WPRS Formula change | Free Flyers Union

Discipline

Paragliding XC

What do we want ?

The proposed change is to calculate a pilot’s ranking points based only on the competitors they outperform, rather than all participants in the competition.
In the current WPRS formula, top-ranked pilots inflate points you can get from a comp no matter your result.

How do we achieve that ?

I've prepared a set of simulations, analyzed results and formulated a proposal (link below).
It was already discussed at the last CIVL plenary, and it was decided a special working group is needed, but it was never formed.
I'm looking for support for this change.

Issue category :

WPRS

ranking

Link

Ready proposal

Comments

CIVL Delegate

By Julien Garcia on Wed, 22 Oct 2025 - 01:00

I was sad to see the treatment this proposal received. I believe there is an easy consensus to be found in this proposal. The points should indeed be awarded for beating contestants, not just participating along them. This will not solve completely the problems for non European pilots but it will be a little bit more fair. Tons of time spent. Amazing work. Thanks.

CIVL Delegate

By zsoltero on Thu, 23 Oct 2025 - 22:57

Kuba, I wanted to propose the other direction, being rewarded for being Nth within the M strongest pilots of a race.

Like in the real world, many times on a National or similar level comp, there are 10 CCC glider and 90 EN-C, etc. The 10 CCC gliders race the whole week within each other, almost independent of the rest.

My performance on that comp should be measured on how well I was racing with the other CCC pilots. It has nothing to do with the 90 EN-C pilots who I barely flew together with.

It's not clear to me if the proposal is taking this into account or not. I think it's currently in the other direction.

By Kuba Sto on Thu, 23 Oct 2025 - 23:16

So it seems my proposal is aligned with your desires.
Simplifying - you are rewarded for 1/4 of the best pilots you beat.

CIVL Delegate

By zsoltero on Thu, 23 Oct 2025 - 23:20

What happens on the SRS situation, where there are 2-3 top pilots who "pull-up" the point of everyone else?
I don't think that system is fair as it is today.
If you put 120 pilots with average ranking and 3 top pilots and have them racing and racing and racing each other for many races, currently their points get really high over time.
Even though no one ever beat the top 3 pilots.
I think it's a bug in the current system.
I don't know what would be a good system, but I think it should handle the SRS situation.

By Kuba Sto on Thu, 23 Oct 2025 - 23:31

The whole point of my proposal is to not be rewarded for pilots ahead of you. So inflating points like this would be avoided.

CIVL Delegate

By zsoltero on Thu, 23 Oct 2025 - 23:42

I like that. So if I suppose:
- there are 10 elite pilots + 90 weekend pilots on a comp
- and they win in their ranking order

=> then being the 11th pilot (first non-elite) in the comp should give the same points as winning the "fictional" comp of 90 weekend pilots.

At least I believe this would be an ideal system.

By Kuba Sto on Fri, 24 Oct 2025 - 00:04

There is still Pn parameter (number of participants), so not exactly the same, but it the essence, yes.
I welcome initiatives to check my simulations and detailed peer review.

CIVL Delegate

By Julien Garcia on Thu, 23 Oct 2025 - 23:37

This one is good to go too. A pity we missed it last year. Working Group please 🙏🏻

By Michał Adamczuk on Sun, 26 Oct 2025 - 18:15

While the idea of fighting organizers’ manipulation through selective choice of pilots seems entirely justified, the above proposal to change the scoring rules, in my opinion, has a fundamental flaw. This is not my own argument, but I think it’s worth bringing up here. Namely, in a low level competition I take first place and receive 50 points. I have defeated 100 pilots. In an alternative scenario, I defeat the same 100 pilots, but in addition there are 20 new, better pilots who finish ahead of me. In this case, I place 21st. In both scenarios I have beaten the same pilots, yet in the second one I earn significantly fewer points simply because better pilots appeared. Even though my performance in terms of defeated pilots was identical, I was nevertheless “penalized” for the fact that new, stronger competitors joined the event.

By Kuba Sto on Mon, 27 Oct 2025 - 12:40

Did you check this scenario with the both formulas (current and proposed)? This is the help which is needed to double check my simulations. Please share the results. I'm not sure your guessing is correct.

Anyway, this hypothetical scenario is extreme and doesn't happen in real life, so I wouldn't pay much attention to this. Except for some experimentation purposes to better understand how it works. It's impossible to design a formula to cover all such extremes. If we focus on the real context we're designing for, we'll get better results.

By Jonas Prüssing on Tue, 28 Oct 2025 - 19:04

Hey everyone,

I really like the idea of improving the WPRS ranking formula — the current version definitely has some issues that can be “abused.” However, I might be misunderstanding the new approach, so please correct me if I’m wrong.

As I understand it, the new idea is that a pilot’s score depends on roughly one quarter of the total pilots ranked below them, weighted by the rankings of those pilots (similar to how it worked before).

If that’s correct, it means that in a typical competition with a normal distribution of pilot skills, the winner earns a lot of points — because the top 25 or so pilots below them already have high rankings. In contrast, pilot number 25 won’t gain many points, because below them are mostly average or low-ranked pilots.

