FargoRate app review
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Wow, tough question. Personally, I love Fargo, but it has one seriously glaring weakness and that is the overweighting of matches played more than a year ago.
In my opinion, for Fargo to advance to the next level, it will have to assign a greater weight to results in the past year of play than results older than a year. Similarly, Fargo shouldn't count matches in the distant past at all, because such results are not an indicator of current playing speed.
Fargo, as currently computed, does not penalize those who do not participate in competition, making pool the only sport I know of which has this problem. The result is that players who rarely or never compete maintain their ratings from the past, when in far too many cases their skills have diminished.
In my opinion, for Fargo to advance to the next level, it will have to assign a greater weight to results in the past year of play than results older than a year. Similarly, Fargo shouldn't count matches in the distant past at all, because such results are not an indicator of current playing speed.
Fargo, as currently computed, does not penalize those who do not participate in competition, making pool the only sport I know of which has this problem. The result is that players who rarely or never compete maintain their ratings from the past, when in far too many cases their skills have diminished.
Sorry, let me clarify - this is about the iPhone/Android app.
The free version lets you look up people with a very glitchy search function and set a favorites list so you can see a pre-selected set of players' ratings. That's about all you get.
The $12.99/year version lets you see your own match history, though no one else's, and has a slightly less compromised search process.
This is an important conversation to have given the announcement that "We are excited to announce the FargoRate Player App. Available now! This site will be retiring soon so be sure to get the app." .... implying that we will no longer have a web search, only the app.
So far the reviews are weak:
The free version lets you look up people with a very glitchy search function and set a favorites list so you can see a pre-selected set of players' ratings. That's about all you get.
The $12.99/year version lets you see your own match history, though no one else's, and has a slightly less compromised search process.
This is an important conversation to have given the announcement that "We are excited to announce the FargoRate Player App. Available now! This site will be retiring soon so be sure to get the app." .... implying that we will no longer have a web search, only the app.
So far the reviews are weak:
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I bought the app a year ago. I don't like it. I want the ability to look up any two players, and see their entire match history. I know Fargo has this data, but they don't make it available to us.
Or maybe the ability to calculate a fargorate for only certain matches between players, or certain tournaments, etc.
The app itself is hard to use. Its not intuitive where you are in the app, or how to look things up. The favorites list doesn't make any sense. I have about 30 players in mine, and they are not in any order that makes sense. Not by order or rating, or when I added them, or first or last name, etc.
The app also has not been updated in 8 or 9 months, I just looked it up. It had some bug fix updates early on, and nothing since.
If I'm at my computer, I still prefer the fairmatch.fargorate site over the phone app.
I don't know what Fargo's end game is, but in 5 years since its been out, its only been a rating system. I feel like it could have been an instrumental part of pool. From matching up, to tournaments, to player statistics (like baseball junkies), to bookmaking, to even making money for the creators by driving traffic to their site. But its none of that, just some number on a website/app with no advertisements on it. I'm so confused why it didn't take off and explode.
Or maybe the ability to calculate a fargorate for only certain matches between players, or certain tournaments, etc.
The app itself is hard to use. Its not intuitive where you are in the app, or how to look things up. The favorites list doesn't make any sense. I have about 30 players in mine, and they are not in any order that makes sense. Not by order or rating, or when I added them, or first or last name, etc.
The app also has not been updated in 8 or 9 months, I just looked it up. It had some bug fix updates early on, and nothing since.
If I'm at my computer, I still prefer the fairmatch.fargorate site over the phone app.
I don't know what Fargo's end game is, but in 5 years since its been out, its only been a rating system. I feel like it could have been an instrumental part of pool. From matching up, to tournaments, to player statistics (like baseball junkies), to bookmaking, to even making money for the creators by driving traffic to their site. But its none of that, just some number on a website/app with no advertisements on it. I'm so confused why it didn't take off and explode.
My bad. Sorry, I misinterpreted.
I agree with a lot of this. To me, it was a good start but since then it has been a disappointment watching no improvements being made.
Where is the development? Is the web site really going to be deprecated for such a thinly featured app?
The app needs a lot of "tweaking".
Seeing other players' match histories would be at the top of my list.
Unfortunately for me, I've sent in two "corrections" requests to have some matches removed from my history and I've not seen any response. There's another person with a similar name to mine and their match history is counted in mine, which probably makes for a slightly skewed FargoRate for me.
Unfortunately for me, I've sent in two "corrections" requests to have some matches removed from my history and I've not seen any response. There's another person with a similar name to mine and their match history is counted in mine, which probably makes for a slightly skewed FargoRate for me.
I can't even see my own match history let alone anyone else's. For that matter I can't even see any other players Fargo rate number.
I agree lots of improvements needed.
Kevin
I agree lots of improvements needed.
Kevin
That's interesting - I've had quick responses when contacting them. Maybe try again on fargorate.com.
I play in a BCA-sanctioned league and although we don't use fargorate, I do have access to the paid features, which are really nice: I like the fact that you can see your match history, I like the fact that you can search on a region like a city or state and see the rated players, and sort by rating. That wasn't possible on the web site.
The interface is definitely not idiomatic to my iPhone, but it's not too bad and I suppose that's the consequence of being cross-platform or web-view-based.
It's too bad that you can't see others' match histories. It would be cool to see the match histories of pro vs. pro, or even friends. I don't know if that's a technical issue or maybe there's some privacy or other issue that they decided not to show that.
On a recent video, Mike Page said there's a new version coming out (first 30 sec.) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBbkg_5lEhs
It sounds like he says the update will have rating trends?
The interface is definitely not idiomatic to my iPhone, but it's not too bad and I suppose that's the consequence of being cross-platform or web-view-based.
It's too bad that you can't see others' match histories. It would be cool to see the match histories of pro vs. pro, or even friends. I don't know if that's a technical issue or maybe there's some privacy or other issue that they decided not to show that.
On a recent video, Mike Page said there's a new version coming out (first 30 sec.) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBbkg_5lEhs
It sounds like he says the update will have rating trends?
I just keep hearing Mark Cuban's voice from Shark Tank saying how difficult and expensive a good app is.
That's great news if true.
The only things the paid version do over the free version are 1) being able to see your own personal match history, i.e. a list of the games you have played, and 2) search by city.
JC
Coos Cues
I don't have a smart phone but I do have a 5 year old android tablet.
Tried installing the app and it said my device wasn't supported.
That was the end of my adventure with it.
Having said that a truly robust app would be able to render the answer to nearly every question about the players and their history and relationship to one another in the database that one might wonder about.
Does it do this? Sounds like not even close.
On a brighter note it almost was able to calculate the winner of the Iowa caucus.
Tried installing the app and it said my device wasn't supported.
That was the end of my adventure with it.
Having said that a truly robust app would be able to render the answer to nearly every question about the players and their history and relationship to one another in the database that one might wonder about.
Does it do this? Sounds like not even close.
On a brighter note it almost was able to calculate the winner of the Iowa caucus.
What devices does it support? I am considering replacing an old android tablet with a chromebook. I would like to know before i make a purchase. Mike mike mike?
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The paid version is available for free to anyone that plays in a BCA league. So, the paid version doesn't really have anything the free version isn't able to do.
What it does it does it semi-well, lot of tweaking still needed.
However, I still think the search function sucks,
Also I changed the photo at the top but I can't seem to change it back to what it was.
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