TMG and TGM are different people, so yes there is a difference. Ghost ratings were developed by TGM and are only related to this site in that they are run from the numbers on this site. It's something TGM decided to do, got the community to support, and eventually Kestas gave him better access to the data so he could run them without having to screen scrape the site. How they are computed not only involves win/draw/survive/loss, but the skill level of your opponents. Beat MasterGamer and have him fully defeated, you will get a huge boost to your ranking. Be decimated by him, it'll be a minor hit. It's kind of like handicapping the game to compute your rank.

I think Ghosties site has more details on the computation, but most of the better players here now play to improve their Ghost Rating.

I've totally missed this.
What is a ghost rating??

Check TGM's site for all the explanations:

http://phpdiplomacy.tournaments.googlepages.com/home2

thanks for the site, I'm checking it out now...

I tried to look it up before and found nothing

so my ghost rating is 216? is that correct?

Nope, it's 111.70, which gives you a ghost ranking of 1372. Check the July 29 link in the Ghost Rating page of TGM's site.

*cry*
I'm trying to understand it all...

Oh. I get it. Sorry and thanks...
HOW DID YOU FIND ME SO FAST
I have this creeping suspicion that it's incredibly obvious

The Ghost Rating is a factor that reflects how you are expected to perform in games, based on past experience. The ranking is simply a numerical list of all players, by order of their rating.

I am not totally confident in my understanding of the rating, but I think it works like this: 100 is the average score and starting score for everyone. If seven people with 100 rating played a game, than each would be expected to control 1/7 of the SCs at the end of the game. Your rating is 111.70, so if you played in the game instead, you would be expected to take 111.7 % of 1/7 of the SCs.

Rating then changes dynamically as you play. If you perform well, against strong players, your rating goes up. The size of the bet does not affect rating..

Somebody else may be able to correct this, if they aren't all sleeping.

It's really cool to see all the multiaccounters.

To find a player: open the spreadsheet, hit the edit button at the top of the browser, and select "Find (on this page)"

you so clevah!
So having 739... is like being able to win more SCs than the current game can allow?
it might just be a calculating... what's the word... not error...

Like I said, I might not have things right.

But remember that the player with 739 will not just play noobies with 100. If other players have higher ratings as well, then the relative chance of earning SCs change. Basically, all the ratings get added together, and then the chance is estimated based on how much of the total rating score is represented by the 739.

how often is this updated me being new to the site just wanted to now if i would be on

TGM updates at the beginning of each month, based on games completed the previous month. If you finished any games in August, you will be in the list that comes out some time next week or so.

thanks but cant find edit

Edit as in the toolbar as follows:
File Edit View History Bookmarks Window Help (Mac)
that edit.

oh i'm on windows so any idea how to find it on Vista

in the internet explorer browser window... next to file...

or are you referring to how to find "Find" in Edit? If it's not there, then good luck. :DDD

Its actually easier to just hit Ctrl+F

true that

not on it

Ok I have seen rank shown as Political puppet, experienced, por< and diplomat. Are these all ranks and are they in the right order?
Do they have anything to do with ghost ratings?

no they just rank the players according to available points (points in play don't count). so it's actually bullshit. the best ranking system is the ghost ratings

Ok, I'll try to answer all of this:

TGM=TheGhostmaker is Me. Moderator, admin for Leagues, TMG Masters and TGM Champions' Trophy.
TMG=TheMasterGamer is not me. Very very good player, emailed me essentially asking me to design and run the TMG Masters', to avoid as far as possible tourament metagaming and to make people play for solos.

The Ghost-Ratings are a different rating system to points, where your current rating is used to compute an "expected result" in a particular game, and you gain or loose in line with how much better or worse than the expected result you do.
In Winner-Takes-All games, your expected result is simply your rating/sum(all players' ratings). In PPSC, it is more complicated, because there are two ways of winning points: 18/34ths of the pot for winning, or anything from 1/34th to 16/34ths of the pot by surviving. This means that we have to calculate first the chance of you winning the 18/34ths of the pot, then the chance of you winning "survival points" with opponent A winning, the the chance with opponent B winning etc. etc. etc. This gets around the fallacy that TMG would be expected to do better than win in a PPSC game.
Note that the results of other players don't matter, a draw with TMG whilst Mr. moron looses is the same as a draw with Mr. moron whilst TMG is defeated, because your result is the same in each (a two-way) and the opponents are the same.

To find the Ghost-ratings, check my site: http://phpdiplomacy.tournaments.googlepages.com/
In the lists, you can use Ctrl+F or F3 to do a search for yourself (which depends on the browser you use)

100 is the average and starting score.

The ranks on the site (Political Puppet, experienced, Pro etc.) are all to do with points, not Ghost-Rating.

And the Ghost-ratings do come out on a monthly basis.

And I signed up before TMG, so this confusion is All His Fault.

I wanna just say thank you but that seems a bit inadequate. I do like the effort TGM & TMG have put in. Some day I hope to play both of you and hopefully soon I can make the Ghost list...

Hmmm...I don't seem to have a position next to my name on my page...yet I appear on the ghost ratings list....
How does one get the 'Position' label on their ID page?

You have to have more than 100 available points. Not total including invested, but just available. That position means nothing as it changes everytime you signup for another game because it doesn't take into accounted vested points in current games.

M'kay. Good to know. Perhaps I should hold off of joining games until at least 75% of my current games finish then.

Ghost, is there anyway we can get Ghostratings on our profile? I think most players view them as the ultimate ranking system, so it would be nice to give them some legitimacy and easy access.