Fixing Sportsmanship

[pathwinder14]

Sportsmanship scoring is flawed…badly. It needs to be accounted for, but the current methods are poorly tallied. It is based upon one person's view of an opponent. This is unreliable. One bad sportsmanship score could be from a sore loser. Two could be as well. Current methods do not prevent collusion either. Two players could give each other high sportsmanship scores. Why not fix the way we tally the scores the players give each other?

We (T.O.’s) could apply trending to assign sportsmanship scores. In the business world and management world trending is used to make more informative decisions based upon a track record of performance. Three or more similar sportsmanship scores starts to show a trend that needs to be looked into.

Sportsmanship scores should only be applied once a fairly reliable trend has been established. At your tournament, go ahead and have each player rate their opponent's sportsmanship at the end of a game like normal. The way we tally it is what changes. If a player receives 3 or more similar scores (i.e. 3 good, 3 negative, 3 neutral) it establishes a reliable trend (because it’s from 3 different perspectives of that player over several games).

Only apply sportsmanship scores if that 3 game trend is established. If they get 3 negative scores deduct 10 percent of their points. If they get 3 positive scores, add 10 percent of their points. If they get 3 neutral scores add 5 percent of their points. If they get random scores (i.e. 2 negatives, 2 positive, and 1 neutral) add/deduct nothing.

Is that 3 games out of 5? Would it be 4 out of 7? No. Why not a majority trend I hear you say? Trending is not about establishing a majority behavior or performance profile. It is about noticing tendencies in those behaviors or performance. We want to change those tendencies so players are fair and represent good sportsmanship.

[SotonShades]

in the business and management world, trending is only used were hundreds of datum points are availible or over a significant period of time. Given that most tournaments are only a handful of games long, it's very unlikely that any significant trends would appear. As with any scoring system that is open to the players themselves for input, it would only provide another tool for crafty players to exploit (though only if they know about it before hand. If not, any player with a negative 'trend' could quite possibly try to call you for fixing the rankings). You would possibly be better at looking at a player's modal average or some form of moving point average to see how they do overall, helping pick out and eliminate someone trying to abuse their power and drop their opponants placing. Again, this can't eliminate players talking and up-scoring each other to increase their chance, especially if a player convinces all of his opponants to do the same.

I may be mistaken, but I tend to find the tournaments in the UK don't tend to include sportmanship at all (maybe just not at the tournaments I've attended). Whilst there are certain softscores such as having a fully WYSIWYG and/or painted army etc, sportsmanship won't count toward your placing at all. The argument always seems to be that sportsmanship just becomes another way of fixing the results, rather than actually reward good behaviour/punishing bad. It's possible that we just don't have as many WAAC players so it's not been necessary, it's possible that because no system for sportsmanship has been in place that no players have developed a WAAC sense about it to abuse it.

What I have seen at a good number of tournaments were Yellow/Red Card systems, sometimes on the scoresheets, sometimes at the judges discretion. If you feel your opponant has been less than curtious cheating, rude etc... not just forgetting his please's and thank you's) you can tell a judge/make a note of it on the score card when handing them in. This gets them a yellow card and a warning. 2 Yellow Cards or any really serious infringement (such as actually physically or verbally assaulting another player or one of the judges) means a Red Card and the player is expelled from the tournament. Obviously if a judge spots someone misbehaving, they don't have to wait for scorecards to come in to issue Yellow or Red cards. I suppose this system would still be open to abuse; a group of players ganging together to get someone they don't like kicked out perhaps. That said, I've only seen one yellow card issued in the last 4 or 5 tournaments using this system. Even then the guy just turned around, apologised and was perfectly nice for the rest of the day.

So my solution for Sportsmanship in tournaments? Scrap it and make sure you have judges that can and will get rid of the a$$hat$ that are simply trying to ruin the day for everyone else.

[Xenith]

Do like they do in competitive judged sports.

Apply scores as normal, then remove the highest and lowest scores, so that guy that chipmunked you with a one doesnt matter.

If you get 1,4,4,5,5, out of 5 games, you lose a 5 and the 1, giving you 4,4,5, which is still good. Likewise, 5,5,5,1,5, becomes 5,5,5.

[AbusePuppy]

Other options include:

-No sportsmanship score at all, with judges awarding penalties for clear obstructions or misinterpretations. Obviously this requires a much larger judging presence than many events can manage.

-Sportsmanship scores that count down; you start with the maximum value and each opponent either rates the game as enjoyable or not. The first bad ranking does nothing to you, but more of them cumulatively reduce your score. Also works well with the next solution.

-Openly-ranked sportsmanship. Jerks are usually only jerks in private; if they have to come out and be open about it, they'll back down and give you a reasonable number. Have both players show each other the ranking they awarded and, ideally, explain why. This cuts down on the passive-aggressive behavior somewhat.

-Require reasons for low rankings. If you give someone a '1', make sure they write exactly why they did so. This is somewhat like the above, but aims things more towards the judge than the other player.


To be honest, I don't like sportsmanship rankings; more often than not people will have different conceptions of what the "average" score should be. (Is 5/5 the assumed score unless you do something wrong, or is it reserved for exceptionally gregarious opponents? Etc.) And, as noted, "chipmunking" is very, very common amongst the shadier brand of players, but even good players may be tempted into marking their opponent lower than they otherwise might when they end up on the losing side of a game; it's just human nature. When the scores are used solely for a Best Sportsman or similar award the problems are less relevant, but if they contribute to the overall tournament result I think it encourages poor behavior and rationalizing on players' parts.

[DarkLink]

The Bay Area Open last year used a thumbs up/thumbs down system. If you gave a thumbs down, a judge would come and talk with you to justify it, and the guy you gave a thumbs down to would have a chance to defend himself to the judge. If the person was found to be genuinely rude, cheating, etc, then the judge would issue a warning. Multiple warnings, depending on the infraction, and the person was removed from the running, and potentially asked to leave.

Over the course of the two days, there was a total of two thumbs downs, and that was two guys playing each other who just didn't get along.

Simple, effective, and you can't really chipmunk people with it. Anything more than this and you can start gaming the system or letting a bad mood get in the way.

[pathwinder14]

Do like they do in competitive judged sports.

Apply scores as normal, then remove the highest and lowest scores, so that guy that chipmunked you with a one doesnt matter.

If you get 1,4,4,5,5, out of 5 games, you lose a 5 and the 1, giving you 4,4,5, which is still good. Likewise, 5,5,5,1,5, becomes 5,5,5.
That's pretty cool.


...-Sportsmanship scores that count down; you start with the maximum value and each opponent either rates the game as enjoyable or not. The first bad ranking does nothing to you, but more of them cumulatively reduce your score. Also works well with the next solution.
I like that too.


The Bay Area Open last year used a thumbs up/thumbs down system. If you gave a thumbs down, a judge would come and talk with you to justify it, and the guy you gave a thumbs down to would have a chance to defend himself to the judge. If the person was found to be genuinely rude, cheating, etc, then the judge would issue a warning. Multiple warnings, depending on the infraction, and the person was removed from the running, and potentially asked to leave.

Over the course of the two days, there was a total of two thumbs downs, and that was two guys playing each other who just didn't get along.

Simple, effective, and you can't really chipmunk people with it. Anything more than this and you can start gaming the system or letting a bad mood get in the way.
Sweet.

Keep the ideas coming ya'll.