2007 rankings system lets you post own marks!
You say ya want a revolution? Well, here ya go. The latest Web miracle for masters has gone online — an American age-group rankings that allows athletes to enter their own marks and see them reflected instantly. It’s based on the honor system, but it’s easily correctable. Check out the USATF 2007 indoor rankings here. For stat purposes, the 2007 indoor season began Dec. 1, 2006. So folks have already begun posting results! Dave Clingan shared the news — a wonderful early Christmas/Hanukkah gift!
Just to be certain: This doesn’t replace the traditional way of feeding the rankings — via meet-director submissions of Hy-Tek digital results, etc. That will continue. So if you compete in a USATF-sanctioned meet, you should still see your mark online (if it makes the cut). I’m also sure the new system can deal with duplicate submissions.
Digital Dave, our masters rankings chief, writes:
“The Masters T&F Rankings Committee is pleased to announce the activation of a
new online rankings system. Thanks to the hard work of John Seto (43-year-old masters thrower from NY) our rankings are now powered by a dynamic Web-hosted database. This new system has many new and improved capabilities.
“For example, athletes can enter and edit their own marks. In addition to the traditional lists of rankings by event, there will be many more ways to view the rankings data base. For example, users will be able to see 1) all athletes and their ranked marks within a
selected age group, 2) all the seasonal marks by a selected athleted, 3) all the results from a selected meet, and more cool features never before dreamed possible! This system is part of the natural evolution of masters rankings software that began with a program developed by Larry Patz over 20 years ago.
The new system is up and running at www.mastersrankings.com
“Now that the indoor season is underway, a couple of submitted marks already appear in the 2007 indoor rankings. All athletes who would like to add their 2007 indoor marks to the rankings are welcome to do so by using the online submission process (after selecting ‘2007 Indoor; click Submit/Edit Results and follow the instructions). Enjoy!
“I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to John Seto and my good friend Larry Patz, who freely donated their time and expertise, and spent many hours developing this new system for masters athletes.â€
Me again:
The latest demographic survey of our tribe (taken at the Charlotte nationals) indicates that close to 90 percent of masters have Internet access, so this new rankings system should take off like a rocket. But first we have to get the word out.
Share the news with your friends. Mention it in your club newsletter. Post it at your local track.
The revolution will not be televised. It will be posted online!
10 Responses
This wiki approach promises to be a major improvement. How about limiting the validity of each post to, say, 90 days or 6 months? That would alleviate the problem of policing bogus claims. Those who maintain the official lists could then follow the evolution of the lists and pick off performances which qualify officially.
Quick Silver
Hong Kong
To Quick Silver-
As rankings coordinator for the past several years, I have received thousands of rankings submissions from athletes via email. I can only recall a few instances in which the marks were not valid and needed to be discarded or corrected. Having said that, it will be my responsibility to review the rankings frequently and when necessary, investigate and validate anything that looks questionable. It will be my job to remove any marks from the rankings which are not legit, but based on my experience, I expect this to be a rare occurance. There are actually some nice features built into this system which will minimize a variety of common errors that occur in the rankings.
This is great news! Instant results and rankings, just like the big score board at Hayward Field in Eugene. Although, I didn’t see accomodations for differentiating between HT and FAT. That could lead to distorted rankings. Correct me if I missed something.
Nice work fine tuning a very important motivator. Nothing better than respect for fellow competitors to keep many “living to run” or “running to live”.
Paul-
When you enter a sprint mark in our new system, you will be asked to indicate whether it was FAT or hand timed. That will determine whether your time will be ranked in the FAT list or the hand timed list. The hand times will be listed below the FAT times for each of the sprint events.
Thanks for the time and dedication given by Dave, along with his fantastic assistants, John Seto (go hammer throw!) and Larry Patz.
I think the majority of athletes will report honest marks. I like to see what my competitors are doing. Sometimes, excellent performances went unreported because the meet director didn’t send them in a timely manner. Also, master’s marks achieved in open meets are sometimes not noted.
I appreciate the hard work that goes into the rankings.
Why can’t WAVA adopt this sensible system?
Dave and Larry,
Great job with the Rankings!
Jeff Davison
Dave,
Thanks for the update. Looking forward to checking out the results each week. Thanks for your efforts.
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