International Saimoe League 2013

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by RegalStar

Real-life leagues also have it that if a team performs horribly in the beginning, then that'd drag them down even if they suddenly spiked up in the mid-season.

No, real-life leagues also have it that if a team performs horribly at the start of the regular season, then that'd drag them down even if they suddenly spiked up in the mid-season.

Even ignoring Prelims, ISML already has the same thing - If a girl does horribly in the first period or two (i.e. at the start of the regular season), that will negatively impact her chances of making the Circlet/Tiara post-season.

It's called "digging yourself into a hole" when it comes to season-long won-loss record. ISML already has it without some ridiculous prelim-based season-encompassing handicap.

Real-life competitions also have it that if they perform bad in the qualifiers, they're going to get a worse seeding and thus be overall at a disadvantage in the playoffs.

Like I already mentioned, "home field advantage". That's typically all seeding results in for the top seeds. That, or at most, 1st round byes. Home field advantage and first round byes are much less significant than having a a lone match with severe built-in handicaps.

It's like instead of just having home field advantage, one baseball team starts with a 3-0 score advantage going into the game. Pro baseball fans would not stand for this complete nonsense.

And also, once again necklaces aren't meant to be awarded to the strongest characters.

We're primarily debating what should be the case, not what is the case. I'm arguing that necklaces should be awarded to the strongest characters based on vote totals in the Necklace matches. I see plenty of good reasons for why that should be the case, and absolutely none for why it shouldn't be the case.

This isn't related but I'm picking this line out in particular due to how just... stupid it is.

No, that line is not stupid at all. What's stupid is arguing on the basis of theoretically perfect conditions when discussing a tournament that will rarely have such perfect conditions. That is what runs contrary to common sense.

[RegalStar]

Necklaces will never be about the strongest character, because that's what post-season is for. There won't be implementation of a system that's totally redundant to another, more fundamental system already.

No, that line is not stupid at all.

So you're inferring that there's a way to assign each character's opponents every period so that every character gets opponents that are roughly similar in strength, all the while being unaffected by any unpredictable spikes or drops in strength in the middle of the regular season? By all means, please teach me how it would work.

[KholdStare]

Only one thing worth responding to:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Regular season matches are still very meaningful for determining who even gets into the Necklace matches

??????????????????

Regular season matches are ALL that matters and should be the MOST meaningful.

In contrast, necklace matches are 100% pointless and does not contribute to any stat.

EDIT: Oh, I found somethign else.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

We're primarily debating what should be the case, not what is the case. I'm arguing that necklaces should be awarded to the strongest characters based on vote totals in the Necklace matches. I see plenty of good reasons for why that should be the case, and absolutely none for why it shouldn't be the case.

I'm not sure where to start with this. Okay, let's say SDO isn't used. Then every 7 matches, we get a random power-ranking match. What should we call it? ____ necklace? We can't call it Aquamarine Necklace because without SDO it has nothing to do with Aquamarine. So maybe we call it Useless Necklace 1, and keep going until 5.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by RegalStar

Necklaces will never be about the strongest character, because that's what post-season is for.

The Necklaces are secondary awards, given out to spice up the regular season.

Shouldn't awards go to the most deserving, and hence strongest, competitors?

And yes, they are awards. Please don't try denying that. They're obviously awards given how fans of Necklace winners react to them winning it.

"May the best team win." "May the best competitor win." Isn't this the spirit of competitiveness that we should want in all competitions?


But even if you don't care at all about character strength, there is still the predictability argument. SDO makes Necklace matches more predictable, which is obviously bad if you want ISML to be as fun and enjoyable as it can be. People tend to prefer unpredictable matches over predictable ones. SDO slants the Necklace match towards a predictable result by overly favoring the girls with the two or three highest SDO scores going into the match.

Shouldn't the ISML Staff want the Necklace matches to be fun and entertaining, and hence not overly predictable? If so, then the way SDO is being used now runs contrary to that.

There won't be implementation of a system that's totally redundant to another, more fundamental system already.

It's not redundant. The Tiara rewards one girl. Necklace awards can be a way of rewarding multiple strong girls.

So you're inferring that there's a way to assign each character's opponents every period so that every character gets opponents that are roughly similar in strength, all the while being unaffected by any unpredictable spikes or drops in strength in the middle of the regular season?

No, I'm inferring the complete opposite of that. It's not possible to have such perfection in ISML, so making arguments based off of the "theoretically perfect" is silly.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

??????????????????

