[16-Jun-08] Tournament Medals & New Tournament Time Limits

[Optimus Prime]

Dear Tournament Organizers and Players,

The time has come for the Tournament Directors to make a couple more announcements regarding our favorite CC home, the tournament forums. With the advent of the new Tournament Contribution Medals, and a healthy influx of new organizers trying their hand at running a tournament during the summer months, there are a couple of issues we would like to address for the benefit of all.

Tournament Contribution Medals

We know that everyone wants to earn all the medals now that they are available, but we also want to make sure that everyone knows what you need to do to properly earn, and thus be awarded, a Tournament Contribution medal. See below for the details on what criteria need to be met:

A. The tournament must have a clear and distinct winner. If the tournament is serving as a qualifier in part of a larger, more complex tournament, the organizer will not receive a medal until the entire tournament is complete. At which point, they will receive ONE medal for the entire process. This is to prevent organizers from inflating their medal count artificially.

B. If you abandon a tournament at any time, you will not receive a medal for it. No exceptions. You must see your tournament through from beginning to end in order to receive the reward.

C. If you rescue a tournament from abandonment (with the permission of the original organizer) you will be considered for a tournament medal based upon the amount of work and effort you put in to finishing the tournament. If you took over a tournament near the beginning you are more likely to receive (but are not promised) a medal than if you only took care of finishing the final round.

D. There can be a MAX of 2 medals per tournament, except under extremely rare and special circumstances which the Tournament Directors will discuss and decide upon. Take this into consideration when planning your tournaments. If you are a co-organizer, you are not guaranteed a medal just for that, you must prove you have done a significant amount of work to help the tournament move forward to completion. This would include things such as creating games, record-keeping, and sending PMs to players. The awarding of medals to co-organizers will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We recommend that tournaments be run by one person as often as possible to avoid confusion.

E. The Tournament Directors, upon discussion amongst themselves, have final say in who receives medals for each tournament. We do not plan on short-changing anyone, but you must do a certain level of work to receive the reward.

Announcing New Tournaments

With the arrival of our new medals, and with the consistent growth we have seen in the Create/Join a Tournament forum, we have decided it is time to start putting a cap on the amount of time a tournament has to gather all of its players before it will need to be moved out of the Create/Join forum and into the Archives. You will now have 1 month to fill your tournament and request your tournament privileges, or it will be considered canceled.

This move is not to punish the organizers by any means, but rather to allow the Create/Join forum to accurately display the number of tournaments that are seeking players. After a lot of observation, research, and tracking by Optimus Prime, it is becoming clear that a tournament that takes longer than 1 month to fill experiences a much higher degree of no-show players and drop-outs because the players don't remember that they had signed up in the first place, and on some occasions the players are no longer active CC members. We hope this change will allow the tournaments to stay fresh and crisp in their natural habitat.

All current tournaments that have been announced prior to today will be given until June 23rd, 2008 to finish filling up, and then the new rule will be put into effect. If your tournament has gone past the time limit and is moved you will be notified via PM so that no confusion arises.


As Tournament Directors, we hope this information and small changes to the tournament forums will continue to improve the tournament experience for all of us, organizers and players alike.

Many Regards, Steelhorse, Optimus Prime, and Night Strike

[Lufsen75]

What about Leagues? Shall you see it as succeeded if first season are ended or shall you make it a new tournement each season?

I run Swedish championship and Bring it on that are not regular Tournements with a clear winner.

[barterer2002]

I'm also interested in knowing how you're going to treat the EIOT tournaments.

My contention is that each of the 8 tournaments are individual tournaments in and of themselves with distinct champions and all the regular hoopla but because the champions all get into another championship level of the EIOT I can see the argument that they're not. I don't agree with it but i can see it.

[amazzony]

I'm also interested in knowing how you're going to treat the EIOT tournaments.

My contention is that each of the 8 tournaments are individual tournaments in and of themselves with distinct champions and all the regular hoopla but because the champions all get into another championship level of the EIOT I can see the argument that they're not. I don't agree with it but i can see it.

Don't worry, I got a medal for it, you'll get it also

[Optimus Prime]

I'm also interested in knowing how you're going to treat the EIOT tournaments.

