Introducing the Quest for the Ring (QFTR) Text Report Rating and Labelling System

Quest for the Ring (QFTR) produces and publishes statistical and text Reports about how basketball playoff games and Championships are won and lost that are usually very long and chock loaded with details and proof of the points made. The discussion here involves the text reports and not the statistical ones which are not affected by what we are discussing here. The text Reports themselves are wonderful in general and are wonderful from a basketball perspective but the editorial scheme that results from those reports is problematic. The sad truth is, we have been cornered into and trapped by an editorial policy that we never really intended to get cornered into or trapped by.

The main problem is that when we specialize in the unique, high quality and very long Reports, we are then very reluctant to change the pace and produce shorter and much easier to read Reports. This reluctance is due to:

-We don’t want to let our usually sky high standards slip; we much prefer to keep the standard consistently sky high. Yes it's true, your QFTR producer is a perfectionist type of person.

-We don’t want to produce and publish short Reports and leave the reader in the dark about the existence of other much longer Reports on the subjects covered. Call us sensitive, but we don’t like to get blamed for anything at all, quite honestly.

The long and high quality text Reports that QFTR is known for actually have major editorial drawbacks. By themselves the really long text Reports don’t allow for an editorial plan or an editorial policy that is friendly to a visitor / reader who only has a limited amount of time. In theory, visitors / readers could simply come back on other days to finish text Reports they did not have time to finish earlier. But in practice, there is little evidence that they actually do that. Unfortunately, there are probably many visitors who start a text Report, don’t have time to finish it, and for one reason or another never come back to finish it.

Another problem is that since those very long text Reports obviously take many hours to produce and since QFTR is a part time project with a well defined but limited time budget, when only long text Reports are produced, there are going to often be long amounts of time between postings (compared to many other Internet basketball blogs).

QFTR wants to be different from everyone else but we want to avoid being “ridiculously different” if at all possible. So we want to reduce those time lags between Reports.

Another problem is that those gaps between Reports then make the problem of the temporary shutdowns even worse. Temporary shutdowns are when some disaster or catastrophe (that has nothing to do with QFTR or basketball) forces the complete but temporary shutdown of QFTR. Temporary shutdowns are technically never “supposed to” happen, but history has proven that they do happen whether you want them to or not. They occur on average roughly once a year and they last anywhere from a month to about five months. Temporary shutdowns create production deficits that are then eliminated over time, so technically speaking they do not in the long term affect the overall production of QFTR.

There was a shutdown of almost five months recently, in the summer and fall of 2011, and the production deficit from that was a whopper. And incidentally, we have not been able to even begin to close that big deficit here in 2012. In fact, so far in 2012 the deficit has slightly increased, not decreased.

In theory there should be plenty of time to meet the QFTR production plan. In practice, in the last year at least, time has been very hard to come by.

But one way or another we will close the entire deficit, every hour of it. We were hoping to close the deficit by the end of 2012, but now we are looking at the spring or summer of 2013 and possibly even the end of 2013 before every last hour of the deficit is eliminated. Trust me though, that deficit (like all other deficits of its type) will eventually be eliminated, lock stock and barrel. Sooner or later, every hour that was supposed to go into QFTR will in fact go into it.

But let’s get back to the primary discussion at hand....

The problems discussed above have the potential to lead to another problem: lower traffic than we could get if we could reduce those problems. Frankly, the very long and high quality Reports lead to lower traffic, not higher traffic as would be the case in a perfect world.

Continuing to speak frankly, QFTR is a relatively low traffic Site and it was always inevitably going to be that way. We know the reasons for that but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss those reasons. Continuing in the bluntly speaking mode, QFTR wants to make 100% sure that we can not possibly be blamed even in the slightest for the low traffic that QFTR gets. We want to remain 100% blameless, not just “mostly blameless”. In other words we want to make the Internet consuming public look bad or at least silly for refusing to consume QFTR content (for free) laugh out loud. So therefore, over the years we have tried numerous schemes to promote the production and publishing of shorter and quicker to read Reports.

Most but fortunately not all of those schemes failed. The Laugh Out Loud type Reports succeeded at reducing the problem but they are not enough to completely solve the problem. Overall, as of today, we are still mostly stuck in the rut of producing mostly very long Reports that require much more than five minutes to read and that require much more than an hour to produce.

