Horse Racing Fantasy Community

Today I finally read through the information pertaining to the handicapping program received from my post the other day. To be honest, 75% was worthless - though there were some good comments, the negativity simply wastes everyone's time and avoids what we're really trying to do here - better our program.

First and foremost, there is no doubt the handicapping program is substantially better than the auto-generated weights and odds assigned by the computer. But, I've also seen that there are a group of handicappers who are very good and have gained quite a bit of respect from the community.

Today the computer terminated its first handicapper - too many negative votes. The bottom line is, I'm not judging the handicappers' ability. You, the players, are. What my job is, is to protect the integrity of the program we are implementing and create a framework or guideline for us to follow. What occurs inside those guidelines is up to the handicapper and, in the end, it is really up to you, the players. If a handicapper is trending in a direction that is not acceptable, then the community votes him off.

So far, the strengths of the program that I see are more realistic odds and a lot more interaction in the community, both positive and negative, which is the way a community should work. As we continue to evaluate the results, we feel over the next couple of weeks, as long as you the players are being vocal through the power of the vote, the best handicappers will remain and those who are questionable at best will be pushed out. It's nothing new to watch handicappers take some heat. It happens all the time in real racing. As long as their efforts are legitimate and their integrity is forthright, then they will win the respect of the community.

We are going to implement a racing steward, probably several of them. Their job will serve only one purpose - to stir up the community and get them to vote on handicapped races that may or may not be questionable. Even a racing steward may have an opinion that is not supported by the majority of the community. That's not the point. They will not have the power to remove a handicapper, nor will they have the right to put down any handicapper. Their sole purpose is to bring a race to the attention of the communtity so votes can occur and the voting program implemented can take its due course.

We're compiling the data and will be posting some solid statistics next week, along with some new enhancements which further secure the integrity of what we're trying to accomplish.

- Puddles