IMG Grading System (Many Merged Threads)

[Hopie]

3 minutes ago, JohnM said:

If only the energy spent trying to destroy the project was directed at making it a success, then the world would be a better place and the critics ulcers might heal.

Of course, it's valid to debate areas for improvement, and things might be better if there were more official progress reports to stop people filling in the blanks with their own wishful thinking and interpretations.

But for FFS......

This will succeed, your doubts and criticisms aren't true.

becomes

This is succeeding and you should just be quiet with your doubts and criticism.

becomes

This would have succeeded but you kept talking it down, and it is succeeding actually, it just needs more time. 

If words on a forum made a difference, the rubbish ones defending the project would balance out the rubbish ones attacking it. The needed improvements that most people agree on would still not be forthcoming. 

[JonM]

24 minutes ago, Worzel said:

I wasn't sure this topic could get any more dull, until I read pages of population statistics and the suggestion that IMG should commission a new census just to check whether Keighley need to buy a new big screen or can get away within not bothering. Or something. I lost track after a while. 

I mean, that's how promotion and relegation works now - it's reasonable for rugby league fans to take an interest in it?

[Worzel]

4 minutes ago, JonM said:

I mean, that's how promotion and relegation works now - it's reasonable for rugby league fans to take an interest in it?

Perfectly reasonable. It can be that and stupifyingly dull at the same time. Anyway, crack on, none of my business! 

[JohnM]

1 hour ago, Hopie said:

This will succeed, your doubts and criticisms aren't true.

becomes

This is succeeding and you should just be quiet with your doubts and criticism.

becomes

This would have succeeded but you kept talking it down, and it is succeeding actually, it just needs more time. 

If words on a forum made a difference, the rubbish ones defending the project would balance out the rubbish ones attacking it. The needed improvements that most people agree on would still not be forthcoming. 

If only there was a facilty to put the whole topic on "ignore". I only come back on here as the modern equivalent of flagellation for past sins.

Just read what I wrote in full:

"Of course, it's valid to debate areas for improvement etc etc" and there are a few posters who are in my view making sensible comments and criticism. 

But FFS,  discussing if Mrs. Jones next door has a baby or if someone builds a new house means a club loses grading point really devalues the whole "debate".

Edited September 19 by JohnM

[Wakefield Ram]

15 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

And that shows just how controversial these scoring metrics are.

The question is how the number of 130,000 was chosen as a threshold and not 131,000 or 125,000 or 150,000? 

There's hopefully an explanation as to how this figure was reached. 

[gingerjon]

2 hours ago, Worzel said:

I wasn't sure this topic could get any more dull, until I read pages of population statistics and the suggestion that IMG should commission a new census just to check whether Keighley need to buy a new big screen or can get away within not bothering. Or something. I lost track after a while. 

Did you miss the zombie belief that Bradford’s portable telly is enough to get the points? (Thus proving how poor IMG are - despite the fact that it has been shown that it doesn’t get them the points, which apparently now also proves how poor IMG are).

[Cerulean]

2 hours ago, JohnM said:

...But for FFS......

You seem to be getting upset. To select a few teams to bump along the bottom of Super League for a few years, you can take a year to assess them against a list of ill-defined and mostly arbitrary and spurious measurements, or you can use on-field performance, or you can select the most positive member of this forum to make the choice. Don’t be surprised if one of those three methods is going to cause frustration and disappointment similar to your own.

[dkw]

5 minutes ago, Cerulean said:

You seem to be getting upset. To select a few teams to bump along the bottom of Super League for a few years, you can take a year to assess them against a list of ill-defined and mostly arbitrary and spurious measurements, or you can use on-field performance, or you can select the most positive member of this forum to make the choice. Don’t be surprised if one of those three methods is going to cause frustration and disappointment similar to your own.

You are talking utter garbage If you truly believe this is how its done.

[Hopie]

4 hours ago, JohnM said:

If only there was a facilty to put the whole topic on "ignore". I only come back on here as the modern equivalent of flagellation for past sins.

Just read what I wrote in full:

"Of course, it's valid to debate areas for improvement etc etc" and there are a few posters who are in my view making sensible comments and criticism. 

But FFS,  discussing if Mrs. Jones next door has a baby or if someone builds a new house means a club loses grading point really devalues the whole "debate".

