ISML 2016

[exec]

At least one character must be of a different gender.

No thanks.

[minhtam1638]

So, I just heard about the news today. As the guy who started all of this in the first place, it is only fair that I give my thoughts on the situation.

First off, I want to personally thank Crisu for running the International Saimoe League for the past six years. I know that we have had our issues in the past that I'm sure we still have not recovered from, but he could have easily just shut ISML down and wrote it off as another gimmick. Instead, his love and passion for ISML made it grow into one of the most prestigious if not the most prestigious Saimoe tournament in history, and I cannot express enough gratitude for his seemingly infinite contributions. I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors and I can assure him that he will be remembered in the annals of Saimoe history.

On the subject of the format change, moving forward from the Round-Robin era comes as no surprise to me. One of the main reasons that I went with the round-robin format was because I wanted to see rivalries develop between the best Saimoe competitors. To our credit, we succeeded to a fault. We rekindled classic rivalries from the AST/KBM era as well as created new ones from 2008 to 2010, but from then on, all of those rivalries as well as new ones have been completely overshadowed by the phenomenal rivalry that was Misaka Mikoto vs Tachibana Kanade. They and their fanbases have taken this tournament so seriously that they have excelled each other into performances we have never seen before, and it became very clear that we may never see another rivalry like that again.

Forcing Mikoto and Kanade as well as other Tiara winners to step aside and let other contestants create their own legacy was not an incorrect decision, but none of the other competitors have ever been able to live up to their standards. Thus, for the past two years, some of us have become more cognizant to the drawbacks of using the round-robin system. As it was the most fair, it was too long and taxing not only to our staff but to the voters as well. Those fanbases in the Mikoto/Kanade era often times resorted to skipping out after the second necklace period and leaving the regular season to chance only to make a push for the Tiara in the Postseason, and that leads to the devaluing of the Regular Season Round-Robin format, which was the calling card of this contest and what separated us from every other Saimoe contest on the internet. Culture changes on the internet as well as worldwide society have led to shorter attention spans, and a system that worked so well in 2008-2013 suddenly became less feasible. It’s not just Saimoe that’s experiencing it, but the NBA, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, and other sports that implement a similarly long regular season system are feeling the repercussions of it as well.

Hence, a rehauling of the ISML system at this particular time is a brilliant move. It allows us to try something new without the ISML losing its identity, which is and should always be the Heavenly Tiara and its 7 necklaces. The new World Cup format with group stages is a step in the right direction as we head toward a new era of Saimoe. I look forward to seeing how the new system plays out, and I wish Kholdstare and Hikari the best of luck in running it.

[Momento10]

We're not going to have 256 bios on the main page...are we?

I think we should go with the Top 16 from each division with bios.

That still means we would have to write bios for 256 characters

Welp, time to engage in hell and write 100 bios

I think the current plan is to include biographies for Top 64 and just list out the other 128 characters. Ask maglor for details.

That technically still means that we would have to write all 256 bios, as the probability of a supposed low rank defeating a supposed high rank (for instance, if Rank #70 defeated Rank #58) remains probable, assuming we do not want anyone to waste his or her time writing up a bio that's never going to be put up if said character does not make it past Top 64.

At least one character must be of a different gender.

No thanks.

[10ZHAbin]

Is there anything the voters(nominators) can do to make the tallying up of nominations easier for the staff?

[Homura]

Speaking of great rivalries, in the history of saimoe contest the rivalry between Kanade and Mikoto is indeed phenomenal as minhtam said, but if we look into the history of sports, that level of rivalry is normal. In fact, one or two players/teams becoming virtually utterly dominant in one sport for many years is one of the most common things to be seen today. People are used to that, and even happily assign the word era to that period. However, things didn't work the same for ISML; in fact, ISML was in danger and its staff was forced to stop the great rivalry. This is just sad. Even both are win & loss in their nature, most people like to treat ISML as an inferior event compared to normal sports competition, and therefore are impatient with ISML and easily call it "a trash game". Do they have good reasons? No good reason is needed. To them it's just inherently right to look down a newly born event for many years, as it's always to be in history. This illogicalness eventually will mostly go way, but it's hard to say how many years the staff and the minority voters taking ISML seriously are still going to endure that. Having hope on the growing up younger or even younger's younger generation, and good luck to the new Captain is what I will say at this end.

