Top Ten link

A few comments: Steve writes: "I think my suggestion is possible based on the way data is currently gathered, as I understand it. Maybe not 100% guaranteed, but I think it would work out based on past experience." Not really its a variation on the same problem. You cannot have an accurate list of rankings regardless of age unless you go much deeper than the top ten in every age group. (Pick your favorite very fast "young" age group and imagine how many of the top 15, 20 or 30 swims might make an all ages Top 40). My point, you still need a different approach to compiling results; it still requires the cooperation of all LMSCs and USMS "Top Ten(40) Recorder, etc. If you need to go through this all effort then why not specify a standard format for meet results, have all LMSC agree to that all LMSC/Zone championship meets be in this format; that all Top Ten submission go 30/40 deep by age group and that it conform to a specified format for input into the central database. Why hard is it for an LMSC to comply? I think its quite doable. New England has a standard format for its championship meets (SDIF) and this are now routinely stored in the results database on www.swimmingtimes.com maintained by our very own Jason Eaddy. I'm sure we could marshall enough volunteer resources to deal with problem of getting mini-meet results into a format that could be taken into a central database for this purpose if someone at the USMS national level can get other LMSCs to participate. Also we remain quite interested in "electronic" meet competition with other LMSC during SCY and SCM championship season. As Rick Osterberg suggested to Michael Moore, NEM would be open to an electronic competition with Pacific Masters during our next SCY Championship. We could even schedule some events in real-time and display them on both our web and pool scoreboard. (We would arrange a late morning start for non-distance events to adjust for the 3 hour time difference). This is not difficult AS LONG as we use some standard software (doesn't Hy Tek has some arrangment with USMS) for scoring and results.

A few comments: Steve writes: "I think my suggestion is possible based on the way data is currently gathered, as I understand it. Maybe not 100% guaranteed, but I think it would work out based on past experience." Not really its a variation on the same problem. You cannot have an accurate list of rankings regardless of age unless you go much deeper than the top ten in every age group. (Pick your favorite very fast "young" age group and imagine how many of the top 15, 20 or 30 swims might make an all ages Top 40). My point, you still need a different approach to compiling results; it still requires the cooperation of all LMSCs and USMS "Top Ten(40) Recorder, etc. If you need to go through this all effort then why not specify a standard format for meet results, have all LMSC agree to that all LMSC/Zone championship meets be in this format; that all Top Ten submission go 30/40 deep by age group and that it conform to a specified format for input into the central database. Why hard is it for an LMSC to comply? I think its quite doable. New England has a standard format for its championship meets (SDIF) and this are now routinely stored in the results database on www.swimmingtimes.com maintained by our very own Jason Eaddy. I'm sure we could marshall enough volunteer resources to deal with problem of getting mini-meet results into a format that could be taken into a central database for this purpose if someone at the USMS national level can get other LMSCs to participate. Also we remain quite interested in "electronic" meet competition with other LMSC during SCY and SCM championship season. As Rick Osterberg suggested to Michael Moore, NEM would be open to an electronic competition with Pacific Masters during our next SCY Championship. We could even schedule some events in real-time and display them on both our web and pool scoreboard. (We would arrange a late morning start for non-distance events to adjust for the 3 hour time difference). This is not difficult AS LONG as we use some standard software (doesn't Hy Tek has some arrangment with USMS) for scoring and results.