Those of you who have been looking around the Face to Face section of the Pouch over the last couple months will have by now noticed our latest addition. But for the rest of you, I wanted to take a couple minutes to introduce you to our newest feature.
The Diplomatic Pouch Tournament Ratings system is the Pouch's newest contribution to what we hope is a growing sense of community among Diplomacy players internationally.
The DPTR is a ratigns system that is based on player performance in organized Diplomacy tournaments. It is based on overall tournament results, which means that it does not take into account results of individual games, merely the results of tournaments themselves. It is also an international ratings system, meaning that it takes into account the results from any and all Diplomacy tournaments, world wide.
In addition to this, however, it also is a database of players' personal tournament histories. For what we believe is the first time, you can actually look up an individual's past performance to see where and when they have played, and how they did.
Well, there's lots of additional information here, but what you may be most interested in glancing at is the Full Ratings List, and the individual Player Pages.
The ratings are currently based on these events. Obviously, we're adding to this list all the time, both with new events and old ones that we didn't have results for. Currently, the rule for inclusion in the ratings is that the event needs to have taken place since January 1, 1997. Additionally, the results of all of the past World Championships are included.
What can we expect to see from the DPTR in the future?
The DPTR will be updated regularly, as results find there way in after various events. However, the major updates will be made when each new addition of the Pouch comes out. I also hope to offer a summary of the changes several times a year.
Will there be any major changes in the DPTR?
Well, maybe. Like much of the Pouch, the DPTR is a work in progress. I'm pretty happy with the basic system that we use to calculate the ratings, but there have been some good suggestions made of ways that we may eventually tweek it.
Probably the most common question that comes up is exactly what events to include. Some people think that all past results should be included, others think that only very recent events should count. We have tried to pick a spot somewhere in between.
The other question that comes up is about the system itself. The good thing about the system, is that once I player reaches their appropriate rating, they tend to settle into it, and they don't bounce around too much. The only down side is that it does take a few events for a good player to raise all the way up to where they should be.
As always, feel free to write and to make suggestions about ways we can improve things!