Personal but unimportantShow

Do I like the longtime rivalry between the two? It is horrible to me, absolutely. Nevertheless, I do want them to be there for the fairness of the world and for the rule of nature.

[avery-kun]

Is there anything the voters(nominators) can do to make the tallying up of nominations easier for the staff?

Double checking spelling, I would imagine. Just copy paste from MAL.

[Chibasa]

Nomination form : One single nomination page with 18 slots. People can nominate who they want, whether it be male, female, or seasonal. There's no necessity to nominate any seasonal character. Staff will sort the nomination to the correct tournament.

We will have very few male/seasonal nominations? Isn't more simple for staff to split them (9/9/5 for example)? Will we have some Male seasonal contest?

[maglor]

Nomination form : One single nomination page with 18 slots. People can nominate who they want, whether it be male, female, or seasonal. There's no necessity to nominate any seasonal character. Staff will sort the nomination to the correct tournament.

We will have very few male/seasonal nominations? Isn't more simple for staff to split them (9/9/5 for example)? Will we have some Male seasonal contest?

When we did split the male and seasonal nominations to different tabs, thousands of people mistakenly nominated in wrong tabs. In end, we simply tallied everything up and then separated characters to the right event, but we also had to check and make sure that they were following the rules for each separate tabs. This was cumbersome. Since we always had hundreds of nominations with mistakes, I think it is worth trying a format that minimizes chance for the nominators to make a mistake.

[Reverend]

I forgot one important thing: is Fate eligible?
If I remember right, going by the (old) ToC rule, Fate should be eligible for this year's tournament, shouldn't she?




ps.: I was just about to ask this when I saw your reply

When we did split the male and seasonal nominations to different tabs, thousands of people mistakenly nominated in wrong tabs. In end, we simply tallied everything up and then separated characters to the right event, but we also had to check and make sure that they were following the rules for each separate tabs. This was cumbersome. Since we always had hundreds of nominations with mistakes, I think it is worth trying a format that minimizes chance for the nominators to make a mistake.

tbh, I'm not buying this. But, well, your call.

[maglor]

Is there anything the voters(nominators) can do to make the tallying up of nominations easier for the staff?

Double checking spelling, I would imagine. Just copy paste from MAL.

Most preferred format is to use the spelling from MAL, but write it in Japanese order, that is surname first and given name last . This is the format ISML always used when not using macrons, and it also is what comes most easily to majority of our nominators who resides in Asia, in addition to the fact that this is the order you will hear the name spoken by original voice actors.

[maglor]

I forgot one important thing: is Fate eligible?
If I remember right, going by the (old) ToC rule, Fate should be eligible for this year's tournament, shouldn't she?




ps.: I was just about to ask this when I saw your reply

When we did split the male and seasonal nominations to different tabs, thousands of people mistakenly nominated in wrong tabs. In end, we simply tallied everything up and then separated characters to the right event, but we also had to check and make sure that they were following the rules for each separate tabs. This was cumbersome. Since we always had hundreds of nominations with mistakes, I think it is worth trying a format that minimizes chance for the nominators to make a mistake.

tbh, I'm not buying this. But, well, your call.

At the current moment, we need 8 Tiara winners for an event. Unless good argument can be made for some Tiara winners to be in 2016 regular events in addition to ToC only event, we are planning to not let Fate Testarossa in.

As for the nomination, thousands of people using wrong tab is a fact. If you are doubting the effectiveness of using the single page format, then while I share your concern, we simply don't have data to say how likely this concern will be manifested. By trying out single page format, we will have good data to use in the future. If we do get too few nominations for the male and/or seasonal, we will separate out the event which had too few. The trouble is, separate page doesn't guarantee much, as people can simply ignore it, unless we require them to submit certain numbers in each page. The at least one opposite gender rule in current nomination draft is an attempt to address the concern of lack of nominations for male character.

