Quigley said:
I don't see your point... Madness getting a B class plaque in Std makes equally little sense as Clint getting one in Prod.
Fine, everything else has been tried, everything else sucks even more, ICS to the rescue.
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2007 IPSC Canadian Nationals
- Thread starter Dragoon
- Start date
I don't see your point... Madness getting a B class plaque in Std makes equally little sense as Clint getting one in Prod.
Fine, everything else has been tried, everything else sucks even more, ICS to the rescue.
omen said:
You specifically mentioned Production...again...might lead one to believe that the issue is not present in the other Divisions...obviously not the case...
It's pure Stats...most people only have a few stages in...and since you get classed on your best 4...if they are also your first 4...that's not even enough to calculate standard deviation...so initial results are generally high or low...but rarely reflective of actual shooting ability.
It's not going away....so maybe it's time we gave it a chance (that means encouraging more clubs to include ICS stages in their matches)
god it's bad enough that people put "standards" in matches instead of using props to force you to shoot a particular way (something that both the Nats did and the Provincials here did very well by the way). But to include those crappy classifier stages? come on, that's half the problem. Toss ICS, and just go on regional systems where people shoot against each other. If you go to a few Nationals you're rank there will get sorted eventually.
Quigley said:
a) match organizers hate putting on ICS stages
b) shooters hate shooting ICS stages
c) virtually no one, with any ipsc experience, outside of the sectional/regional "management" thinks that ICS is the way to go (at least based on my experience talking to shooters).
There is no way (NO WAY) that ICS stages will become any kind of regular feasure in ipsc matches around these parts (heaven forbid that they did!) They will show up in the couple/few weeks before each Nationals, but that's about it. Hoping otherwise is wishing thinking, nothing more.
Maybe it's time we stopped trying to change how we shoot ipsc in order to accommodate the classification system being mandated onto us, and instead find a classification system which reflects how we shoot.
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OK guys, explain this to me. This is my second year competing in IPSC. I have just finished participating in my first provincial match. I am a C class shooter in production and I have a vague idea what ICS is. I want to participate in the 2007 nationals. If I do not have a ICS classification, does that make me an unclassified shooter in the 2007 nationals?
so then what do we use? don't suggest Nationals as a base as they are shot only once a year and do not in any way reflect a persons average shooting scores.
The USPSA has used their version of ICS for a lot longer then ICS has been around. same thing. it is not perfect but it works fairly well (through i have heard of C class shooters placing in the top three at big matches.)
As for ICS stages being hard to put on horse hockey pucks (as Colonel Potter likes to say.) they take a few more minutes to set up becuase you have to measure everything but after that no big deal. we try to run two in each qualifiers in Alberta with fairly good success.
it is like anything else in the world you can be part of the problem or part of the solution. so lets see something that isn't based on once a year.
The USPSA has used their version of ICS for a lot longer then ICS has been around. same thing. it is not perfect but it works fairly well (through i have heard of C class shooters placing in the top three at big matches.)
As for ICS stages being hard to put on horse hockey pucks (as Colonel Potter likes to say.) they take a few more minutes to set up becuase you have to measure everything but after that no big deal. we try to run two in each qualifiers in Alberta with fairly good success.
it is like anything else in the world you can be part of the problem or part of the solution. so lets see something that isn't based on once a year.
Walter Hornby said:
The big difference between USPSA and ICS is that in USPSA, you can't be demoted in classification. The big problem with ICS is that right now, if somebody absolutely hammers a stage and get's a grossly inflated score, EVERYBODY else's scores change to reflect how much better the new person is. Whether the score is real, from luck, improper stage setup, chance selection of Classifiers or whatever makes no difference.
Not to point fingers, but does nobody else find it strange that 2 out of the top 3 shooters in Production right now are from Nova Scotia and probably shot the same Classifier stages somewhere? It's the same situation we had in Open a couple of years ago, where the 2 top shooters were from Saskatchewan, and nobody could come anywhere close to matching their ICS ranking.
One of the difficulties right now is that nobody will tell us how the ICS system works. Oh sure, we all know the basics: take your 4 best out of the last 8, but what about the rest?
Do we use HHF like the US does, or is it really a rolling average? Exactly how does the National Ranking system work? Where are those numbers coming from?
