Question of the week: Should players lose their lifetime masterpoint rank when they die?

[Jonathan Ferguson]

It's always puzzled me why people who die lose their ranks on lifetime masterpoint lists. I suppose it's to include more living people on the lists, but the whole thing rubs me the wrong way. These lists measure lifetime achievement, why on earth would you remove someone from the ranking once their final tally is known?

Here's an example:

http://web2.acbl.org/as400/mpraces/mpAwards/lifetime/CanadianTop1000.htm

And if they want to make a list of living members only, I'm okay with that. But the DEFAULT should be not to discriminate against those who are no longer with us.

Dead Lives Matter!

[Barry Margolin]

Post by Jonathan Ferguson
It's always puzzled me why people who die lose their ranks on lifetime
masterpoint lists.

ACBL periodically publishes top masterpoint holders in the Bulletin.
They include deceased players in italics. What's the problem with this?

[Jonathan Ferguson]

In article <>,

Post by Jonathan Ferguson
It's always puzzled me why people who die lose their ranks on lifetime
masterpoint lists.

ACBL periodically publishes top masterpoint holders in the Bulletin.
They include deceased players in italics. What's the problem with this?
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA

Would it be okay if they included Jews in italics? Or blacks in italics? Or women in italics? And strip those people of their ranking?

Why is a lifetime achievement somehow diminished when someone dies?

Does Major League Baseball (or the NFL, or the NBA, or the NHL) keep a list of records of players (Most Home Runs - career, for example) and then REMOVE them from the ranking when they die? Of course not, that would be absurd.

[Barry Margolin]

Post by Jonathan Ferguson

In article <>,

Post by Jonathan Ferguson
It's always puzzled me why people who die lose their ranks on lifetime
masterpoint lists.

ACBL periodically publishes top masterpoint holders in the Bulletin.
They include deceased players in italics. What's the problem with this?
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA

Would it be okay if they included Jews in italics? Or blacks in italics? Or
women in italics? And strip those people of their ranking?
Why is a lifetime achievement somehow diminished when someone dies?
Does Major League Baseball (or the NFL, or the NBA, or the NHL) keep a list
of records of players (Most Home Runs - career, for example) and then REMOVE
them from the ranking when they die? Of course not, that would be absurd.

Perhaps it's related to the fact that masterpoint awards change over
time. So 10K masterpoints achieved through the 60's are not really
comparable to 10K achieved through the 21st century.

[Jonathan Ferguson]

In article <>,

Post by Jonathan Ferguson

In article <>,

Post by Jonathan Ferguson
It's always puzzled me why people who die lose their ranks on lifetime
masterpoint lists.

ACBL periodically publishes top masterpoint holders in the Bulletin.
They include deceased players in italics. What's the problem with this?
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA

Would it be okay if they included Jews in italics? Or blacks in italics? Or
women in italics? And strip those people of their ranking?
Why is a lifetime achievement somehow diminished when someone dies?
Does Major League Baseball (or the NFL, or the NBA, or the NHL) keep a list
of records of players (Most Home Runs - career, for example) and then REMOVE
them from the ranking when they die? Of course not, that would be absurd.

Perhaps it's related to the fact that masterpoint awards change over
time. So 10K masterpoints achieved through the 60's are not really
comparable to 10K achieved through the 21st century.
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA

y u troll me, Barry?

Speaking of Barry, and a far more plausible hypothesis, is that when Barry Crane was murdered he had a gigantic lead in the all-time masterpoints list and perhaps the ACBL didn't want to publish a list that year-after-year had a dead guy in the #1 position. Of course, if they were unranking dead people before Barry Crane was murdered, that would nullify my hypothesis, but that was before my time.

[Douglas Newlands]

Post by Jonathan Ferguson

In article <>,

Post by Jonathan Ferguson

In article <>,

Post by Jonathan Ferguson
It's always puzzled me why people who die lose their ranks on lifetime
masterpoint lists.

ACBL periodically publishes top masterpoint holders in the Bulletin.
They include deceased players in italics. What's the problem with this?
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA

Would it be okay if they included Jews in italics? Or blacks in italics? Or
women in italics? And strip those people of their ranking?
Why is a lifetime achievement somehow diminished when someone dies?
Does Major League Baseball (or the NFL, or the NBA, or the NHL) keep a list
of records of players (Most Home Runs - career, for example) and then REMOVE
them from the ranking when they die? Of course not, that would be absurd.

Perhaps it's related to the fact that masterpoint awards change over
time. So 10K masterpoints achieved through the 60's are not really
comparable to 10K achieved through the 21st century.
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA

y u troll me, Barry?
Speaking of Barry, and a far more plausible hypothesis, is that when Barry Crane was murdered he had a gigantic lead in the all-time masterpoints list and perhaps the ACBL didn't want to publish a list that year-after-year had a dead guy in the #1 position. Of course, if they were unranking dead people before Barry Crane was murdered, that would nullify my hypothesis, but that was before my time.

Seems to me that Belladonna was deranked by the WBF when he died.
I remember there being theories as to why.

doug

[Kenny McCormack]

In article <pu9ako$h27$***@douglasnewlands.eternal-september.org>,
Douglas Newlands <***@gmail.com> wrote:
...

Post by Douglas Newlands
Seems to me that Belladonna was deranked by the WBF when he died.
I remember there being theories as to why.

For whatever it is worth, somehow this whole system reminds me more of a
question like "Who is the richest person in the world?" than the sort of
questions we associate with more conventional sports. It seems clear that
when answering this particular question ("Who is the richest person in the
world?"), only living people are considered. I think the same general
ideas are at work here.

P.S. and FWIW, from everything I've heard, if dead people were counted and
the total was adjusted for inflation, the original John Rockefeller would
still be #1. That's what I've heard...

[Steve Willner]

Post by Jonathan Ferguson
Does Major League Baseball (or the NFL, or the NBA, or the NHL) keep
a list of records of players (Most Home Runs - career, for example)
and then REMOVE them from the ranking when they die? Of course not,
that would be absurd.

MLB keeps records both for "active players" and "all players." (I think
the records are actually kept by stats.com or something like that, but
they are under the direction of MLB.) For bridge players, "active" and
"living" are reasonably close to being the same.

Barry M. mentioned Barry Crane. My memory is that before B.C. died, the
published list included only living players. Deceased players were
added in order to memorialize Barry's achievements. This would be the
opposite of lack of respect.

As Al mentioned, there's a practical reason for listing at least the top
100 living players. How exactly one should publish the list is a
different matter.

[bigal]

Post by Barry Margolin

Post by Jonathan Ferguson
It's always puzzled me why people who die lose their ranks on lifetime
masterpoint lists.

ACBL periodically publishes top masterpoint holders in the Bulletin.
They include deceased players in italics. What's the problem with this?
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA

I wrote to the previous ACBL Bulletin Editor about this misleading/poorly named annual list more than once. I included the arguments that have already been mentioned in this thread. Foolishly, i also added suggestions about either renaming the article [because the fine print says the real purpose is to identify the top 100 ACTIVE players who get automagic Blue Ribbon Pairs qualifications] OR adding a 2nd column. One column could identify those 100, the other could give a true representation enumerating each entry for ALL TIME Masterpoint winners.

The response was so predictably unsatisfactory that I haven't even bothered broaching the subject with the new editor.

[Jonathan Ferguson]

I've since found this area on the ACBL website

https://www.acbl.org/masterpoints-results/

With a handy checkbox to check or uncheck for 'Show Deceased Members'

That satisfies most of my gripe, though I'd still prefer to see the lists (generally) published like this.