Anime Saimoe Tournament 2013 (Japan)

[uis]

The admins introduced a new rule effective starting today, any real but suspicious code can be disregarded. Which votes are suspicious are entirely up to the admin.

It rigged now.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by uis

It is not cheater though. It mostly chinese voter that get the code. Madoka and Saki fanbase will hurt greatly and maybe we will get loli champion this year.

I would find that extremely displeasing. I hope you're totally wrong here.

However, you're right that the admins can rig this to their heart's content now, if they want to. So really, it's all about who they want to win.

[RJ TAYLER]

If the admins of the tourney haven't jumped the shark, they are in very close proximity of doing so now. NOT impressed.

More DDOS'ing in the offering a strong possibility as well.

[BloodyKitty]

Seriously, seriously ?

Right now I'm considering abandoning this tournament for good.

Unless they cancel all these Round 3 results and organize rematches then some little faith of mine could be regained.

[AP24]

I think all the matches in Round 1 had the right results. Most matches in Round 2 had right results too but some seemed suspicious. I think all the matches in Round 3 didn't have the right results so they really need to redo Round 3 matches.

[BloodyKitty]

So how is Japan's reaction to this?

[Triple_R]

J-SaiMoe's vote totals are just too low. It's too easy for people to game the system. With higher vote totals (like in ISML) it's harder to game the system. If a moe tournament gets cheated frequently (Homura vs. Mikoto in 2011, and now the whole tournament being thrown into question this year), it starts to lose credibility, which causes people to lose interest.

I think that ultimately J-SaiMoe is going to have to choose between letting the international community vote, or going obsolete. It's time to get over Desu guys. Even Rozen Maiden fans have gotten over Desu given the sales figures of the latest Rozen Maiden anime.

[BloodyKitty]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I think that ultimately J-SaiMoe is going to have to choose between letting the international community vote, or going obsolete.

From the looks of things, they would rather choose the latter

[Subayai]

I think it's like uis says. Starting today, they look at all the valid codes and eliminate some of them. What criteria do they use? Only the admins know. So the matches until yesterday have the right results. It's the ones from today onwards that can be rigged.


I am also of the opinion that they should let everyone vote freely without code or anything and then after the match they can eliminate the fakes and multis using some transparent process.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

J-SaiMoe's vote totals are just too low. It's too easy for people to game the system. With higher vote totals (like in ISML) it's harder to game the system. If a moe tournament gets cheated frequently (Homura vs. Mikoto in 2011, and now the whole tournament being thrown into question this year), it starts to lose credibility, which causes people to lose interest.

I think that ultimately J-SaiMoe is going to have to choose between letting the international community vote, or going obsolete. It's time to get over Desu guys. Even Rozen Maiden fans have gotten over Desu given the sales figures of the latest Rozen Maiden anime.

I completely agree but by the look of things they are going towards more and more restrictions and they would rather let the tournament die than allow foreign voting.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Subayai

I think it's like uis says. Starting today, they look at all the valid codes and eliminate some of them. What criteria do they use? Only the admins know. So the matches until yesterday have the right results. It's the ones from today onwards that can be rigged.

Well, a few Round 3 matches (even before Nodoka's shocking decline) are eyebrow-raising, so I'm not 100% confident of this. But you do raise a good point. If we continue to see shocking drops in support for certain girls starting with Nodoka, it doesn't necessarily mean those girls were cheating before. It may mean quite the opposite - That those girls are now getting rigged out of victories because J-SaiMoe's admins have their own agenda on who they want to win.

I am also of the opinion that they should let everyone vote freely without code or anything and then after the match they can eliminate the fakes and multis using some transparent process.

Great idea, at least for the remainder of this year.

[Zeroryoko1974]

I thought saimoe had always been rigged, especially the lol random draws

[Ichuki]

Predictions- Watashi and Shizuno
Picks- Watashi and Yoshino

Originally Posted by uis

It is not cheater though. It mostly chinese voter that get the code. Madoka and Saki fanbase will hurt greatly and maybe we will get loli champion this year.

Right when I thought AST was getting revived, the Chinese and the admins forever ruined that, now I'm concerned about AST 2014 now V_V. I won't mind having a loli champion. I agree with Madoka and Saki getting hurt greatly due to this rule, they possibly might be the factions that'll get hit the hardest. Since I think some of the admins doesn't like Madoka and Saki. Won't be too much of a shocker if my prediction Shizuno loses.