To be honest, I always thought that the US system works much better than any system we've used in Canada. It does have it's weaknesses based on the idea that not everybody shoots large matches and most of the classifier scores are based on classifier stages, but it's better than ICS and our old system.
Back to ICS: I was liking the ICS idea a lot better when they were starting to incorporate Level III matches as Classifiers.
My understanding is that some algorithms would be applied to the scores to account for how the scores would have compared were a GM present. So far, the only Canadian Level III I've seen included has been the Nationals in Barrie. I don't know if it's because the Match Directors are unaware of this option (I've never seen a form that you can fill in anywhere) or if there's a cost involved; I haven't really looked into it. Maybe we need to look at this option in more detail.
hungrybeagle said:
I know exactly how it works, and it, while following a fixed matchematical formula, does not make sense (so what that's it's consistent...)
Let me use the example of myself vs ipsc1.
I shoot a bunch of stages, I get compared to how the best people in the world did those stages, and I get an average of, say, 60% (just making up numbers).
ipsc1 shoots a bunch of DIFFERENT stages, gets compared to a bunch of DIFFERENT shooters from all over the world, and gets an average of, say, 80%.
That 80% is the highest avg of anyone from Canada, so he gets a regional average of 100%. Everyone else's regional avg is their raw avg divided by ipsc1's raw avg - so in this example, mine would be 60/80*100% = 75%
Did you notice something - my average is computed relative to ipsc1 without us having to share a single stage, without having our results compared on any individual stages. The only thing which is compared is how he did on some stages relative to some top shooters to how I did on a different set of stages, compared to a different set of shooters.
So, if he shoots ICS stages which the very top people hadn't shot, whereas I'm only shooting the common ICS stages which had been shot by Adam Tyc, Dave Severgny, Angus, etc, there is NOTHING I can do to go up in my Canadian ranking. Nothing. Maybe a little, but that's about it...
The way ICS calculates Regional ranking is nonsense (the World wide stats made sense, at least, you're comparing apples with apples; the regional, you're comparing apples with oranges).
I know standards have been around forever, but boxes used to be too. I think standards suck. If you want to make people shoot a particular way use props to force it, not just writing it down and saying you have to.
There is one flaw in ICS that can be fixed very easily, don't make it a floating system. Adopt the USPSA rules. Your class can't drop, you can only be 1 class lower in a different division, if you shoot a score that's crazy high or low compared to your average it doesn't get used. Last year in the span of 48hrs I went from being #1GM to B then back up to M, all becasue every stage gets used no matter what.
Just a thought here but has pirating the USPSA system been considered yet? All the satges can be downloaded from their site, and we use their high hit factors for each stage to start. We avoid having to deal with a low H.H.F. on a stage that hasn't been shot much because those don't exist in the USPSA system. Then we start from scrath again everyone goes to U and we follow the USPSA rules. We solve the participation problem by those who don't want to shoot being unclassed, sure their will be the occasional sand-bagger and even a few grand-baggers, but once a sandbagger when his class at a certain sized match they will be bumped up. USing my rediculous situation as an example since I won B
at Nats this year I would be bumped up to A using this system. As it stands now I can screw the pooch on a few more ICS stages and drop down to C or D, if I want to complete my collection
If all else fails, there's always the Lewis system
Just a thought here but has pirating the USPSA system been considered yet? All the satges can be downloaded from their site, and we use their high hit factors for each stage to start. We avoid having to deal with a low H.H.F. on a stage that hasn't been shot much because those don't exist in the USPSA system. Then we start from scrath again everyone goes to U and we follow the USPSA rules. We solve the participation problem by those who don't want to shoot being unclassed, sure their will be the occasional sand-bagger and even a few grand-baggers, but once a sandbagger when his class at a certain sized match they will be bumped up. USing my rediculous situation as an example since I won B
at Nats this year I would be bumped up to A using this system. As it stands now I can screw the pooch on a few more ICS stages and drop down to C or D, if I want to complete my collection If all else fails, there's always the Lewis system
You know, one thing really puzzles me... The idea of using actual performance in the Nationals to form the National level class (which is only used AT the Nationals) is slapped down every time, without much consideration, in favor of using ICS. BUT when it comes time to choose national teams, what do we use? The results from Nationals, NOT ICS... I wonder why... One answer which comes to mind is that the powers-that-be know full well the ICS results are crap, and since they want to have good teams, they use the results which are best indicators of how people do, across the region. For class awards at the Nationals, they don't really care who gets dumped into what class, so are happy to prop up ICS with its meaningless classifications... Just a sceptical opinion...
