(12-06-2016 01:54 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 12:37 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  But nobody has claimed that possibility because there's no evidence for that.

It's self-evident. All algorithms must weight the input parameters. The weightings are arbitrary. There is no "correct" set of weightings.

You exactly exposed that this is correct in your post: when the programmer first starts building the classifier, it will spit out a nonsensical answer at the beginning. It might say the Sun Belt is the #1 conference and the SEC is the last conference.

So the weights have to be tuned, in order to get a sensible answer. Ah ... but when does the output stop being nonsensical and start being sensible?? Arbitrary.



Just as I'm certain you'll clip this part of my post out of any quoted response, I'm certain that you're fighting this because you yourself are the author of an algorithm to rank conferences. Your algorithm is biased, all the same.

Self evident? Maybe inside your head, but partly that's attributed to all that tinfoil. Neither you, nor anyone else, has ever presented evidence that any reputable developer of a computer algorithm has rigged his program to favor any team or conference. You haven't, because you can't. You can falsely accuse guys like Sagarin, Massey, Colley, Billingsley of cheating, but I wouldn't recommend naming specific programmers. There are laws against that.

(12-06-2016 12:28 PM)EvilVodka Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 10:28 AM)goofus Wrote:  this whole discussion reminds of how performance ratings and promotions are done at my work, which is a large corporation.

many employees demand an exact formula for what it takes to get an A rating.

but those of us that have been through other eras, know that as soon as you define what it means to get an A, people will start rigging and manipulating things to get that A rating.

sometimes its better to leave things ambiguous.

"That's strange, we don't seem to have that problem"
--signed NFL, NBA, MLB, College Basketball

The pro leagues have a much smaller pool and in the case of the NBA more than half the league makes the playoff and in the NFL 12 out of 32 make the playoffs and in college basketball 68 teams make the post season. Lets compare apples to apple computers while we're at it.

(12-06-2016 03:38 PM)ken d Wrote:  You can falsely accuse guys like Sagarin, Massey, Colley, Billingsley of cheating

I never did.

Simply pointed out that all their algorithms have arbitrarily tuned weights, to give an outcome that seems "reasonable" to their creators. IE, biased.


The idea that algorithms are the gold standard and perfectly objective is a hoax.

(12-06-2016 01:54 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 12:37 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  But nobody has claimed that possibility because there's no evidence for that.

It's self-evident. All algorithms must weight the input parameters. The weightings are arbitrary. There is no "correct" set of weightings.

You exactly exposed that this is correct in your post: when the programmer first starts building the classifier, it will spit out a nonsensical answer at the beginning. It might say the Sun Belt is the #1 conference and the SEC is the last conference.

So the weights have to be tuned, in order to get a sensible answer. Ah ... but when does the output stop being nonsensical and start being sensible?? Arbitrary.



Just as I'm certain you'll clip this part of my post out of any quoted response, I'm certain that you're fighting this because you yourself are the author of an algorithm to rank conferences. Your algorithm is biased, all the same.

How difficult is this to grasp:

Like any system, including the various formulas, mine is "biased" in favor of some performance results (e.g., winning games against highly ranked teams) and against other performance results (e.g., losing games against FCS teams). Because In My Opinion, a strong conference will have teams that win games against good teams from other conferences, and will not lose games to weak teams from other conferences.

But it is not biased against any conference. The formula is applied uniformly to all conferences for the entirety of the season, there is no line of code that gives bonus points to the SEC merely because it is the SEC, etc., nor were any variables added or weights assigned with an eye to possibly helping one conference over another.

It's like If I was judging two contestants in a beautiful body pageant, and my attribute criteria for what is a beautiful female body includes large firm breasts, long legs, a thin tight waist, and little excess body weight, and two of the contestants were Angie Jolie and Rosie O'Donnel. Angie would get my vote, but only because she has the attributes i believe define 'body beauty', not because she is "Angie Jolie". If the two women switched names, then "Rosie O'Donnel" would be the winner. In that case, at the personal level, my criteria is unbiased. It is biased only at the attribute level, like my college football system.

(12-06-2016 05:12 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 03:38 PM)ken d Wrote:  You can falsely accuse guys like Sagarin, Massey, Colley, Billingsley of cheating

I never did.

Simply pointed out that all their algorithms have arbitrarily tuned weights, to give an outcome that seems "reasonable" to their creators. IE, biased.


The idea that algorithms are the gold standard and perfectly objective is a hoax.

