11/05/24
November 10, 2005
Beatpaths: "exists to create a ranking system -- BeatPower -- based on nothing more than wins and losses, with an emphasis on who's beaten whom." Detailed explanation. [via Salon's King Kaufman]
posted by kirkaracha to football at 02:17 AM - 11 comments
Yeah, it is hard to get my brain around, but it seems to make more sense than the Harris poll....
posted by elovrich at 11:02 AM on November 10, 2005
Seems like a pretty damned good system to me ... and the chart's all swirly!
posted by wfrazerjr at 11:15 AM on November 10, 2005
Whats wrong with winning percentage? I can't stand gimmicky standings (college sports, the NHL point system which is totally fucked) A win is a win if you have more points at the end of the alloted time you win and the other team losses. Mark it down,count 'em up,and move on to the next game.
posted by HATER 187 at 11:20 AM on November 10, 2005
Exactly. Especially in the NHL - hey look guys! we got rid of ties! so now, instead of this: W L T OL We'll give you this: W L OT SO Stop giving a point to a team that loses the game! But you can't do that. If you only give points to the team that wins, and there are no ties, then it negates the need for points in the first place. Then you have what normal sports call winning percentages. And you can't have that. That's not hockey. Is the NHL kidding? They must be. Someone tell me it's all some sick cruel joke.......
posted by The Gangstinator at 01:13 PM on November 10, 2005
Can anybody tell me if Beatpaths is the same as this thing that was posted about college football? It looks similar to me. Also: obviously winning percentage doesn't work in sports like college football where everybody only plays a small fraction of everybody else. Also: the point of a ranking system like this is not really to determine who "wins" the season, but to estimate who is actually the stronger team. You can see how this might be useful when you are trying to predict the outcome of any game in advance. Winning percentages are not very reliable there.
posted by Amateur at 01:46 PM on November 10, 2005
Oh I see.... I thought it was an alternative to the way football standings are caculated... my bad... I can see why college ball has the system they have in place but surely a more objective method could be found. I am admittidley a bad speller and ignorant whent it comes to college ball so will some one please school me.
posted by HATER 187 at 02:17 PM on November 10, 2005
Stephen Hawkings craps on beatpaths.
posted by Turbo at 04:04 PM on November 10, 2005
I like it. It's colorful and meaningless, kinda like Fiesta ware (another thing I don't buy).
posted by lil_brown_bat at 05:12 PM on November 10, 2005
Reading the comments before the article I expected the paths to cover NCAA football. NFL, hell they have playoffs and most years there's not a lot of argument at the end. College football, exact opposite. I noticed his other post about needing a free information source but that sounds like a copout as there must be a million sites on the web with scrapable results.
posted by billsaysthis at 03:28 PM on November 11, 2005
In all honesty, the snob in me doesn't trust anyone working in Perl.
posted by yerfatma at 07:25 PM on November 11, 2005
That link made my head hurt.