international classification

Slavex said:
I'm with Madness. I'm going for match wins, not class wins. I like trophies, but don't care if I'm GM, M, A, B, C, D or even G. I know a lot of people do.....
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That is all well and good but my take on the classification system is to allow each competitor to compete against others of a similar skill level.

Your statement smacks a little of the schoolyard bully :( What pleasure does a GM take from taking a trophy from a bunch of unclassified newbies?

Shouldn't we all be competing at our own level and winning our trophies at our own level?

John
 
That's the theory John, the problem is not only putting a system in place that works, but getting people to use it.
Everyone seems to have an excuse why it won't work or that the stages aren't fun or freestyle. They are classifiers folks, they are supposed to be a test of specific skills. They are not supposed to be gamed they are supposed to be shot to compare everyone and put them in classes where they compete against others at the same skill level. Just like standards in a major match can be used to test shooters and is not a freestyle stage.
 
euxx said:
Anyways, I don't know about you guys, but personally I am embarrassed to be awarded first "C" class, just because I can't seem to get new ICS results submitted...
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Which part embarrasses you, coming in first or being in "C" class??
 
euxx said:
It would work just perfectly if every member had his own range or club where he could setup whatever he like.
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I think there are 2 different issues here. One would be an IPSC shooter being a member of a club, and that club will not allow them to set up ICS stages if they asked, which would be pretty piss poor, and I don't think it would actually happen.

The other would be, that the IPSC shooter is not willing to put in the effort to ask and do it themselves. Surely they would have other members that would help them and would also want a classification! This is all predicated that the IPSC shooter has a membership at a club, it is almost impossible in Canada to be an IPSC shooter and not be a member of a Club. If they don't belong to a club, I would suggest that they really don't care, or are unconcerned about having a classification. Most people who are worried about such things likely belong to an active IPSC Club!
 
PH Racing said:
That's the theory John, the problem is not only putting a system in place that works, but getting people to use it.
Everyone seems to have an excuse why it won't work or that the stages aren't fun or freestyle. They are classifiers folks, they are supposed to be a test of specific skills. They are not supposed to be gamed they are supposed to be shot to compare everyone and put them in classes where they compete against others at the same skill level. Just like standards in a major match can be used to test shooters and is not a freestyle stage.
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I agree with you and I understand completely.

I shoot IDPA. I have for several years. I shot IDPA before I tried IPSC.

As you may or may not know IDPA employs a "Classifier" to rate shooters and ensure everyone is competing with others of a comparable skill level. The Classifier is always the same. It consists of 3 stages with multiple strings. It is used all over the world. You can shoot it as many times as you want in any equipment division you wish to compete in. You can shoot it as often as you want on the same day even.

I hear a lot of the same complaints: it doesn't mean anything, guys will practice it, guys will sandbag it, blah blah blah....

Well if someone want to practice the Classifier -or ICS stages- to the point they are rated above their true skill level ...so what???? All that will happen is they will get their butts kicked by the shooters who actually belong at that level.

If someone sandbags it they are assh&^les. Nothing more or less. Bullies who take pleasure in beating lesser skilled individuals just for the sake of pumping up their own ego. Screw them.

The biggest downfall of the "Classifier" in my experience is shooters -including me- have a tendency to slowdown a little bit to be more precise, which in turn leads to accusations of 'sandbagging'.

The IPSC practice of integrating ICS stages into a match eliminates this tendency as the competitor is in match mode and will generally shoot the stage at normal speed giving a truer representation of their skill level.

With this in mind I have taken all the component strings from the IDPA 'Classifier' and rearranged them into a true match which we will be running this spring. If I am right we will see a much more accurate assessment of skill levels.

I guess my point is that we need a classification system if we want shooters to compete at their own skill level.

If we want the results to mean something I believe they should be integrated into a match.



John
 
The IDPA Classifications are done completely seperate from a match generally are they not. Would you want to show up at any given match, and have the same stage/stages present at every IDPA Match?