Regular season matches are ALL that matters and should be the MOST meaningful.

So are you saying that the Post-season matches don't matter at all?

In contrast, necklace matches are 100% pointless and does not contribute to any stat.

They're not pointless. Fans of the Necklace winners clearly take joy in watching their girl win a necklace. That alone means they're not pointless. People care about the Necklace matches, or we obviously wouldn't be debating this right now.

I'm not sure where to start with this. Okay, let's say SDO isn't used. Then every 7 matches, we get a random power-ranking match.

It's not random, because period-performance would determine who gets into the match.

What should we call it? ____ necklace? We can't call it Aquamarine Necklace because without SDO it has nothing to do with Aquamarine.

Aquamarine corresponds to the color of the award. It is also the name given to the period. And to even get into the Aquamarine Necklace match a girl would have to do well during the Aquamarine period.

So there would still be good reasons to call it an Aquamarine Necklace.

[RegalStar]

No, I'm inferring the complete opposite of that. It's not possible to have such perfection in ISML, so making arguments based off of the "theoretically perfect" is silly.

So since we can't have a perfect system, and apparently we can't use an imperfect system, then the only solution is to not have a system at all. So let's disband ISML right now! Yay~

Shouldn't the ISML Staff want the Necklace matches to be fun and entertaining

Not at the cost of reducing the meaning for the regular season matches.

[KholdStare]

Well I think I said all that needs to be said about this topic. Until male tournament!

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by RegalStar

So since we can't have a perfect system, and apparently we can't use an imperfect system, then the only solution is to not have a system at all.

I never said or implied any such thing.

All I said is that it's silly to make arguments on the basis of "theoretically perfect" when applying said arguments to things that can't be perfect.

Not at the cost of reducing the meaning for the regular season matches.

Why not? You can have the regular season matches be a tiny little bit less important, and still attract plenty of voters.

In a 2-division system like what ISML has right now, you're only going to get 3/4 girls per division in each Necklace match. The likelihood of one of those girls having more than one loss against her during the period is slim (and if one or more of those girls has that, she probably has no chance of Necklace victory anyway). Which means it's obviously important for voters to keep showing up almost every match simply to get their girl into the Necklace match. The margin for error is incredibly low.

Even under what I'm suggesting, the girl who wins the Necklace will almost certainly have either a perfect period record, or a record of 6-1. You don't need SDO to factor into Necklace Match results calculations in order to ensure this.


Look, I get it - The ISML Staff is afraid that if you let the Necklace winner be whoever gets the most votes in the Necklace match that people will stop showing up for Regular Season matches. What I'm saying is no, that's not going to happen to a truly significant extent, because the margin for error is so low.


So if you go with what some other people and myself are suggesting...

1. The Necklace matches become less predictable, which means they become more fun and interesting.

2. Character strength matters more than handicaps, which reflects the spirit of competition.

3. It would not have a significant impact on how many voters show up for Regular Season matches.


On the whole, it would be a very positive change.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Well I think I said all that needs to be said about this topic.

I provided answers to your previous questions, and if you don't think those answers are good enough, then I'd like to know why.

[RegalStar]

All I said is that it's silly to make arguments on the basis of "theoretically perfect" when applying said arguments to things that can't be perfect.

I was explaining the logic of the tier assignment system (which is absolutely vital for scheduling the tournament, mind), and you attacked it for being based on imperfect assumptions.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by RegalStar

I was explaining the logic of the tier assignment system (which is absolutely vital for scheduling the tournament, mind), and you attacked it for being based on imperfect assumptions.

You can have a tier assignment system without prelim results directly impacting on SDO. I'm not questioning or attacking the entire tier assignment system, just prelim results directly impacting on SDO. You're right that the tier assignment system is necessary for scheduling reasons.

I mean, there's different formulas that could be used for calculating SDO, or something like it. It is possible to have a SDO that's not directly impacted by prelim results.

[iamadooddood]

Originally Posted by RegalStar

For necklaces? It wouldn't be.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Correct, if necklaces reflected genuine strength (ie. each necklace match is basically a periodic performance rating), then you are once again off from how the staff envisioned necklaces to be.

You said SDO severely handicaps the necklace matches. I don't understand this statement. Whoever has the highest SDO should be awarded the necklace first and foremost. The necklace match only gives the ones with lower SDO a chance at stealing it.

If that was the case, why not just award the necklaces based on SDO alone? Why even have us bother to vote? A chance of stealing the necklace? When said chance is as good as non-existent?

