Editing 3110: Global Ranking

{{comic
| number    = 3110
| date      = July 2, 2025
| title     = Global Ranking
| image     = global_ranking_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x280px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Starting a meta-leaderboard for tracking who holds the record for ranking behind the most distinct people on an online leaderboard.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Explain what "rating floor" means and describe the system used.}}
[[Cueball]] comments on his ranking on a {{w|chess}} platform, such as {{w|chess.com}} or {{w|lichess}}, which both have millions of chess players. He notices that being ranked so low is quite remarkable. Indeed, most sports only rank the best, most professional participants. Especially before computerization, nobody bothered to rank more than a few hundred or thousand competitors, largely because it would have been impractical. Even in chess, up to the mid-1990s, the FIDE rating floor used to be 2200, which only included some of the best players.

As of 2025, the {{w|FIDE}} floor is 1400, which allows intermediates to be rated and ranked. However, platforms such as chess.com and lichess, which have appeared since the creation of the Internet, do not abide by the FIDE floor limitation, with chess.com placing the floor at 100 and lichess at 400, allowing even complete beginners to be rated and ranked. Ranking placements on chess.com go into the millions. Specifically, chess.com currently has about 218 million users, about 58 million of which have a [https://www.chess.com/leaderboard/live/rapid Rapid] rating. Being 7,145,000 would put Cueball just shy of the best 10% of players, with an Elo rating of about 900.

If being in the same ranking placement in different leaderboards has the same meaning to anyone, it is possible that being the lowest rated player on chess.com makes one worse than anyone in any other activity where rankings are applied. Cueball then explains that he enjoys playing chess for communicative reasons, to gain friends. [[White Hat]] points out the toxicity that appears to be rampant among the people he is playing with, which may be found in many hobbyist online communities, especially ones that are related to gaming. But Cueball, while aware of the issue, seems to take the abuse he is getting as an expression of a complicated kind of friendship.

In the title text, Cueball has managed to flip his terrible ranking into a great one, by creating a combined ranking of online leaderboards, where a lower ranking elsewhere translates into a high ranking in the meta-ranking.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

:[Cueball is seated at a desk, and uses a laptop. White Hat is standing right behind him.]
:Cueball: I'm ranked 7,145,000<sup><small>th</small></sup> globally on this chess platform.
:Cueball: It's hard to be ranked that low in '''''any''''' activity.

:[Zoom on Cueball talking]
:Cueball: Few pastimes even '''''have''''' 7 million rated players. Until the Internet, it wasn't really possible. You could be this bad, but only unofficially.

:[Cueball is now facing White Hat]
:Cueball: So in a sense, I'm worse at chess than anyone was at '''''anything''''' for most of human history.
:White Hat: Why are you still doing it?

:[Cueball is back on the laptop]
:Cueball: Well, no human has ever had this many friends to play with.
:White Hat: That person is calling you some very obscene names.
:Cueball: Our friendship is complicated.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Chess]]
[[Category:Internet]]