We aim to do two things with this website:

• Aggregate WFTDA inter-league bout statistics and present them in a clear, accessible form.
• Develop a computerized ranking system that will help skaters and fans interpret the most recent inter-league bout results.

It's important to stress what a computerized ranking system is and is not. In many ways, it's just as subjective as the polled ranking system that WFTDA conducts. We have decided which factors to include in the ranking algorithm, and we have subjectively decided which factors are more important than others. But the strength of a computerized ranking system is that it applies these factors objectively and across all data equally. What's more, it can process far larger datasets than a human can think about at once. The hope is that some hidden truth about skill is revealed through this method.

Having said this, we are not proposing a competing system to WFTDA's official, polled rankings. We would only like to explore what an algorithmic ranking system can reveal, and to maintain a repository of data-rich roller derby statistics.

In addition to this, we also believe strongly in transparency. To acknowledge the subjectivity of ranking algorithms is to question its internal workings. We believe an algorithm that doesn't explain itself is useless in this domain. For this reason, we have attempted to document the algorithm so as to be clear about what exactly this ranking system represents.

Aaron K is interested in computers. He gets vertigo when he walks up broken escalators.

Mandi Festo skates with the Bay Area Derby Girls. In the interest of full disclosure, she started skating with Tucson Roller Derby in Spring of 2005. She was also a guest member of Gotham Girls Roller Derby for a half-year in 2007.

This site is written in PHP 4 and jQuery. Data is stored in a MySQL 4 database. The weblog is powered by Wordpress.

All statistics and rankings are generated dynamically based on incoming bouts. As long as we can keep up on adding new bouts, all related metrics site-wide are updated automatically.