tanstaafl
Despite what TexasBob suggests, I have been over this so many times. You have nearly 6000 posts on a dinky board like this. This must be to your liking (moderator or not). It is not to mine. I got my doctorate at age 27. I defended it then. I do not care to be attacked and have to defend myself again, and again, and again.
So I will not.
Someday I will write a book. It would take a book to do it justice. I have better things to do. Sorry.
Jim
It’s offensive to imply that our rating system is designed to inflate ratings (as some kind of “keep people interested” scheme). We constantly have to struggle to keep the system accurate because some chess politicians want (or HAVE wanted) to “fiddle” with things, and then when we actually DO have a fairly stable system, somebody accuses us of doing what we’re trying to avoid!
DocFox,
Earlier I asked some questions (above) to find out where your earlier statement was coming from. I thought it was a obviously mistaken attack on our rating system.
This coming from an unrated player that started the thread to find out how ICC, ICCF, and USCF are related. I think it’s quite reasonable to make sure he knows what he’s talking about, under those circumstances. I’m not questioning his professional understanding of STATISTICS – I’m questioning his understanding of our chess rating system. I think I have good reason to do so, since he’s said some things that make me think he DOESN’T understand it.
I made it quite clear exactly WHICH statement of his that I questioned. I STILL don’t think he had his facts right when he said that our value of K was chosen to make ratings inflate for the purpose of “keeping people interested”.
I notice he still hasn’t provided ANY evidence for any of his statements or shown that he understands the answers to any of my questions. Instead of providing some substance, he responded by insulting me and forums (“dinky little board”).
Let’s see. There is a statistician on one side stating that things are wrong. On the other side there is a ratings committee that has run extensive modeling and testing (re-rating multiple complete years of actual historical events) to verify that the formulas do a reasonible job of actually predicting the percentage scores of players at different rating differences.
Why shouldn’t his unsupported statement that ignores such testing be considered more powerful than the man-years of work and validation already done (including the work done to identify deficiencies with stale ratings and propose and test realistic solutions). The ratings committee’s work would be so much easier if they didn’t have to worry about dramatically improving players (usually juniors) and only had to deal with mature players.
The USCF has it’s own CC. You can play quads, round robins, or even the Golden Knights. You can play for cash or trophies. When you play USCF CC, you play against other USCF members who are usually within the United States.
The ICCF is a separate organization which handles International CC play.
My chess club recognizes the USCF and has a club ladder. The USCF rates over-the-board games. Then it would seem that USCF games count in the club ladder. So all USCF over-the-board count in the club ladder because how else can you play a chess game in the club.
Oh wait, we can play non-rated games that count on the ladder and only count games at the club on the ladder. I guess that means that the club doesn’t recognize the USCF.
Oh wait, we have USCF-rated tournaments covering about 25% of the club’s meeting nights so I guess we do recognize the USCF.
You know what, I’ll bet that highlighted part is a logical fallacy.
We do not involve ICCF ratings with USCF CC ratings because the ICCF allows computers to be used for their correspondence chess events. Many USCF members who participate in USCF CC events can be invited to participate in ICCF events provided their USCF rating meets the criteria. What ICCF does, which USCF cannot do, is award International Correspondence Chess titles which USCF members can strive to achieve through international correspondence chess play.
Hope this information is helpful-
Joan DuBois/USCF
Ah, a fellow sufferer. 
By the way I wish I had done my PhD when I was younger. I worked about ten years, then a friend who was a professor at a nearby university pointed out that my brain was rotting (probably because I had given up chess) and I should go back to grad school. Well I did, though not at his school, and I did very well there. Apparently the rot was reversible. But now I think it would have been better to have done it much younger.
My first job after the degree was in Hong Kong. They wanted me to learn a bit of spoken Cantonese and take a test (the test didn’t really matter for anything). I didn’t mind the learning (did you know that Cantonese has six tones, Mandarin has only four, and I was too old to get used to the idea of tones at all, gack), but I did feel somewhat allergic to more tests!
I wish ratings discussions on this board did not get so acrimonious. Gotcha, you clearly don’t understand X, Y and even Z! There are a lot of aspects to ratings, and two people who apparently disagree (and are personally trashing each other) can both be right because they are solving different problems. Should ratings be simple enough to be calculated on the back of an envelope? Should they promote chess? Should they predict the player’s next performance as accurately as possible? These are all good goals, and they may have some conflict. The Rating Committee’s recent work since I joined about two years ago, and by my understanding for some years before that, has been focused on accurate prediction. The EB has liaisons and I’m sure they can influence the direction of our discussions.
I don’t think it’s offensive to imply that our system is designed to inflate ratings. It’s got some truth to it, but some inflationary input is needed to overcome the deflationary effect of already-rated players who improve. (When a rated player studies at home and improves, he or she has just deflated the rating system! The playing strength went up, the rating didn’t.) The system is not perfectly stable, but it’s a lot better than it was a few years ago. It’s not realistic to ask someone who is not on the RC for evidence about this, because as far as I know they don’t have that evidence in any sort of convenient form.
I don’t know if the page has been corrected since this quote, but now it specifies USCF CC, not any CC:
As I understand it, as a non-player of correspondence chess, ICCF allows you to use a computer for analytical help while USCF forbids it.
Everyone is entitled to choose what they enjoy more, but the USCF restriction is totally unenforceable. Isn’t there a lot of cheating? Without having experienced it myself, I doubt I would be comfortable with the USCF style in this age of computers.
I’m just thinking 
that maybe you should try to connect with John by phone. 
The topic is obviously important to you, and he is obviously knowledgeable in it. I hope I’m not putting either of you out (I don’t know either of you), but it seems like this thread is otherwise not providing efficient resolution for you on this topic.
Just a Friday morning thought, from an otherwise uninvolved party (i.e., forum lurker). 