I wish RaiderIO focused more on raw data than the RaiderIO score

Like, an overall score that would indicate how well a player is in M+?

No, the RaiderIO score is a proprietary summary statistic which may or may not summarize the things in the raw data we care about. I think it doesn't and it's usually better to have finer-grained summary statistics presented in a digestible way than use a summary statistic that doesn't capture what you want.

"Information visualization" is the field that is how you present complex data in a way that's digestible. Using an all-encompassing, one-dimensional summary statistic sidesteps the infoviz problem — there's nothing to "visualize" if you're talking about a single number.

How can summary statistics go wrong?

Think about "mean wealth in the US" as a way a summary statistic can go wrong. If we have 100 people where 99 people have a net worth of $1 and 1 person has a net worth of a billion dollars, it's a fact that the "mean net worth" of that group is close to $100M. But does "mean net worth" summarize the data in a way that captures what's going on?

This example also illustrates why it's not right to say "well, anything is better than nothing" because the conclusion one might draw from the fact that the mean net worth is ~$100M is that "on average" people are doing just fine. But if the cost of living for those 100 people is $10/month then 1 person is doing fine and 99 people are not doing fine.

An alternate summary statistic might be the percentage of people whose monthly earnings are greater than the monthly cost of living. This is a better summary statistic, assuming the question we're asking is "How many people can survive on their own earnings?"

IMO same problem with the RaiderIO score. Finding a single, one-dimension summary statistic that captures what you want is hard. I don't think the RaiderIO score does it. Rather than do that, I think we'd be better off presenting a handful of standard

Having all that information would be an absolute nightmare to sort through, and if you want that data you can just go to raider.io and check out the usernames run.

I think you're assuming some kind of naïve table or list of numbers.

It's definitely hard to present data in a way that communicates the data's "story" in a straightforward way, but that's why infoviz is its own field.

Another approach would be to make the RaiderIO score better reflect the story.

/r/CompetitiveWoW Thread Parent