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Oh my! It seems I have upset the Edgic locals. Not surprising, as this is often the case when S15, changes to the mantra, or any sort of criticism (constructive or otherwise) comes up.

Point taken. I'll be sure to keep my opinions to myself for now. Sorry if I ruffled any feathers too badly and I hope what I had suggested was at least interesting or thought provoking before it became offensive. However, I will respond to a couple things purely to clarify what appear to be misunderstandings in this post. Read them if you'd like and respond if you want but I will go back to the sidelines and let you guys play your game your way. :)

This doesn't make sense. If a player HAS a good edit edgically, then they naturally WOULD get Edgic support. And Edgic has beaten spoilers before. Amazon. Pearl Islands. And I agree it should have happened in China.

By "good edits" I merely meant anything beyond your obviously eliminated characters (too OTT, too UTR, INV, too N, too P, etc.). Even the ones listed above (while MUCH better than your original list) were clear Edgic no-nos.

What I meant is picking up on the problems that exist in edits like S16 Cirie and PG and eliminating them pre-merge (not merely pre-finale), despite the fact that they have fairly "good" edits for the show (interesting, multidimensional, well-rounded characters). Now, OTH has recently said (and no one has disagreed) that eliminating PG pre-merge during China would have been impossible. If this is the case, the only way Edgic could have had a definitive victory that season would be to narrow the field down to Todd and PG and then correctly guess Todd (as you could not eliminate PG).

Thinking about this further, I realized that it is rare that a player with a "good" (as in generally multidimensional and interesting - not necessarily great Edgic "numbers") edit is eliminated pre-merge or pre-boot. If this is the case, any special or "tended to" player can lead Edgic to a point where eliminating them pre-merge is not possible, as any sort of depth in the edit keeps some people from eliminating a player, despite Edgic faults.

Well, which is it ? Edgicians were correct in writing off Todd, due to his questionable Edgic qualities, or did the Edgic support for Amanda and PG keep edgicians from correctly seeing Todd as the winner ? It can't be both.

It most certainly can be both, as I'm not suggesting Edgic would be "correct" in eliminating Todd, but merely that it happened.

Todd had qualities that made people question him Edgically. The Edgic support for Amanda and PG amplified those qualities in their minds and made them less sure that his strengths outweighed his weaknesses. I won't try to argue the rest of what you said because its all true - his Edgic strengths really do shine through when you examine it. However, even though he had these strengths, they were not emphasized in discussion - his weaknesses were (and he did have them according to Edgic participants: constant and overwhelming amounts of strategy talk that not even Earl and Yul got, despite their obvious winner edits, is the main example).

Thus, the constant focus on Amanda (and to a lesser degree, PG) that season kept Edgic from working through his flaws and figuring out that he was the winner. If Edgic correctly eliminated Amanda in episode one and then devoted all of that discussion and focus during episodes elsewhere, I think its possible that Todd would have been the correct winner pick, despite the flaws people saw in his edit. If this happened, fewer people would have eliminated him for the weaknesses they saw.

In summary, my stance is that both the perceived weaknesses of Todd's edit and the effort that was directed elsewhere were contributors - not just one or the other.

(That said, my point hedges on the idea that people genuinely saw weaknesses in his edit and did not make them up for whatever reason. If you disagree, well I'm sorry but I guess that's where the disconnect came in).

stuff your "hindsight" bullshit.

Thanks for that, by the way.

My bad on that one. I forgot you figured it out in China and I don't mean to steal or discredit your e-glory.

The sky isn't falling, chicken little.

But hey, if you want to rewrite everything, go ahead.

But trash it if you want. Fine by me.

I will just assume that this sort of stuff is inspired by the fact that you are going through a rough time right now, as I have not seen much of this snarky, presumptive, condescension from you, OTH. I sort of expect it from some, but rarely from you. I hope the stuff with your kids works out for you in the best way possible, as I know that family divisions are hard on all parties involved. Best of luck.

Now, to actually address this misunderstanding. I want to point out that I tried to make it pretty clear that my comments were constructive criticism. I have said that I enjoy what you guys/girls do here (many times) and that you do a good job at it (Please see post #5433 near the bottom). However, my comments were meant to help Edgic. I have a background in statistics so I figured that going through and discussing some of the statistical aspects of Edgic that could be improved would be helpful or at the very least something people could think about and consider. From the very beginning, I recognized the fact that big shakeups were EXTREMELY unlikely (see my first huge post of the offseason in Oo's Edgic discussion thread).

So:

1) I am not implying that the sky is falling or that Edgic is crap - merely that it is not perfect. I think most of you would admit the same thing yourself. I didn't say it needed to be perfect right now. I didn't say what I was suggesting would make it perfect - just merely possible improvements. I apologize if my language was too strong that this was missed.

2) I do not want you to re-write the whole thing. I said before that this is nigh impossible. Even if something else came along and I honestly think a full shift in style would not help in the immediate sense, as no one would know what a winner looks like under a new system. Again, I apologize if this came across the wrong way.

3) I'm not trashing anything. Criticism, especially constructive criticism, does not mean that I think Edgic should be trashed. You can appreciate a movie, a book, a show, or a research article and yet be critical of it. The same applies to Edgic. I think it's really interesting and follow it every season, despite the fact that knowing Edgic "spoils" the show a bit for me (sometimes my favorites are totally eliminated by Edgic in episode 1 so it feels like knowing a bootlist without the order). At the same time, when the opportunity presents itself to discuss the process in a way that, while seemingly negative at the time, leads to growth for the system itself, I am not going to blow smoke up people's asses and tell them they are perfect. Edgic will never ever be perfect. But telling people it is when you see openings for improvement only helps egos and not Edgic itself.

Thanks for reading, Edgic, and I apologize if my comments over the past few weeks have offended you or made you feel as though I am unfairly attacking you. I'll try to come up with better ways to frame any comments I have in the future. Now, be sure to make reading Edgic for Gabon entertaining, as well, because I am looking forward to reading it.