Hi Jaimie and the rest, Yes, the WFDF is actively working on improving the SOTG scoring system and by the end of the year this will be released.
We were hoping people would use 'normal' as 'normal' but we have seen that some teams have a higher normal rating than others. Many times this will work out okay (as long as teams are consistent and there are enough games) but there can be instances where a team plays more teams with higher 'normal' ratings than others and that is where there will be a disconnect. We hope that teams will always start with a normal score and then see what the other team did better or worse than normal. This is a part of the education. I am happy to see UK Ultimate putting so much emphasis on SOTG. You are in a phase in Ultimate where it is no longer grass-roots and where the veterans personally teach the new players what spirit is through just applying it. New teams come up without personal contact with players that know what spirit is. Hence proper education is key. By discussing it and showing the Spirit scores after your tours players will (hopefully) try to improve and keep our game as amazing as it it. Keep up the good work and 'em flying! Patrick van der Valk Chair WFDF SOTG Committee -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jaimie Cross Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 1:44 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [BD] More on Spirit (with reference to Pedro's email and others) I am not aware of guidelines, and I agree this is an issue. I noticed it after the last tournament I played (indoor nationals) where having taken on the task of ensuring our spirit sheet was filled in after every game, I naturally gave the system some thought. Like Pedro, I assumed that an average game would be scored average all the way i.e. eight 1s totalling 8 points. Essentially this was what on average I (well "we" as I discussed things with teammates) gave the opposition. Once all the scores were published after the event, it became clear that 8 was not the average score given, and actually by scoring on average 8, this contributed to the teams that we had played getting a lower average score than those we had not. I assume WFDF are looking for feedback on their system and will look to improve it in future. There do appear to be a couple of issues (a similarity in some of the categories, being the most obvious to me) other than 'what is average'. Nevertheless, I have decided that I really like the "how was the oppositions spirit compared to ours", it prompts a useful post-game analysis, not only of the oppositions spirit, but vitally your own. This is important in helping us remain vigilant about the standard of our spirit. So overall, I think this can only be a positive thing. My view on how we could provide more feedback to teams (which perhaps betrays my background in number crunching) would be to record what spirit score a team gave on average and then rescore the teams giving them a plus or minus score depending on whether they were above or below. That way teams would know who considered them better than average and who worse. A score of 10 is very different from a team that gave an average of 13 than a team that gave an average of 8. It would probably require a complicated algorithm that is beyond me so perhaps I'm just advocating that everyone try to give an average of 8. Jaimie PS I wrote this before reading Dave T's email. The ability to judge spirit in blowouts is very real (and acknowledged by most people I speak to). The way the tour looks to use peer pools, so that all games are meaningful, does try to address this. Recognising as a player that you react differently depending on the game is the first step to being better spirited in both situations. Consistency is (IMv.HO) an essential part of spirit. __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