Don't post or read, that is an easy ignore. 

I read your initial post and this post in full, contradicting yourself again, its ok to debate but not about the parts you find annoying, is that the main point?

Each grading criteria tends to become the main subject every now and again, a few pages on LEDs here, a few pages on council boundaries there, it all flies by in a blur. The problem is many of these individual scoring measures don't stand up well to scrutiny, as they could be better adapted to meet the stated goals, or hamper certain teams for no good reason.

[Griff]

20 hours ago, up the robins said:

Goole is under the the east riding council district control. But has a Doncaster postcode.

It has a Doncaster postcode because that's where letters got off the train back in the days when postcodes were being invented.

[LeeF]

9 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

It is a relevant point in the discussion re these stupid catchment areas, do you know that Leigh (there we go again) is geographically on the extremity of Wigan Metropolitan Borough? WN postcode for which the points are awarded.

The Leigh Catchment area from which there are quite a number of Leigh supporters include Manchester postcodes M46 Atherton, M29 Tyldesley and Astley, and Warrington postcode WA3 Lowton, Glazebury and Golbourne - which incidently the boundary of WA3 is only 1/2 mile from the Leigh Sports Village - 

But I expect you already knew that.

Well since you’ve mentioned it about a million times on this thread & a load of other ones I  reckon everyone knows 

[Jill Halfpenny fan]

5 hours ago, dkw said:

You are talking utter garbage If you truly believe this is how its done.

So, how was it done? 

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

30 minutes ago, Jill Halfpenny fan said:

So, how was it done? 

Someone needed a project for the new graduates and/or the interns.....

[Harry Stottle]

3 hours ago, LeeF said:

Well since you’ve mentioned it about a million times on this thread & a load of other ones I  reckon everyone knows 

I have never mentioned that before. Sweaty has mentioned those places not me, have you got a problem.

It should be easy to find just one post from me out of a million, please proceed and prove it.

[dkw]

10 hours ago, Jill Halfpenny fan said:

So, how was it done? 

You genuinely believe it was all just finger in the air, arbitrary figures? Dont be so ridiculous, this is a professional outfit thats done this kind of thing previously. they wont be just winging it. Some of you really need to get a grip, by all means dislike the process and the aims but man, come on.

[Archie Gordon]

6 hours ago, dkw said:

You genuinely believe it was all just finger in the air, arbitrary figures? Dont be so ridiculous, this is a professional outfit thats done this kind of thing previously. they wont be just winging it. Some of you really need to get a grip, by all means dislike the process and the aims but man, come on.

For those of us that do measurement for a living, I'm afraid that it* is a mix of arbitrary and educated guesses, plus outright fails. It really does look like a smartish intern with no experience has been handed the task.

An outright fail is the TV viewership score. You'd have thought that in trying to make a product better for TV that might be an important one to get right. But no - abject.

Now, this doesn't matter so much at the top and bottom end - even a poor measurement tool can tell your big clubs from your little clubs. The trouble is, the gradings need to separate your middling clubs with the prize of SL and £1.3m up for grabs. The gradings aren't capable of doing that.

EDIT: 'It' being these IMG gradings.

Edited September 20 by Archie Gordon
Clarification

[dkw]

16 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

For those of us that do measurement for a living, I'm afraid that it is a mix of arbitrary and educated guesses, plus outright fails. It really does look like a smartish intern with no experience has been handed the task.

 

If that's how you quantify measurables in your roles then I`m glad I've never had to work with you. 

[gittinsfan]

1 hour ago, dkw said:

If that's how you quantify measurables in your roles then I`m glad I've never had to work with you. 

is that your version of:

I can't think of a sensible reply so I'll just insult him."

[LeeF]

10 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

I have never mentioned that before. Sweaty has mentioned those places not me, have you got a problem.

It should be easy to find just one post from me out of a million, please proceed and prove it.

I’ve not got a problem. Have you?

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Archie Gordon said:

For those of us that do measurement for a living, I'm afraid that it is a mix of arbitrary and educated guesses, plus outright fails. It really does look like a smartish intern with no experience has been handed the task.

An outright fail is the TV viewership score. You'd have thought that in trying to make a product better for TV that might be an important one to get right. But no - abject.

