March 7, 2003 – The USA Table Tennis Board of Directors has approved, by a 10-1 vote, a contract for North American Table Tennis (NATT) to take over the USATT ratings.
Over the past three years, at the request of USATT Board members, NATT has been working to develop software that would solve many of the problems with the current ratings software, while improving current features. Many of the long delays processing ratings with the current software have been due to problems with the software, in particular its inability to process tournaments out of order. This meant that one late tournament could hold up the entire process. It also meant that when mistakes were found, fixing them was extremely time-consuming as changes had to be done manually - not only with the players directly involved, but those who played those players, and so on. Often it simply wasn't possible; other times it was done, again holding up the ratings process. There were a number of other problems with the current software, which in recent years had grown increasingly out of date. Much of the work had to be done by hand, which the new software does automatically.
Some of the advantages of NATT doing the ratings include:
Ratings will be much more up-to-date. Currently, ratings are often lagging over two months behind. NATT guarantees that all tournaments submitted electronically will be processed within three days; those submitted on paper will be processed within 10 days. Directors will be required to submit results within two weeks. Depending on how soon and in what format directors submit results, ratings from tournaments will generally be up within one to three weeks, a huge improvement on the current situation. A major reason for NATT's ability to do ratings more quickly as their software will process tournaments out of sequence (which the current system will not do), so a late tournament will not hold up others. When a late one comes in, it is put in the system, and all follow-up tournaments are re-rated by the computer in seconds. (The ratings from a tournament are not finalized, of course, until all previous tournaments have come in and been processed.)
Faster processing of ratings with fewer mistakes. In the current system, much of the processing has to be done almost manually, as the computer has to be told what to do, step by step, and the results checked. In the new system, each step is automated, so a tournament can be processed much more rapidly. Equally important to members, the software brings unlikely or incorrectly inputted results to the attention of the processor so they can be checked, rather than processing incorrect data, as often happens.
Ability to make corrections quickly and efficiently. In the current system, corrections had to be made by hand, and this was not only extremely time-consuming, but often impossible due to the cascading number of matches to be reprocessed. The new system allows a correction to be made, and all following tournaments are automatically re-rated in seconds.
Faster rating histories. Those who browse the rating histories will find that results will come up much more rapidly under the new system. This is because results will not have to be compiled from scratch as in the current system. Information will be stored in a database and only pertinent information will be loaded based on the search criteria.
More sorting options. In the current system, you can do sorts only by rating, state, name and top 25 players. Many have asked for more options, but in the current system, it was very difficult to set up additional options. In the new system, this will be much simpler, and numerous sorting options will be set up.
More up-to-date ratings for tournament seeding and eligibility purposes. This speaks for itself.
Expert programmers in charge of system. NATT has three computer experts on staff - all table tennis players - so problems or software fixes can be handled rapidly.
There will be a transition period as the ratings are transferred to NATT, which will begin processing tournaments in about a month. The other features will go up over the next one to three months. The new software itself has been tested repeatedly over the past year.
There are no planned changes in the rating process itself. Other than the fact that ratings will be more up-to-date, and the other new features listed above, members may not notice the change.
New information for submitting results will be sent to tournament directors in due course; until they have received new directions, results should be submitted as before.
USATT Treasurer Tong Lee said that it costs at least $8,000 more to outsource the ratings to NATT than to process them in-house. However, the additional expense will improve membership service by providing a more efficient system and more up-to-date ratings. To help cover the incremental cost, USATT is raising the rating fees for the first time in over a decade. (See below.)
North American Table Tennis, which currently runs major tournaments all over the country, is looking forward to taking over ratings processing. According to Richard Lee, President of NATT, "We are very excited to be doing the ratings - but our goal really is to make USATT members more excited, knowing that when they play a tournament, they will see their new ratings in a reasonable time, tournament after tournament, every single time."
March 7, 2003 – The USA Table Tennis Board of Directors has approved, by a 9-2 vote, to increase ratings fees from $3 to $4 for four-star tournament and below, the first increase since at least 1987, 16 years ago. They also increased the rating fee for larger tournaments from $5 to $6, the first increase for this since 1992, 11 years ago. The increases will take effect on May 5, 2003. A tournament that had already been sanctioned and already printed entry forms may be given an exemption from the rating fee increase. (Directors should contact their sanctioning officials.)
The rating increases, long overdue based on inflation alone, will help pay for the improved rating service in the new contract with North American Table Tennis (NATT), which will be handling USATT ratings.
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