Does this mean that you have decided to become the first, and apparently self-appointed, USCF Tournament and TD referee?
Allowing someone other than the chief TD (or, in some cases, the organizer) of a rated event to initiate the process of requesting a change to that event is highly problematic.
The present procedure seems to indicate the position that, if the TD or none of the allegedly affected parties cares enough to request a change, the national office staff should not spend time tracking down the alleged issue. I happen to agree with that position. Others may dissent from that position, which is fine.
This is what often happens now when someone informs a TD about an error in their tournament. Also, I don’t see how this is “highly problematic”.
Just because a certain TD doesn’t do the right thing and submit corrections that affect ratings to the office, for whatever reason, does not make it ok. Also, most players are usually unaware of mistakes.
Also, other parties can be affected by a change due to rerates but this doesn’t currently constitute something that “affects you personally” in terms of being able to submit a complaint.
HOLD ON HERE, Just a moment, Please.
" If the TD refuses to correct a mistake"
First- few of us who are TDs are perfect. (and certainly not I), we do err on occasion. And when we do, we do all to
correct, as quickly as possible. However, that said, because someone BELIEVES an error was made, does not make it so.
Most TDs when confronted with possible errors, perform due diligence to ensure that the correct steps, if needed are taken.
Many times such investigations have proven the initial actions, were in fact correct. Secondly, there is a complaint procedure in place now, for the parties who believe they are offended. Naturally it has to affect one before they can
claim to be an offended party. ie, if it does not affect one, one should not have the right to demand action. Many times
there are details that affect decisions made by tournament directors that are not, and should be left, non-public.
Rob Jones
Well said, in far fewer words than I had written.
The other thing is to define ‘problematic aspect…’ Really, Micah, you haven’t stated at all how much time and money you would spend in developing policy or programming to combat this perceived problem. (Though you have had someone intimately familiar with the server-side validating process tell you that the scope of the remedy is greater than you appreciate, and you’ve had an NTD tell you the office-side bureaucracy/policy is greater than you appreciate. [OK, that it is just an NTD doesn’t matter. That it is Boyd has weight in my eyes.])
So you have solution(s) of unknown cost applying to problem(s) of unknown scope and validity. Most of us don’t mind conversing here, but you’re already at the point where if you want either of your remedies enacted you’ll need an AUG. My question, Micah, is how will you word an AUG for consideration for next year?
WOW!!! Rob, what about the mistakes I pointed out to you from two tournaments by another TD in your area that you have worked with before and would know how to get in contact with but have refused to get in contact with to get the ball rolling to get these mistakes corrected???
I understand this but the mistakes I pointed out were indeed errors which the TD acknolwedged this but refused to correct.
The process of adjusting a tournament does not start until the chief TD (or, in some cases, the organizer) contacts the national office.
If you don’t see how your proposal can cause more problems than it solves, I’d respectfully submit that you need to think through the potential consequences more. I would further submit that you need to think through the amount of work your suggestion would create (both for USCF staffers and for the USCF ratings server), who would actually do the work (it’s not as if the national office staff, which is already understaffed, has tons of extra time), and what gain there might be from it. Frankly, unless there’s an incorrect result, I don’t think there would be nearly enough gain to offset the work.
I would exercise more care before casting aspersions about fellow TDs, especially if I don’t know all the circumstances involved. (If you choose differently, that’s your right, but don’t be surprised at the response you get.)
Also, I suspect your conjecture about most players being unaware of mistakes is incorrect, though I can’t conclusively prove it. This is because players (and/or, in the case of scholastic players, their parents and coaches) check their ratings and results online rather frequently.
With apologies to H. Ross Perot, “We got into trickle-down rating changes and they didn’t trickle.” You really should take the time to understand the USCF rating system, as you seem to be (overly) concerned with pinpoint ratings accuracy, especially as it applies to secondary and tertiary effects of rating runs.
My proposal is that if a TD refuses to correct mistakes when they were pointed out, a player can contact the office and explain that the TD refused to submit the corrections and then the office will contact the TD about the situation. If the office contacts the TD, they are more likely to come forward with the corrections.
Most people don’t seem to notice when the tournament date (which has caused events to be rated in the wrong order) and/or time control (i.e. an event being regular rated only when it should have been dual) is wrong.
Help me out with this one…what’s the ref whistling for here? 
If none of the players seem to care, and the TD doesn’t seem to care, then why do you care?
Alex Relyea
It’s not the players don’t care, they just they usually don’t notice (when the date is wrong) and understand (i.e. an event being regular rated only when it should have been dual). No one cares about the quick rating system yet we still have it.
