Rules and scoring thread

[lordofthemark]

IF we are going to have social points (I vote against having them, if that is up for a vote)

then – A We should do it if possible, using Strava flybys, not ridealongs. If people use Strava correctly, this will pick up all the places we gather, though a lot more as well. B. It should accrue to teams only, not individuals. While in the past the team score was the sum of individual scores, I don’t think it would be hard to have an extra “team member ” that would be the team social score. This would lessen the sense that individuals are being rewarded to socialize. C. The team should have to have at least 4 members present to get any social points. So that these are really team events, not just occasions when two friends,ride together.

[cvcalhoun]

I’ve been quite active in trying to set up social events for my team, and attending happy hours. But I would hate to see a social component added.

First, it ignores the social connections we make (on this board, in Facebook groups, etc.) that do not involve in person meetings. Someone who gives someone else advice online on bikes to buy, clothes to wear, etc., may be doing more socially than someone who meets someone for ten minutes for a beer.

Second, winter riding has always been the heart of this game, and the social aspects have come through participation in that. A newbie who thinks the competition is about winter riding knows that is something under their control. A newbie who thinks it is about being social knows that all the old-timers have a huge advantage, and will be less inclined to participate. So you discourage precisely those who could gain by meeting more cyclists, and encourage those who already have the social contacts.

The ultimate decision is going to be hozn’s, as he runs scoring. But I’d like to see the social aspects honored with pointless prizes, rather than being part of the scoring.

[LhasaCM]

OK – continuing the thought experiment (or running it into the ground) with some numbers: I made up 6 cyclists who have the following weekly riding patterns:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15809[/ATTACH]

Riders A-C are all about in the median of last year’s FS mileage amounts, all ride every day, but have differing levels of consistency. Riders D-F ride twice as much, but you have two daily riders (one who commutes a good amount and rides a bit on the weekend, another who commutes a bit but rides a lot on the weekend), and one who doesn’t ride a lot but has big weekends. Rider G is an outlier.

The next two tables show the raw scores and the relative scores (compared to Rider G) for a variety of scoring options mentioned earlier in this thread.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15810[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15811[/ATTACH]

To explain the various options:
* Current scoring: 10 points for riding at least a mile on a day, one point per mile.
* NBC scoring: 20 points for riding at least a mile on a day, one point per mile.
* Option A: One point per mile plus a bonus. Bonuses of 10 points per mile for the 1st three mile. Bonus amounts decline by 10% for each additional mile. (I tossed this idea out in response to one of Bob’s posts.)
* Option B: 30 points for riding at least a mile, 50 points for riding at least 2 miles, 60 points for riding at least 3 miles, plus one point per mile. (Komorebi floated this idea about a month ago in that other thread)
* Option C: Bonuses of 10 points for the first mile, 9 for the second, etc., plus a point per mile. (Bob’s idea earlier in this thread – not to say he’s endorsing it, just that he posted it)
* Option Current 10 points for riding at least a mile a day, each incremental mile is only worth 99% of the previous mile’s point (the miles * (0.9975^miles) construct I posted last night)

My reaction to seeing this laid out: what a fun waste of time looking at the more complicated options. And I think if something changes, I like Option B the most. (Keeps the same point per mile structure we know and love, strengthens the incentives to ride each day, adds an incentive to ride more than a current sleaze, doesn’t make riding 3 miles on 1 day the same as riding 1 mile on 3 days when historically the latter has been deemed more important, and makes the scoring a bit tighter without diminishing the marginal efforts of those that endure a century in the misery of winter here.)

[LhasaCM]

@lordofthemark 169113 wrote:

Not everything needs to be precisely measured in the main score (or even in side bets). The main score simply serves to set it up AS a competition, inviting trash talking, team building, etc. The rest is “emergent gameplay” that goes beyond the game design.

Very true. There’s no way everything could be precisely measured in the main score since there are so many disparate good outcomes in whatever this is to those who sign up that should be cheered. And while I’m all for improving things (so it’s good to look at it and talk through the why’s), change merely for the sake of change usually sucks.

[hozn]

@cvcalhoun 169115 wrote:

The ultimate decision is going to be hozn’s, as he runs scoring. But I’d like to see the social aspects honored with pointless prizes, rather than being part of the scoring.

I don’t think it’s my decision. I did at least sign up to play this year (very non-seriously, I would have chosen “slacker”, but I kinda agree w/ SteveO that this shouldn’t really be a thing), but others of you do a lot more in terms of organizing this.

I do feel like if the goal of the competition is both to get people outside and to build community then the team that wins probably should have been one that both got outside a lot and did things to build community. Admittedly we lack easy ways to measure many dimensions of the latter, but riding with others seems like something that is a reasonable proxy for “being social”. In general I’m for it, but I think I’d trust that data only enough to give small bonuses (e.g. 10 points) and have various limits so that it isn’t really something that decides the game, but it is still a factor.

I like these ideas of diminishing miles (or increasing insentive for the early miles) a lot. I’ll let you guys hash it out, but so far I think any of these ideas could work; as long as this can be expressed in Excel, we should be able to do it in SQL

The thing I like about diminishing returns is putting a little more emphasis on the team. I.e. for a team to win you want the members to all ride as often as they can. It prevents a single person from riding a whole bunch just to make up for team mates that aren’t doing anything.

I also think we should get rid of any official individual leaderboards. This was never supposed to be an individual competition. But of course we can have individual leaderboards for pointless prizes — and one of those can be the same points leaderboard that we have now, if someone wants to be giving a prize to the person that accumulates the most points — I just think returning the focus to the team is probably moving in the right direction for putting an emphasis back on the community building.

