How would you design computerised rankings?

[JCS]

With our rules, no points are gained going back down a weight. The Chris Byrd situation is a good example of why it does not work the same in reverse, and where it does work is at the very lightest weights, where there is no penalty situation anyway for moving up.

He get's his 25% penalised points returned if he quickly returns back to his old division.

He only won 30 points in the last fight.

So basically if you move weight too much or in the wrong fashion, you penalize yourself... Hmm... Don't like that logic at all.

[Lennox]

No not all. If you flip between divisions, nothing much happens. When you go up you lose points, but you get them back if you drop back.
Fighters only lose points going up in weight class. A ranking of #7 at Featherweight might be worth #12 at Super-feather, that simulates what actually happens. Do you agree?
Every fighter is different how they respond to weight changes. We once had a top 10 jnr-welter when he went up to Welter he was nowhere as good, some seem to make the transistion easily. It is not an easy thing to code, but it tends to settle itself when they fight in the new division. Nothing is absolutely exact, except you will be above fighters you have beaten and below ones you lost too.
Not many fighters drop weight classes. I ran some tests and there was a fighter Darren Corbett that was a huge puncher at heavyweight, I think he got to about 20 at Cruiserweight, if his points were increased as he dropped back to Super-middle (his aim) he would have been ranked about 3 without having fought anyone ranked at 168. It does not work the same way in reverse, huge anomalies spring up.

[JCS]

No not all. If you flip between divisions, nothing much happens. When you go up you lose points, but you get them back if you drop back.
Fighters only lose points going up in weight class. A ranking of #7 at Featherweight might be worth #12 at Super-feather, that simulates what actually happens. Do you agree?
Every fighter is different how they respond to weight changes. We once had a top 10 jnr-welter when he went up to Welter he was nowhere as good, some seem to make the transistion easily. It is not an easy thing to code, but it tends to settle itself when they fight in the new division. Nothing is absolutely exact, except you will be above fighters you have beaten and below ones you lost too.
Not many fighters drop weight classes. I ran some tests and there was a fighter Darren Corbett that was a huge puncher at heavyweight, I think he got to about 20 at Cruiserweight, if his points were increased as he dropped back to Super-middle (his aim) he would have been ranked about 3 without having fought anyone ranked at 168. It does not work the same way in reverse, huge anomalies spring up.

You said you credit them back if they go back within 12 months..

So if I go up a division for 13 months, come back down.. I don't get those points back.. right?

[DaveyMac]

The Boxrec system is very strong. It's not really to be used cross-generational because total scores for all the fighters will inflate with more fights. So if you are taking a guy from 1955 when there were 10x the amount of fights there are now (or more) then he will score much higher than a guy from 2015. However, in the context of it's era the system is excellent. Meaning, if you take all the fighters from 1955, they will be ranked relative to one another very well.

[Lennox]

No not all. If you flip between divisions, nothing much happens. When you go up you lose points, but you get them back if you drop back.
Fighters only lose points going up in weight class. A ranking of #7 at Featherweight might be worth #12 at Super-feather, that simulates what actually happens. Do you agree?
Every fighter is different how they respond to weight changes. We once had a top 10 jnr-welter when he went up to Welter he was nowhere as good, some seem to make the transistion easily. It is not an easy thing to code, but it tends to settle itself when they fight in the new division. Nothing is absolutely exact, except you will be above fighters you have beaten and below ones you lost too.
Not many fighters drop weight classes. I ran some tests and there was a fighter Darren Corbett that was a huge puncher at heavyweight, I think he got to about 20 at Cruiserweight, if his points were increased as he dropped back to Super-middle (his aim) he would have been ranked about 3 without having fought anyone ranked at 168. It does not work the same way in reverse, huge anomalies spring up.

You said you credit them back if they go back within 12 months..

So if I go up a division for 13 months, come back down.. I don't get those points back.. right?

JCS. Like many things in sport, the ball is out of bounds if it is 1 inch over, or the ball just crossed the line. There has to be a line. Edwin Rodriguez failed to fight a top 50 fighter in the last 18 months and has just been moved down, his last two opponents were ranked 67 and 51 and the previous dozen were pretty good.

[JCS]

No not all. If you flip between divisions, nothing much happens. When you go up you lose points, but you get them back if you drop back.
Fighters only lose points going up in weight class. A ranking of #7 at Featherweight might be worth #12 at Super-feather, that simulates what actually happens. Do you agree?
Every fighter is different how they respond to weight changes. We once had a top 10 jnr-welter when he went up to Welter he was nowhere as good, some seem to make the transistion easily. It is not an easy thing to code, but it tends to settle itself when they fight in the new division. Nothing is absolutely exact, except you will be above fighters you have beaten and below ones you lost too.
Not many fighters drop weight classes. I ran some tests and there was a fighter Darren Corbett that was a huge puncher at heavyweight, I think he got to about 20 at Cruiserweight, if his points were increased as he dropped back to Super-middle (his aim) he would have been ranked about 3 without having fought anyone ranked at 168. It does not work the same way in reverse, huge anomalies spring up.

You said you credit them back if they go back within 12 months..

So if I go up a division for 13 months, come back down.. I don't get those points back.. right?

JCS. Like many things in sport, the ball is out of bounds if it is 1 inch over, or the ball just crossed the line. There has to be a line. Edwin Rodriguez failed to fight a top 50 fighter in the last 18 months and has just been moved down, his last two opponents were ranked 67 and 51 and the previous dozen were pretty good.

I understand, I just don't agree with it. It seems presumptuous to enforce such rating cliffs (as I call them) unless one is an official body and is locked into such rules by bureaucracy.

[Lennox]

I can see your point of view. Doing something which is formulaic just does not have the flexibility of a subjective system. That aside, fighters moving violently from one division to another does not happen much. I don't just move someone up to Jnr-midd if they fought at 148, probably even at 153 if it was a treading water fight I would retain that fighter to the Welterweight division. So in that respect there are subjective aspects.

[jujigatame]

I think JCS has taken the fundamental concepts of the BoxRec system and made a lot of great tweaks to create the FightMatrix MMA rankings.

I think one really important one is the way penalties for things like inactivity or weak opposition are assessed gradually rather than all at once. It gives the rankings a lot more continuity and fluidity, rather than the sudden all-at-once "cliff" style of penalty which creates some outwardly inexplicable situations. A fighter ranked #10 on one day should not suddenly be ranked #20 the next day if he hasn't had a fight. It just looks weird.

[Lennox]

I don't know anything about MMA so cant comment on his ratings.

I agree it looks wrong that a fighter is 10 one day and 20 another without anything happening.

IWBR are monthly so there are lots of ups and downs. A non compliant movement though is rarely above 4 rankings, usually it does not even signify a movement. The loss of points continues each month until he is compliant, that can be that on the 19th month he fights someone top 50 or he continues to move down gradually each month until he is in a zone where he is compliant.

The compliance is probably the most important aspect of the IWBR ratings. It prevents fighters not getting too high in the rankings without fighting good fighters.