handicap system and how it works

[robbo]

i've figured out a way to automatically generate your handicap for any given round in my spreadsheet without me actually entering all the official figures, this rather nicely gets me round the copyright issue with the GNAS handicap tables

before i make a fool of myself i just want to clarify that your handicap rating is worked out according to your current average score.

Can someone please confirm this for me...thanks

[LineCutter]

Sadly not. It's based on your best handicaps, starting with 3, rounded up.

So, if I have a set of 3 rounds, with handicaps of 70, 71 & 75, at the start of the year than my handicap would be 70+71+75 / 3 = 72.

If I shoot another 70 handicap round then my handicap becomes 70 + 72 / 2 = 71. If I go mad & shoot a 50 handicap (must be the AIUK coaching) then 50 + 71 / 2 = 60.5, making my handicap 61.

I can see this being a problem given the way you referred to the dates of rounds not being part of the spreadsheet in a different post.

[Flying Whale]

I would really like to know exactly what the copyright covers. I have actually managed to work through all the data and fitted them to mathematical formulae. Thus strictly I no longer have to use the tables.

Even with this I do not want to tread on toes, and deny money going to someone who clearly spent considerable time setting the things up. I do think however that GNAS missed a trick.

[Barry C]

Why is the HC table copyrighted? Surely it cant be to make more money from us on the sly?

[droseman]

AFAIK, its because the person who created the handicap tables had filed their own copyright on them, before GNAS could claim them for themselves.

Dave

[Murray]

I suppose GNAS could always adopt the openly documented Archery Australia handicap rating system and drop the current stuff

http://www.archery.org.au/lib/pdf/chapter4.pdf
http://www.archery.org.au/lib/pdf/chap4tables.pdf

[joetapley]

I suppose GNAS could always adopt the openly documented Archery Australia handicap rating system and drop the current stuff

Might even get the numbers right if they were calculated rather then entered handraulically - or is that expecting too much?

AFAIK, its because the person who created the handicap tables had filed their own copyright on them, before GNAS could claim them for themselves.

As GNAS presumably didn't pay anything for the great deal of work that went into creating the table from the point of view of the patentee fair enough. Stupid thing for GNAS to have done of course.

[Rik]

Originally Posted by droseman

AFAIK, its because the person who created the handicap tables had filed their own copyright on them, before GNAS could claim them for themselves.

Dave

I don't believe that's the way copyright works. Copyright goes to whoever publishes a 'work'. In this case, Mr. Lane. It's not a matter of claiming it (it was once, many years ago), it's assumed that copyright exists on everything new. Sticking a copyright symbol and a name on something just lets people know who to contact for permission to use a 'work'.

That said, it's the tables which are copyrighted, not the data itself. So if someone comes up with an expression which produces the right figures, that's not restricted. They wouldn't be able to present the data in a tabular form similar to the existing system, of course... It's an interesting question as to whether, if GNAS re-surveyed and produced a new set of handicaps data, they would be able to publish it in a similar format to the current tables. Is changing the table data enough to make it a new 'work' or would they need to re-do the entire system...

Disclaimer: this is just my understanding of copyright. I'm not a lawyer.
See here for a discussion of copyright issues. It's from a US perspective, but the rest of the world tends to follow the US...

[andrew.paterson]

[quote=Rik]That said, it's the tables which are copyrighted, not the data itself. So if someone comes up with an expression which produces the right figures, that's not restricted. QUOTE]

This is getting into a difficult area of copyright. One area that cannot be in question is that the tables cannot be copied or reproduced without the owners consent.

However, do you know what process/equations were used to produce this table? If you come up with an algorithm that matches that of the owner you may well be getting into a diificult legal area. This is also why generally software providers have clauses relating to reverse engineering to prevent algorithm copying. Basically if people are trying to copy the process/results of someone else's work because it is useful - why not contact them, get a license, and pay a royalty per product sold - saves all of the legal ambiguity.

[Furface]

The "process" as I understand it was collecting scores data and doing some magic with it, which is, again, what the new survey is doing. However, when I gave it a rough once over many years ago, working as a Classicist, not a statistician, the patterns of the tables seemed to me to match the patterns of possible combinations to make any particular score (IE to get 1440 in a FITA, there is only one possible combination, as there is to get 0) But it blew my mind and I had to go away and gnaw some wood. Is there any mileage in this approach? I would presume it would come up with roughly what we have at present.
Classifications are a different matter. Should they be linked purely to a score/handicap level ("if you have a handicap of 61 you are 14th Level"), or percentage ("You are in the top 99% of scores recorded", so you are "Jolly Good")? If the latter, then we need a mechanism of revalidating year on year, as the percentages will reflect different levels of objective attainment ANd then we would need a good system of recording scores, not just for Record Status tournaments, but at club level (which, after all, is where the majority do the majority of their shooting). And then we might just get a more accurate picture of the quality of British Archery.
As the process of investigation is still going on, should we be thinking about what we need from these two connected "systems" for use at all levels - AND PUTTING FORWARD SUGGESTIONS. Otherwise we risk being given simply a clone of what we have now - which may or may not be what we want.