Now we have yet another scheme intended to try to break out of the rut. True, it might possibly fail like the previous ones (how could I not mention the possibility?) but we think that this one has a very good chance of succeeding.

The new scheme is called the Report Rating System (RRS). As you might guess, one of the main purposes of the new RSS system is to pave the way for the production and publishing of easier to read Reports. This new article rating system is to allow for your QFTR producer to break out of the trap and to no longer be so reluctant to produce shorter and quicker to read Reports.

Now that you have been introduced to the RRS, here is what it consists of….

Each Report will have two report ratings that will describe the type of Report it is from an editorial perspective. Each Report will have a Depth and Detail Rating and each Report will have an Importance Rating.

DEPTH AND DETAIL RATINGS
Long reports often contain more actual points than are made in much shorter reports produced by others. But even so, the main reason why long reports are so long is not the points themselves but

--The evidence (or proof) that the points made are correct

--A discussion of the implications of the points

--A discussion of related points.

Depth and detail will mean the same thing as evidence and proof. Note how words matter. If I tell you “This Report has less evidence and proof than many other ones” that sounds kind of bad. But if I tell you “This Report has less depth and detail than many other ones” then that does not sound as bad.

THE FOUR DEPTH AND DETAIL RATINGS
Each Report will get one of four depth and detail ratings….

REPORTS RATED "EH" - EXTREMELY HIGH DEPTH AND DETAIL
As you might expect, these are generally speaking the longest text Reports - the ones that have the greatest sheer amount of evidence and proof (or depth and detail). These are the ones that have the most evidence and proof of all, and/or they have the most discussion of related points and /or the most discussion of implications of points. These Reports are all going to be far longer than most of the articles you see about basketball around the Internet. These Reports are like chapters of a book and often long chapters at that.

REPORTS RATED "VH" - VERY HIGH DEPTH AND DETAIL
Generally speaking these Reports are still going to be much longer than most of the articles you see about basketball around the Internet. But the Reports rated VH will be noticeably shorter than the Reports rated EH. Usually, there won’t really be any difference at all in the quality of the proof and evidence between an EH and a VH. Instead, the difference will be that the amount of proof or evidence (as measured by words) that constitutes every bit of proof or evidence that could possibly be needed or wanted is less for the VH Reports than for the EH Reports. Or in other words and to put it more simply, points made in VH Reports require less proof and evidence than points made in EH Reports.

REPORTS RATED "H" – HIGH DEPTH AND DETAIL
These Reports are still going to be longer than most of the articles you see about basketball around the Internet, but the Reports rated H will be noticeably shorter than the Reports rated VH and they will be much, much shorter than the EH Reports.

H Reports will be shorter for one or both of these two reasons:

--The point or points about basketball made are not as important as many others and it was decided that they could be made with a lower level of, or if you insist a lower quality of proof / evidence than we normally and traditionally use.

--The level and quality of the proof is the usual top of the line, but the actual amount of it needed to achieve the usual high standard is less than it is for VH Reports and much less than it is for EH Reports.

REPORTS RATED "M" - MEDIUM DEPTH AND DETAIL
A Medium depth and detail Report at QFTR will still have more depth and detail than you see with the vast majority of basketball articles produced elsewhere, but it will have much less depth and detail than the norm at QFTR. Although still substantially longer than most blog articles elsewhere, these will require only a small number of extra minutes to read than the longer articles elsewhere. And so when we produce Reports rated M we will become 100% blameless for traffic being light at QFTR (instead of just 98% or 99% blameless; man I am sensitive aren't I, laugh out loud).

A depth and detail rating of M-Medium at QFTR is often still going to mean some depth and detail that you would not get elsewhere. But by QFTR standards a Report rated M in depth and detail will be one that is fast and easy to read compared to reports with higher ratings.

Often but not always, Reports rated M for Depth and Detail will restate things that have been discussed and proven in much greater detail in prior reports. Sometimes one or more of those prior Reports will be linked to in the M Report. Other times, the only way you will find the ones with the heavy duty evidence and proof is if you find them yourself either by being a regular reader, by scanning through Report titles, and / or by taking the time necessary to locate them using Google Custom Search. To use Google Custom Search, put in the relevant search terms in any of the five Google Custom Search boxes that are on the QFTR home page.

