In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > En op 10 mei 2002 sprak Red Squirrel: >> If that is acceptable to Yanick, I think it might help the >> situation and prevent the addition of yet another category >> (newbies) that would end up with too much disparity. > > PGAS should be designed so that it can take an arbitrary > number of divisions and with arbitrary names. These are > things we will definitely want to change in the future. > > Most sports use: 1st division, 2nd division, 3rd division, ... > or: A grade, B grade, C grade, ... > > Yet there are many, many ways to categorise people. > The nice thing about Perl golf is that you can compete in > multiple divisions simultaneously. `/anick, for example, > might contest the "Womens" section, the "under-20-years-of-age" > section, and the "Canuck" section. ;) > > In real golf, you have an "open" tour and a "seniors" tour > (over the age of 50). In Chess, you have an "Open" division and > a Womens division. The best woman player in the world, however, > (Judit Polgar of Hungary) chooses to play in the Open division > and so denies herself the chance to be official Women's world > champion. BTW, in Perl Golf, I think Autrijus Tang would be > the World Women's champion, easily. :) > > I have always hated the terms "Veteran" and "Beginner". > I prefer to have an "Open" division in which *all* players > are listed. On top of that, you can have various categories, > such as: Teams, Countries (I might be in with a chance to > be leading Australian ;), people over the age of 50 or under > the age of 20, women, experienced Perl programmers who are > Perl golf beginners, beginning programmers, the list goes > on and on. > > Yet I think the most pressing need is for a "newbies" section > to allow the average (or below average) Perl programmer to > go on the stage without feeling humiliated. >
My reaction is "Blech". Much of these classes in the real sports are doubtfull. In so far as age is relevant to golfing skills, a veterans section makes some sense, but why should there for example be a seperate "women" category in chess ? Yes, I also dislike the name "veterans". but whatever it's named, I think there should basically be one big pool to compete in. The only reason for a beginner section is psychological: to tease people who are otherwise ashamed of their score into joining. So yes, I also would like a way to remove these "super-beginners", not because they don't deserve to win it (they do in general), but because they scare the other beginners). This is why I think they should be auto-promoted to the main pool already while the game is progressing. Sure, it's totally unfair to them, but the top spot in the beginners should keep it's pure psychological meaning of "mm, I'll ignore the aliens, but I should at least be able to get near *that*" Categories from which you get promoted and demoted make some sense, but in real life exist mainly because inside a category all pairs play and to avoid quadratic explosion. We don't have that problem. We can easily make up some rating system and define bands in there instead, so everybody can decide for himself if he's the winner within a band (possibly display it as such on PGAS) And then there is the "teams" category which *is* something special. However, i was a bit disapointed about the lack of teams this time. They were supposed to be the answer to two issues: - some "individuals" on the list were really multiple persons - It allows the people who find individual golf too stressing to join others like that and hopefully play more relaxed. But it doesn't seem to be working very well. Maybe we should have a "teams only" hole so that the veterans are not excluded and can for that hole congregate in teams.
