League Categories and Rules

Aryzel

Deciding the Categories of a League is not a simple matter, you need to think of every possible outcome of any change, how it effects the Teams prizes, Individuals prizes, how those scores will effect the teams and individuals, is it fair and still keep people challenged. How will it last over time, when 10 years from now noone who was part of the decision is around, when noone remembers why anything was decided.
The following is long, but please read it all.



The original thinking behind the different categories and barebows was something like this.

In IVs we have Recurve, Barebow, Compound and Longbow. And there are two types of prizes Individual and Team. The goal is the treat each category fairly so that no one category gives an overwhelming advantage in terms of Individual or Teams prizes.

Now each of these have basic differences. How do you compare a Recurve score with a Longbow score? We could apply modifiers, Barebow score +20% = Recurve score, but the 20% is just made up, everyone feels cheated and there will be constant arguments over the %, it will go up and down, depending on the people in charge (do not even begin to trick yourself into believe this would not happen).

So if the we can't directly compare scores because they are different, then lets treat them as different. Each Category as a separate section. So we have Recurves competiting again Recurves, Barebows against Barebows, etc.

Now reality sticks its ugly head in, 90% of people will be Recurve, 8% Barebow, and 2 odd balls shooting Compound and Longbow. (Compound might go up to around 5% over time). So the people in Recuve feel abit slighted, they have to beat 60 other people to get a prize, but if they were in another category they would just need to beat 3-4 people.

Also because there are so many in Recurve, if you are starting out, you can be pretty sure you will never win anything, too many people ahead of you. So it becomes viable to split Recurve into Advanced and Beginners. Immediately comes the question "What is a Beginner?". This went through several phases, used to be Time, you were a beginner for 1 competition, then we tried 1 year. But if I told you someone had being shooting for 1 year and nothing else about them, you could not give any sort of guess how well they could shoot. They might be World Champions, or not be able to hit a barn. So Beginner was then decided on performance.



So now we Advanced Recurve, Beginner Recurve, Barebow, Compound and Longbow. In each category you are up against people of roughly the same skill as you.

Advanced Recurve is the hardest, it has the most people and people stay in the category, they don't move on. That can be fustrating but it means your victories mean alot.

Beginner Recurveis great to start out in, you might not be at the top straight away, but as people pass the cut off point they move onto Advanced, so you are certain that as you get close to the cut off point you are going to be one of the top Beginners.

Barebow is a little tricky, there aren't too many people in it, and people stay in the category. So you will have times where it is very competitive, 4-5 people all about the same at the top. And sometimes you will have one person dominate it for a few years. There are also not enough people in it to split into Advanced and Beginner Barebow. If more people do Barebow then it can become like Recurve.

Compound and Longbow have really just 1-2 people in them, so while we shouldn't stop people from shooting the way they enjoy, they can't really be called categories yet. In time there might be more Compounds and it will then become like what Barebow is now.

So now we have individual categories that are relatively fair. The type of bow you shoot doesn't penalise you or give you and advantage. And people are grouped with people of roughly the same skill, as much as possible. We could break it down more, but when your category has less than 10-15 people, winning becomes meaning less.




Now onto the Team prizes, team scores consist of 5 individual scores. We have different categories, how do you make them all fair in terms of the team prizes.

Advanced Recurve is first up, this is the basis for all IVs realistically. They shoot 40cm targets as that is the worldwide standard. They will make up the majority of your team score. On average the best archers will be here.

Beginner Recurve is next, if they also shoot 40s you have two problems. They will never be part of the Team scores and they will miss alot. So having Beginners on 40s does one thing well, it drives people out of the sport. The alternative? Have them on 60s, and have the cut off point to move into Advanced at 400 points. So what does this do, when people start they are hitting the target, and a score of around 400 generally puts you onto your Team score. Also 400 is around the point where peoples progress starts to slow down on 60s. Improving from 400 to 450 on 60s is much harder than getting from 350-400. When people move to 40s they only drop around 100 points, do it is not too big a shock, and it is not too hard to make back the 100 points so you don't get annoyed by find yourself losing to the remaining Beginners.

Barebow - If you have them on 40s, the Beginners will miss alot, and Advanced will get annoyed fast that their 449 as barebow is worth less than someone with a sight hitting 450. So you put all Barebows on 60s, new barebow archers can hit the target, and advanced barebows can feel the fact they have no sight is acknowledged. Also it should be mentioned, that a Barebow shooting 450 on a 60cm, is roughly equivalent to a Recurve shooting 450 on a 40cm, but having Barebows on 60s does not feel as artifical as using a 'modifier'.

