Scoring and rung movement

Swap is the default and the right answer for most groups. The winner takes the loser's rung, everyone between shuffles down one, and any player can verify the standings by reading them. Points systems reward activity, which suits a ladder where availability varies wildly, but they require a table nobody reads and they let a busy 3.0 outrank an absent 4.0. Pick one before launch and publish it. Both systems compared.

Both players. The winner enters, the loser confirms, and silence auto-confirms on a timer so a sulk cannot freeze somebody's ranking. Accept only valid scorelines, which removes most typos before they reach the standings. Score verification is close to unsolved across this category: of five platforms surveyed, one required both-party verification and one published a penalty for falsifying a result.

Whatever the format allows, and nothing else. A best-of-three match cannot end 8-6. A pro set cannot end 6-4 6-2. A 7-6 set requires a tiebreak reaching at least seven points won by two, so 9-7 is valid and 7-6 as a bare game score is not. Publishing the accepted list is a five-minute job that prevents a season of ambiguous entries. Every accepted scoreline.