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I think it's a mixture of both... 

You've got to be PRETTY good to get a higher rating than 90% of others, but that might be a result of the skewed rating. But since the same skewedness applies to everyone, I would think of it in a relative sense.

yea but

thats where the pyramid comes in... I now cant play lower rated players because my rating will then take a dive (I mean significantly lower rated) and a big dive

surely this is skewed or do ratings represent choosing your oppenents well?

(particuiarly if they are having a bad day)

Play your family and friends.  Then you will understand how good at chess you really are.

Well you must be brilliant..

1800 are really hard to beat on this site.. i think im brilliant but i cant get past the 1700 mark! (i have once but dropped)

:D

I think you are just so good in chess. You shouldn't worry about this thing.

I was not asking for an assessment of me .....rather the ratings system and how it precludes you or me from playing lower rated player....as a pyramid (or atleast disaudes us from doing so)

surely the way ratings are worked discourages playing low rated players?

Surley you should beat the lower players if your rating is so high?!?!

Quite the opposite... for me the rating system encourages me to play lower ranked players.

I fluctuate around 1800.  When I'm in a 1600-1800 Chess.com tournament I win most games and my rating goes up to 1950, when I end up in an 1800-2000 tournament, I lose most games and my rating goes down to 1650.  If I wanted to keep my rating "artificially" high, I would play players rated 1600-1700.  But I don't think I'd improve much with this tactic. 

I find my rating moves more than I think it should with each win or loss - if I play an equal rated player and win, my rating goes up about 40 an my opponent down 40 or so.  It seems odd that we were rated about equal after over 100 games each on the site, but one game could see us become 80 apart.

Just my thoughts. Ratings aren't all that important though.

everyone makes mistakes

and new members are rated 1200

I think if you want the rating to go higher, you'd play weaker opponents.  

As for the rating change...if I play someone around my rating, I only go up or down by 9 points and a draw leaves us as we were of course.

well I dont think im that good either and im in the 1900, it feels lke I play the same as I did when I was 1700 or 1800 but I guess not

 Here is an example of what I posted previously about ratings.  It will disturb your thinking.  These ratings (even if "true") are MEANINGLESS.  It will force you to skip what you love, that is playing chess.  Once again, play to play, and don't worry about ratings...

The average rating for all players on this site is only 1361. You are rated 500 points higher than the average. So why don't you feel you can beat 90% of these players?

Take the opposite case: let's say you are rated 500 points LOWER than the average, with a rating of 861. If you are rated only 861, do you think 90% of players here can beat you? I'd say they probably can.

I think you should not worry about ratings. Ratings are very overrated. The reason to play chess is for the enjoyment of playing a game, not to worry that if you should lose that your ratings will go down. In real life if you meet a person who you know to be much better than you, are you going to not play that person even though most likely they will beat you? There are plenty of games I play against superior opponents, but that is the challenge, even though I know I will probably lose. Don't worry about the ratings.  There is no real meaning to ratings. Just have fun playing.

Everyone starts the game with the same pieces.  You don't get any extra pieces for having a higher rating... 

I looked through your games, and I'd have to say (from the way you handle the 1600/1700 players) that you are an 1800 player.  If you were trolling for someone to agree about the ratings here being wrong, then I can't help you.  I think the current system handles things quite well.

you would be surprised at the number of people who make accounts and the quit, creating tons of people rated 1200, im sure that 1300 is about 60% wereas 1100 is more like 20%

I think the percentile should only effect people with 20+ games.

 They are an indicator of your relative strength within a population.  The true number isn't known, it's only estimated.  The confidence of your rating is given by your "RD" (Ratings Deviation), and the statistics involved try to model a value that is within the upper and lower bounds of your rating, plus or minus your RD.

To make it simple, think of a road that goes over a hill.  The lowest-rated players are at one end of the road (where the road is flat) and the highest-rated players are on the other side of the hill (where the road is flat, too).  Average players are all in the middle of the hill (where the hill is tall).  You move back and forth on the road, and the amount you move is based on your RD.  People that have just started playing (and have a big RD) can move a lot on the road.  Once you've established a low RD, your rating will not move very much...

I won't say that the value of ratings is earth-shattering, but in practice, most of the time you play someone rated lower than yourself, you should win.  If you're afraid of somehow "losing points" by playing someone lower than yourself, then yes, the concept is meaningless, since your rating should be well established by the time you reach 1700-1800, and also because your performance is not point-based, it's modelled by stats.

 Those numbers are quite close to 20% and 60%, as you point out.

 Well said.