fargo rating by username and disrespect towards top players

What do you suppose Dr. Dave's Fargorate is, and, high or low, what bearing should it have on the perceived quality and integrity of the information he puts out?
 
slide13 said:
To provide more info maybe we could also show:

Years of experience
Age
Gender
Skin color
Eye color
Hair color
Height
Weight
Religious affiliation
Political affiliation
Sexual preference
Physical address
Annual income
Annual charitable contributions

I'm sure there are other, let's not leave anything out here. If we're going to judge posters by something other than what they have to say we should make sure we have all the info from which to judge them by.

OP should go first.
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I never inhaled
 
mikepage said:
This is interesting. I think your comment is meant in the spirit of MLK's admonition to judge not by color of skin but rather by content of character.

Here it would be judging by content of post and not some irrelevant
attributions. But how good is that analogy?

Is the poster's skill irrelevant to the post, like skin color is, or does it inform the content of the post?

The answer, like a lot of answers, is "it depends."

If someone is making an argument and supporting that argument, then "who" is making that argument is irrelevant. The argument should stand or fall on its own.

But there are many sorts of comments and opinions posted here that don't fit that mold. When someone makes an unsupported opinion or conclusory post, then their skill level, their level of experience, and some other things might actually inform the content of the post.

So while most of your tongue-in-cheek list is never likely to be relevant to a post here, years of experience might actually be meaningful. And I can think of a lot of posts for which the poster's skill level is more "content of character" than it is "color of skin."
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Fully agree. And if anyone remembers how Mike Sigel famously wrote that throw doesn't exist or something similar then they know that sometimes even world champion caliber players don't always get it right when it comes to what is happening on the pool table.

Good ideas can come from anywhere.

What pisses me off though is that when a person is proven wrong they decide not to accept it but instead to stalk and troll and harass those who prove them wrong.

I like Bruce Lee's philosophy, "take what works and discard the rest."

One should be willing to TRY whatever is presented and find out for themselves the value of the information. If the information is not good then they should be able to credibly state why not. Not as a thought experiment but with details of their experience. Hopefully their true experience and not lying to make points.

Posting a Fargo Rating may indeed lend a bit of credibility to a person's words but they won't be any guarantee that those words will be true or useful.

That said I have found that a LOT of low Fargo Rated players wildly overestimate both their knowledge and skill as compares to higher ranked players. I have had 500s actually apologize to me for the spot that they got through FR and then sit there absolutely stunned that I won with what seemed to them be a huge insurmountable spot.

So what I wish for is that the lower ranked players would try a little harder to realize where they actually fit into the hierarchy of players and discuss accordingly.
 
slide13 said:
To provide more info maybe we could also show:

Years of experience
Age
Gender
Skin color
Eye color
Hair color
Height
Weight
Religious affiliation
Political affiliation
Sexual preference
Physical address
Annual income
Annual charitable contributions

I'm sure there are other, let's not leave anything out here. If we're going to judge posters by something other than what they have to say we should make sure we have all the info from which to judge them by.

OP should go first.
Click to expand...

Good list lol. Shocked and offended that you left out "gender identity". (Lol...I'm so not).

I get your point, but think about this. Whenever *anyone* says anything to us, we unconsciously (and consciously) consider the source of this new information. IF it is info about pool, I don't think it is unreasonable to consider the playing level of the person saying it. There are lots of people that tell me pool info. I watch some of those people play and they are simply not strong players. It makes their claims seem a bit less valid. There is this one guy who talks all about what it takes to be a top player. Thing is, he is barely a B player, and he doesn't usually compete well in tourneys. Here and there he has his moments. Now if the things he had to say were very well articulated and logical, I would likely weigh his playing skills less, and judge the validity of the info based on the words alone. But sometimes, the words alone are ambiguous, or straight up irrational. In those cases, I don't dismiss comments like that without *any* consideration. But the first question I'm going to ask myself is "how well does that guys advice seem to work for him?". For example, if someone tells me some advice on breaking which initially sounds dubious to me, but then I watch the guy and he's popping the rack great and squatting the cueball, doing all the things you want to do on the break, well then I'm going to give that some careful consideration.

Some smart guy once said "concepts without percepts are empty, and percepts without concepts are blind". (The smart guy was Immanuel Kant. He basically is saying that theories and abstract ideas without concrete real examples, our sensory experiences, don't really *do* anything, but those sensory experiences without the organizing, abstracting reason have no direction, tell us little, have no real universal application, and thus are blind). In this regard, we need to consider both the information, and the source of the information...or rather the implementation of the information.

I don't know anyone that has a fargorate over 700 that isn't a phenomenal pool player. So if someone tells me something about pool and they are a 700+ rating, I'm probably going to listen more to what they have to say than the guy telling me what I'm doing wrong with a 450 rating. That said, if someone with a rating lower than mine tells me something, I'm certainly not going to dismiss it. There are *some* cases in which a persons knowledge outreaches their capabilities. I'm sure there are several B players that have an encyclopedic knowledge of pool and pool shots. Their rating will not tell the whole story. But it *is* useful information.

KMRUNOUT
 
Tin Man said:
Mike, talk to Jerry and see if we can get people's Fargo Ratings next to their screen name. :wink:

This isn't to imply that people's opinions matter less if they don't play high level. I do think it would be interested though to see if a certain pattern held true.

The posters that I know that play very well have something in common- they tend to be very respectful of top players. It's like they've traveled down the path far enough to appreciate how hard it is to play world class.