This does raise an interesting debate as some have already express desire to not nominate any opposite gender. Case for removing the rule is the simplicity, and more freedom to the nominator. Case against is possible lack of male character nomination, and also nominators simply filling up the slots with female characters, or for certain anime series, male characters, from one or two series. The data from KBM Male( later pro-female-viewers ) division suggest that if certain fanclubs get involved, we will be swamped with hundreds of nominations with all slots filled by minimum+as many as possible from one gender from one series. By making the nominator think about an opposite gender character, we increase the chance that they will broaden their target and interest. If you have any thoughts about this, please post them.

[Reverend]

I forgot one important thing: is Fate eligible?
If I remember right, going by the (old) ToC rule, Fate should be eligible for this year's tournament, shouldn't she?




ps.: I was just about to ask this when I saw your reply

When we did split the male and seasonal nominations to different tabs, thousands of people mistakenly nominated in wrong tabs. In end, we simply tallied everything up and then separated characters to the right event, but we also had to check and make sure that they were following the rules for each separate tabs. This was cumbersome. Since we always had hundreds of nominations with mistakes, I think it is worth trying a format that minimizes chance for the nominators to make a mistake.

tbh, I'm not buying this. But, well, your call.

At the current moment, we need 8 Tiara winners for an event. Unless good argument can be made for some Tiara winners to be in 2016 regular events in addition to ToC only event, we are planning to not let Fate Testarossa in.

Tiara winners by the end of this year:
Fate Testarossa, Katsura Hinagiku, Akiyama Mio, Misaka Mikoto, Tachibana Kanade, Gokou Ruri, Itsuka Kotori, Chitanda Eru, ISML 2016's winner

Wait, that's 9. Isn't that more than enough for next ToC? Did I miss something?

As for the nomination, thousands of people using wrong tab is a fact. If you are doubting the effectiveness of using the single page format, then while I share your concern, we simply don't have data to say how likely this concern will be manifested. By trying out single page format, we will have good data to use in the future. If we do get too few nominations for the male and/or seasonal, we will separate out the event which had too few. The trouble is, separate page doesn't guarantee much, as people can simply ignore it, unless we require them to submit certain numbers in each page. The at least one opposite gender rule in current nomination draft is an attempt to address the concern of lack of nominations for male character.

This does raise an interesting debate as some have already express desire to not nominate any opposite gender. Case for removing the rule is the simplicity, and more freedom to the nominator. Case against is possible lack of male character nomination, and also nominators simply filling up the slots with female characters, or for certain anime series, male characters, from one or two series. The data from KBM Male( later pro-female-viewers ) division suggest that if certain fanclubs get involved, we will be swamped with hundreds of nominations with all slots filled by minimum+as many as possible from one gender from one series. By making the nominator think about an opposite gender character, we increase the chance that they will broaden their target and interest. If you have any thoughts about this, please post them.

Actually, I am more worried with the seasonal, since... you know: I'm not into male moe? {ps.: just my preference, don't kill me for it, girls )

I think the males, we shouldn't worry that much, since at the least, there will always be girls who will nominate for them. (and the boys will surely slip up one or two males they think is/are badass. )
It might lose number of nominations, but I'm confident it will make the cut (since we have so many to nominate.) Once it makes the cut, we'll get the voters.
ps.: but "at least one male" is healthy rule. No, don't change that rule, please. That's the insurance the male division will need. Actually, I think you should bold + underline + huge-sized that rule. So that people reads it.

Meanwhile, I'm worried with the seasonal simply because the reasoning you said: people tend to mistaken the tabs.
If now the two forms are joined, isn't that even more reason to mistaken main tournament & seasonal? (What I mean is: the people might get confused and ended up wasting all their spots for the main tournament. Then we will have an even lesser seasonal nomination.)
Seasonal... has always been that tournament that never really stand alone and mostly: they just got dragged along. (We could simply see from the number of voters we had in the past when a seasonal is done after main ISML tournament.)
And now we are to pit like... +-100 new female characters against every female character whose anime aired before 2016, for the competition in that max. of 17 spots.
tbh, I'm scared for it. But if you want to give it a go, like I said, your call.

