Excellent explanation and points! Times should get faster or remain the same if the calculations ask for a time drop. This will keep the bar to remain stable! What I don't understand is why use the 16th place for base and not 18th or 20th place?
I don't think there was any mathematical reason. USA Swimming used to produce a Top 16 list for age group swimming each year, but with all the data available and its ease of access now publishing something like this doesn't make much sense anymore. Anyone interested can just go and look it up online and get real time ranking. The lists used to be published once per year.
I think this is where using the the 16th place as the base time in the NAG calculation comes from. It's far enough downstream from the top performances that any outliers wouldn't affect the calculations.
I agree with you to a certain extent. However, there may be reasons for the time standards to get slower, depending on how they are used. For instance, if they are used as a cutoff for meets or camps or anything else of that nature, then they need to reflect a certain number of athletes. If you have an AA meet and only 2 kids can get in, that could be a problem (obviously a ridiculous extreme, but you get my point). So, if the time standards are used ONLY as motivational goals, then I agree with you. But the reality is that these time standards are used in many different ways across the country, so adjustments may have to be made downward as well as upward to reflect the longer term trends that yo describe in your opinion piece here.
Using your example, if the AA meet wouldn't have enough entries then the way to fix that is to make it an A meet. By changing the NAG times we're redefining success by lowering the bar for what we consider good performance. Another example, in academia this is called 'grade inflation.' I don't think that's really what anyone wants to do, but it's often done without thinking.
I agree to a degree, as it were, with your idea of changing it to an A meet. On your second example, that is incorrect. Grade inflation is a case where increasing numbers of students get A's, or higher grades. Changing the time standards is more akin to grading on a curve. So that a certain amount continually get A's or B's or whatever, or in the case of swimming a certain amount get BB, or B, or A or AA. So it is not motivational time inflation, it is instead a case of making it so that a certain amount of swimmers achieve each time standard.
Nah, you're just wrong. Not even worth arguing with. You are spinning statistics to try and prove your point, but the data doesn't show what you are pretending it shows.
Excellent explanation and points! Times should get faster or remain the same if the calculations ask for a time drop. This will keep the bar to remain stable! What I don't understand is why use the 16th place for base and not 18th or 20th place?
I don't think there was any mathematical reason. USA Swimming used to produce a Top 16 list for age group swimming each year, but with all the data available and its ease of access now publishing something like this doesn't make much sense anymore. Anyone interested can just go and look it up online and get real time ranking. The lists used to be published once per year.
I think this is where using the the 16th place as the base time in the NAG calculation comes from. It's far enough downstream from the top performances that any outliers wouldn't affect the calculations.
I agree with you to a certain extent. However, there may be reasons for the time standards to get slower, depending on how they are used. For instance, if they are used as a cutoff for meets or camps or anything else of that nature, then they need to reflect a certain number of athletes. If you have an AA meet and only 2 kids can get in, that could be a problem (obviously a ridiculous extreme, but you get my point). So, if the time standards are used ONLY as motivational goals, then I agree with you. But the reality is that these time standards are used in many different ways across the country, so adjustments may have to be made downward as well as upward to reflect the longer term trends that yo describe in your opinion piece here.
Using your example, if the AA meet wouldn't have enough entries then the way to fix that is to make it an A meet. By changing the NAG times we're redefining success by lowering the bar for what we consider good performance. Another example, in academia this is called 'grade inflation.' I don't think that's really what anyone wants to do, but it's often done without thinking.
I agree to a degree, as it were, with your idea of changing it to an A meet. On your second example, that is incorrect. Grade inflation is a case where increasing numbers of students get A's, or higher grades. Changing the time standards is more akin to grading on a curve. So that a certain amount continually get A's or B's or whatever, or in the case of swimming a certain amount get BB, or B, or A or AA. So it is not motivational time inflation, it is instead a case of making it so that a certain amount of swimmers achieve each time standard.
That is a good point. We are going to a meet that requires BB times.
Nah, you're just wrong. Not even worth arguing with. You are spinning statistics to try and prove your point, but the data doesn't show what you are pretending it shows.