There isn't a pool player alive that doesn't have opportunity to improve, but to speak about these players disdainfully because they are not perfect is very fatiguing to me. I'm not denying opportunity to improve, but it's striving to go from awesome to awesomer, because our players are truly awesome. It would make me feel better if I could see a big "516" next to some of the condescension I've read towards our top US players.
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I can see where you are going with this and I agree to an extent.
I've known some good players that are very disrespectful also....it's not just the lower rated players.
I think it's just a by-product of the internet that brings out the trolls. There is no real name to it, so it's easy to say bad things without any repercussions.
My fargo is currently at 664 and I can't say I've written anything bad about the Pro players. There are a couple that I've met and don't think too highly of but that isn't from how they play pool.
I would be dead money in a pro event, so as far as their play goes....they are pretty good. Some need to work on their people skills but on a pool table it's another story...
 
I go more by the content of the post/poster than their skill level. You can be a D player, or a pro and still show some respect to fellow players no matter what their skill level. I would guess most that show disrespect for better, or even fellow players, are just trying to tear them down, so they feel superior. The world is full of these kinds of folks, not just pool. They must be right, all of the time. Trying to talk to them, well, I might as well talk to a brick or a turd.

I have a ton more respect, and am much more willing to listen (or read) something from a person that shows some class, instead of some asshat that makes stupid comments, tries to get a reaction out of people with these stupid comments, or just want to argue over stupid shit because their ego will not allow them to do anything else (the pool world is full of egos, and many think they are 2 balls better than they really are).

Some posts and answers in this forum are actually quite good and you can actually learn something from them, others are just drivel and spittle from people that just love to argue till the end of the earth. I tend to skip the latter as I don't have time for some egotistical asshat to tell me how smart he/she is and how wrong and stupid everyone else in the world is. :)
 
The problem with requiring it is... pool already has a problem with
this whole sort of macho "mine is bigger than yours" atmosphere.
I wouldn't want to force anyone to publicly post a rating
because that just makes it worse.

Some guys make mostly positive and useful posts
and I'd hate to think they'd be embarrassed into not posting
because of a mediocre rating.

Making it optional makes sense, but then again we all have that option already.
You can put a custom title underneath your username, so I could
put my rating instead of "captain fishtastic". Or we could all put it in our sigs.
 
It takes me all of about 30 seconds to determine if what someone has to say is worthwhile or not. I actually think it's better not knowing how well someone plays because then their words need to stand on their own. If someone says something stupid their high rating doesn't mean a thing to me. Likewise, if a lower rated player says something worthwhile -- it doesn't need to be assisted by a rating. It's actually fairly easy to determine how well someone plays just by reading between the lines.

If someone is interested in reading the words of the great players -- they can just go to Facebook. That's really not my cup of tea but drink it up if it's yours.
 
Thought you might put it in the user's avatar or signature but I have them turned off which I figured most people do also, since some of us get carried away with such things. So your example of using the "custom user title" is a pretty good idea but you'd have to sacrifice your snazzy tagline, I updated mine to see how it looks and I would have to say...I like it.


Neil
 
What the hell, I'll play. It's not as high as I'd hoped but it's preliminary.
 
Pathetic Shark said:
Classic bully boy tactics. Let's all worship at the alter of cj Wiley, shall we? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

And who are these people disrespecting pros? The whole world thinks American pros aren't competitive at the moment - wanna fargo the whole world? You might find your rating ain't quite so spectacular as you think it is.

If America is butt hurt at the moment, good. Might finally force you to change, which many of us so-called haters who 'can't play' have been urging for years.

Now, go have a wollipop.
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PatheticShark, looking at this post it is clear who the bully is and who it is not. Every post I've seen from you is disrespectful, insulting, sarcastic, diminishing, contrary, or pompous.

I right clicked on your username and 'viewed all posts by Pathetic Shark'. There were 40 pages. I looked over the first page, then went to page 40 to see what some of your old posts looked like. I skimmed down the list. Each one dripped with venom. 40 pages and 4 years of continuous nasty remarks.

Why do you choose to speak to others in this manner?
 
I have no idea what a fargo rating is, and I've never been part of a league that tracked that kind of information. I just know the game, usually fairly accurate at reading the signals people give off, and do my best to write without too much emotion and examine things as they are.

Ratings only show who is having a good session or a bad session. Even if a player has a high rating, that doesn't mean they can translate table success to posting or communication success. And while letting "experience speak for itself" works in the hall, it doesn't work here. This place, in my opinion at least and from reading a lot of material from other posters, is not meant to be an online pool hall. It's an online community of pool players to hash out ideas, strategies, and opinions.

If someone puts up an opinion you don't like about pro players, let it roll off like a bad kick shot. But using a rating system to judge people for having opinions based on experience and observations doesn't promote what this site was originally meant for in my estimation. And I'm sorry, but no one, whether they are legendary status or just starting amateur is beyond reproach or scrutiny. We all can improve, we all have flaws, and we all have strengths. The key is to express flaws professionally, admit your gaps in knowledge, and make sure to also point out strengths of players both professional and amateur in order to have a more complete and as free of bias as possible analysis of the situation.

When a post is an opinion post, own that it is an opinion, not fact. Say outright, "this is what I observed" and then be open to reframing or changing statements and beliefs proven to be inaccurate. Speak with respect always, to whoever you are addressing. Don't post anything you wouldn't say to someone's face, and own it if you are called on it. That's called being an adult. Posting a rating under a user name doesn't help with that.
 
I can think you under the table...

KMRUNOUT said:
Some smart guy once said "concepts without percepts are empty, and percepts without concepts are blind". (The smart guy was Immanuel Kant....

KMRUNOUT
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Immanuel Kant was a real piss ant
who was very rarely stable.

:smile:
 
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