Even if that 25th pilot manages to beat the best pilot in the world (who happens to rank 26th in that comp), they still wouldn’t gain much because the lower-ranked portion of the field carries less weight. Overall, this could lead to a situation where the top 20% of the world ranking gain even more points, while those ranked around 21–80% earn less than before. So the system ends up benefiting top pilots the most.

The documentation says the top 10 rankings won’t change much, but in practice it actually is the opposite — the top pilots gain more relative to everyone else, this is also visible in the garphs shown in the documentation. This statement dosnt make sens. It’s a bit like an economic system where “the rich get richer.” Please correct me if I’m interpreting that effect incorrectly.

Now, here’s an example of how this system could also be abused or produce strange results:
Imagine the German league sends 25 top pilots to a 100-pilot comp, but they only fly one day and then leave — ending up at the bottom of the results. The top 3 French pilots in the world also attend and actually compete, finishing 1st to 3rd.

Under this system, those top 3 pilots would only gain points based on the rankings of the pilots directly below them (places 4, 5, 6, etc.), who might be relatively weak. Meanwhile, pilots finishing around 70th place suddenly gain huge points, because they’re now ranked above 25 world-class pilots (the Germans) who ended up at the bottom.

So in that case, the top 3 — who clearly performed the best — get less benefit than random mid-ranked pilots, which doesn’t make much sense.

Overall, this new formula might actually make things less fair. The previous version, even with its flaws, at least distributed points more evenly — even if lower pilots sometimes benefited a bit from higher-ranked pilots being in the comp.

By Kuba Sto on Tue, 28 Oct 2025 - 21:14

Yes, you've misunderstand a key aspect of the formula.
1. Beaten pilots are sorted by rank (in descending order) please have a closer look at point 2.2. Individual Participant Quality Factor

2. Formula was simulated 3 years back, to test how WPRS would differ if the proposed formula was in use from 2022 - there was no "rich get richer" effect.

3. The abuse scheme you describe would not be possible, because of point 1.

However I'd love you to run independent tests, just to be sure.

By Jonas Prüssing on Mon, 3 Nov 2025 - 19:23

Thanks for clarifying — now it makes more sense and sounds better to me. However, I still see a few issues from my point of view. It’s very clear that this formula gives more points to the top 20 pilots — that’s obvious from your documentation. I’m not arguing whether that’s good or bad, but I’m wondering: did these people complain about not getting enough points before, or what was the reasoning behind designing the formula this way or is it just a not wanted side effect? This also means those first 20 places will be secured way better and more difficult to change.

Another thing I struggle with is that I thought this platform was meant to make the sport safer. I really don’t see how this formula contributes to that — actually, I think it could have the opposite effect. Now, pilots will pay much more attention to who they need to beat personally, whereas before, it wasn’t such a big deal if a top pilot outperformed you, since you could still earn enough points. This change could make a huge difference, especially in lower-level competitions.

My impression is that this formula will create more rivalry and pressure — it feels like it encourages beating others rather than focusing on achieving a solid overall ranking. I worry this might lead to more risk-taking and aggressive flying tactics. But maybe that’s just my personal feeling.

CIVL Delegate

By zsoltero on Fri, 31 Oct 2025 - 11:49

My biggest problem with this proposal is that in our sport we are not really scoring points against each other, we are scoring points against time and distance.

Unlike with football, boxing, etc. where people really have matches against each other.

This proposal would make the difference between winners really big, even when in reality there might only be 0.1 point difference on the podium.

Do we really want to enlarge those 0.1 differences into 5-7 point WPRS results? It doesn't seem fair to me.

A fair system would be some kind of function on the final points of the comp I believe.
If two pilots are 0.1 points within each other on the podium => they should be really close on the WPRS ranking as well, not 5-7 points apart.

By Kuba Sto on Mon, 3 Nov 2025 - 16:33

1. I don't agree with pilots race against time and distance, not each other - in most competitions pilots don't try to be fastest possible, but faster then the others - hence "control flying" tactics etc. We can argue if it's good or bad, but anyway it's caused mostly by the task scoring methods. It's not really a ranking formula issue.

2. There are different task scoring methods (points up to 1000, raw time) - so ranking points can't really depend on point differences and this is the main reason it's based just on the final order - I wouldn't change that. Finish order - no matter how small - is a natural part of many sport disciplines.

CIVL Delegate

By zsoltero on Mon, 3 Nov 2025 - 17:49

TBS converts to "virtual points" or "virtual seconds" or similar.

I still don't believe it's a fair system if there is 0.1 point difference between pilots => 7 point difference in WPRS points. It just doesn't feel right to me.
It's not like in football or boxing where the first place has actually beaten the second place, it's just 0.1 points after a week of racing each other. I don't know why should it be 5-7 points for the winner. But this is just one pilots opinion, maybe others believe differently.

By Kuba Sto on Mon, 3 Nov 2025 - 19:09

Yes, there are also voices to award extra points for the podium winners, to increase the rivalry.
My proposal is not such radical.