Originally Posted by wontaek

It now comes to the biggest reason why we can't let Necklace Group match result to be the only thing that matters. Look at the history. ISML always has been a league that rewards diligent voters. If we increase the role of the necklace group match in deciding who wins the necklace, we would be rewarding those opportunistic voters who only drops in for 1 match days out of 8 days in a necklace period. So far most of the suggestion I read are very vulnerable to influence of these opportunistic lazy voters. One of key benefit of SDO is that you can't hope to accomplish all you want by concentrating on merely one of the 8 days, and perhaps not even 2 of the 8 days. Please consider this as you ponder upon various influence of SDO. Also remember that necklace group round eligibility is unaffected by SDO, unless in case of extremely unlikely tie.

Let them. They know they can't win anything else so a necklace is the best they can aim for.

And we already said that SDO is OK to use for determining those who are even eligible for necklaces to begin with so unless they make any effort throughout the regular season their favourite girl won't even qualify in the first place.

Necklace group round is first and foremost determined by wins, followed by head-to-head, followed by SDO. So maybe they didn't vote in regular season because they didn't need to? What for vote when your character's gonna win anyway. Only vote when it really matters. Such as in necklace showdowns or in knockout stages or against strong opponents. Why should such voters be punished?

Originally Posted by KholdStare

So far, there have been "upsets" in the necklace matches where the highest SDO doesn't win. While this is rare, it happens. If people have a problem with necklace matches however, maybe we should go back to having SDO as the only decider.

Examples?

Actually, forget it. Even if there are, as time passes more knowledge on how to manipulate SDO will be found, and seeing that there were no such examples in 2013 we won't have any more examples.

SDO only worked the first time. Over time, SDO has proven itself to be a one-trick pony that is very easily worked around against. And over time, SDO has proven itself to be even worse than anything else used before it.

Originally Posted by RegalStar

On the flip side, your system also means that showing up for prelims and regular seasons are much less meaningful, as all it really takes are the few matches that count (necklace matches, post-season matches) to decide the search direction of the graphic staff. Also, 2012 Eucliwood.

Really? How so?

Originally Posted by RegalStar

I said "much less meaningful", not "meaningless". Regular season matches are supposed to be the backbone of the tournament.

As Triple_R said, it's far from being "much less meaningful", too.

Originally Posted by RegalStar

It's not a heavy handicap. With theoretically perfect seeding, it results an average of ~2.2 SDO lost, which translates to an edge of 50-100 votes in necklace matches, which is pretty light all things considered. And yes, not doing well in an earlier part should translate to a slightly higher hill to climb over later. It makes perfect sense to me, given the structure of this tournament.

(The main three reasons for Mikoto's SDO this year are bad luck with scheduling, higher deviation of strength between prelims and regular season in Nova than in Stella, and a certain group - or perhaps several groups - attacking her SDO. There will be some countermeasures about the last part which will be implemented next year. Mikoto being tier 2 does hurt her SDO a little, but not much.)

Eucliwood was perfectly able to take advantage of her new season boost in 2012.

Tell me, when does "theoretically perfect" seeding ever occur? If you want to talk about statistics, the median point should be used. There's no way it's gonna be just 50-100 votes.

Not doing well in an earlier part implies the higher likelihood of the character not being able to do well in the main season anyway, so there's no need to add an artificial height to the hill they have to overcome. You guys first talk about unpredictability, and now you want to avoid upsets? Which is the whole point of unpredictability in the first place?

And what's wrong with new season boosts? That's equivalent to punishing new voters, is it not?

Originally Posted by RegalStar

Real-life leagues also have it that if a team performs horribly in the beginning, then that'd drag them down even if they suddenly spiked up in the mid-season. Real-life competitions also have it that if they perform bad in the qualifiers, they're going to get a worse seeding and thus be overall at a disadvantage in the playoffs.

And also, once again necklaces aren't meant to be awarded to the strongest characters.

Real-life leagues never add artificial height to the hill that a character that started off doing poorly and spiked up in the real season has to climb, because the difference in points scored due to the slow start is height enough. This difference in points is what drags them down, not some point penalty that penalises those who start poorly, which is what you're doing now. You're like implying that Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson, who were known for their slow starts, didn't deserve any of the league titles they won, simply because they started poorly.

Real-life competition seeding only affects the difficulty of the opponents (or the number of matches they have to face), not some handicap within the match itself, which is what SDO is doing.