My contention is that each of the 8 tournaments are individual tournaments in and of themselves with distinct champions and all the regular hoopla but because the champions all get into another championship level of the EIOT I can see the argument that they're not. I don't agree with it but i can see it.

The EIOT tournaments are treated as separate and distinct tournaments, don't worry, bart, you'll be taken care of.

[Optimus Prime]

What about Leagues? Shall you see it as succeeded if first season are ended or shall you make it a new tournement each season?

I run Swedish championship and Bring it on that are not regular Tournements with a clear winner.

We have discussed briefly what to do about continual tournaments, and have not reached a clear decision yet. Likely, it will be something along the lines of a time-based system, where if the league runs continually without abandonment for a specified amount of time, it will be considered a success, and the organizer granted their medal.

Nothing firm on that front yet though.

[happy2seeyou]

Do people receive a medal for winning a tourney?

[Bones2484]

Do people receive a medal for winning a tourney?

Nope, but it's been suggested.

[Optimus Prime]

Do people receive a medal for winning a tourney?

Nope, but it's been suggested.

And it is in the works for Medals 2.0 Don't worry, they will arrive, but Lack doesn't want to flood us with every possible medal and achievement at once.

[happy2seeyou]

Do people receive a medal for winning a tourney?

Nope, but it's been suggested.

And it is in the works for Medals 2.0 Don't worry, they will arrive, but Lack doesn't want to flood us with every possible medal and achievement at once.

Yeah we wouldn't want the site to crash . . .

[Gozar]

Sorry, but I think the new time limit rule is total trash.

I should be able to fill my tournament as quickly or slowly as I would like. I can see if I myself had not posted in the thread for a month how it would be canceled, but if I am updating and keeping everyone abreast of what is happening, why should I have my thread dropped?

And what is to stop me from creating a new thread that is exactly the same, with the list of players already signed up?

[t-o-m]

in
seq | unlim | no cards | sunny

[Optimus Prime]

Sorry, but I think the new time limit rule is total trash.

I should be able to fill my tournament as quickly or slowly as I would like. I can see if I myself had not posted in the thread for a month how it would be canceled, but if I am updating and keeping everyone abreast of what is happening, why should I have my thread dropped?

And what is to stop me from creating a new thread that is exactly the same, with the list of players already signed up?

Gozar,

The new time limit is in place to prevent stagnant tournaments from filling up the Create/Join a Tournament forum (which has happened on countless occasions). We don't want players coming into that forum and seeing a bunch of tournaments that have been waiting months to find players. That just doesn't make any sense.

Besides the "It's my tournament, I can do with it what I please" argument, can you give me and good reasons why you would need more than 30 days to find players for a tournament? That is an awfully long time in CC time. Is there any particular benefit a tournament receives by waiting that long to fill? Is there any particular point to waiting that long to start?

[Gozar]

I understand why you want to keep stagnant tournaments out, but I think a blanket rule is a bad way to go.

I think a fine reason here would be that I need more than thirty days because the tournament still isn't full. Seems reasonable.

[blakebowling]

Sorry, but I think the new time limit rule is total trash.

I should be able to fill my tournament as quickly or slowly as I would like. I can see if I myself had not posted in the thread for a month how it would be canceled, but if I am updating and keeping everyone abreast of what is happening, why should I have my thread dropped?

And what is to stop me from creating a new thread that is exactly the same, with the list of players already signed up?

Gozar,

The new time limit is in place to prevent stagnant tournaments from filling up the Create/Join a Tournament forum (which has happened on countless occasions). We don't want players coming into that forum and seeing a bunch of tournaments that have been waiting months to find players. That just doesn't make any sense.

Besides the "It's my tournament, I can do with it what I please" argument, can you give me and good reasons why you would need more than 30 days to find players for a tournament? That is an awfully long time in CC time. Is there any particular benefit a tournament receives by waiting that long to fill? Is there any particular point to waiting that long to start?

The only reason I can think of (and I dont think a lot) is if you had a tournament with like 512 players or something, still you might be able to fill it in time, if you're a popular organizer

[PaulusH]

Sorry, but I am not happy with the new medals

I prepared a nice 'tournament' (Crazy Dinner Date), with a new but good set-up method.
To get it running well I waited until after my holiday (end May, begin of June for me this year).
Since I was not active in a game, I have no rating or medals yet (and in that way just looking as one of those people who does think it would be easy to get a medal at a tournament).
Furthermore everybody is starting tournaments now, so more difficult to get people to pick my tournament first.