Compound and Longbow - Compounds shoot the Vegas faces, scores of 1-5 are not counted and their 10 is smaller. This is the standard. Longbows, well put them on 60s with the Barebows, if more people start shooting Longbows then this should be reviewed.

So now each of the Categories contributes to their team fairly equally. Recurve Advanced and Beginner is the backbone of every team. But it is not conclusive that if you got all your team to shoot barebow, you might have an advantage, or not. To be safe each team is limited to have only one score from the Barebow category, same for Comoound and Longbow. So at most your team score would consist of:
1 Barebow
1 Compound
1 Longbow
2 Recurve




Now to actually answer the topic
- Keep All Barebow as a separate category but move all to 40s
If you move all Barebows to 40s it is bad for the Beginner Barebows, and unfair to the Advanced. So I hope we can safely ignore this option

- Move All Barebows into the Recurve Categories.
So Advanced Barebows are against Advanced Recurve, and Beginner Barebow are against Beginner Recurve. This is unfair as Barebow is not Recurve, you can not pretend it is. So i would hope that this is ignored also.

- Move just Advanced Barebows into Advanced Recurve.
This is the most common suggestion (always comes from Recurves by the way). The arguement comes from the fact that they are dominating the Barebow category they need to progress and be challenged and they give high scores to their team.

First issue: they are dominating they Barebow category, no solution to this, it is due to the fact that barebow has low numbers, I'm afraid you will have to live with it. Sometimes Advanced Recurve will be dominated also, it will just happen more often in Barebow.

Second issue: they need to progress and be challenged, part of this is because barebows shoot 40cm in National Competitions. Once you get up around 500 on the 60s it does become harder to progress, but if you are serious about progressing to a National Leveling, shooting IVs on 60s is not that big a deal. Really at that level the piece of paper doesn't matter, if you are trying to progress you will be trying to get one arrow on top of another. Also some people compete at the college level and have no interest in the National level, the League is ultimately about the college students, do not make a change that will squeeze out an extra National barebow archer every few years if it comes at the expense of Fairness and Competivness in the League.

Oh and which is better, 449 by Barebow on 40cm, or 450 by Recurve on 40cm? That is a fundemental problem on this, because it devalues Barebow archers on Individual and Team prizes. So people then offer and 'adjustment' on Barebow scores, say +50 points or +20%, etc. Which will cause problems forever in the league as the 'adjustment' is contantly argued over and changed, and when even when it is correct it will pretty much produce the same scores as if the Barebow archer had shot on a 60cm Target ....

Basically moving Advanced Barebows into the Recurve Category might help the handful of Advanced Barebows in National Compeitions (only 5 barebows have broken 400 in the last 5 years). But it is bad for the League.

- Move Advanced Barebows into their own Advanced Category
If you have them on 40s but in their own Category then you have solve some of the issues above, but the issues are still there in terms of Teams scores.
If you have them on 60s you still have the issue of competitiveness. You move from one Category of 5-10 people to two with 2-4 people, which is completely useless.

- Give Barebows the CHOICE to compete as Advanced Recurves
This is what we currently do. That for those Barebow archers that are very good, they can CHOOSE to be considered as Advanced Recurves, its challengeing, helps them progress, and because it was their choice there is no need to 'adjust' their score.


By the way, i've mentioned a few times that a Barebow score on 60cm is roughly equivalent of the same score by Recurve on 40s. This is from personal experience swapping back and forth in practice, when i was shooting around 450 on 40s Recurve, on Barebow i was getting around 350 on 60s, I'm assuming that getting used to barebow would bring it up to around 450 and so be roughly even. Also I haven seen many people swap between Barebow and Recurve over the pervious years and saw the same general change in scores. That after a few weeks, the change in target face and sight cancel out to leave them on much the same score.
However the reason why a numeric adjustment like +50 points or 20% can not work, is all of this it has to be proven. Which will require extensive research involving hundreds of people, and even then it would have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

So what option do you pick? That keeps the Categoryies FAIR for both the Individual and Team prizes. And keeps each Category as challenging as possible.

Aryzel

I would ask that can my above post and the final version of the League rules be taken and put in a Sticky at the top or the forum. Also Printed out and lots of copies given to each Club. That is not to make them fixed in stone, both the rules and the description above, can, should and will change over time. But it gives people a base to build on. Its stupid to have to reinvinte the wheel every couple of years and I get tired of rewriting the same stuff over and over.

The League Rules, and this same arguement from last year can be seen at the line below, you know I should have just copied my posts from there. Would have saved time. I suggest that after you have read the above post you go to the link below and read the Rules carefully and then read the posts after them on Barebow and categories.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=221716&page=3

Oh and almost forgot, one of the slight annoyances is that the Advanced Recurve is quite large, that is why we have the Achievement Awards that people can earn as they progress.

