reasons written in the first post:
"
Dan ranks seem pretty hard at this time and it makes it seem like
there are less strong players than there really is. There is no real
point to having the strongest lower dan ranks of pretty much all servers
right now.
In fact, it might be hurting the server since it creates a lack of
2-3 dan players, which makes it harder for newcomers in that range to
find games, and stay on the server."
Oh and score should of course NOT be a factor in the effects of a game on rating.
Are you kidding me? Any dan-level players at the very least should understand that the margin of victory means nothing. Many players play a style that frequently captures dragons, while some others like to drag out the game and win by 0.5. When we are leading, we may allow our opponents to catch up a little by playing defensively but not letting them catch up completely (I donāt do this though, I donāt think itās good to turtle up ;p).
One dead group can make an enormous difference in the score. Also, a 5d could play a 2k and only win by 15 points. Sure, the 5d could have played more aggressively and forced a battle of fighting skills and widened the score, but that would mean they have to play differently out of worry about rating. That would make no sense at all. If the weaker player plays very well and very solidly, thereās sometimes no reason why a strong player would win by a lot, because winning by a few points is enough. The fact that the 5d would win 10/10 games is whatās important, not the margin of victory.
At a local Go club there are a few players somewhat close to my level (and a couple that are totally out of my league, actually), and thereās 1-2 of them whom I play often and who somewhat often only lose to me by 4-8 points. However, these individuals lose to me close to 20/20 games we play. So it doesnāt matter how much you beat them by as long as you can keep winning! All of those games could be half-point victories, but as long as it happens consistently, I am a lot stronger than them. If Iām winning 19/20 games or better, than Iām most likely 1.5 or more stones stronger than them (donāt quote me on that guesstimate. Maybe itās 2.5?).
Harsh dan ranks defend the honor of Sandbaggistan.
Well, the sandbaggersā ranks would be bumped up or down the same way everyone elseās would, so it wouldnāt change the fact that we live in Sandbagistan.
In 2026 it is still about 3 stones difference between Fox/Tygem/WBaduk and OGS.
3D OGS probably stronger than 6D Fox. I donāt really know about kyu ranks, but itās seems to have less discrepencies between servers than dans.
The curious thing is that it was not that long ago that we calibrated ranks to AGA and EGF.
So is it also true that being a Dan in AGA is harder than being a Dan in Fox?
Yes.
Working as designed.
So what weāre really saying is that Fox Dans are wussesā¦ 
But on a more serious note ā¦ is that the right place to position an online go site? 
Because the OPās conclusion is the same as ever: we tell ourselves we donāt have many Dans here ā¦ while at the same time knowing that anywhere else our SDKs would be called Dansā¦
I think trying to align with EGF and AGA ranks is a good OGS server policy given its audience and position in the go server market. Deflating the dan ranks isnāt going to make all the Tygem 9d Korean kids play here instead of Tygem.
The calibration to be close to AGA ranks and EGF ranks is a sensible one.
Other sites like Fox have more EGF/AGA dans than OGS, itās (supposedly) easier for them to get games there. Inflating OGS ranks doesnāt help with that.
But I have reason to think OGS needs recalibrating to be close to AGA and EGF ranks again. (Iād do it gradually though: Add a few rating points to the players after each game they finish, so that the loser loses less points and the winner wins more points.)
Here are ranks of a few people I know, who have played rated games on OGS recently.
Given that EGF ranks are slightly stronger than AGA ranks, I think that OGS ranks should be adjusted by at least 1 stone.
My rank is almost exactly the same on ogs and egf, iām currently just below the 3k threshold on both systems. But i feel its much easier to gain higher ranks everywhere else, including aga and all the other servers.
So maybe some adjustment is needed if we want to bring ogs ranks back to that āhalf-way of aga and egfā ?
I was thinking about making a suggestion, but I didnāt want to make a new topic and I was going to go look for a suggestions thread, but since this came up and this is relevant, a slight change in the tournaments might help out in the better calibration of the ranks.
Considering that OGS has different ranks for different time settings. Here is my ranking and what happened:
I recently joined the Irish league to improve/train a bit in smaller time settings, without realising that the games would be ranked and I wanted to try the square fuseki and sideseki, predictably I lost most of the games there and the result was the main rank falling from 2k to 4k (in box D), while my relevant time rank fell to 8k. (box B).
Then I joined the ābeat the kyu be a dan 2026ā tournament to play some games and have some fun and maybe recalibrate my rank to its correct level and I realised that the tournament didnāt take into account my around 2k rank in the correspondence level (box C), but it took my main/global ranking of 4k at the time of joining (box A) which was a rank that had dropped due to a totally different time ranking than the one used in the tournament.
Now here is what happens. I am in the ā4k bracketā of the tournament, the only rank that changes when I win or lose is box C, and a lot of other players in my table have a rank of 3-4k in that time setting. This means that I joined a tournament to āimprove my rankā, but in reality if I go 50/50 in wins/losses, I will practically lose ranking, because the tournament uses the correct sub-rank for the win/loss ranking change, but when the tables are drawn the overall skewed-by-other-time-ranks general ranking is used. Case in point, Iāve won almost as many games as Iāve lost in the Irish league, but box E is lagging, because the wins are on a different sub-rank. If I lose a couple of games, most of those gains will be probably gone even if I finish top seat in my bracket.
I do not personally mind that (now that I know how things work, Iāll just join the appropriate games in order to eventually fix that 8.3k sub-rank) think that amending this issue through all the hundreds of tournaments in the website (just make the tables take into account the appropriate sub-rank that will change in case of a win/loss in the tournament) will make the ranks more accurate and more fluid and the tournaments more balanced and enjoyable.
I was under the impression that sub ranks are completely cosmetic.
Maybe they can help tell some story as you said, maybe a player played around with some setting, game size, timing control and lost rank because of it, then maybe you can see some ideas that they used to be stronger in other time controls.
Though you can see it in the rank chart too, and the game history.
In a sense though if youāre experimenting with an opening or a new time control, the rating is doing what itās supposed to, itās decreasing because the performance wasnāt as good as expected.
Maybe Iād be a 6kyu if all I play is the black hole opening, so the rating will drop as I lose games to reflect that.
The rank table is a true classic in confusing players 
It would be, if it paired you with people that had the relevant time-rating ranking.
For example, I should have been in the 1k-2k table in that tournament. Thatās the change I am proposing, all the rest of the post is the explanation.
I did play āunconventional fusekiā in all the games in this tournament as well, so if I lose games, Iāll still drop in rank, as I should.
But if I win, I wonāt get as many points as I should. Thatās the issue.
Since November 2024 Iāve watched multiple SDK bots drop 6-7 ranks or so while running exactly the same code, and over the same time my rank has dropped 3-4k as well. I see that kind of thing in the history of a lot of familiar players here. Whatās going on?
I used to have hopes of reaching dan someday, and now Iām struggling just to stay at 10k. Whether or not thereās a real problem with the ranks, itās kind of demoralizing.
While I personally donāt worry much about it I also feel like ranks got about 3 stones harder in the last 3 years or so.
That roughly coincides with the introduction of a certain feature, which I will not specify because I donāt want to help any trolls. I expect most of you are smart enough to figure out what I am talking about and what the consequences of that feature are.
I also feel that the ranks have gotten harder in recent years, but maybe that might be just normal deflation since ogsās rating system isnt anchored into anything? Or maybe its because i dont have the time to play as much as i wanted to, so iāve not as sharp or serious as i once was?
Guess its also worth mentioning that i used to be quite solidly at ~2k for very long time, and even managed to briefly make it to 1d in 2023. And now iām 4kā¦ >___>
