# World Ranking vs Round Ranking



## Carrot (Sep 23, 2014)

First an example:
Swedish Championships 2013 3x3x3 final, Harald Stiff vs. Simon Westlund. They both got 9.61 average, but Simon got the faster single.

Why does it make sense that this *ranks them equal* while this *ranks Simon as the better*? 

Reg 9f14 describes how rankings should be treated during competitions, but I see no regulation saying how results should be treated on the world ranking. Maybe it's just me, but either WCA ranking system should be documented if it differs from how round rankings works, else it should be handled the same.

I mean, how does it make sense that someone can break a world record average, but not even get first place at a competition, that seems counterintuitive to me. (I don't mind that they are using different ranking systems, but at least it should be mentioned in the regs that you can getting an average WR in a final isn't a guarantee of winning a competition.)

I put in a poll for you guys, but feel free to clarify your reasoning by posting aswell.


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## Ninja Storm (Sep 23, 2014)

It's really something small, but making world results like competition results seems like a reasonable way to do things.


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## kinch2002 (Sep 23, 2014)

Personally I'm not bothered about this difference.

Anyone know how Athletics handles it? If 2 athletes 'tie' on the same hundredths, they do look more carefully at the photo finish to get the thousandths and therefore decide who wins, even though their reported times stay identical. I'm not certain what would happen if that time was a WR as well, but I'm pretty sure that when they are in different competitions they don't bother finding out who had the less thousandths and both people would hold the WR. Therefore I assume if it's in the same competition/race both people would get the WR too, which is somewhat similar to what we have in place already.

I'm not aware of any sports where ties in the World Rankings are resolved by using the same extra criteria that is used in individual competitions to separate ties. In fact, I'm pretty sure most if not all of them just accept the ties in the rankings.

Not sure if I made that clear at all. But basically:
- I think other sports tend to handle it like we do currently (albeit no proof)
- I don't think anyone who comes 2nd in a comp and gets awarded the average WR will complain, or be particularly confused
- I don't think the winner of that comp will be upset that they don't have the WR alone.
- I don't think anyone should get confused by the way we do things currently


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## leonopulos1 (Sep 23, 2014)

I think it's fine the way it is. 
If anything, the best thing would be to treat the World Rankings like we treat the Competition Rankings right now. Say you have a 9.00 avg, combined with 3 other people. The person with the fastest single should be number 50 in the world ranking. The person with the second fastest single number 51, and so on... But that's just my opinion.
(Numbers made up, but you will get the point)


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## Sajwo (Sep 23, 2014)

I think the most ridiculous thing in the world ranking is that you can actually hold a World Record and be slower than other WR holder in the same event. For example my sum of counting singles in the WR average is 29.99, and someone's else is 30.00, yet we both hold a WR average (~9.997 vs. 10.000). Isn't that stupid?


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## Carrot (Sep 23, 2014)

kinch2002 said:


> Not sure if I made that clear at all. But basically:
> - I think other sports tend to handle it like we do currently (albeit no proof)
> - I don't think anyone who comes 2nd in a comp and gets awarded the average WR will complain, or be particularly confused
> - I don't think the winner of that comp will be upset that they don't have the WR alone.
> - I don't think anyone should get confused by the way we do things currently



I may be wrong, but if we were to use your logic, wouldn't the tiebreaker be the third decimal? (I mean, fastest single used as tie-breaker is like saying "Well, they finished the 100m at the same hundredth of a second, so who had the fastest reaction?")


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## bobthegiraffemonkey (Sep 23, 2014)

I voted for them being the same for consistency, but I'm not hugely bothered and I would also accept keeping the current system with a better explanation in the regs.


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## LucidCuber (Sep 23, 2014)

They are equal in the world ranking, because the ranking is of averages solely. But the winner of a competition is decided by the additional factor of the single.


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## XTowncuber (Sep 23, 2014)

Carrot said:


> Why does it make sense that this *ranks them equal* while this *ranks Simon as the better*?


Because in a competition, you get the same scrambles, while in the world rank you don't necessarily. Single is a good tie breaker at comps, but because lucky scrambles do not always occur in every average, it's best to call it a tie on the world ranks.

I guess we could change it so that if you tie on the same exact scrambles then single can be a tiebreaker in world ranks, but I personally think the current system is ok.

whatever.


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## tseitsei (Sep 23, 2014)

The world ranking is for averages ONLY. We have totally different world rankings for single.
Competition/round ranking is used to determine who wins the competition/round. First criteria is avg and second criteria is single.

It is fine as it is. (Maybe it should be explained in the regs but it doesn't really bother me that much...)


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## Carrot (Sep 23, 2014)

XTowncuber said:


> Because in a competition, you get the same scrambles, while in the world rank you don't necessarily. Single is a good tie breaker at comps, but because lucky scrambles do not always occur in every average, it's best to call it a tie on the world ranks.
> 
> I guess we could change it so that if you tie on the same exact scrambles then single can be a tiebreaker in world ranks, but I personally think the current system is ok.
> 
> whatever.



A round can have several groups, meaning that according to your argument single should only be used as a tiebreaker if they were in same group. And how about extra scrambles? Gets hard to keep track of.

(It is a good reasoning though!)


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## LucidCuber (Sep 23, 2014)

A better way of putting it would be that a competition is ranking who performed best at the competition. Where as in a rank of averages a single is not relevant.


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## BaMiao (Sep 23, 2014)

If world rankings worked like round rankings, that would make Carrot the sole pyraminx record holder. Is that the reason for this thread?

(Not trying to stir up anything. I just found it funny.)


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## Sa967St (Sep 23, 2014)

This idea is very similar: https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/198


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## CiaranBeahan (Sep 23, 2014)

I don't think they're the same, you might have a bad comp where you don't get any good times, but does that make you a slow speedcuber? No.


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## Carrot (Sep 23, 2014)

So poll options weren't neutral enough, therefore the _poll results got reset_.

Thanks for the link Sarah!


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