And I didn't want a medal, I just would like to organize a nice game set-up.

Is it possible to get a longer period for getting people in?
If the prize for that would be that I don't get a medal, I am in!

[Optimus Prime]

I understand why you want to keep stagnant tournaments out, but I think a blanket rule is a bad way to go.

I think a fine reason here would be that I need more than thirty days because the tournament still isn't full. Seems reasonable.

If I use the argument "It still isn't full" before moving any tournaments there would be 10 pages of tournaments looking for players right now, and I think we can all agree that isn't really doing us any good now is it?

[Gozar]

I understand why you want to keep stagnant tournaments out, but I think a blanket rule is a bad way to go.

I think a fine reason here would be that I need more than thirty days because the tournament still isn't full. Seems reasonable.

If I use the argument "It still isn't full" before moving any tournaments there would be 10 pages of tournaments looking for players right now, and I think we can all agree that isn't really doing us any good now is it?

No it isn't, because 9 of those pages, would be old, abandoned threads. Will there be any investigation as to whether the organiser is still involved?

[barterer2002]

I certainly understand Gozar's point here. His tournaments tend to be a much longer commitment time and need players who will play now, 6 months from now and 12 months from now. Its different from an organizer who sets up a tournament and then ignors it leaving a thread that just clutters and confuses. I understand the reason for the policy on removing inactive tournaments
I also understand that you can't go on when the last post was because we've all seen tournements that say on page 7 or 8 that they're abandoned and still have people signing up on page 12 6 months later.
I also understand that the TDs don't want to have to search every tournament thread to see if the TO is actively working on his or her signups.

Would it be possible to put in a system, where there is a presumption that a tournament that doesn't fill within 30 days will be moved but with an exception that the TO can PM all three of the TDs to inform them that a particular tournament is still active even though the 30 days approaches-or to get one that was moved reinstated?

It seems to me that this would solve all the issues. The TDs don't have to look through every thread and can still presume that a 30 day old sign up should be moved and yet a tourney that is still working can get a needed extention simply by PMing the TDs (needs to do all three so that the left and right hands are communication with the right nostril-I'm not saying which of you guys is the nostril and which are the hands-you can make that call on your own)

[Natewolfman]

back to the 512 player issue... my one shot one kill tournament, ive been off CC for about 17 days of the last month and havnt been able to recruit... normally it dosnt take me over a month but this time it is do to this fact. can we have a case by case basis (should the organizer request it themselves) to allow it to stay create/join?

[pimphawks70]

Sorry, but I think the new time limit rule is total trash.

I should be able to fill my tournament as quickly or slowly as I would like. I can see if I myself had not posted in the thread for a month how it would be canceled, but if I am updating and keeping everyone abreast of what is happening, why should I have my thread dropped?

And what is to stop me from creating a new thread that is exactly the same, with the list of players already signed up?

Gozar,

The new time limit is in place to prevent stagnant tournaments from filling up the Create/Join a Tournament forum (which has happened on countless occasions). We don't want players coming into that forum and seeing a bunch of tournaments that have been waiting months to find players. That just doesn't make any sense.

Besides the "It's my tournament, I can do with it what I please" argument, can you give me and good reasons why you would need more than 30 days to find players for a tournament? That is an awfully long time in CC time. Is there any particular benefit a tournament receives by waiting that long to fill? Is there any particular point to waiting that long to start?

Well if a tournament needs 100 or more people I could see it taking a longer time than one month to fill up. I agree with Gozar here. Tournaments should be canceled by mods if they seem to be inactive but if they are still being updated and filled up then I see no reason why they should be deleted.

[Army of Achilles]

Sorry, but I think the new time limit rule is total trash.

I should be able to fill my tournament as quickly or slowly as I would like. I can see if I myself had not posted in the thread for a month how it would be canceled, but if I am updating and keeping everyone abreast of what is happening, why should I have my thread dropped?

And what is to stop me from creating a new thread that is exactly the same, with the list of players already signed up?

