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Rankings Site Much Faster!!!!
MastersRankings’ Status Report
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The focus for December and January has been on fixing some issues and changing things on the site as mentioned in last month’s newsletter. The planned changes were accomplished well ahead of the target dates. Much of what I prioritize and improvements are inspired by your feedback.
Site Speed & Redesign: All of the public pages have been converted and appear in less than half the time that they did last year. I am still looking for more adjustments which will further improve the posting speed. Remember that this is a complex site with hundreds of links. Some links will be accidentally disabled and some things may not work properly. My apologies in advance for the mistakes and distractions. Please report any problems by filling out this form .
Error Corrections: Many of the errors on the site were caused by mistakes in my programs. I’ve identified the root cause of many, if not all, fixed and corrected those errors in the lists. For example, there were mistakes in three programs which made a discrepancy in the athlete’s age group so a performance would appear on the list separately from the others (in a duplicate event / age group). There were over 1,700 of these which were & will be quickly fixed using correction programs. Any oddity you see like this is most likely similarly and simply corrected. All these corrections will be done by Wednesday.
Most of the other errors on the site are caused by typos in the uploaded & processed results (from national rankings lists or complete meet results). Typically, these cause a duplicate athlete to be created because the name didn’t match. Please let me know about any of these you find by clicking on the performance (time, height, distance or score) – this is a link to a form where you can report the error and sends me information enabling finding and fixing quickly.
Advanced Screening & Error Checking: There are several programs I use to find errors and I continue to write more to further improve the quality and integrity of these lists. Some of you have heard from me verifying whether a meet met the standards to be listed in MastersRankings. This is from a new program that identifies competitions that may not meet the standards. Another program in development and finished within the next few months will identify unusual performances for athletes.
400m Hand Time Adjustment & Legal Wind: Both of these are policies effective for the final 2016 rankings and beyond. All 400m performances not timed using fully automated equipment is now adjusted per IAAF standards so these performances will not displace more accurately timed performances. I am still working out excluding excessive wind and NWI performances from the rankings lists. Where available, the legal wind performances and best performances were inserted. The former are, and will remain, listed on the athlete’s profile and on the all-performances pages.
Your emails, correction requests, pasted / uploaded meet results, etc.: I still have several thousand emails, hundreds of additional correction requests… – haven’t spent much time on these over the past month (please do not let this stop you from submitting more – I’ll get to them!). These are the focus for February since the site redesign is done.
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MastersRankings is honored to feature Leo Benning, an Icon in South African Athletics. Many benefit from Leo’s impact on our sport.
The 2016 rankings are about 79% complete. South America and Asia are missing the most performances. Select nations within all the WMA regions are also under-represented. My hope is you will help by making sure your national statistician sends their rankings list or you get me complete meet results. These lists will come together well with a little more collaboration.
Members have enjoyed being able to see the 2016 rankings lists during the season last year and be better informed regarding the competition and meeting their rankings goals. Some other (trial features) members now enjoy or will within the next few weeks:
- View rankings lists you want to see (set default list preferences)
- View all performances and perform advanced comparisons.
- Google ad free site
- Pre-fill submit results form further (coming soon)
What else would you like to see for members and what do you think should be available to everyone?
National Masters News is more than just a Masters Track & Field results publication. In addition to all the great meet highlights, athlete focuses and meet results, the News also has training tips, human interest stories, Road Racing, Race Walking, Cross Country and more. Catch Carroll DeWeese’s “Fit with Fat”, Benita Lee’s “Master Your Health”, Paul Carlin’s USATF Club Cross Country Champions article, Jerry Bookin-Weiner’s Throwers Circle, Rex Harvey’s From the USATF MTF Chair and much more in this month’s issue.
- 11,432 Performances Added (956 by Athletes)
- Representing 5,147 Athletes from 49 Countries
- 2,484 new athletes listed
- Nordic Masters Championships, DEN
- Nevada Senior Games, USA
- Florida Senior Games, USA
- North Island Masters Championships, NZL
- USATF SE Region Masters Championships, USA
- NSW Club and Combined Events Championships, AUS
- Freestate Masters Meeting, RSA