Aryzel

Archery Intervarsity League Rules

For scoring and running of competitions normal FITA rules apply, except where superseded by the below.


Eligible Competitors
(1) All students enrolled/attending a full time course in a college at the date of an intervarsity are eligible to shoot for that college at that intervarsity and for the remainder of the season.
(2) Years Grace – If an archer is not enrolled/attending a full time course, they can still compete during the season, if in the previous season they were able to compete. Provided the previous season was not a Years Grace.
(3) A person can defer their Years Grace, by one season and compete in the following season instead.
(4) An archer should always compete for their current college. Or if they are on Years Grace then the college they competed for last.


Archer Categories
(1) There will be three main categories at competitions. Advanced, Beginner and Bare bow. (If deemed appropriate extra categories for Compound, Longbow, Guest, …, can be added at the discretion of the competition hosts.)
(2) Advanced archers will shoot a FITA 18 round. 60 arrows on a 40cm target at 18m
(3) Beginner and Bare bow archers will shoot a Portsmouth round. 60 arrows on a 60cm target at 20yards (18m will be used in practice)
(4) Compound archers will shoot a FITA 18 round. 60 arrows on a Vegas target (which is three 40cm target faces only using 6 or better). Also compounds will use the inner 10 ring only, the reminder of the gold scores as a 9.
(5) Longbow archers will shoot a Portsmouth round. And can be included in the bare bow category at the discretion of the hosts.
(6) An archer can only shoot one competition round in one category during an intervarsity. At the hosts discretion an archer can shoot practice ends after they have finished their competition round.

Definition of Categories for Recurve Archers
(1) Bare bow. Is open to all archers. Archers must use their bow without a sight. Bare bows should have no sight, or marks or blemishes that may be used as sight marks. The unstrung bow should be able to pass though a ring12.2cm in diameter
(2) (2) Beginner. Any archer who has not scored the following at an Intervarsity or Schools competition can shoot as a beginner, if they choose.
400+ points in the Beginner category.
350+ points in the Bare Bow/Long Bow categories.
300+ points in the Advanced/Compound category.
400+ points on a 60cm target in a Schools Competition

(3) Advanced. Is open to all archers.
(4) A record will be kept of advanced archers, who can no longer shoot as beginners. However it is the responsibility of each club to make sure that their archers are in a valid category. A mistake in the list of advanced archers is not a valid excuse if an archer is found to have shot in an invalid category.


Breaking of Rules
(1) If a score should not have been counted, then it should be discounted.
(2) If during a competition an archer is found to be shooting in an invalid category, then every effort should be made to let the person shoot in the correct category of the remainder of the competition. The decision lies solely with the competition host, who should do whatever they deem appropriate for the competition as a whole.
(3) If after a competition an archer is found to have shot in an invalid category or were ineligible to compete. Then the score should not have been counted and should be discounted and the correct results calculated.
(4) Invalid scores must be discovered before four weeks after the final intervarsity of the season. The change in results can take longer, but the invalid scores must be announced to a committee representative from each college within the four weeks following the final intervarsity. After the four weeks no other invalid scores will be considered.
(5) While ever effort should be made to confirm that all colleges are fully aware of the League rules, it is the responsibility of each college to know the rules. Ignorance of the rules is not a valid excuse if the rules are broken.


Intervarsity Team and Individual Scores & Prizes
(1) At each competition, the team score for each college will be the sum of the top five individual scores of members of that college team. At least four of the five scores must be from recurve archers. At most one score can be from a compound or longbow archer.
(2) Individual scores will be ranked by Category - Score -10s - 9s…1s. Hits are not considered. If the individuals are still equal then they are considered joint winners and extra prizes should be presented if necessary.
(3) If two teams have equal scores then the teams are ranked according the individual scores that form the team score. If all the individual scores are equal then the teams are joint winners and extra prizes should be presented if necessary.
(4) Team prizes will be giving to the five archers that make up the team score of the teams that come 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
(5) Its recommended that the individual prizes will be given to 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each category.
(6) If there are very few people in a category then a prize for 1st in that category is sufficient.
(7) Additional prizes can be presented for guests but the above prizes are for intervarsity archers only.


