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For about 90% of countries, the "top players" and "top amateur players" are identical. For any country but the big four (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan), there will be only a few professionals at most.
How about changing the title to simply "Top Players Per Country"?
That will add a few players like Dinerchtein, Taranu, Redmond, etc, which are IMO very good additions.
For the big four, we can choose to list bot the current top professionals (say top 10-20) as well as a few notable amateurs (say about 5)
I'm not against it, but for Japan and possibly also Taiwan, there's no accepted ranking of the top players. In Japan, there's the money list and the wins list, both of which are sometimes used, but no ratings.
Bob McGuigan: I think pros should not be included. The distinction is not necessarily one of strength, some amateurs play stronger than some professionals, but one of belonging to an elite organization. And isn't it true that in some countries at least, pros are not allowed to enter amateur tournaments? So we really are looking at different populations.
As far as Japan is concerned, there are no ratings per se but holders of non-honorary 8d diplomas could be listed and that would be a reasonable group of strong players. 8d diplomas are only awarded to winners of top national tournaments or the WAGC.
It just seems like an arbitrary distinction to me. Basically, we are currently saying: Here's the strongest players from each country, except for some even stronger players, whom we're not listing because they passed the pro exam.
On second thought, a good counter argument is that professional players are already getting a fair bit of coverage here on senseis, most amateurs don't. So it's nice to have a flat list of amateurs. It wouldn't accomplish the same thing to say "btw, Yi Se-tol is a strong Korean player!" --Hyperpapeterie