[Subayai]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Well, a few Round 3 matches (even before Nodoka's shocking decline) are eyebrow-raising, so I'm not 100% confident of this. But you do raise a good point. If we continue to see shocking drops in support for certain girls starting with Nodoka, it doesn't necessarily mean those girls were cheating before. It may mean quite the opposite - That those girls are now getting rigged out of victories because J-SaiMoe's admins have their own agenda on who they want to win.

I said "rigged" but maybe this is not the best word to use here. The point is that the reason for eliminating some of the votes now is not clear at all. It could just be all the gaijin votes or it could be something else. There are people in the management thread asking the admins they be more transparent in their criteria but the admins say nothing.

Both the old and the new method could give the "right" results (that is, votes without fakes) but the sample of voters is now smaller. And this smaller sample of voters can be biased towards some characters or series. For this reason at least, I think that we are going to see changes in the strength of some characters.

In any case, the whole thing of changing the rules in the middle of the tournament is very annoying and makes me lose interest in it.

[iamadooddood]

13/18 and 9/18 for picks and predictions respectively... or so I'd like to say, but with the new rule and extremely reduced voting pool, which will screw up everyone's Saimoe levels (and it already is), I'm throwing in the towel regarding picking and predicting. -_-

Except for Yoshino. Just picks, of course.

And maybe Sayaka.

But there really is no point to this Saimoe anymore...

Sorry wontaek, looks like you won't get your answers after all. At least I didn't waste time calculating something that turned out to be pointless. :\

Originally Posted by Team Rocket Elite

Yoshino is probably the weakest character to make Round 3. Everyone else in Round 3 finished in the top 6 of their preliminary group. Yoshino was 13th. That's not even good enough to advance through first preliminaries in some years. Shizuno is a Saki character with a solid amount of strength and shouldn't have have trouble with Yoshino. Watashi has shown to be quite strong and I expect her to continue to do so. Sawa is one of the weaker Round 3 characters so her chances of winning aren't great.

Originally Posted by ion475

Kotori went out easily against Kuuko (Granted, Kuuko is not that weak).
Touka went out easily against Misaki of all girl
Kurumi, well, not fair for her since she fights Yuu...

Yoshino didn't even do good at all in prelim (13th place, behind the like of Sae and Hiiragi Tsukasa), and is only here b/c her opponents are even weaker...(Amami Haruka is about the only one having some strength, we all know, however, that IM@S overall is very weak)

Compare that and the fact that Azuki Azusa won her prelim group while Tsukiko finished way ahead of Kurumi in the same prelim group. Yes, DAL outsale Henneko by almost 2:1, but DAL is also outsold by Hataraku and Oregairu and neither of those did that good either.

DAL wasn't that strong at the time. But recent DAL news have made them stronger, strong enough to compete with the rest. Also, their popularity does translate to Saimoe strength, at least in part. Of course, their new strength has been untested, so how much is the question.

That said, the whole strength thing has been thrown out the window following the introduction of the new rule, so all the info up till now is as good as garbage. For this year's Saimoe, at least.

In short: your guess is as good as mine.

Originally Posted by Subayai

There are no suspicions of cheating on the part of Shinka and Rikka. No offense, but I think you may have misread someone's comment. There is nothing mysterious in the fact that they received less votes in round 3 than in round 2. It can easily be explained by all the reasons that others have stated above. The truth is that they had been overestimated by many (including me).

If there were any cheat votes, that would be the large amount received by Azusa and Tomoka on the day of the DoS attack. And yet, this is only a suspicion, not a confirmed fact.

That said, because of the DoS attack and to stop any potential cheater, the voting restrictions have increased considerably, so we may see a general decrease in the number of votes starting today. But if this happens, it will partly due the usual stupid policy of "in order to stop one potential cheater, 100 honest people are prevented from voting".

So if it's not cheating, then it's something that AST blocked out for another reason. If it's not someone, then it's more than one person. And if the reason is foreign votes... then everything would make sense.

Sad for Chuu2 that they had to be the first victim of the reduced vote counts though.

Originally Posted by BloodyKitty

So how is Japan's reaction to this?

I wonder too... anyone here has any idea?

Originally Posted by Subayai

I completely agree but by the look of things they are going towards more and more restrictions and they would rather let the tournament die than allow foreign voting.