Also, you didn't take into account those who did well initially, tapered off later on, and never get handicapped the same way as those who had slow starts but did much better later on? No? I thought not.

Originally Posted by RegalStar

And also, once again necklaces aren't meant to be awarded to the strongest characters.

Originally Posted by RegalStar

Necklaces will never be about the strongest character, because that's what post-season is for. There won't be implementation of a system that's totally redundant to another, more fundamental system already.

Then what is the point of competition? Actually, what is the point of the necklaces then? If it was for anything but the strongest character, then how is it fair?

Actually, the perceptive of the general voting public is now that "strongest = highest SDO" so what do you have to say about this?

Originally Posted by RegalStar

This isn't related but I'm picking this line out in particular due to how just... stupid it is. In any system whatsoever that relies on inputs with any amount of unpredictability behind it, the only way to go is to assume that the expected input is perfect. It's common sense.

You guys seriously need a statistics major in your admin team. It's not. You take the median point of the absolute value of the unfairness level (and no, don't take the mean at all; that's not much better). You don't assume zero.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Regular season matches are ALL that matters and should be the MOST meaningful.

In contrast, necklace matches are 100% pointless and does not contribute to any stat.

So you're saying that just because regular season matches are all that matter and necklace matches are pointless, necklace matches must be manipulated by regular season matches? Explain your logic.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

I'm not sure where to start with this. Okay, let's say SDO isn't used. Then every 7 matches, we get a random power-ranking match. What should we call it? ____ necklace? We can't call it Aquamarine Necklace because without SDO it has nothing to do with Aquamarine. So maybe we call it Useless Necklace 1, and keep going until 5.

Just use those same necklace names. After all, the only difference between now and if you don't use SDO, is simply the lack of SDO in the latter case. Simple as that.

Originally Posted by RegalStar

So since we can't have a perfect system, and apparently we can't use an imperfect system, then the only solution is to not have a system at all. So let's disband ISML right now! Yay~



Not at the cost of reducing the meaning for the regular season matches.

We might as well, I'm seriously starting to think that.

On the contrary, the problem is that you're putting too much meaning into the regular season matches, to the extent of them affecting something they should never affect at all.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Look, I get it - The ISML Staff is afraid that if you let the Necklace winner be whoever gets the most votes in the Necklace match that people will stop showing up for Regular Season matches. What I'm saying is no, that's not going to happen to a truly significant extent, because the margin for error is so low.

Interestingly, some sports teams actually go all out for cup competitions at the expense of the league, because they know they don't have a chance of winning the league, so might as well take a shot at something they have an actual chance of winning. So while they flounder in the league, they keep winning match after match in the cup competition, and in some cases even win it.

So what those voters did is actually a perfectly legitimate move (unlike, say, match-fixing) which is done in real life leagues, and they shouldn't be punished for it.

Originally Posted by RegalStar

I was explaining the logic of the tier assignment system (which is absolutely vital for scheduling the tournament, mind), and you attacked it for being based on imperfect assumptions.

Assumption of perfect seeding has always been, is and will always be a poor assumption.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by iamadooddood

Not doing well in an earlier part implies the higher likelihood of the character not being able to do well in the main season anyway, so there's no need to add an artificial height to the hill they have to overcome. You guys first talk about unpredictability, and now you want to avoid upsets? Which is the whole point of unpredictability in the first place?

And what's wrong with new season boosts? That's equivalent to punishing new voters, is it not?

Yes, it is. And that can be very disheartening to new voters, turning them off the competition.

Back in 2013 Topaz 1, Mikoto Misaka pulled an incredible 8758-8079 victory over Kanade. Mikoto then went on to be 7-0 for the rest of Topaz, decisively winning all of her matches by comfortable margins.

Even with that perfect Topaz record, she went into the 2013 Topaz Necklace match with an absolutely massive 112.380 to 64.853 SDO disadvantage against Mashiro. Mikoto obviously had no chance, and in spite of how she deserved to have a chance based on her Topaz performance. So Mikoto likely bled voters to Mashiro, as people do like voting for a winner. Mashiro's SDO edge on everybody else was so massive that her victory was a foregone conclusion.

Mikoto would not come close to those Topaz 1 heights in the post-season (losing to Kanade by almost 2000 votes mere weeks after defeating her by over 700 votes in regular season). I think it may well have been because new voters brought in by Railgun S were turned off by how Mikoto was basically screwed by the SDO system pretty much the entire year, but with Topaz being the straw that broke the camel's back. I think that's probably part of it, at least.


