This is to encourage people to play more and grind for skill, it is to prevent rating inflation, and ensure that everyone is truly playing at their skill level. You won't have 1800s that should be at 1100, and likewise 1400s who should be over 2000. Also, people should play 20 placement games before they get a rating to know their skill level. Then assign them a rating based on the skill of their opponents, and win / loss record.
Reason. Many people think that Lichess and other sites ratings don't reflect what their FIDE OTB rating would be like. This is because of the different rating systems Glicko2 vs ELO, and the player pool size. Much smaller for FIDE, but higher quality players, where on a website you have casual and players who are aspiring to become professionals. The goal of this is to ensure that the pros are playing pros, and casuals are playing each other. A simple rating like there is now is not taking into account the quality of the players. Not every 2000 rated player has the same understanding of the game, and some got their rating easily, where others had to grind to that rank. Right now, as it stands, it is hit or miss if you will get someone who truly deserves to be at their rank, while others are not. Example: A guy creates an account plays 30 games, gets lucky and gets a 2000 rating but only has intermediate knowledge of the game. His opponents may have disconnected, or were having an off day, etc. But he has a 2000 rating that he does not deserve. Then he plays someone who is also 2000, who then trashes him, and then goes on to get a rank he doesn't deserve.
Eventually you have this chaos where many people are at ranks they don't deserve, or who think falsely about what kind of players they are facing at their rank. Then they make assumptions about some of their opponents being cheaters, when in reality they didn't understand the game as much as someone who really is at a 2000 rating would understand. So on and so forth.
A rank reset would fix this, and this will also get inactive accounts out of the metrics as well which can skew numbers such as "you are better than BLANK % of people on this site". Well, that is not necessarily true if there are many inactive accounts. How would you know how well you are actually doing, and if you are really progressing or not?
A rank reset is needed. Once a year.
Reason. Many people think that Lichess and other sites ratings don't reflect what their FIDE OTB rating would be like. This is because of the different rating systems Glicko2 vs ELO, and the player pool size. Much smaller for FIDE, but higher quality players, where on a website you have casual and players who are aspiring to become professionals. The goal of this is to ensure that the pros are playing pros, and casuals are playing each other. A simple rating like there is now is not taking into account the quality of the players. Not every 2000 rated player has the same understanding of the game, and some got their rating easily, where others had to grind to that rank. Right now, as it stands, it is hit or miss if you will get someone who truly deserves to be at their rank, while others are not. Example: A guy creates an account plays 30 games, gets lucky and gets a 2000 rating but only has intermediate knowledge of the game. His opponents may have disconnected, or were having an off day, etc. But he has a 2000 rating that he does not deserve. Then he plays someone who is also 2000, who then trashes him, and then goes on to get a rank he doesn't deserve.
Eventually you have this chaos where many people are at ranks they don't deserve, or who think falsely about what kind of players they are facing at their rank. Then they make assumptions about some of their opponents being cheaters, when in reality they didn't understand the game as much as someone who really is at a 2000 rating would understand. So on and so forth.
A rank reset would fix this, and this will also get inactive accounts out of the metrics as well which can skew numbers such as "you are better than BLANK % of people on this site". Well, that is not necessarily true if there are many inactive accounts. How would you know how well you are actually doing, and if you are really progressing or not?
A rank reset is needed. Once a year.