Most likely just enforce it for the rest of the tournament for the sake of continuity. From next year onwards three things might happen:

1. They continue enforcing it this tightly (or worse), and the whole tournament becomes a farce, and from 2015 there's no AST because there's no point to the tournament anymore;
2. they actually start relaxing the rules completely and let everyone vote, reviving AST; or
3. there's no more AST because this year's is the last.

Originally Posted by Zeroryoko1974

I thought saimoe had always been rigged, especially the lol random draws

I think the draws really were purely random. Votes are a totally different matter, because AST really doesn't want foreigners to vote. The draws on the other hand aren't really influenced much, and in the end there can be only one winner anyway.

[uis]

Sigh i want to make Yoshino sig but i feel lazy now. Go go Yoshino and Main Character.

Oh database database.

[Team Rocket Elite]

Kobato wins as expected but Nodoka losing is very surprising. Perhaps that was due to the increase in voting restrictions which significantly damaged vote totals as well. Supposedly this will hurt Saki and Madoka characters so things may be looking up for those who wanted to challenge the Puella Magi.

[Ichuki]

I wonder what is up with those random Biri biri votes.

[RJ TAYLER]

Form of protest pure and simple?!

[Coldlight]

So Nodoka lost due to an apparent vote reversal. But it was a reversal due to increased restrictions that invalidated legit votes. As if the restrictions couldn't get any tighter we have this. Well, at least my pick Kobato went on to win even after that...

Originally Posted by Subayai

the voting restrictions have increased considerably, so we may see a general decrease in the number of votes starting today. But if this happens, it will partly due the usual stupid policy of "in order to stop one potential cheater, 100 honest people are prevented from voting".

Oh, wow. Just what we need: more restrictions. Great! Agreed, it's the usual knee-jerk response by the tournament admins....

Originally Posted by uis

The previous votes not fake though. It just filthy gaijin votes.

It's the most logical explanation to me. Fakes are always removed at the end of a match anyway, since those have invalid vote codes from the beginning.

Originally Posted by AP24

So were there fake votes in the final results of previous matches?

I think it's more like uis's earlier statement - those were legit votes, but the origins were foreign; and we know just how allergic the organizers are to "those filthy barbarians"...

Originally Posted by iamadooddood

So if it's not cheating, then it's something that AST blocked out for another reason. If it's not someone, then it's more than one person. And if the reason is foreign votes... then everything would make sense.

It perfectly makes sense to me knowing how xenophobic the admins are...

Originally Posted by iamadooddood

From next year onwards three things might happen:

1. They continue enforcing it this tightly (or worse), and the whole tournament becomes a farce, and from 2015 there's no AST because there's no point to the tournament anymore;
2. they actually start relaxing the rules completely and let everyone vote, reviving AST; or
3. there's no more AST because this year's is the last.

From a rather pessimistic point of view, the most likely scenario seems to be 1. The current trend suggests they'd rather squeeze more legit votes out just to keep the hated foreigners away, even if it means banning many more Japanese themselves from voting.

We saimoe followers don't even have a "Triple Crown" to consider anymore with the loss of Korea's Best Moe Tournament, and I'd really hate to lose yet another crown: the oldest and original Saimoe.

Originally Posted by Ichuki

I wonder what is up with those random Biri biri votes.

I thought I also saw a number of random votes yesterday for girls who aren't in the tournament anymore; aside from Biribiri some of those votes were for a number of girls from Hidamari Sketch - the tracker caught those names as "unrecognized nicknames".

[Triple_R]

Mikoto Misaka fans may feel like their girl has been cheated out of a chance at repechage due to too many of Nodoka's votes being thrown out. It's a reasonable position to take, given how incredible Nodoka's vote decline is. So Mikoto fans are writing in "Biri Biri" for protest votes.

It's hard for me to imagine J-SaiMoe ever completely going away, but we're rapidly nearing a point where it's hard for me to imagine more than a few hundred voters (i.e. equivalent to the population of a very tiny rural town) actually caring about this tournament.

It's a shame, because J-SaiMoe's format gives it a nice, distinct feel from ISML. I honestly prefer J-SaiMoe's basic format structure to ISML's, since I think J-SaiMoe's format structure enables for a wider range of matches and more turnover at the top end than ISML's. But nice format alone can't keep a tournament strong.