The Dominating 12

Congrats Ajsbus, you survived a vicious attack from Slack by 4 and can now live on to tell the story to your kids of how you conquered the world!

[quote=Matty]@Alex: It's just so sad to see you like this. You used to be one of the greatest players, you achieved a real achievement. You earned your spot among the world's best players. Deservedly. And now you just try to cling to a time gone by. There's no skill in setting up a few meaningless games, dragging out a number in a database for as long as you can. And in doing so you've blemished your achievement. No one could have take that achievement away from you, except you yourself. So why did you? Why? Is it that hard to let go? When you can't play for real anymore, why not keep the memory alive. Untainted. Whole. And then maybe in a few years you have time to spare and visit us again? You'd have friends waiting here. People wanting to join your games just for the chance to play with a legend again. I've seen it happening. I just don't understand. Why throw something away like that?[/quote] @Matty: Thanks for responding. It's good to hear about your view in the matter. Sorry it took me so long to reply. Let me point out in advance that from the moment I've joined this website in 2019, I grew a hefty amount of respect for you within the first month, when you responded on my inquiries about the rating system. It only grew bigger in the time that came to follow, from other interactions. Despite that we seem to disagree upon something here, my respect for you remains. I see no reason to void that, simply because we aren't 100% the same. It's good to run into other views; keeps a fresh mind and open for changing one's mind. I'll say you sure know how to paint a dramatic picture... Trying to look at the situation without any emotion, but just dry facts/information, I see nothing that constitutes saying things as: "sad", "used to be", "cling to a time gone by", "blemished your achievement" I don't think that getting to the top of the rating on this site inadvertently means one is one of the best players of the world. It simply means one understands (at least) the basics of the game as well as the rating system and plays with a dedicated goal in mind. It's an observation and interpretation of you (& others) that I'm trying to cling by. Whatever achievement you allocate to me (getting to the top of the rating list: yes; being one of the best players in the world: not enough information), should remain so. The achievement has been achieved - nothing had altered. Insinuating that I've done so feels like stirring the pot for no reason. Knowing you, that isn't your intention at all. You simply wish to explain to me how this behaviour might come across. Pp There is no "can't play for real anymore"; I still can. I still do. I simply decided upon reducing the amount of time I spent here playing this game, as I felt other things need more priority (& also my drive for this game diminished). Whatever skill I had, I still have. With that said, I still attempted to remain in the D12 list, by striving to meet the listed criteria, which I did. Turns out the listed criteria aren't the real criteria, as I got manually excluded. I thus asked for an update. So I can attempt to meet the real criteria. I don't mind what they'll be; I'd just like to know. If they would for example be changed to view highest rating increase in X time period (e.g. X the time between D12 lists), I would be perfectly fine with that too (& would for almost completely certainty get scrapped from the list; I won't achieve that anymore). It's clear that I like to be in the D12 list/game, with little effort. Although this might be something that is frowned upon by some, it should be perfectly fine. At least in my opinion. [b]Let me ask you this: "Would it be within the realm of what you view as eligibility to appear in the D12 list, if someone opened 'X' new 1v1 games straight after each previous D12 game finished?" With X being the amount that boosts you up to have played in 5 game with rating on the line. [/b] There should be clarity on the D12 list. I feel like there isn't. The world is changing towards more transparency and inclusivity. I think D12 values this too, seeing the sharing of pieces of "secret information" that allow for more people to contribute to the development of the website. Don't manually exclude people from the D12 list, especially if they're very willing to discuss the issue. Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas season and best of luck everyone for 2023! -Alex

Pff, there's many things to say about this. Part of this is that you are not just clicking your mouse a bit and update some number in a database to grow bigger - instead, you are part of a community. And people give value to what otherwise are just some bits in a database. The goal of this number that we call rating is not to be a sequence of bytes, but it is to give an idea as to how good a player is. So, from a designers point of view it should not be possible to get this number to be high without being one of the best players of the world. I think we did this part quite well - not perfect for sure, but we're getting close. Now, getting higher is one thing, staying on top is another, and even more difficult. Unless of course you're applying some cheap tricks. Like joining 5 1v1 games that you keep going forever. If someone (you!) does that, you destroy the spirit of the rating. You destroy what rating stands for. You also lose the respect people have (had) for you. That's what you did. At first I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you didn't do this intentionally, but I don't think so anymore. I think you very much intentionally tried to destroyed everything this rating stands for. What this 'top 12 list' stands for. I'm not overstating this. Because this rating is not a number in a database. This rating is a representation of skill. Joining 5 1v1 games and keeping them going for as long as possible is not skill. It's cheese. By that you don't only destroy your own reputation - which you did - but you also destroy the trust of others that the people high up this list are indeed among the best of the world. So, if someone weants to get rid of the idea that 'having a high rating' means 'is a very good player worthy of respect', then we have to do something about that. We could for example try to formulate rules exactly such that even if you'd exploit every character of the rules you'd still have to be both good and active. Doing that however is an enormous amount of work. There's a name for such work too: 'rules lawyering'. I do not want to do that. It's not fun, and everyone that is somewhat reasonable will see that. Even though I'm capable of being cold and calculative myself, I'm also wise enough to not think that way about everything. Being part of a community, having fun with people does include emotions. Sometimes these emotions are frustration with the dice. It's a part of the game. Sometimes these emotions come with awe about seemingly impossible achievements achieved by great players. I'm not as good anymore as I was, but even at my highest point I'm not even close to names like Vexer or Slackbatter. And I'd be in the top 12 of this site (if I qualified to appear on the list). That's how much these names are deserving of respect. So if you want inclusivity in the kind that you try to be a part of this community. Play fair, play in the spirit of the game, play in the spirit that comes with social interaction between people than you are absolutely welcome. If you take inclusivity to mean 'accept everything everyone does even if it will destroy everything you stand for', than I will refuse. If someone like that comes around and tries to do the absolute minimum to achieve a spot on the d12, then I will do the absolute minimum to keep him off that spot. Which is exaclty what I did. So if you want clarity, I can give you a very large amount of clarity: "show good sportsmanship". If you can't understand what that means because you only understand literal rules as written by a lawyer and coded out by a very bored programmer, than I will dissapoint you right now: that won't happen. But again, I am not that cold, so I will add something: do try to understand how people work. Mathematics is amazing, but ultimately in comparison to people it's simple and boring. There's great value in trying to understand how people work. How societies work. How communities work. Even if it is hard. There's great value in science, in trying to describe how the world works using complex but simplified models. But in the end they are only models, not reality. And reality is the real thing. [b]Do note that I'm [i]not[/i] ansering your question in bold. That is on purpose. It is the wrong question to ask.[/b]

Well said, Matty. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Happy New Year! Happy new D12 list! See where you rank: [url=]https://dominating12.com/tutorial/thedominating12/80[/url]

Nice! I went up 28 places.

New D12 game is started: [url=]https://dominating12.com/game/1362076[/url]

Love a good repeat! Congrats again ajsbus!

Congratulations Ajsbus! (twice!!)

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

See what I did there? ;)

New rankings are up. See how you've done (been a rough month for me, apparently!): [url=]https://dominating12.com/tutorial/thedominating12/81[/url]

Let's go peri!! First is pretty cool! Dough_boy and 1949midden came out of nowhere too!

Wow. I did not expect that and I thought I had a rough month. Thanks pygmy! :)