You are a very strange man, with little comprehension of the meaning of words in the English language. You didn't "point out" anything about those algorithms. Rather, you "falsely claimed" that they have attributes designed to create a false and misleading outcome. And you made this claim even though you have absolutely zero knowledge that they do. In other words, you made a false accusation out of thin air.

Do you happen to know, for example, which attributes Jeff Sagarin uses in his algorithm? Do you know which team or conference he is trying to make look better at the expense of some other team or conference? How about Kenneth Massey? What attributes does he use? And why? How is he trying to mislead us? Or Pomeroy, or anybody else?

Once again, the fact that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about doesn't seem to keep you from claiming that you do, and loudly, impugning the integrity and competence of others in the process. Let's face it Bison. You are a fraud.

(12-06-2016 07:23 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 05:12 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 03:38 PM)ken d Wrote:  You can falsely accuse guys like Sagarin, Massey, Colley, Billingsley of cheating

I never did.

Simply pointed out that all their algorithms have arbitrarily tuned weights, to give an outcome that seems "reasonable" to their creators. IE, biased.


The idea that algorithms are the gold standard and perfectly objective is a hoax.

You are a very strange man, with little comprehension of the meaning of words in the English language. You didn't "point out" anything about those algorithms. Rather, you "falsely claimed" that they have attributes designed to create a false and misleading outcome. And you made this claim even though you have absolutely zero knowledge that they do. In other words, you made a false accusation out of thin air.

Do you happen to know, for example, which attributes Jeff Sagarin uses in his algorithm? Do you know which team or conference he is trying to make look better at the expense of some other team or conference? How about Kenneth Massey? What attributes does he use? And why? How is he trying to mislead us? Or Pomeroy, or anybody else?

Once again, the fact that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about doesn't seem to keep you from claiming that you do, and loudly, impugning the integrity and competence of others in the process. Let's face it Bison. You are a fraud.

He's trolled us on this quite effectively. I'm out of it now.

(12-06-2016 05:12 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 03:38 PM)ken d Wrote:  You can falsely accuse guys like Sagarin, Massey, Colley, Billingsley of cheating

I never did.

Simply pointed out that all their algorithms have arbitrarily tuned weights, to give an outcome that seems "reasonable" to their creators. IE, biased.


The idea that algorithms are the gold standard and perfectly objective is a hoax.

Are you under the impression that using an objective (vs. subjective) system will mean that Joe Programmer will be given some money to develop an algorithm that spits out a top four and that will be it?

The argument that the weights need to be "correct" in some way is a red herring. What they need to be is objective, known and repeatable. That way when Penn State doesn't get into the playoffs it knows exactly what it needed to do to make it - whether that was to beat Pitt, or to schedule a non-conference cupcake in place of Pitt, or something else entirely.

Get all of the stakeholders together to develop this framework for selection until everyone is happy with it. Once you've done that, and the ACC (or whomever) is excluded in 2017, they can cry foul but it will ring hollow because they've agreed to exactly the criteria that was used to make the selection.

It's not that complicated.

(12-06-2016 07:26 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 07:23 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 05:12 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(12-06-2016 03:38 PM)ken d Wrote:  You can falsely accuse guys like Sagarin, Massey, Colley, Billingsley of cheating

I never did.

Simply pointed out that all their algorithms have arbitrarily tuned weights, to give an outcome that seems "reasonable" to their creators. IE, biased.


The idea that algorithms are the gold standard and perfectly objective is a hoax.

You are a very strange man, with little comprehension of the meaning of words in the English language. You didn't "point out" anything about those algorithms. Rather, you "falsely claimed" that they have attributes designed to create a false and misleading outcome. And you made this claim even though you have absolutely zero knowledge that they do. In other words, you made a false accusation out of thin air.

Do you happen to know, for example, which attributes Jeff Sagarin uses in his algorithm? Do you know which team or conference he is trying to make look better at the expense of some other team or conference? How about Kenneth Massey? What attributes does he use? And why? How is he trying to mislead us? Or Pomeroy, or anybody else?

Once again, the fact that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about doesn't seem to keep you from claiming that you do, and loudly, impugning the integrity and competence of others in the process. Let's face it Bison. You are a fraud.

He's trolled us on this quite effectively. I'm out of it now.

I've learned in 2 threads now, that he is just that. I made a point and then just ignored him. The dude would argue with a stop sign just to do it. If he had a few other cronies with him he could probably keep it going for a couple of weeks too and actually be entertained by it.