Gozar,

The new time limit is in place to prevent stagnant tournaments from filling up the Create/Join a Tournament forum (which has happened on countless occasions). We don't want players coming into that forum and seeing a bunch of tournaments that have been waiting months to find players. That just doesn't make any sense.

Besides the "It's my tournament, I can do with it what I please" argument, can you give me and good reasons why you would need more than 30 days to find players for a tournament? That is an awfully long time in CC time. Is there any particular benefit a tournament receives by waiting that long to fill? Is there any particular point to waiting that long to start?

Well if a tournament needs 100 or more people I could see it taking a longer time than one month to fill up. I agree with Gozar here. Tournaments should be canceled by mods if they seem to be inactive but if they are still being updated and filled up then I see no reason why they should be deleted.

my thoughts also. Some of the larger tournaments take a while to fill while others are sitting out there more less inactive

[PaulusH]

Sorry, but I think the new time limit rule is total trash.

I should be able to fill my tournament as quickly or slowly as I would like. I can see if I myself had not posted in the thread for a month how it would be canceled, but if I am updating and keeping everyone abreast of what is happening, why should I have my thread dropped?

And what is to stop me from creating a new thread that is exactly the same, with the list of players already signed up?

Gozar,

The new time limit is in place to prevent stagnant tournaments from filling up the Create/Join a Tournament forum (which has happened on countless occasions). We don't want players coming into that forum and seeing a bunch of tournaments that have been waiting months to find players. That just doesn't make any sense.

Besides the "It's my tournament, I can do with it what I please" argument, can you give me and good reasons why you would need more than 30 days to find players for a tournament? That is an awfully long time in CC time. Is there any particular benefit a tournament receives by waiting that long to fill? Is there any particular point to waiting that long to start?

Well if a tournament needs 100 or more people I could see it taking a longer time than one month to fill up. I agree with Gozar here. Tournaments should be canceled by mods if they seem to be inactive but if they are still being updated and filled up then I see no reason why they should be deleted.

my thoughts also. Some of the larger tournaments take a while to fill while others are sitting out there more less inactive

Also in case you need less then 100 people, but are looking for a specially subgroup. For instance people that will enjoin to play in a real strange combination set of games. (Or typical chat people, or both, or ...).

[Optimus Prime]

Alright everyone, I've been stacked with work for the past couple of days and so I'm sorry I didn't get a response in here for you to some of your concerns sooner, but let me try and address some of the comments that have been made at this time.

First, let me explain that in the near future, as in sometime this summer, or early fall, there will be several improvements to the tournament systems. I'm not going to tell you what they are, but I can tell you that they will be things that should make running tournaments even easier, more efficient, and less intimidating overall. Also, as we all know there has been a big influx of new tournaments in the past two weeks due to the Tournament Contribution medal that all sorts of people want to earn all of the sudden to pad their precious egos.

Now, with both of those things in mind, some changes need to be made so that we can be prepared to deal with the increasing popularity of tournaments as the months go by. I've been told that Lack has some big plans for tournaments coming up soon because he knows the hard work that all of you put in to make them a success and he wants to make sure they stay popular. However, because of these changes, new rules will be being implemented to make sure that everyone has a fair chance, nobody floods the tournament forums with half-baked tournaments, and that the players exploring the forums will be able to clearly see which tournaments are available. These are all reasons why the 30 day limit has been put into effect, and while you may not understand it completely right now, you need to trust me (and I do believe I have earned your trust) that in the long run and in the big picture it is a rule that needs to be put into force. It was not done lightly, and it was not done to "punish" anyone because they decided to run large tournaments. It was discussed amongst the Tournament Directors with both sides of the issue being looked at.

So, without further adieu, let me make a few points about tournament organizing that may help to answer some of the concerns and comments being raised:

1. When you decide to organize a tournament, you as the organizer should be willing to put forth the effort to make sure that your tournament gets filled. Sometimes, this means you won't have to do much work as the format is a popular one, or it only requires a small number of players, but sometimes it WILL require you to put forth extra effort. If you want to run a tournament with a non-common or confusing format, or with 512 players then you had better believe you are going to need to do some recruiting when your sign-ups start to taper off. Just because you post in the thread each day to ask for new players doesn't mean you are going to get them.

