Are you giving them the option at your tourneys?

Every tournament I've ever played in, I've paid. Organizers can take a dollar from that and pay IFPA. Boom!

well said Dan.

no, but my tourneys wont have the ability to do IFPA, since I wont be registering them with the site, submitting any data, or paying any fees.

I will also be runnin formats that dont meet the requirments of IFPA sanctioning (split flipper and team based play for example)

The inverse is different for anyone actually submitting to IFPA. If you have already registered, are runnning an event that meets IFPA requirements and are submitting results, then it takes no effort to allow a player to play in your event and just remove their name form the final results before submitting.

IF I ever run IFPA events in the future I will not force anyone to pay the buck or have their name submitted to IFPA. No different than it has always been. Amazingly we have had some people request to not have their name submitted previously and we have honored that. They are still allowed to play. There is no negative impact of letting them do so.

Hi Everyone!

Time to bring this topic back on topic.

If you want to discuss the IFPA 2018 Rules changes, please move it to the IFPA thread.

This thread topic is Bowen's decision to suppress himself from the IFPA ranking system.

I'm closing this thread for 30 minutes. After which, I will unlock the thread and allow conversation to continue.

This way, anyone that is posting off topic would have plenty of notice and not be surprised by a moderation.

Thanks.

Marcus

Thread is now re-opened.

Please keep all future posts on topic.

Thanks.

Marcus

Are players allowed to be supressed and then later request to be unsupressed?

I assume a supressed player still counts towards the value of an event? (i.e. .5 base value) Is this the case?

If Bowen asked to be unsupressed as of today, woudl he come back in with all those results fomr the past 8 months active in his cue and showing his accurate WPPR, or do those not exist for him?

"suppressed" implies to me that the results are still recorded, they're just not included in current calculations for rankings and such. therefore (and this is just my assumption) it seems to me he could be un-supressed and his historical numbers would show up. i have spent exactly 10 seconds thinking about it, though, so why am i even posting?

Yes. Players can turn themselves on and off at their leisure, for whatever reasons they prefer. I once had a player turn themselves off because their boss saw the results on their profile that included a date that player was "sick from work". Once I rebuilt the rankings with them suppressed, their boss couldn't prove anything to get them in trouble.

A player that is suppressed for any portion of the current year forfeits their rights to any IFPA related "perks" for the following year. Taking Bowen for example, by suppressing himself in 2017 he has disqualified himself from qualifying in any SCS, the IFPA WC, Stern Rewards Program. In 2018 this will also include the Stern Pro Circuit as one of the IFPA "perks". Suppressed players can of course participate in the individual SPC events, but they won't be tracked in the SPC standings and won't be able to qualify for the SPC Final.

Yes. The player still exists in all the calculations we do on the backend. Once we go to "display" the results publicly to the website, the names are removed for those players that are suppressed. Taking the Bowen example, he still adds .5 base value points as well as his high level of 'ranking' and 'rating' value add to the WPPR pot in any event he plays in.

Everything exists for Bowen in our system. The only thing we don't do is display his stats publicly linked to his name. If he ever requests to be turned back on, all that activity will exist as if he never suppressed himself at all.

For those with minor detective skills, if you knew every event that Bowen played in, you could sleuth your way into knowing exactly where he would be today.

Here are the results from PAPA A:
https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=18407

We all know he finished in 2nd place, so as of that date entering the tournament he was ranked 13th in the world and had an IFPA Rating of 1771.43.

He earned 118.52 WPPR's for that event. The only way to know where that boosted him is to know the next tournament played in after PAPA 20 (which I don't). That will list his WPPR rank going into that next event, and so on and so on.

That's great info to know. My buddy was asking me what the repercussions were for suppressing yourself and I did not know the answer.

It will be interesting to see if Bowen has any results submitted in 2018 thus supporting the new IFPA changes.

Could Bowen suppress himself, kick ass in several tourneys, and then unsuppress, revealing him as #1 in the world?? Kinda like creeping through the ranks like a pinball Ninja and then BAM!
*Asking for a friend*

that would be AMAZING!!!

just to be clear on this. Supressing for 2017 means he can not pop in and play in the Jan 20, 2018 SCS.

He could unsupress as of Jan 1 2018, and then qualify and play in the SCS held in Jan of 2019.

correct?

also, if you supress then I assume no restrictions using WPPR position can be known/applicable?