League Team and Individual Tables & Prizes
(1) The League score for each team will be the sum of the team scores at each competition.
(2) For the League, there will be two individual categories, Male and Female.
(3) In each category, people’s final score is the sum of their scores from each competition. Minus their worst score. Missing a competition automatically gives a score of zero for that competition.
(4) If the final score of two teams or individuals are equal, then they are ranked according to their scores from the separate intervarsities that were used to calculate their final score. If all the separate scores are equal then the two teams are joint winners and should receive a prize each, if required.
(5) Prizes will be given to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place Team, Male, Female, Barebow & Compound for the season. An individual can not claim a prize for 2 categories, If and archer competed in more than one category then they will be counted in best male or female category.
(6) For the winning teams, prizes should be given to the 5 individuals who contributed the most points to their teams League Table score during the season.

League Awards
(1) Awards will be given to all archers that achieve the following scores:
(2) 400+ in the Beginner Category. Or 300+ in the Advanced/Compound Category. Or 350+ in the Bare Bow/ Long Bow Categories.
(3) 400+ in the Advanced / Compound / Bare Bow / Long Bow Categories.
(4) 450+ in the Advanced / Compound / Bare Bow / Long Bow Categories.
(5) 500+ in the Advanced / Compound / Bare Bow / Long Bow Categories.
(6) 550+ in the Advanced / Compound / Bare Bow / Long Bow Categories.
(7) Beginner awards will be presented on the day of the competition they were achieved at. Other awards can be claimed at the following intervarsity. For the final intervarsity of the season, all awards can be claimed.

Exceptions
While the above rules are ment to cover most eventualities in the League, exceptions will occur. The governing committee can and should make modifications and exceptions to the rules when it is appropriate.

Remember the League exists to allow people to compete and enjoy archery. The league rules should reflect this in a way that is fair to all the clubs and archers in the league

Panserborn

Aryzel wrote:

and 2 odd balls shooting Compound and Longbow.

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ah who am I kidding, you're probably right!

oscarBravo

Just a quick note: I stickied this as a useful resource. I'd rather not see it turn into a chatter thread, thanks.

Panserborn

Is this thread still applicable to the new rules and changes made?

Could someone from the rules committee copy and paste the current rules and regulations into a new thread and I'll sticky that one instead if this thread is out of date.

Aryzel

hmm, yes, this one is still relevant, the other thread is the the rules/etc of the organisation running the league. This thread is the rules of the league itself. Big difference.

Better to the keep them separate threads and topics, makes it easier to change some aspect of one, without people starting to crosswires with the other.

doogle deegan

The rules have also been reviewed. The final version has not yet been voted in as there were some issues regarding the selection of who host colleges for the ivs.

There were changes made to the rules that were agreed on including changes to advanced barebow section and the number of scores counting towards the leauge.

All colleges have recieved a copy of these rules along with the minutes of the agm.

The rules which were not agreed on will be reviewed again and the final rules will be voted in at the first IV of next year.

Panserborn

doogle deegan wrote: »

The rules have also been reviewed.

The rules which were not agreed on will be reviewed again and the final rules will be voted in at the first IV of next year.

Thanks, let me know when they are and I'll do the relevent stickying / unstickying.

Aryzel

doogle deegan wrote: »

The rules have also been reviewed. The final version has not yet been voted in as there were some issues regarding the selection of who host colleges for the ivs.

There were changes made to the rules that were agreed on including changes to advanced barebow section and the number of scores counting towards the leauge.

All colleges have recieved a copy of these rules along with the minutes of the agm.

The rules which were not agreed on will be reviewed again and the final rules will be voted in at the first IV of next year.

Mind if I ask what new rules are? Wouldn't mind seeing a copy of the new version.


Dermot

Panserborn

New rules were applied at DCU, anyone want to update them here???????

I know they went out to all the clubs but they should be updated here as well or this thread should be removed to avoid confusion and arguments. Let me know which to do....................

Panserborn

Hi all,

Sorry to harp on about this but .................

I'll leave this thread open until Thursday evening. If no changes are made to the rules I'll "soft-delete" the thread (meaning its no longer visible but can be brought back if needed) and I'll replace it with a new thread with a copy/paste of the mail that went to the clubs with the new layout of the rules.

No point in creating confusion by having this version published and using rules v.2

Aryzel

Might be useful if someone could update the explanation of the categories and rules that is the top of this thread, to go with the new rules.

Having the rules nice and tidy is needed, but having a explaination that people can use to understand why the rules are as they are, is equally important for the long term.

Panserborn

Panserborn wrote: »

I'll leave this thread open until Thursday evening.

No point in creating confusion by having this version published and using rules v.2

Done.

Thread is unstickied but I'll leave it active as a Rules Discussion thread. Also handy as the explainations for rulings and formats are well defined by Aryzels posts.

Current version of the IV rules are here.