Not everyone can travel to the Nats, so basing a regional class off a match that the majority doen't shoot isn't really fair. I agree with major match preformance being a far better grade of classing the people who shoot them but what about the guy is just barly able to afford goin to Nats when its in his home province, do we just kick them to the side? I should hope not.
omen said:
That's what I suspect, too, but I couldn't tell you for sure. How do you know they don't do some funky math excluding all non-Canadians when calculating averages? I'd like to figure it out, but there isn't a place where IPSC aliases are posted.
I also don't know what they do with the rolling averages, either. Do the HHF's keep going up and up and up? Or do they top out at some point? I can make a guess, but I couldn't tell you for sure.
Could you also tell me how the "Level III classifier" calculations work? It's not linear. I tried to do a regression based on the scores from 2004 Nats in Barry.
I don't know how the entire ICS system works, and I bet you really don't either.
I don't think there's a classifier out there that Eric Grauffel hasn't shot. Have you looked up his ICS alias? It's "Eric".
As for using ICS for selecting National teams - I think the reason is obvious, and has more to do with nobody checking the validity of the scores than ICS being crap. I'm not a big fan of ICS, because I'm not much of a speed shoot/standards kind of guy. However, I do see a few ways to improve the system, most of which (as Madness has suggested) should be pirated from the USPSA system.
1. Establish HHF's that don't change
2. You can't go down in classification
3. Don't include scores that are more than 5% below your current classification
4. Exclude scores of 0.
5. Make all Level III's automatic Classifier Matches
6. Enforce the "if you don't shoot 2 classifiers per year, you are declassified" rule.
7. Make Classifier submission free. (I know of several clubs who find the added book keeping to be enough of a pain that they don't bother)
8. Use best 6 out of 8, not best 4 out of 8. Many shooters will "luck out" 50% of the time, but 75% percent of the time is a bit harder.
9. Don't count the same classifier twice for classification purposes. (I just looked up Omen's classification. I can't believe CLC-13 has been counted as one of his 4 best scores TWICE. If that's correct, a guy could shoot the same Classifier 8 times in a row, and the best 4 scores he shot would be used in calculating his average. Ridiculous) Simply omit the lower score.
hungrybeagle said:
You lose.
Ohh, and just for the interest of those watching... These are the 4 stages which have given IPSC1 his 100% Canadian average, and which the rest of us are scored relative to. Isn't it nice how they are so representative of the type of ipsc we shoot here (just check out the stage procedure on the first one, for a good laugh).
How nice... lots of 'shoot 1 shot per target, reload, shoot 1 shot per target, all while standing still in a box.' Yup, those definitely produce correct classifications for the Nationals... We just need to get more clubs to setup these stages, and everything will be just great.
As much as I respect ipsc1 and his shooting ability, I'm inclined to believe that his 100% WORLD WIDE on 3 out of those 4 (never mind his #2 in the world ranking) is due to none of the top Prod people in the world shooting such ridiculously stupid and contrived stages, rather than his ability to outshoot everyone in the world.
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omen said:
Okay, whatever.
You know, this is exactly the same situation we had in Open and Standard division about 3 years ago. Back then, we all just laughed about it and shook our heads. None of us whined and #####ed and complained about how the current system was crap because we knew what the alternative was.
Tell you what; why not follow proper channels and try to make change by going through your SC - that's what he's there for. Get involved with your organization instead of whining to all of us how embarassed you are to be in B class.
Why not put on a classifier match yourself? You know which classifiers are the problem ones. Shoot them. I plan on doing it at our club.
hungrybeagle said:
ditto
hungrybeagle said:
I'm glad you seem to think you know so much about my involvement with and contribution to IPSC. Good for you.
I think this is the point where we agree to disagree and life moves on.
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