So even if the way SDO is being used now gets people a little more invested in regular season matches, is it worth the way it can turn off new voters? To put it more simply, does it result in a net gain/maintaining of total voters, or a net loss in total voters? I suspect it's a net loss. I suspect that ISML's voter growth potential is being limited by how the current rules can be unwelcoming to new voters who happen to get interested in or around the Summer months.

It makes sense to want people to keep showing up for the regular season matches, because the more votes ISML gets on a reliable basis the better it is for ISML. But by the same token, it's good to have rules that are welcoming to new voters all 12 months of the year, and not just the time during which prelims are being held. Gaining and keeping new voters is very good for ISML, of course.

I think it's best to seek a balance that is welcoming to new voters, while also providing some encouragement to existing voters to keep showing up for regular season matches. The current situation is threatening that balance. Whereas what you and I are suggesting would improve that balance.

[broken270]

Originally Posted by iamadooddood

Let them. They know they can't win anything else so a necklace is the best they can aim for.

But that's not fair to those who participated in both the prelims and regular season who voted to get their girl to where they are now. If you allowed them to do that, what's the point of voting in regular season during a particular period in the first place? To get girls into the necklace round? That's the same as only coming during postseason because a girl someone supports is going to be there without his/her vote, so why bother? I'm going to cynically water down what has been said against SDO: you like pretty pictures more that overall stat of the characters.

[iamadooddood]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So even if the way SDO is being used now gets people a little more invested in regular season matches, is it worth the way it can turn off new voters? To put it more simply, does it result in a net gain/maintaining of total voters, or a net loss in total voters? I suspect it's a net loss. I suspect that ISML's voter growth potential is being limited by how the current rules can be unwelcoming to new voters who happen to get interested in or around the Summer months.

It makes sense to want people to keep showing up for the regular season matches, because the more votes ISML gets on a reliable basis the better it is for ISML. But by the same token, it's good to have rules that are welcoming to new voters all 12 months of the year, and not just the time during which prelims are being held. Gaining and keeping new voters is very good for ISML, of course.

I think it's best to seek a balance that is welcoming to new voters, while also providing some encouragement to existing voters to keep showing up for regular season matches. The current situation is threatening that balance. Whereas what you and I are suggesting would improve that balance.

How is SDO even making people invested in regular season matches? I think they'll be turned off too.

Even if it wasn't the admins' intentions, fact is, fans see necklace winners as strong. And because of SDO, the perceptions of fans is that "high SDO = strong". So if a really strong girl crushes all her opponents throughout the entire season, her SDO would be really low. And she'll never be able to win a necklace.

Originally Posted by broken270

But that's not fair to those who participated in both the prelims and regular season who voted to get their girl to where they are now. If you allowed them to do that, what's the point of voting in regular season during a particular period in the first place? To get girls into the necklace round? That's the same as only coming during postseason because a girl someone supports is going to be there without his/her vote, so why bother? I'm going to cynically water down what has been said against SDO: you like pretty pictures more that overall stat of the characters.

To make sure they actually get to be eligible for the necklace to begin with, duh. No point pulling it off for a girl that doesn't even make it in the first place. Same for
postseason.

For postseason, it's better to get into a higher seed because, well, the higher the seed, the weaker your opponent is likely to be. That much is obvious. But you don't know how much strength they're hiding, hence upsets which make the tournament unpredictable and therefore interesting can and do occur. And if a girl can hide her strength like that, who's to say her opponent can't either? All these uncertainties is what truly makes a tournament interesting, not some ridiculously predictable SDO.

It's been said the hallmark of a champion is that they can win even without doing their best. And based on what I've seen regarding the SDO mechanism so far, they might as well not. You may not notice it, but there's another vital reason why some people don't like voting in the regular season. Regularly voting in the regular season actually hurts the girl's SDO as well. Reason being, if a girl crushes her opponents because her fanbase keeps voting for her, making her win all her matches convincingly, her SDO actually drops. At least, that's what I got from the admins' posts in the link to the SDO debate thread. So best result would have been to win all matches by narrow margins, which is ridiculous no matter how I see it, because another entertaining thing is the existence of crushing victories.

In short, SDO was implemented to encourage people to vote consistently in the regular season (and such rules alienate voters who join mid-season), but SDO actually also deters people from voting.

Btw, I really have no idea what you mean by the bolded part. There are multiple ways fans can define "moe", and the bolded part is but a common definition. If ISML truly was for fans, it would acknowledge that.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by broken270

But that's not fair to those who participated in both the prelims and regular season who voted to get their girl to where they are now.

