Request for alternative scoring systems

[Brett L.]

One thing you could do is have diminishing returns on longer ride days, instead of a single bonus. Ie: Points = Daily Mileage ^ 0.9. Having a higher factor doesn’t necessarily penalize long rides, but it would provide some degree normalization to the high outliers.

[LhasaCM]

@jrenaut 152170 wrote:

Agreed – I like the 10 point bonus as motivation even if it doesn’t do much for the final standings. And no way to know how many miles don’t get ridden if the bonus goes away. I bet a lot of people who will get on the bike for 12 points won’t do it for 2.

Speaking for myself (low mileage newbie) – the 10 point bonus has been motivational for “well, I should at least do a big loop down the street and back to get a mile in…hey, it’s not that bad out now that I’m out here, so I should grab some coffee too…” like I did last Saturday.

[Steve O]

I have crunched the numbers for creating a complementary leaderboard that rewards riding in bad weather – A Rule 9 leaderboard, if you will.

Last year there were 259 players.

184 was the median # of riders on any particular day during the game.
222 was the maximum # who rode on any particular day
125 was the minimum # who rode on any particular day (January 23, the day of the blizzard)
then:
140 – February 15 (President’s Day, plus cold and some snow and wind. Anyone remember this day?)
148 – January 24 (day after blizzard)
154 – January 25 (next day)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13263[/ATTACH]
Here are 4 proposed scoring scales based on last year’s # of riders per day. They all work on an exponential model that progressively rewards riders who ride on the worst days. I’m showing 4 levels of aggressiveness for the scale. Keep in mind that we may not have a day even close to Jan 23 last year, so the values for the 10th worst day may be more representative of adjustments for the worst weather days this year.
I did not differentiate between the mile points and the daily points. We could, if we felt that one or the other deserves more weight.

[Steve O]

My personal preference is to go with the most aggressive adjustment in order to create the starkest contrast with the regular leaderboard. A mild adjustment may just show everyone in the same order, while a bigger adjustment will likely shake things up more and make it more interesting.

[jrenaut]

So how would this work early on in the competition? We obviously don’t know what all the numbers are, and I’d be shocked if we’ve already had the worst day of the competition.

Do you have a formula for computing the numbers? If so I can probably put together a leaderboard for you this week.

[Steve O]

@jrenaut 152886 wrote:

So how would this work early on in the competition? We obviously don’t know what all the numbers are, and I’d be shocked if we’ve already had the worst day of the competition.

Do you have a formula for computing the numbers? If so I can probably put together a leaderboard for you this week.

That was my original idea – make it dynamic based on this year. But I think that’s too hard, although it could be done at the end. That would make it hard to know who is winning as we go along.

No, what I’ve done is just made an assumption. The table is misleading. The columns should actually be labeled:
125 riders | 163 riders | 222 riders

Our worst day may end up having 138 riders or something. The formula would still work; it would just award fewer points than 137 and more than 139.
=======================
Here’s the formula for the most aggressive scenario:
[Points earned] x [1.025 ^ (200 – #of today’s riders)]
=======================

[Judd]

@Steve O 152891 wrote:

That was my original idea – make it dynamic based on this year. But I think that’s too hard, although it could be done at the end. That would make it hard to know who is winning as we go along.

No, what I’ve done is just made an assumption. The table is misleading. The columns should actually be labeled:
125 riders | 163 riders | 222 riders

Our worst day may end up having 138 riders or something. The formula would still work; it would just award fewer points than 137 and more than 139.
=======================
Here’s the formula for the most aggressive scenario:
[Points earned] x [1.025 ^ (200 – #of today’s riders)]
=======================

I don’t know. Sounds kind of like another bad idea.

[Steve O]

jrenaut has created the Rule 9 leaderboard, which you may find here.

I will likely offer a Pointless Prize to the badassiest rider (largest positive deviation, based on some black box that I will devise) and pusilanimousiest rider for the opposite.

Out of town riders will not be eligible. Sorry PP, phatboing & Bruno.

[Bruno Moore]

Yeah, I looked at that list and laughed. Arranged by bump percentage, I’m tenth. Think I’d break it if I were even remotely eligible.

Just so we’re very clear about this, you should all be very, very glad I have trouble getting out of the library long enough to ride much. Very glad.

…we’ll see how I’m doing come August (if I’m not back in DC).

[Steve O]

As of right now, the top 10 riders who have been putting in miles on days when no one else has are:

Dylan S
Dane
Karen W
Jan
Louis K
Tom N
(Will L – slacker who should not be on a list like this)
Dave K
Dana W
Jonathan

Bolded names are all on the Merry Band of Idiots, apparently the Badassiest team at this point.

[jrenaut]

The bottom 4 are all Slackers. I think your scoring system really captures the essence of Freezing Saddles, and while that sounds disparaging and sarcastic, it’s meant sincerely.

But I have to wonder – this has been the mildest winter we’ve had in years. I wonder how this chart would look if we’d done it last year, when we had some really awful weather days. I suppose I don’t have to wonder – I can actually calculate it, if I’m not too lazy.

[QuikAF77]

@Steve O 154962 wrote:

As of right now, the top 10 riders who have been putting in miles on days when no one else has are:

Dylan S
Dane
Karen W
Jan
Louis K
Tom N
(Will L – slacker who should not be on a list like this)
Dave K
Dana W
Jonathan

Bolded names are all on the Merry Band of Idiots, apparently the Badassiest team at this point.

I’m confused, when I look at it the top 10 are pretty much a mixture of the top 10-12 riders from regular scoring. Not really surprising since almost all of the highest scoring riders do not miss ride days.

[jrenaut]

@QuikAF77 155019 wrote:

I’m confused, when I look at it the top 10 are pretty much a mixture of the top 10-12 riders from regular scoring. Not really surprising since almost all of the highest scoring riders do not miss ride days.

Sort it by bump % – then the riders at the top are the ones who got the biggest bump from Steve O’s system, meaning they rode more on days when everyone else rode less.

[LhasaCM]

@jrenaut 155021 wrote:

Sort it by bump % – then the riders at the top are the ones who got the biggest bump from Steve O’s system, meaning they rode more on days when everyone else rode less.

Since the leaderboard is updated in “real” time, you also need to look at this later in the day; too early in the day, the biggest bumps go to the folks that log the earliest rides (so therefore, get a huge bonus on today’s mileage – like the extreme example of a one mile sleaze ride being worth 1,500 points if that’s the only ride of the day). This impact will be less pronounced the further into the winter we get.

[QuikAF77]

@jrenaut 155021 wrote:

Sort it by bump % – then the riders at the top are the ones who got the biggest bump from Steve O’s system, meaning they rode more on days when everyone else rode less.

Ahh. I was looking at the adjusted score list. Weird, I fall from 4th to somewhere in the middle based on bump %, yet I ride a pretty good amount pretty much every day.

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