Talk:Winning percentage

Vote for Deletion

This article survived a Vote for Deletion. The discussion can be found here. -Splash 06:11, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Problems

We are told that: Winning percentage = Wins / Total Games Conceptually, that's okay, but for computational purposes, it should be stated: Winning percentage = Wins / (Wins + Losses) This is necessary if you want to state that: "Ties count as a game and should be calculated as neither a loss nor a tie." Obviously, ties do not count as a game in the original equation. To avoid confusion, either change the formula, or state that ties are entirely disregarded and that total Games is the sum of Wins and Losses.

I doubt that winning percentage has any relevance in hockey any longer. How can one determine "possible points," when a game can provide two or three points depending upon whether an Overtime Loss is involved? (To award a point for Overtime Losses or Regulation Ties is an idiotic concept as implemented, as it violates zero-sum gamesmanship and permits teams to manufacture points out of thin air.) WHPratt (talk) 14:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The NFL used to throw out ties in computing winning percentage, so that a 10-0-1 team (10-0 with one tie) rang in at 1.000. Sometime in the 1970s, they changed the rule to count ties as half a win and half a loss. This should be mentioned somewhere in this article.WHPratt (talk) 12:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Someone should format those values to remove the leading zero, as it's never used in practice. E.g., .500, not 0.500. WHPratt (talk) 17:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem

I don't understand how it is suggested that wins/total games fails to account for ties. A win percentage is answering the question, what is the rate of "winning", not what is the rate of "not losing." So, after 20 games, a team has 15 wins, four losses and a tie, or is 15-4-1. In answering the question, what was the team's rate of winning, the answer is 15 wins / 20 games played = 75% or .750. The tie is not a win...

I do understand that a tie is not a loss, either. So, in comparing two teams that have a .750 win percentage, but one team is 15-4-1 and the other team is 15-5-0, we should want to see the team with only 4 losses rated higher than the team with 5 losses. That's fine, but now we're no longer talking about "WIN" percentage since .750 is an accurate reflection of the win rate of both teams, who both had the same 15 wins.

At the end of the day, ties are stupid and should be eliminated. It's not difficult - there are no ties in the playoffs, and it's not mysterious - teams just play until a winner emerges. In fact, baseball has eliminated ties in the regular season, too; again, just play until someone finally wins. The great thing about that is it creates a playoff-like atmosphere for a team during the regular season, and that's especially a nice feeling for fans of teams with no chance of seeing the actual playoffs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.53.233.27 (talk) 21:19, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

"I don't understand how it is suggested that wins/total games fails to account for ties. A win percentage is answering the question, what is the rate of "winning", not what is the rate of "not losing." So, after 20 games, a team has 15 wins, four losses and a tie, or is 15-4-1. In answering the question, what was the team's rate of winning, the answer is 15 wins / 20 games played = 75% or .750. The tie is not a win..." I see a philosophical argument here that could possibly be defended, but practically, "winning percentage" has always been expressed as [wins / decisions], with ties either ignored or else distributed. The tie is not a win, but is also is not a loss, though it is effectively a loss in your example calculation. WHPratt (talk) 16:12, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

percentage

This article is called "winning percentage", but actually defines the winning fraction, not the percentage. A percentage is prorated over 100.

For example, if a team's season record is 30 wins and 20 losses, the winning percentage would be .600.

No, that team's winning percentage would be 60. TypoBoy (talk) 17:53, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

It's a standard term. Wikipedia is not here to redefine terms based on a personal reading of mathematics, but to state what is. oknazevad (talk) 22:18, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Vulgar fraction

@Oknazevad: "Vulgar fraction" is just a term meaning a fraction written with the slash, e.g. ½. The term's not derogatory, it's just using the older meaning of "vulgar" ("popular" or "common" rather than "rude"). e.g. here.

Wikipedia's manual of style usually discourages vulgar fractions. However, I just double-checked it and apparently it makes an exception that if the only fractions used in an article are ½, ¼, and ¾. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:48, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. oknazevad (talk) 19:18, 8 November 2024 (UTC)