I was hoping for someone to provide an alternative view here ^

I would be interested to read those reasons you support the ELO. As for communication, how do you think changes like this can be communicated or discussed with players who don’t read here? A message on the top of a game page asking for comments perhaps? Like, “we are considering making changes to this game please visit the forums here (link) to read the details”?

Actually, there is still an important incentive to play at champ level after winning - you can help your team's league rank by getting a good score in your best topic every day!

However, if you are looking for some stats that encourage personal improvement, we could consider adding a personal high score, similar to how the original ELO had your own number beneath the list. And unlike with ELO, you won't have to worry about your less favorite topics dragging down your rank, so now you can shoot for a lucky win on all those topics you may have avoided because those bottom half finishes were poison to ELO ranks. So, while there may be less incentive to replay the topics you won as champ, you have even more reason to try those you still lack the champ victory for!

The Elo ratings are still there...just click the link on the Experts page.

Even for those of us who are not super fast, we can get on the leaderboard with our niche category (just noticed I am 3rd in NASCAR). In the old ELO system, I was never near the top of the board.

It's double sided, but although removing the ratings encourage more wins in obscure areas once you've won quite a few then playing against everyone else in total is quite a challenge. Of course unlike word wizard which is the same each go, tactics are at least half the system with ratings, but they are not perfect and easy to trip up in even the most familiar subject, and it's also possible do well in normally tougher ones so worth taking risks.

But the current position using both does seem to work the best, as if the ratings stop being annual then we can play on and on indefinitely, knowing if we muck up one game we have time to recover. The ratings for word wizard using the percentile system suit it well and can persist indefinitely as they are, and don't lose a pile for a mistake, but each league table has to be adapted to the nature of the game.

Thanks Barbarini.
Are these still live or are they frozen from the point Terry changed it?

I've been checking periodically and they're still active.

If they are still active then great but anyone below position 100 (like me) will not gain anything from that? It doesn’t tell me my ELO. I’m not concerned by this but 100 is a fairly low percentage of the Expert playing population of FT.

For Terry: If it’s going to be left live for those who care about it could that page display the players own rating too?

Rating link removed for Expert.

Can we have a personal high score on each topic? It would be a useful little stat for our weaker topics and for those who don't win often. It could probably be stored in the field that previously held the level of when a win was achieved or the number of opponents.

Agreed