Now, this doesn't matter so much at the top and bottom end - even a poor measurement tool can tell your big clubs from your little clubs. The trouble is, the gradings need to separate your middling clubs with the prize of SL and £1.3m up for grabs. The gradings aren't capable of doing that.

I don't 100% disagree with you, but one thing to point put is that whilst we can nitpick on individual metrics, I think that will always be the case.

But when all put together, they are delivering the right outcomes. I dont think there were any surprises in the way the teams were ranked on the provisional results. People may fake outrage about London, but for years the game has had accusations of favouritism to the likes of London, so I think it's quite refreshing to have home truths about London Broncos as a club.

Whilst your point about it not splitting the middle teams out seems valid on the surface, isn't the point though that in reality there is very little difference? So wouldn't we expect it to group them together?

That feels more like an outcome of the fact that the bottom SL clubs just haven't created a gulf between them and the Champonship clubs. I dont think you can create a system that artificially creates that. The rankings will simply assess you as a club, and it broadly ranked things exactly as you'd expect.

[Archie Gordon]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

I don't 100% disagree with you, but one thing to point put is that whilst we can nitpick on individual metrics, I think that will always be the case.

But when all put together, they are delivering the right outcomes. I dont think there were any surprises in the way the teams were ranked on the provisional results. People may fake outrage about London, but for years the game has had accusations of favouritism to the likes of London, so I think it's quite refreshing to have home truths about London Broncos as a club.

Whilst your point about it not splitting the middle teams out seems valid on the surface, isn't the point though that in reality there is very little difference? So wouldn't we expect it to group them together?

That feels more like an outcome of the fact that the bottom SL clubs just haven't created a gulf between them and the Champonship clubs. I dont think you can create a system that artificially creates that. The rankings will simply assess you as a club, and it broadly ranked things exactly as you'd expect.

As a pretty blunt tool used for broad rankings, it's poor but it'll do.

But as you seem to agree that it can't distinguish one middling club from another, why not play actual games of rugby league to set those clubs apart? 

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

As a pretty blunt tool used for broad rankings, it's poor but it'll do.

But as you seem to agree that it can't distinguish one middling club from another, why not play actual games of rugby league to set those clubs apart? 

If these clubs are ranked the same, it pretty much will come down to on field points.

But yeah, I'm in favour of P&R between Grade B clubs. 

However, imagine the furore when Grade B London were relegated despite being above Grade A Hull, or even in future if we had 10 Grade A clubs and a team got relegated from 8th place or similar.

[RP London]

7 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

As a pretty blunt tool used for broad rankings, it's poor but it'll do.

But as you seem to agree that it can't distinguish one middling club from another, why not play actual games of rugby league to set those clubs apart? 

Not being funny but that isnexactly what that performance score is doing. But as I've said before I would prefer straight P&R between B clubs but we are where we are. 

I do a lot of data analysis and measurement in my job. Totally admit there are areas of this that could have been done better and it is, in parts, a blunt tool I also think it does do the job quite well. It is also being used, and they point this out, to steer clubs for what otherwise would be called minimum standards (have been in the past but this time the stick feels bigger) and it does IMHO work on that level too. 

It's 1 tools to do 2-3 tasks which means it is not going to be perfect of you look at it against any of those individual tasks but I'm the whole I think it just about works. It will change over the years without a doubt and become more specific IMO with better measurable as it starts to only need to do the 1 task. 

Edited September 20 by RP London

[Harry Stottle]

Why can Grade A clubs not be relegated? how much better is say a Grade A that may get 0.1 of a point better say 15 points in the scoring tables be protected and receiving the full funding than a Grade B who gets 14.9 points and so is subject to jeopardy, and funding with over 1 million less than the A grade.

Edited September 20 by Harry Stottle

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Why can Grade A clubs not be relegated? how much better is say a Grade A that may get 0.1 of a point better say 15 points in the scoring tables be protected and receiving the full funding than a Grade B who gets 14.9 points and so is subject to jeopardy, and well less than I million in funding.

If everyone can just be promoted and relegated on-field, then there is no grading system. And that's fine if your opinion is we shouldn't have it, but you can't have both of those things in a grading system.

There is no incentive to drive standards if it doesn't reward you in any way.