[bentbike33]

@Steve O 169097 wrote:

Imagine you are creating a fun winter riding game that is intended to get people out on their bikes in weather they might otherwise not have ridden in…

I never quite understood Freeze Points, and maybe this is a bit simpler. Inflate points for riding in worse weather (when it’s harder), deflate points for riding in good weather (when it’s easier).

So, multiply the score (say original 10 points for first mile plus one point per mile) by the ratio of 32 to the ride temperature, and multiply that result by 2 if it is precipitating.

If it was 25 degrees, a 17 mile ride would be worth (10+17)*(32/25) = 27 * 1.28 = 34.56 or 35 points (rounded up).

If it was 50 degrees, a 17 mile ride would be worth (10+17)*(32/50) = 27 * 0.64 = 17.28 or 17 points (rounded down).

Now, if it was 50 degrees and raining, the 17 mile ride would be worth (10+17)*(32/50)*2 = 27 * 0.64 * 2 = 17.28 * 2 = 34.56 or 35 points (rounded up).

[jrenaut]

Counterpoint to getting rid of individual leaderboards – I think a lot of people use them for motivation. If you’re in 105th place, maybe you shoot for 99th. Or you find someone who rides about as many miles as you and try to keep pace.

I don’t want to change the scoring, but if we do, I think the extra points should come from riding on the crappy days rather than social. The leaderboard i made for Steve O’s Crazy Idea would be a good starting point for that. The gist is the fewer people who ride on any given day, the more points a mile is worth that day.

[jrenaut]

@bentbike33 169121 wrote:

I never quite understood Freeze Points, and maybe this is a bit simpler. Inflate points for riding in worse weather (when it’s harder), deflate points for riding in good weather (when it’s easier).

I don’t disagree with this in principle, but it’s going to be really challenging to code it, and it’s going to be wrong a lot because of fuzzy weather data. Over the course of 3 months, I think the number of people riding per day is a pretty good proxy for how nice it was outside.

[hozn]

@jrenaut 169123 wrote:

I don’t disagree with this in principle, but it’s going to be really challenging to code it, and it’s going to be wrong a lot because of fuzzy weather data. Over the course of 3 months, I think the number of people riding per day is a pretty good proxy for how nice it was outside.

I would suggest, though, that rather than look at the number of people riding, we factor in the mileage. I think FS has proven that lots & lots of people are willing to go out for that 1-mile sleaze ride. But not that many people get excited about riding for an hour or more in gross weather. So perhaps points are automatically adjusted in value based on the number of miles logged on a given day. Or some combination of number of riders and the number of miles.

[hozn]

@jrenaut 169122 wrote:

Counterpoint to getting rid of individual leaderboards – I think a lot of people use them for motivation. If you’re in 105th place, maybe you shoot for 99th. Or you find someone who rides about as many miles as you and try to keep pace.

Yeah, I was just proposing getting rid of the official individual leaderboard. It seems silly to have two official leaderboards, when there’s really only one official competition (team points). But we can just demote the individual leaderboards into the “other leaderboards” section of the website. It’s more marketing than anything else. The data is all still there.

[jrenaut]

@hozn 169126 wrote:

Yeah, I was just proposing getting rid of the official individual leaderboard. It seems silly to have two official leaderboards, when there’s really only one official competition (team points). But we can just demote the individual leaderboards into the “other leaderboards” section of the website. It’s more marketing than anything else. The data is all still there.

This is cool with me

[jrenaut]

@hozn 169125 wrote:

I would suggest, though, that rather than look at the number of people riding, we factor in the mileage. I think FS has proven that lots & lots of people are willing to go out for that 1-mile sleaze ride. But not that many people get excited about riding for an hour or more in gross weather. So perhaps points are automatically adjusted in value based on the number of miles logged on a given day. Or some combination of number of riders and the number of miles.

Sure, that’s why I called Steve O’s suggestion from last year a starting point. You’re probably right that mileage or # of riders + mileage is a better proxy than just # of riders. On the pro side, it gives a boost if you ride every day but make an extra effort on crappy days. But it benefits those with flexible schedules who can blow off work and go ride because it got cold and s****y out.

[Steve O]

@LhasaCM 169119 wrote:

change merely for the sake of change usually sucks.

@LhasaCM 169102 wrote:

[Just so we have it, obligatory suggestion of the same scoring system as the National Bike Challenge]

@jrenaut 169101 wrote:

[Obligatory suggestion of exactly the scoring system we have now]

There’s a reason why Silicon Valley is 2800 miles away from DC:

DC bureaucrat – “If I change this, something might go wrong. Better not.”
Silicon Valley entrepreneur– “If I change this, something might go right. Let’s try it.”

I struggle to figure out what the downside is to trying a new scoring system, even one that includes some new components in new ways. As I said before, even if we don’t like the new way so much, we’re certain to learn in the process, making 2019 even better. And if we do like it: FTW!
Plus, unless it’s only a minor change, it could scramble the leaderboard, which would be a good thing. More fun to have different people at the top than the same ones year after year, IMO.

[Steve O]

And another way to change things up would be to replace miles with time. As it is now (to use the negative construct some seem to prefer) slow riders are “penalized” for being slow. In a sense, how much time you spend out in the cold and dark and wet and gnarly is perhaps a better measure than how far you go. This would shoot cvcalhoun way up the leaderboard, which kinda makes sense: she is the only player I know who has an electric jacket after all.

[Steve O]

@LhasaCM 169119 wrote:

… change merely for the sake of change usually sucks.

I think Charles Darwin would disagree with you, as do I. Every single good thing we have or know or do is because of change. We are changing things all the time: keeping the good changes and discarding and learning from the not so good. Bikes went down the road without gears and pneumatic tires, didn’t they? Why change?
If we decide to make changes only if we know in advance they’ll be good, well, how would we know that? In which case we’re still eating berries and hunting woolly mammoths.

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