OOAK Table Tennis Forum

The USATT has now locked out all ratings data, including the ratings, tournament history, etc. of anyone who is not a CURRENT member.

Which, at first seems like no big deal. BUT...there are some potential scenarios that effect any USA based player:

-If you let your membership expire, you cannot access your OWN ratings data and history.

-If you have a CURRENT membership, you cannot access ratings data of any member who's let their membership expire.

-You cannot look up any data of expired members ratings prior to their expiration.

Thoughts? Comments?

I'll give my opinion after a few responses to avoid coloring other's opinions.

Sorry if this is a re-post..I looked but didn't find anything.

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝ Rating: 1615

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

Bolded parts are especially annoying to me. I am a paying customer (for now) and you've just made my experience much worse.

It's either a bug (I also can't see any tournament results beyond page 1, so it's not like rollout was flawless...) or a deliberate attempt to prevent access to ratings via paying friend. But then tournament/league directors presumably still can see it, so it's not like there is no way for 'freeloaders' to actually see their ratings...

Somewhat effed up, and will generate more ill will than incremental revenue, I think.

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USATT: 1818 | League: 1917

Weak move, especially as it includes local league ratings. This will discourage competition in a sport that sorely needs more participants.

Will a rival (free) online rating system emerge? Will clubs opt out of USATT's system for their local leagues? I hope so..

Agreed.

It's actually intentional, as I've emailed the USATT about it...it was pretty scathing...with me telling them how short-sighted this is, and how it feels like they are holding my ratings information hostage to extort membership fees from me. For many, ratings are a huge motivator (right or wrong) and it takes years to earn them. That it's suddenly unavailable to everyone is completely absurd.

In the very least, they could have given fair warning so we could have downloaded the data prior to hiding it.

How they think this will draw more people to the sport is beyond me.

I'll post my emails shortly... I recommend anyone who agrees with me write the USATT as well...preferably with some comparable vim and vigor. This is OUR sport, not theirs.

There is a "view only" fee you can pay to see ratings, but not play in tournaments. But...really? Who the eff would do that?

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝ Rating: 1615

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

YOU READ MY MIND. All you need is a database, and some people to crunch the numbers. I know quite a lot of IT guys that could make data entry very easy to do for the tournament directors, and automated on the back end.

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Blog: "Holy Chtchet!" ⇝ Rating: 1615

Projects: Player Equipment Grid ⇝ Comprehensive Thin Inverted Chopping Rubbers Grid ⇝ Please send me corrections or new submissions

Since I don't play in the US what matters to me is being able to look up other peoples' ratings. And that's still possible, as long as they're still members. (I just had a look.)

(Incidentally, how do you spell Yankahardon's real name? I wonder if he is still a member, though I doubt it... )

Iskandar

This is absolutely appalling. The USATT Board was just recently forced to resign. Was this tone-deaf decision made by USATT Membership Director Ethan Figge on his own in the vacuum before the new board was even selected? If so, this blunder needs to be rescinded by the board a.s.a.p.

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