Our Chess Club cares because both Blitz at G/8;d2 and Quick at G/15;d3 are ideal for both rated and unrated round robin play at night when you have a limited time to play. Both can allow us the do 5 round Hexes in under 3 hours.
There is a big difference between not noticing and not caring. I rather suspect most people don’t much care about things like date errors, as long as their results are correct. I believe players understand (at least on some intuitive level) that the rating changes from ordering of sections/events are not of great significance, especially over time.
Incidentally, Alex Relyea uses quick ratings for pairings and prizes in his quick tournaments. My diet was low on irony before reading your last sentence to him. I thank you for correcting that deficiency.
First, tournament directors are under zero obligation to report back to those “outside the
loop” making inquiries about events, esp, those 8+ years old. I did contact the TDs involved. I also received advice from others “in the loop, in various USCF capacities”
That I do not choose to share further with you on this absolutely does not mean that
“nothing has happened”.
Second, you are reporting from a perspective that in the reporting practices of yesteryear
that while correct for that period, no longer fit current criteria, and thus, are in error.
Not so. Going on the “wayback” machine takes time out of what we need to be doing and
focusing on for the now.
The changes you would like serve very little constructive purpose. And most of us have
too much to do without engaging in fixing what is not broke.
Rob Jones
Micah,
I somewhat sympathize with you here: I have noticed some head-scratching things in old rating reports on MSA.
However, on this specific point—Quick ratings not being processed for what should have been Dual-rated events—let it go. We’ve been here before. The vast majority of players don’t care about Dual rating: of the very few I have heard offer an opinion, it is 100% opposed.
They care about Regular ratings, for sure. To a lesser degree, some care about Quick or Blitz ratings, for events that are Blitz- or Quick-only. For the Quick component that seems artificially tacked on to what had long been Regular-rated games in the G/30-G/60 zone…either “shrug” or switch to G/61.
In the event you cite, what did the TD tell you, apart from declining to pursue the matter with the office? I have done this myself as a TD: Added an extra game (s) section when a player has a bye and another wins by forfeit, or a club member can’t play the whole event but wants one rated game—whatever. It is very easy to accidentally list 40/90 for the extra games section, (since that is the control for the main event) rather than G/60 or G/30 at which the “extra” game was played. I don’t think I have submitted an event like that, but I have caught myself before seeking validation.
This may pre-date your fascination with MSA, but for years Dual rating confused many people. (Plus some who did not like the concept were “deliberately dense.”) There were quite a few G/61 events for awhile.
Also, due to technical issues at the office, for the first few years of the Dual system, TDs had to “pay double” for Dual rating—which very few did, of course. Even after that issue was fixed, some TDs though they still had to pay extra—and still had the option of whether to submit G/30-G/60 as Dual or Regular. There have been Forum threads on this. In one of them, from 2009, you will see an NTD running for EB who was under the impression that Dual rating was still optional.
As I have mentioned: A club I know held one-day events at Dual-ratable controls nearly every weekend since the '90s. (years before Dual came along) Not until two years ago did these events become Dual-rated. In all that time, not one player complained about it. Never. Think about that.
It became important as of the recent change in ratings policy that Dual-rated events are correctly listed as Dual, since that will affect k-factors for Masters—and thus affect Regular ratings. That people will care about.
But going backwards in time, based on MSA surfing, to root out old events that appear as though they should have been Dual but were only Regular…even though none of the players in those events complained?
Think about it.
Well, the events have not been corrected so basically “nothing has happened”.
You have it all backwards. The situation I brought up was about a TD who reported the round by round time control from 2 events back before the programming recognized round by round time controls so this reporting practice back then was not correct but is ok now. This caused the events to be incorrectly only regular rated instead of dual.
All it takes is one quick email to the USCF to get those events corrected.
Micah, as you have chosen to distort some information provided, and to totally ignore other information provided, and
refused to look at a broad picture, then I hereafter will simply ignore you.
Rob Jones
Micah, how long ago are the events that you want “corrected?” That is a piece of information that I do not see here. There is a matter of timeliness of the request to make changes. If the event happened only a couple of months ago, you can make the request. There is a good chance it will be corrected and go through the normal rerate process. If the event, was one or more years ago, this takes a lot more work to do and process. It puts a greater burden on staff for what ends up being a minimal change, if at all.
Players who are competing frequently really do not have to have corrections made to more distant past events as their rating is turning over every 30 or so games. Changing what happened one or two years ago isn’t going to make much of a difference.