FRCTop25.com Going Live Soon! Get Involved.

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

What makes you say that?


I think this should be marketed more as ESPN's Power rankings, which is just for fun and has no influence on the season, and not NCAA football/basketball which do determine what teams play who and where.

I think anonymity of the "experts" is very important for this to work. Call it the "Looking Forward model". People like the mystery. It elevates this above normal posters knowing that some mysterious group of experts are behind this post/ranking. You might have your suspicions but you don't know their identities for sure. You assume they are amazing experts, whoever seems best in your mind (WFA winners, 15+ year veterans, CD Rock Stars like JVN, Karthik or Koko Ed, or even Dave Lavery???).

This model also limits the backlash. Not everything Looking Forward said was positive. He called for upsets and snubbed teams. It didn't seem personal because he wasn't "a person". Similarly, stats like OPR aren't personal. If anyone can look at all these experts picks and notice one person has a team ranked lower (or left off) than the rest then someone on the forum is going to take personal offense with that expert. The reason college football started releasing ballots was so people "could scrutinize" the voters in hopes they would not be corrupt (not an issue here). Notice how Justin has wisely included a disclaimer already, we all know what is to come. I think you will get more/better volunteer "experts" if they don't have to deal with it. Also, if the "expert" is not a well known name on CD/FIRST they might be seen as illegitimate by people who are far less of an experts themselves (i.e. "Who is this Left Coast guy and what does he know?")

Aside from some likely mean comments tossed at individual voters, it will also pressure the voters to conform with each other (when they see other's ballots) like every major Top 25 (stick to everyone's pre-season guess until overwhelming evidence destroys it). This best be a very fluid poll with wide differences of opinion for 2 reasons: 1. Since you can't vote on a team till they have finished an event, a team debut at #1 without it being a slight on a previous #1. 2. No matter how much of an "expert" someone, noone sees all the robots (especially in early weeks the archive video is not there).

Finally, if you tell everyone who the voters are, this will degenerate into a bunch of "Pick me! messages" aimed at the voters. If you don't believe me see every thread with the word "Best" in the title or Billfred's (unsuccessful) attempt to curb this behavior (nice try ). I am not concerned that this will influence the voters much since the people who write this messages are almost always not Top 25 Material. However, it can get to the point where the noise overwhelms the signal (and CD PM boxes). Of course, this sort of thing will happen in some form whether FRCTop25.com exists (it is try to limit it by not allowing picking your own team), but we should try to limit the annoyance. I think it happened less when Looking Forward was posting credible analysis of the top teams. Also the existing noise was a little more interesting as people acted as tipsters for their own team (I remember person who posted watch out for "Team XXXX at yada yada Regional!", then realized like hour later that they still had Team XXXX in their profile so they changed to Team 0000). Maybe FRCTop25.com will be similar in this respect. I wish more people subscribed to the Don Wright School of Thought of "Don't pick (on) me!'

I think a Top 25 is a really fun idea that should help get the masses interested in robot that are not in their region. There will always be a minority of people that will make it less fun with their negativity and whining. I just hope it doesn't make it an annoyance for Justin or any of the "expert voters". Just because the vote is secret doesn't mean voters can't give reasons for their picks. Voters (expert and public) could write comments about each robot and the best ones could be collected on a page for that robot. I actually think the single best comment per robot should be included when you release the new weekly rankings in a thread on CD. Expert voters could reveal themselves and release their ballots if they choose as the season progressed (and see how it works out). Then for next year you can add/switch some of the voters and make it a fun secret again .