The Ratings Committee continues to wait for the USCF office
to implement the new rating system and the Life Achievement
Awards system.  Many of the issues that the committee
has discussed, such as the improvement of rating scholastic
players, and specific changes to the quick chess system, were
generally thought by the Committee to be issues to examine 
after the new rating system has been implemented.  The Committee
felt that if the problems still existed, the nature of the 
problem would be more appropriately addressed in the context 
of the new system.  The following are the main issues examined 
this past year.

The Committee was alerted to the possibility that the
Scholastic Committee might be interested in developing an
on-line rating system for scholastic events, and that we
might be consulted.  This led to a discussion concerning
the method in which these on-line ratings would be merged
into the USCF system.  While the Ratings Committee recognized that
the Scholastic Committee was proposing an experimental
situation, the consensus of the Ratings Committee was that,
after appropriate validation, the scholastic ratings might
be used as provisional ratings for USCF tournament play.
The Committee had not been contacted further about this matter.
The discussion of on-line ratings for scholastic players led to 
a discussion of design issues for a ratings database.  This
discussion was carbon copied to the Technical Director, who
also had input into the discussion.  The discussion seemed timely
because it had relevance to the implementation of the new
rating system.  

In anticipation of the new rating system's implementation,
a brief synopsis of the system was written and published in
Chess Life (Feb, 2000).  The short article highlighted for
USCF membership the main changes that will take place to the 
current system when the new system is implemented.

The Committee was charged with the task of considering
whether it would be feasible to develop a rating system 
that could be used for on-line play, both for USCF
sanctioned events, and for other chess servers willing to 
consider using a USCF-endorsed rating system.  The hope was
that by having chess servers adopt a common system, there
would be greater uniformity in ratings across servers, so
that ratings would be comparable in these different systems.
While there was some support to the idea, a concern that was raised 
involved the difficulty of producing a single system that
could be used by different pools of players under differing
conditions (i.e., different chess servers attracting different 
players).  Another concern is that a chess server can use any rating 
system of their choosing, including any developed by the USCF, so
that there may not be any obvious reasons for a chess
server's administrators to buy an on-line system the USCF develops.
An alternative that was proposed was that the USCF may instead want 
to sell USCF-sanctioning to systems that follow specified
guidelines.  

The discussion on developing on-line ratings led to a
discovery that the Internet Chess Club (ICC) runs
events that are USCF-rated.  The Committee was not consulted
on this issue, though we learned that the decision was made
last Spring by Mike Cavallo, former executive director of
the USCF.  One of the main concerns brought up in the 
discussions was the possibility of cheating in ICC events,
and how this could adversely affect USCF ratings for
USCF-rated ICC events.  One suggestion that was raised was
to consider USCF-rating only quick ICC events, and in effect
merging the USCF quick chess ratings with comparable ICC ratings.
This would address a problem with the current quick chess
ratings, namely that players compete infrequently in quick
chess events so that their ratings are not as reliable as
standard ratings.  In the end, the consensus of the
Committee felt that we would have a better idea of whether
this was a sensible solution only after the new rating
system was implemented.

A related issue that arose when discussing the inactivity
of the quick chess system was to consider rating slower events.
Currently, the quick chess rating system rates events with
time controls of G/10 through G/29.  The suggestion was to
extend the scope of the quick chess rating to time controls 
of G/10 through G/60, but still to rate G/30 and slower under the 
standard rating system.  In effect, events with G/30 through
G/60 would be rated under both systems.  We would also be
redefining quick (or "rapid") events to be similar to those
governed by FIDE.  The Committee is proposing this
suggestion as a motion for consideration by the delegates
this year.

ADM:  The Ratings Committee recommends that the scope of the
Quick Rating system be extended to include rating events
that have time controls between G/10 through G/60.
This would allow for greater use of the quick chess rating
system, and would thereby help to produce more meaningful quick
chess ratings.  Specifically, we recommend the following:

1.  The Quick Chess rating system would apply
    to G/10 thru G/60 events.

2.  The regular rating system would apply to G/30 and slower events.

3.  In events with mixed time controls, either (a) the slowest
    time control is used to classify the event for rating type, or
    (b) a separate rating report would be submitted for games
    with time controls quicker than G/60.

We further recommend

4.  Online ICC would only be rated under the Quick chess system
    assuming a time control of G/60 or faster, unless a tournament
    director was present for all games.