Open Office Calc (Ersatz Excel) formula

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around creating a formula in Open Office Calc to display the standings of teams, particularly in cases where there are ties in rankings. Participants explore various methods to achieve this, including built-in functions and sorting techniques, while considering future adaptability for different numbers of teams.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant suggests a complex method involving a text array to handle rankings, particularly due to the presence of ties.
  • Another participant questions the necessity of this complexity and proposes simply sorting the array according to a specific column.
  • A later reply mentions a built-in statistical function, "rank," which could simplify the process of determining standings.
  • Some participants express a preference for using the "rank" function while acknowledging the need to manage ties explicitly.
  • There is a discussion about the balance between sorting for visual clarity and maintaining the original order of teams.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the best approach to display standings, with multiple competing views on whether to use built-in functions or custom solutions. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the optimal method for handling ties in rankings.

Contextual Notes

Participants express uncertainty about the implications of their proposed solutions, particularly in relation to the number of teams and the handling of ties, which may affect the applicability of their suggestions.

DaveC426913
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TL;DR
I want a column in my score chart that displays ... "standings"
I want a column that displays what standing each team has. (I can't really Google a solution because I don't even know what to call it.)

This the idea:
- team 1 is "1st",
- teams 3 and 10 are "2nd",
- team 5 is 3rd,
etc.:

1646952264124.png


I can't think of a way of doing it that isn't very complex, involving some sort of text array ("1st", "2nd", etc.) where the top one gets knocked off each time it's used.

A simple sort descending won't work since there's duplicates (3 and 10 are tied for 2nd).
Also, I'd like to make it future-proof - meaning I can't count on the number of teams always being 10.

Maybe I can simplify it by only calculating up to 4th, but Still...
 
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I must be misunderstanding. Why can't you just sort the array according to column AI ?
 
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hutchphd said:
I must be misunderstanding. Why can't you just sort the array according to column AI ?
1646955141009.png
 
That ... was not what I was expecting.

I can't think of any excuses that don't sound stupid when they emerge from my face.
 
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DaveC426913 said:
I want a column that displays what standing each team has.
It looks like there's a statistical function, "rank", that does this.
 
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PeterDonis said:
It looks like there's a statistical function, "rank", that does this.
That's exactly what I needed. I never occurred to me it might be built in.

But I think I may go with hutch's solution. It's actually the righter thing to do.
 
DaveC426913 said:
That ... was not what I was expecting.

I can't think of any excuses that don't sound stupid when they emerge from my face.
Don't feel bad. It happens to all of us from time to time.
 
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DaveC426913 said:
I think I may go with hutch's solution. It's actually the righter thing to do.
If all you want is to have the data sorted by rank, yes.

If you actually want the numeric rank explicitly, just sorting the array doesn't tell you that by itself. You still have to detect ties.
 
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PeterDonis said:
If all you want is to have the data sorted by rank, yes.

If you actually want the numeric rank explicitly, just sorting the array doesn't tell you that by itself. You still have to detect ties.
Yeah, I'm OK with implicit rank. It's pretty intuitive to readers. People are used to scanning a list of ranking still they find their own.

I was just stuck with the presupposition of keeping the teams in their original order, blinding me to more elegant visualizations.
 

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