New Chi page - player statistics

[Alan W]

There has been some discussion, such as in this topic, about the idea of letting players keep track of how many rosettes they have scored and how they rank compared to other players.

I've developed a statistics page to do just that, but the stats available cover more than just rosettes. It looks like this (but bigger!)



The buttons across the top allow you to choose which kind of data you want to look at. There's a Help button that provides an explanation of the types of statistics available. You can only see data about your own performance, except for information on how you rank among all players.

There are two ways to get to the Player Statistics page: by clicking a button at the top right of the Player Details panel, or by following a link shown near the bottom of the Chihuahua home page.

The stats are grouped by year, and go back as far as 2008, if you've been playing since then with the same player identity. (The 10-letter puzzle only started in 2011.) Only the daily puzzles are included, not random puzzles or "Your puzzles". It isn't practical to have the statistics calculated on demand to include all the latest puzzles. Statistics are updated by a batch process that I'll probably run once a month. The heading on the page tells the latest date covered.

[Rosella]

Thanks Alan, the new 'player statistics' page is great. Thank you for all the hard work it must have entailed. All players will be very interested to visit your new page.
Rosella

[rhino]

It looks great Alan - how can I find it?  Is there a link or button?

[Alan W]

Rhino, you may have to reload the main Chi page first.

The last paragraph on the page should have a link to the "Player Statistics page". Alternatively, when you're signed in with your Chihuahua password, open your Player Details by clicking the Details button under your player name, and then click the Player Statistics button at the top right of the panel.

[Morbius]

That's brilliant Alan - thank you!!!   

[Butcherbird]

Goodness gracious, you have been busy.  Thank you for all your hard work, Alan.  It's fantastic!  

[rhino]

Got it, thanks Alan ...

[Tomshask]

Thanks Alan, I was interested too .

[Chaosism]

Under the "Rank" field ~holds nose ~, I take it there's currently no way to know the total number that it's being compared against; for instance, you are Rank 239 out of 1,376?

[Alan W]

Not a bad guess, Chaosism. In the Standard puzzle, 1837 is the total player count for this year so far.

You're right - there is no way at present to see that on the statistics display. I did wonder if something like that should be shown, but I thought it might create confusion. I suppose the rank could be shown as, say, "239/1837". But then again, what if several players are on the same rank? Should that be shown somehow? What do others think?

[mkenuk]

Just my opinion, Alan, but I think the problem with ranking players together in a 'league table' is that (as has been pointed out several times) not everybody plays the game in the same way; a league table should compare like with like - I don't think there's any way to do that.

MK

[Chaosism]

Alan W wrote:
...I did wonder if something like that should be shown, but I thought it might create confusion. I suppose the rank could be shown as, say, "239/1837". But then again, what if several players are on the same rank? Should that be shown somehow? What do others think?

That total then, would ideally be the number of ranks, rather than the number of players. In either case, the purpose of these statistics is entertainment, rather than supporting an official competition, so the exact numbers shouldn't matter too much.

[Alan W]

I'm not sure if the number of ranks is all that informative. To take an extreme case, if you have no trophies in the Ten-letter puzzle, you are ranked 7 out of 7 (ranks), which sounds fairly impressive: you're in the top ten! In that case, it's fairly obvious that you share your ranking with hundreds of others. But if you got two rosettes in the Challenge puzzle and are at rank 73, it might be of interest to know how many others got the same number of rosettes. As it turns out, there are 18 players on the same rank.

Ideally, perhaps, one might like to know, for each category, how many players did better than you, how many did equally well and how many did less well. The tables, as they are, answer the first question only. (In the example above, where 18 players are all on rank 73, the players next below them would have rank 91, as there are 90 players who got more rosettes than them.)

But then again, perhaps there are some things it's better not to know...

[Linda]

Absolutely!

As in the words of Desiderata:

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

[Hobbit]

Well said Linda.  Hear Hear!!