In other words, if a top 100 player supresses themself and has not other restrictions then they would be able to play in any division of PAPA/Pinburgh?

asking for a friend

Correct. Even if unsuppressed TODAY, he's already ineligible to play in SCS on 1/20/18. He forfeited his rights to the "2017 season".

He has until 11:59pm on 12/31/17 to make himself eligible for the "2018 season" with the finals held in Jan 2019.

We can dig into our backend for any TD's that need to know information regarding a suppressed player.

I've also heard of TD's using the rule that any players suppressed from IFPA are presumed to be of the highest restriction, which is also fine.

ouch, that would hurt

But you’d gain a lot of Pinside’s respect ...

I am not planning to supress myself, but I alreayd have my own respect (still isnt worth much)

No problem Dan. Just thought I could help if there was a way. I trust in your best judgement.

I know that could be done but I would never do something like that without Dan’s knowledge. I respect Dan to much for him to put up with any BS.

I would gladly offer to sponsor the $1 fee for the MGC out of my own pocket for the importance that event has been in the history of the 'new' IFPA as Dan mentioned. Dan knows this, and I'm well aware that his issues go far beyond who actually pays the fee, sponsored or not.

I was sayin that Dan wound not "know" so he/MGC would be safe... if you know what I am sayin

to stay on topic...
thanks for the details on Supression Josh.

Off topic

I know what your saying but still won’t do it.

Dan is still responsible for what goes on at his show. Ask him. He'd be pretty far from safe.

LTG : )

Ouch!

rd

Knuckles deep bro

Elbow deep inside the borderline

Ooooooofff!!

rd

Life before the IFPA... it was real. Tournaments before the IFPA... it was real. The biggest events.. are still the biggest events... before the IFPA. Where is this collusion you insist that was happening to make some events happen and others not?

Could it be... friends decide where they want to go or not? That's not a 'good old boys club' or collusion - that is you needing to attract players to your event.

Wow.. I never realized competitive pinball didn't exist before you stepped in and saved us from the Dark Ages. I guess all those years before IFPA and the evolution championed by people like Kevin Martin were just figments of my imagination?

Things like... the way it's ran... the titles on hand... the location... the quality of the games... costs... where friends may be... where friends may be going.. the show... vending... who might be there industry wise.... tradition... lots of reasons. Truth is, we all know SHOWS, not tournaments, drove visiting patterns until recent times. Expo and PAPA were the pretty much the only events that had national draws specifically around competition. Everything else was regional with a sprinkling of the folks committed enough to travel for their hobby.

Now you are talking about WPRR whoring and how early in IFPA time it was so fluid how events were graded. Certainly in the early days this was very much an 'evolution' -- but that only mattered to a handful of people and was nothing like what you said with:

"group of players who worked to basically select the top players and the top tournaments to continually give themselves the best chance of winning. In the early days of the IFPA reboot, the IFPA was really a driving force on trying to change that as much as possible"

It seems to me you've taken your struggles with how WPRRs were calculated over the years and extrapolated that into what makes tournaments or shows.. or 'top players' because you struggled to get the visibility or grade you wanted. Pffffttt

It's obvious to everyone whose been around for a long time that competitive pinball is full of cliques and there is a lot of history between many of the people involved. That does not equate to manipulation of the competitive or show scene. The whoring that been popular hasn't even always come from the old guard... but from other regional pockets who try to maximize what they had. I'm sure Josh feels like they played Wack-a-mole far more than any thoughts about 'protecting people' or shows.

No, I just know time existed before the IFPA, and that WPRR whoring/manipulation is a topic like the Pinside Rankings -- it has impact largely only within itself.. and is not driving the larger landscape.

WPRRs have evolved... but what made shows famous has had nothing to do with WPRRs. And with events like the PAPA Circuit, the low has been spread around... I see all those efforts as evolutions of the mandates both PAPA and IFPA started with... promote MORE pinball... not efforts to break up the 'good ol boys' and breakup their hold on the scene... *rolleyes*

Exactly... which is why I don't understand why people think IFPA sanctioning is the be-all-end-all of the viability of an event... or people even mix in "im not running this event now..." in this conversation due to the IFPA requirements.