2. It is not impossible to fill a 100 player tournament in 30 days. I've seen it done on several occasions, and I've seen tournaments with far more players than that fill in less than 30 days as well. It doesn't matter your format or your theme, if you want to run a large tournament, you need to be willing to put the effort in to fill the thing up. You might need to start sending some PMs, or you might need to post in your games. It's a pretty simple thing to do a little recruiting here and there.

3. NOT ALL TOURNAMENTS ARE GOING TO FILL. This is something that everyone needs to remember. It doesn't matter if you have run 2 tournaments, 0 tournaments, or 30 tournaments, sometimes your idea just isn't good enough to generate the proper interest and you need to move on. It doesn't mean you are a terrible organizer, or that everyone has blacklisted you. It just means that your tournament wasn't a good fit for the players who are interested in tournaments at the moment.

4. 30 days is a really long time in the lifespan of a CC player. Part of the reason for this new rule was to be cognizant of the actual tournament players and not just the tournament organizers. I know for a fact that if a tournament takes 6 weeks, 8 weeks, or several months to fill that the likelihood of that tournament having no-shows, drop-outs, or deadbeats increases quite drastically. This isn't fair to the players who show up, it isn't easy on the tournament organizer, and it's a real pain in the ass for the Tournament Directors too. The new rule has benefits for all involved with tournaments, not to punish anyone. I promise.

5. There has been much discussion and will continue to be on the idea of limiting the total number of tournaments any one organizer can have active at a given time. We decided this was not the best course of action right now, but it may be revisited in the future. However, for now we felt that a limit on sign-up periods would serve to meet the ends that we need to meet in order to make the new features work as we want them too. That isn't a threat, but take a moment to digest that information for a few minutes. One benefit all of you have is that I am a big time organizer, and I'm not going to let anything be put into effect that I think would be a big detriment to our work here as organizers, and I'm not stroking my ego when I say that I probably have a better feel for our tournament forums and what we need than anyone else here.

Now, for some more general things...

The Tournament Directors have always been very willing to work with the organizers on things when we have deadlines to be set because we feel that we need to be firm, but willing to help move things along as necessary. None of you should have any reason to expect any different treatment in regard to this new rule we've instituted. However, that doesn't mean we are going to just let you keep all your unfilled tournaments for months after the deadline hits tomorrow. I will be contacting everyone who has passed the time limit on an individual basis and discussing the state of their tournaments since this is a new rule, and appropriate actions will be taken THIS time around since we are all new to this new guideline. We know that you guys put these tournaments out before the guideline was introduced, and we will respect that, but we ask that you also let us do our jobs. So, anyone who has tournaments still needing players that are over 30 days old should expect a PM from me in the next couple of days as I work through the list.

BUT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS: All tournaments announced from this point forward will be HELD to this new rule. Your tournament will not be moved without contacting you first, but the "leniency" will be a little more stringent in the future after we have taken care of the tournaments from before the new guideline. Remember to take that into consideration when deciding to run a new tournament.

This new rule does not hinder your creativity, formatting, or anything else. It just requires you to think about your tournament and make sure you are willing to put in the proper work. You should never just expect to find players, you need to be willing to go and find them if need be.

That's all I've got for right now, give that huge post of mine a look through and comment as you see fit.

Regards, Optimus Prime

[Gozar]

Thanks for the thoughtful response, OP.

This new rule still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

As organisers, we volunteer or time and energy to give something back to the site that will make the site more enjoyable to the community as a whole. In my eyes, it seems that we should have free rein over how we go about doing this, as long as our actions are not detracting from anyone's enjoyment.

This is not the case, as there already exist several rules governing how tournaments must be conducted, and I can understand how some control needs to be exercised, in order to keep just 'anything' from passing through.

However, this new rule is just so unilateral. It leaves little room for case by case consideration. As organisers, should we not get to choose our method of recruitment.

In my eyes it is organiser failure that causes tournaments that have taken a long time for signups to go adrift, not the time taken. If the organiser is truly organising, they should be prepared with enough backups and reserves to keep things on track.

I hope that some reconsideration will go into this rule, despite the time and debate already put forth amongst the TDs.