I think the way IDPA does the classifications is perfect. Anyone that wants to do them are so able to do it, or organize it for their club. Anyone that just wants to shoot and doesn't worry about their classifications can do so as well.
 
I have no intent to hijack this thread onto an IDPA tangent. My intent is to give some context to my comments and illustrate why I believe the practice of integrating ICS stages into a match provides a more accurate measure of skill.

John
 
Adding one stage to any Level II match which should consist of around six stages anyways should not be a big deal. We picked small stages for our Ontario classification system to encourage its use as 6 or 8 rounds should not be hard to fit into a match.
 
7.62mm said:
I think there are 2 different issues here. One would be an IPSC shooter being a member of a club, and that club will not allow them to set up ICS stages if they asked, which would be pretty piss poor, and I don't think it would actually happen.
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Craig, unfortunately not all clubs run like ESSA. Lot of clubs around Toronto have a tight schedule (including clubs when directors have to be at the club in order someone to shoot) and other clubs have lots of members who don't care about IPSC.
 
There are people at EESA that don't support IPSC, believe it or not. And contrary to what others may think, we can't do whatever we want! If I want to book a time slot to put on a match, clinics etc., I do have to go to a general meeting and ask the membership, and they vote on it. I am not sure how other clubs work, but my understanding is that most work how EESA does! I could be wrong though!
 
John, I'm not trying to take away anyones trophy. I just don't see ICS as being useful. It would be more meaningful if level III matches could be used to generate Class ratings, then a bunch of meaningless, over practiced, poorly designed ICS stages.
Since the typical ICS stage is rather compact obtaining one bay at a club should be easier than a whole range, people could just do one every now and then and submit results.
 
The only LIII match most of us get to shoot is a Prov or Nat Championship.

I understand that there is a mechanism whereby an entire match can be submitted to ICS as a classification match. Is this a viable alternative?

Does it have to be LIII ?


John
 
The problem is not everyone can afford to travel to level III matches, and since most are held (in Ontario for example) in a relatively small area and can only handle roughly 200 shooters....how do we get the other 900 members classed?
Also since, again here in Ontario, almost all the top shooters are in a very small geographic area....how does the rest of the province/country get classed?
 
Like where? It's easy to say that but not so easy to pull off. We usually have 3 or 4 level III in Ontario but they are all on the 401 corridor. What about sault st Marie? Sudbury? Dryden? Hearst? How do we get officials to go to all those, how do you get enough top shooters to go to those to make them an accurate representation? Of all divisions? Do we tell shooters they can only sign up for two level III matches a year otherwise it's all the same people and only they get classed?
It's easy if you are a geographically small country with 50 Shootrs in your region to put through the match but are you going to travel to each province several times a year so the they get a couple of top flight production Shootrs at their level III matches?
We have to remember that IPSC is represented in all areas of all the provinces, not just Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax and Montreal. A good classification system should allow all areas to be able to submit scores and be on an equal basis....
We could of course resurrect the old Great Canadian Postal Match and have every club submit the scores before the nationals for classification, but I don't think you'd like the stages any more since to be fair the design has to be such that it will be able to be set up on any range in Canada exactly the same.
 
That works on a national basis which I think is good for us, but unless you get top shooters like Eric G., Adam Tyc etc. showing up what will happen with ICS is you will get an inflated score submitted for class which will then be bumped back down once you shoot some other classification stages and then that score ends up being irrelevant.
Shooting the ICS stages and submitting them is, at least currently, about the only way to get an semi accurate class. I have issues with the way they take the scores in which don't seem to accurately class shooters anyways, but that's another argument. At the moment the USPSA Classification system works about as good as any system will. It has it's flaws too but shooting classification stages is the most fair way for everybody to be treated evenly.
 
a lot of level II's out there would make Level III with very little work. If they are quality matches the GM's will come. If people are serious about getting classified they will also come.
using stages that people can setup and practice in advance of a match, is truly pointless. It is not a test of skill at that point, it's a test of how much they practiced one stage.
 
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