If your players aren't the ones trying to qualify for a IFPA thing... and only saw rankings as a novelty... who cares about IFPA? Run your format, your event, however you want it. My biggest concern would be missing out on the IFPA calendar... but even that is under utilized now vs it's potential.

Randoms who would be upset over paying a dollar to play in a local event aren't your traveling IFPA player base anyways. So don't do it... and run life as you always have.

If you want recurring stats.... use the multitude of tools out there to make up your own fun stats about your location or player base.

Something I don't understand is how suppressing oneself disqualifies for the whole year. If you suppressed yourself but then unsuppressed yourself during the season, why shouldn't you just take any points from your unsuppressed time and they count? If you don't qualify then fine, but I don't understand why suppressing oneself cancels all potential to change your mind in that year and not just be penalized for it. Just don't understand the rationale behind that though I could see not counting points from any suppressed playing time.

We don't have the functionality in place to mark a period of time where a player's results based on when they were suppressed would continue to be inactive on their profile once they do because active again in the system.

The WPPR system is meant to be an accurate system with respect to the world ranking of players. Having a player pick a choose what events they want counted based on constantly suppressing/unsuppressing themselves makes our system less accurate based on the skill level they have proven through their actual play.

It opens up exploits for players to sandbag certain events. If I want to play in C division at Pinburgh, I can get all the way up to that cut line, suppress myself, and then turn myself back on the day they lock in the restrictions for Pinburgh based on ranking.

The other issue is that our standings are always "LIVE". If myself, Zach and Lyman chose to suppress ourselves right now, we would disappear from the Illinois SCS standings. Everyone would move up 3 spots. Those in 14th-16th place that think they were safe would be in for a rude awakening when Zach, Lyman and myself turn ourselves back on at the end of the year, pushing those players to 17th-19th and below the cutline. Our standings would be inaccurate for those following it to guide the level of their participation chasing the cut line.

I prefer that the penalty for suppressing be super clean, super simple, and lean on the side of "too harsh" rather than "not harsh enough". We don't have to honor anyone's request to not be included in the system, but I'm happy to support those that feel the need to be removed. You just forfeit a bunch of perks as the consequence for doing so.

I don't understand why you feel that saying this was a goal to move beyond is in some way some sort of weird personal attack but... cool? I mean, those who want to question if that was a thing...

Regardless, we're supposed to be on topic about the suppression thing, not how you have some sort of weird personal issue with me because I publicly identified the "good ol boys" network as one of the issues that the IFPA was working to overcome. At one point six years ago, people were even jokes about putting that on a shirt.

You can say it doesn't exist all you want, but the perception is what matters, and the IFPA worked directly to counter that perception. This change risks making it look like it doesn't counter that perception, and that is where part of the strife comes from in my opinion. I've had direct conversations with Bowen about that perception long ago now, and I wonder if the rule change was part of what led to his suppression.

I could point out direct ways that I think that the rest of your argument isn't what really was going on, but I can tell that it won't matter, and it's not exactly on topic for this particular thread anyway.

I think it was in the other thread that Josh mentioned that the communication of the change wasn't the best, and many TDs learned about the change via message boards and text messages, and so they responded there before fully knowing what was involved. It's mixed into this conversation because of the discussion of player suppression seeming to be the "other side" of the coin, and that re-jump starts things. It's a complex issue. Once the formats actually start and data starts appearing about how much this helps (or hinders) growth, it will just become normal and there will be less complaining about it. Well, at least until Josh announces the 2019 rule changes, whatever those will be...

Thanks for the explanation Josh, it makes more sense in that way and certainly K.I.S.S. applies here for the sake of super clean.

With any rules the playoffs should be under the rules for the year they qualified in and not part of any next year rule changes.

Back to page one Bump!

Some of this discussion is moving in a dangerously non-Bowen direction!!!

Since I was the only one booted from the thread I just want to say.

Bowen is Awesome!

Too much moderation going on.

Lol!

I agree bowen and tom are awesome.

I already told her last night.

Moderator. Moderator. This is offensive...

Help help, I’m being suppressed
Come see the violence inherent in the system!

i.e, this does not funnel enough money to us top players. They already said this is not about admin costs and solely about payouts, who benefits from that, the people making the rules.
Thanks for taking a stand Bowen.

Too bad Pinheads are too out of shape to kneel at the tournaments.