From: justin@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (Justin Ridge)
Subject: AFL Tips: Finals wk.3 + instructions
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 02:45:58 GMT


Here are the matches scheduled for the forthcoming weekend in the Australian
Football League:

Finals week 3 ('home' team always listed first)
-------------
19th September
Geelong      v.  Footscray          (Preliminary Final, MCG)

It seems that as the finals series progresses, the tips also fall more
evenly: which, after all, is what one might expect.  St. Kilda were the
hottest favorites (according to the participants) last weekend, and Geelong
were slightly favored over West Coast.  However, both teams lost...
How will people see this weekends game?  Will Geelong repeat their perform-
ance of a fortnight ago, or will each team carry on from where they left off
this past weekend?  I guess that, as usual, it is a case of wait & see...

ADMINISTRIVIA:
* As mentioned last week, if you would like to be notified of next years
  Tipping Competition via Email before Round 1 '93 (so that you are 'in'
  from the beginning), please include a line stating this with your tips...
  something like "please add me to the notification list" is eloquently
  sufficient. :-)  I have already added those who requested this last week.

SUGGESTIONS FOR NEXT YEAR:
When you read the above line, you may have thought "oh no, why does he
bother?"  Well, the answer is quite simple: this competition stays alive for
two basic reasons -- first and foremost, there is a demand for it, and
secondly, I enjoy doing it :)  Clearly, if the competition changes in a way
that people are not happy with, less people will participate and hence the
demand is not being met, which means the competition has gone backwards rather
than improving.
So here is the opportunity to make any comments [perhaps you want to see less
rubbish from me :)] while they are still fresh in your mind rather than wait
until next year and think "bah, this competition is no good any more".

A number of people have already suggested various improvements.  Some are
quite minor ones that I think everyone will agree with -- for example, that
in the case of two people having equal percentage, the person who has tipped
in a larger number of games takes precedence -- so to conserve space they are
not all listed here.

Other suggestions are:
* That the software be adapted to recognise more team names (e.g. "St.Kilda",
  "St. Kilda" and "Saint Kilda" rather than just the first of these).
* That State of Origin matches etc. be included as bonuses.
* That participants have the option of some alias appearing in the results
  lists rather than their Email addresses.

And finally, one MAJOR one (which actually comes from me):

You may have observed from the cumulative totals that of the 74 people on the
main list, 64 are bunched within a single 10% range (62-72%).  This means that
a LOT of people are managing to tip 4-5 out of 7 games per week, and separating
them on the basis of 0.1% becomes a little meaningless.  Mainly as a result of
this observation, I set about thinking of some modifications to the system...

I propose that we have a "weighted" tipping competition next year.  This would
work as follows:  Rather than see a simple list of matches in the form

Round 1 1993 (fictional)
------------------------
Geelong    v. Brisbane
North Melb v. Richmond

as is presently the case, there would also be an "anticipated" winning margin
where a result is predicted, i.e.

Round 1 1993 (fictional)
------------------------
Geelong    v. Brisbane    -- Geelong    by 50 points
North Melb v. Richmond    -- North Melb by 16 points

Rather than simply pick the winner, the participant's new task would be to
PREDICT WHICH TEAM WILL PERFORM BETTER THAN THE ANTICIPATED RESULT.  Thus, in
the above examples:

* GEELONG  is correct answer if - Geelong win by 50 points plus
                                  (as they have done better than predicted)
* BRISBANE is correct answer if - Brisbane win the match
                                - Geelong win by less than 50 points
                                  (as Brisbane have done better than expected).

* N.MELB   is correct answer if - N.Melb win by 16 points plus
                                  (as they have done better than predicted)
* RICHMOND is correct answer if - Richmond win the match
                                - N.Melb win by less than 16 points
                                  (as Richmond have done better than expected).

I can think of two advantages and disadvantages of this system over the
presend one:
1) It spreads out the cumulative totals list, which at present is very
   cluttered, a bit more.
2) A big advantage is that it adds a great deal of interest to games that
   would otherwise be thrashings.  For example, if Geelong were to play
   Brisbane, it is likely that 95%+ would tip Geelong.  However, if a 50
   point winning margin to Geelong was anticipated as above, people would
   have to think a lot harder before making the prediction

3) Perhaps the biggest disadvantage is that the alternative system is more
   complicated than the present one.  After all, the weighted system requires
   a bit of understanding whereas simply choosing the winner of the game is
   an infinitely more simple concept.
   However, I believe that the changes do not increase the complexity all
   THAT much and are in fact a good compromise between keeping the comp
   interesting and retaining simplicity so that everyone can join in.
4) The other disadvantage is that whilst people can find rosters easily in
   the paper if they miss them on the newsgroups, the "weighted" roster will
   appear only on the network.  I don't think this affects many people... it
   seems to me that most people have fairly stable access to the network.
   If this presents a difficulty, it is always possible to mail the roster
   via Email each week.

There may be others...

Please feel free to respond to me (justin@tasman.cc...) and let me know your
opinion on this proposal (remember it is ONLY a proposal) and any additional
remarks you might have.
I apologise for the length of this post, however it is important that things
are sorted out before next year, and for this reason it will be repeated
next week.

How to play.
-----------

The instructions are simple -- send Email to
  u906586@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au

with your AFL tips in the body of the message.  Enclose your selections by
lines of THREE asterisks on their own (see example below).
Make sure you use the team's proper name (e.g. Essendon, not Bombers or Dons)
but don't worry about precise spelling: only the first four letters are looked
at, case insensitive.

You are identified by your Email address -- only one entry per address per
week is allowed.  Entries should be received by 5 pm Friday afternoons AEST
(AEST = GMT + 1000).  You don't have to play each & every week, but if you
do post selections, the software expects you to tip every game.

Each Monday or Tuesday I will post the results from Saturday, the games
scheduled for the following week, and some basic instructions for 'newies'.

Example tips (my actual ones for the third finals week):
***
Geelong
***

Any enquiries should be directed to
  justin@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au
and not to the address for tips displayed above.

Have fun.

Justin Ridge.

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