You're wrong. It's perfectly fair. In the overwhelming majority of competitions, prelims is just about qualifying for the next phase. That's it, beyond seeding advantages/disadvantages, which doesn't directly impact the actual scores in competitions. No fans of these competitions claims that this is "unfair", because it isn't unfair.

However, what is unfair is punishing new voters because of what time of year they happen to become interested in ISML. That is what is unfair.

If you allowed them to do that, what's the point of voting in regular season during a particular period in the first place? To get girls into the necklace round?

That, and it's nice to see your favorite girls win in any event. Which is another reason why I don't think removing SDO from the calculation for Necklace match results would have a significantly negative impact on voter turnout for regular season matches.

I'm going to cynically water down...

Instead of watering down perfectly good arguments without any good reason, why don't you actually try to address them?

[KholdStare]

Originally Posted by iamadooddood

If that was the case, why not just award the necklaces based on SDO alone? Why even have us bother to vote? A chance of stealing the necklace? When said chance is as good as non-existent?

I have already said in an early post that maybe we should go be to using SDO only and not have a necklace match. In fact, you quoted this very same post later and chose to ignore my comment...?

Originally Posted by iamadooddood

So you're saying that just because regular season matches are all that matter and necklace matches are pointless, necklace matches must be manipulated by regular season matches? Explain your logic.

Now you're getting to meat of the discussion. Triple_R doesn't want SDO to have any influence in the necklace match. What we really want to discuss, however, is perhaps a system that's not easy to manipulate to be applied to the necklace match, but still understandable to people without stat majors. I'm glad someone knows what we're trying for.

Originally Posted by iamadooddood

In short, SDO was implemented to encourage people to vote consistently in the regular season

This is false. SDO was created as a tiebreaker to go before VF. Then the necklace match was created, and SDO was applied to encourage people to not ignore the regular season matches.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Triple_R doesn't want SDO to have any influence in the necklace match.

Not exactly correct. I said that SDO could be used to determine who gets into the Necklace match, but then the votes alone should determine who wins the match (in a tie situation, SDO can be used again to break the tie).

I think this is a perfectly good and reasonable position that would improve ISML by making the Necklace matches more fun and exciting, by properly rewarding character strength, and by being more friendly and welcoming to new voters.

I have yet to read any good counterargument to any point I have raised here, so it's a real mystery to me why you seem to be so against even considering the idea.

[KholdStare]

As I said before, SDO being used as eligibility is not enough. See my PM.

Another thing I have to tell you is that when we created the rules, we have considered many things, including talking to death the possibility of using SDO as eligibility only. The staff unanimously agrees that this watered down definition of a period necklace is not what we're aiming for when we created the necklace.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by KholdStare

As I said before, SDO being used as eligibility is not enough. See my PM.

Another thing I have to tell you is that when we created the rules, we have considered many things, including talking to death the possibility of using SDO as eligibility only. The staff unanimously agrees that this watered down definition of a period necklace is not what we're aiming for when we created the necklace.

If you "talked it to death", I doubt your final position was arrived at easily, however "unanimous" it may be.

You're attaching an almost mythical importance to mere award names and definitions. Frankly, it's silly.


What's most important for ISML:

1) Having impressively firm definitions, or ISML voters having fun?

2) Having impressively firm definitions, or rewarding character strength?

3) Having impressively firm definitions, or having unpredictable matches?

4) Having impressively firm definitions, or attracting/keeping new voters?

[KholdStare]

Please don't assume you know how ISML staff works. It's basically maglor playing devil's advocate for everything. While this makes discussions very long, it means they are thought out.

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by KholdStare

This is false. SDO was created as a tiebreaker to go before VF. Then the necklace match was created, and SDO was applied to encourage people to not ignore the regular season matches.

SDO encourages people to vote because it impacts who makes the necklace match. Letting impact the winner of necklace whether you want to admit it or not encourages people to vote in a way in the lower/mid tier girl matches in a way to attempt to improve their favorite girls' SDO rather than voting in all of the matches on which characters they actually like, which I feel really goes against ISML's basis, nothing in the system should be so encouraging for people to vote in such a manner in any of the matches.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

I have already said in an early post that maybe we should go be to using SDO only and not have a necklace match. In fact, you quoted this very same post later and chose to ignore my comment...?

With the 2 divisions, going back to just purely SDO would be even worse than it was before .