Solution, huh?
I think it can be easily solved if there's a clear example of a complete nomination list in the nomination tab. (and maybe there's also a link to the nomination thread we will have later, in the form.)
I think that's the problem: people are baka, they don't read rules. But they will read examples if it's underlined & bolded & huge-sized properly. The float mentality.

[10ZHAbin]

Simplified the rule to any anime characters appeared before 11th June, 2016 (the end of nomination period), voters don't need to understand about seasonal, male or main, they just need to pick out their top 18 characters from all the existing anime characters. Let the staff sorts the characters into their divisions.

[maglor]

Simplified the rule to any anime characters appeared before 11th June, 2016 (the end of nomination period), voters don't need to understand about seasonal, male or main, they just need to pick out their top 18 characters from all the existing anime characters. Let the staff sorts the characters into their divisions.

Well, this is the plan, but the series and gender rules are to put limit on possible abuses.

Judging from what we saw in 2011, I am not too worried about nominations for the seasonal. Those characters are fresh in people's mind

[maglor]

Tiara winners by the end of this year:
Fate Testarossa, Katsura Hinagiku, Akiyama Mio, Misaka Mikoto, Tachibana Kanade, Gokou Ruri, Itsuka Kotori, Chitanda Eru, ISML 2016's winner

Wait, that's 9. Isn't that more than enough for next ToC? Did I miss something?

No. According to the current plan, the event will be a seeding match for the next ToC. We need to cut the number to 8, thus one of 8 Tiara winners needs to be unretired. 2016 winner will automatically be given the #1 seeding for the next ToC.

[smartboyhw]

We're not going to have 256 bios on the main page...are we?

I think we should go with the Top 16 from each division with bios.

That still means we would have to write bios for 256 characters

Welp, time to engage in hell and write 100 bios

I think the current plan is to include biographies for Top 64 and just list out the other 128 characters. Ask maglor for details.

That technically still means that we would have to write all 256 bios, as the probability of a supposed low rank defeating a supposed high rank (for instance, if Rank #70 defeated Rank #58) remains probable, assuming we do not want anyone to waste his or her time writing up a bio that's never going to be put up if said character does not make it past Top 64.

I believe the intention this year is not to rush them all in before start of main tournament, and start writing when we are certain that some character is in Top 64. (We won't be doing all 32 groups at the same time). So the profiles will continue to build up as the Round of 128 progresses.

[matchbaby]

What I am worrying about is the following:
1. How do you seed the characters?
-Without adequate information, it is hard to ensure no 'strongs vs strongs' in group stage.(If only based on nomination, well, death group) for example, 1st: Nao 64th: Yuigahama 65th: Yoshino 128th: hmm...maybe Komachi?

2. How to avoid/will you avoid same anime in one group?
-too many intra battles are not good(?)
3. How to judge contestants for necklaces in single elimination tournament?
-VF? (back to 2008 gj) VF%? (Pray to your opponents guys!)
4. Without enough statistics support for a whole season, can you still handle those multi-votes?
-of course statistics is useless last year I know

[BugH]

woah, we had a warm conversation here
ehem.....
let me sum it; Because of the decision to join two tabs into one, Staff will put more effort to this year new format of nomination
as maggy said, Staff will separate the nominations to the right event later.

I really appreciate this big move and will support this decision as well as i believe in their ability to handle the chaos in previous ISML
and the only thing that i want to say is : just like seeing the first step of our kid, let it move

[10ZHAbin]

Ok, I am still confused about how the whole tournament will play out, I can wait until it happens to see it myself but I rather know what to expect. Some googling on the internet tells me that the so-call World-Cup-style is round-robin follow by elimination, but the post says that there will be no more round-robin. Can somebody explain how the whole tournament will run?

[Chibasa]

As I understand it, we will have a group stage to seed characters (32 groups of 4 girls & 32 groups of 4 boys?) and then Round of 128 or round of 64 (if they choose to eliminate half candidate during group stage).