THERE WILL NEVER EVER BE A “L” DEPTH AND DETAIL RATING
Note that there is not going to be any L – Low rating for depth and detail simply because anything lower than M would be little or nothing more than opinions thrown out there with very little or no evidence or proof and we simply can not stoop that low. Mere opinions are rare at QFTR and hype is even more rare (while both of those are in huge abundance elsewhere).

Remember, even the Laugh out Loud, George Karl Reports have substantial amounts of depth and detail, some of it, though, hidden in the humor. So the Laugh out Louds will usually have M ratings for depth and detail but every once in a great while they will have an H depth and detail rating.

THE THREE IMPORTANCE RATINGS
Remember, each QFTR Report will have two ratings, the depth and detail rating which has just been discussed, and the importance rating which we will discuss now. There are three importance ratings: I-Important, VI-Very Important and EI-Extremely Important.

There is no such thing as an unimportant Report at QFTR. Even the laugh out loud type Reports have serious and important messages and themes in them. So the Laugh Out Loud, George Karl Reports will be rated I – Important or even on occasion VI – Very Important. QFTR unlike many other writers does not produce unimportant or even “relatively unimportant” articles. For example, we don’t do in depth discussions of how a certain teams’ or certain players’ pick and rolls are not up to par (in a particular season). Hell, we don’t have anywhere near enough time to cover all of the important stuff, so the last thing we are going to do is spend time on relatively unimportant stuff.

So each Report will get one of three importance ratings …..

REPORTS RATED "EI" – EXTREMELY IMPORTANT
A Report rated EI will make at least one point about basketball that has one or both of the following characteristics:

--It is extremely important for determining who wins playoff games and Championships. If you disagree with the point or if you don’t do or achieve what the point tells you to do or achieve, you will definitely never win the Championship and you will definitely not be successful at the high level of basketball.

--It is a major breakthrough in the sense that while others may have expressed opinions on the subject, QFTR has done key research and come up with high quality proof and evidence to prove a very important or an extremely important point (so that now mere opinions are a waste of time.)

REPORTS RATED "VI" – VERY IMPORTANT
In a Report rated “VI” there are no points about basketball made that justify a full EI rating but there is at least one point that has one or both of the following characteristics:

--It is very important for determining who wins playoff games and Championships. If you disagree with the point or if you don’t do or achieve what the point tells you to do or achieve, you will most likely never win the Championship and you will most likely not be successful at the high level of basketball.

--It is a breakthrough in the sense that while others may have expressed opinions on the subject, QFTR has done research and come up with quality proof and evidence to prove an important point (so that now mere opinions about the point are a waste of time.)

REPORTS RATED "I" - IMPORTANT
In a Report rated “I” there are no points about basketball made that justify a “VI” or an “EI” rating. Basically, this is the default rating for all Reports that lack any points that are very important or extremely important. But as discussed just above, QFTR never produces anything which is unimportant with respect to winning playoff games and Championships; the only question is always just how important a Report is.

Reports rated “I” are still important and they will contain at least one point about basketball that is important for determining who wins playoff games and Championships. If you disagree with the point or if you don’t do or achieve what the point tells you to do or achieve, you will probably (or likely) never win the Championship and you will probably (or likely) not be successful at the high level of basketball.

APPLICATION OF THE NEW SYSTEM
The new Report Ratings System (RRS) will be applied to all Reports beginning as of May 2012 and after that. It is certain that we will never have the time to go back and apply RRS ratings to all of the almost 1,000 Reports produced to date. We hope to someday have the time to go back and find some of the all time most important Reports and apply the new ratings to them.

The new ratings will appear at the beginning of each Report. At the same time, the new system will be implemented using the Google Blogger label system. This will be the first use ever made by QFTR (but not necessarily the last or the only use ever made) of the Google Blogger labeling system.

In conclusion, QFTR hopes and expects that the new RRS system will allow for and promote the production of shorter Reports where the standards of evidence and proof may be somewhat lower but where the benefit of easier and quicker to read is obtained. Also, we hope and expect that the new system will quickly indicate to the reader just how important a Report is and also just how much depth and detail there is in the Report: Is it far more depth and detail than you get elsewhere or just more depth and detail than you get elsewhere?