International Saimoe League 2011

[Rajura]

ARENA 01: Fujibayashi Kyō [Shiina Mafuyu]
ARENA 02: Laura Bodewig [Gokō Ruri (Kuroneko)]
ARENA 03: [Izumi Konata] Yui
ARENA 04: Furukawa Nagisa [Akiyama Mio]
ARENA 05: C.C. [Sanzen'in Nagi]
ARENA 06: Katsura Hinagiku [Last Order]
ARENA 07: Hirasawa Ui [Nakano Azusa]
ARENA 08: [Aragaki Ayase] Senjōgahara Hitagi
ARENA 09: Haruna [Hirasawa Yui]
ARENA 10: Victorique de Blois [Iwasawa Asami]
ARENA 11: [Misaka Mikoto] Shirai Kuroko
ARENA 12: Kotobuki Tsumugi [Hiiragi Kagami]
ARENA 13: Eucliwood Hellscythe [Tōsaka Rin]
ARENA 14: Nakamura Yuri [Index L. Prohibitorum]
ARENA 15: Huang Lingyin [Saber]
ARENA 16: [Aisaka Taiga] Kuroi Mato
ARENA 17: Sengoku Nadeko [Kasugano Sora]
ARENA 18: Suzumiya Haruhi [Fate Testarossa]
ARENA 19: Kōsaka Kirino [Shiina]
ARENA 20: [Seraphim] Shana
ARENA 21: [Nagato Yuki] Konjiki no Yami
ARENA 22: Tachibana Kanade [Shinonono Hōki]
ARENA 23: Asahina Mikuru [Sakagami Tomoyo]
ARENA 24: Nymph [Holo]
ARENA 25: [Charlotte Dunois] Louise Vallière
ARENA 26: Li Meiling [Yuzuhara Konomi]

[Zeroryoko1974]

ARENA 01: [Fujibayashi Kyō] Shiina Mafuyu
ARENA 02: Laura Bodewig [Gokō Ruri (Kuroneko)]
ARENA 03: Izumi Konata [Yui]
ARENA 04: Furukawa Nagisa [Akiyama Mio]
ARENA 05: [C.C.] Sanzen'in Nagi
ARENA 06: Katsura Hinagiku [Last Order]
ARENA 07: Hirasawa Ui [Nakano Azusa]
ARENA 08: Aragaki Ayase [Senjōgahara Hitagi]
ARENA 09: Haruna [Hirasawa Yui]
ARENA 10: [Victorique de Blois] Iwasawa Asami
ARENA 11: [Misaka Mikoto] Shirai Kuroko
ARENA 12: [Kotobuki Tsumugi] Hiiragi Kagami
ARENA 13: [Eucliwood Hellscythe] Tōsaka Rin
ARENA 14: [Nakamura Yuri] Index L. Prohibitorum
ARENA 15: Huang Lingyin [Saber]
ARENA 16: Aisaka Taiga [Kuroi Mato]
ARENA 17: [Sengoku Nadeko] Kasugano Sora
ARENA 18: [Suzumiya Haruhi] Fate Testarossa
ARENA 19: Kōsaka Kirino [Shiina]
ARENA 20: [Seraphim] Shana
ARENA 21: [Nagato Yuki] Konjiki no Yami
ARENA 22: [Tachibana Kanade] Shinonono Hōki
ARENA 23: [Asahina Mikuru] Sakagami Tomoyo
ARENA 24: Nymph [Holo]
ARENA 25: [Charlotte Dunois] Louise Vallière
ARENA 26: [Li Meiling] Yuzuhara Konomi

[CrowKenobi]

Konakaga, I at your rant.

ARENA 01: [Fujibayashi Kyō] Shiina Mafuyu
ARENA 02: Laura Bodewig [Gokō Ruri (Kuroneko)]
ARENA 03: [Izumi Konata] Yui
ARENA 04: Furukawa Nagisa [Akiyama Mio]
ARENA 05: C.C. [Sanzen'in Nagi]
ARENA 06: [Katsura Hinagiku] Last Order
ARENA 07: Hirasawa Ui [Nakano Azusa]
ARENA 08: Aragaki Ayase [Senjōgahara Hitagi]
ARENA 09: Haruna [Hirasawa Yui]
ARENA 10: [Victorique de Blois] Iwasawa Asami
ARENA 11: [Misaka Mikoto] Shirai Kuroko
ARENA 12: Kotobuki Tsumugi [Hiiragi Kagami]
ARENA 13: [Eucliwood Hellscythe] Tōsaka Rin
ARENA 14: Nakamura Yuri [Index L. Prohibitorum]
ARENA 15: [Huang Lingyin] Saber
ARENA 16: [Aisaka Taiga] Kuroi Mato
ARENA 17: Sengoku Nadeko [Kasugano Sora]
ARENA 18: [Suzumiya Haruhi] Fate Testarossa
ARENA 19: [Kōsaka Kirino] Shiina
ARENA 20: Seraphim [Shana]
ARENA 21: Nagato Yuki [Konjiki no Yami]
ARENA 22: Tachibana Kanade [Shinonono Hōki]
ARENA 23: [Asahina Mikuru] Sakagami Tomoyo
ARENA 24: Nymph [Holo]
ARENA 25: [Charlotte Dunois] Louise Vallière
ARENA 26: Li Meiling [Yuzuhara Konomi]

[Archon_Wing]

ARENA 01: [Fujibayashi Kyō] Shiina Mafuyu
ARENA 02: Laura Bodewig [Gokō Ruri (Kuroneko)]
ARENA 03: [Izumi Konata] Yui
ARENA 04: [Furukawa Nagisa] Akiyama Mio
ARENA 05: [C.C.] Sanzen'in Nagi
ARENA 06: Katsura Hinagiku [Abstained] Last Order
ARENA 07: Hirasawa Ui [Abstained] Nakano Azusa
ARENA 08: Aragaki Ayase [Abstained] Senjōgahara Hitagi
ARENA 09: Haruna [Abstained] Hirasawa Yui
ARENA 10: [Victorique de Blois] Iwasawa Asami
ARENA 11: [Misaka Mikoto] Shirai Kuroko
I think Mikoto's had enough of your sexual harassment...

ARENA 12: Kotobuki Tsumugi [Hiiragi Kagami]
ARENA 13: Eucliwood Hellscythe [Tōsaka Rin]
ARENA 14: [Nakamura Yuri] Index L. Prohibitorum
ARENA 15: Huang Lingyin [Saber]
ARENA 16: Aisaka Taiga [Abstained] Kuroi Mato
ARENA 17: Sengoku Nadeko [Kasugano Sora]
ARENA 18: Suzumiya Haruhi [Fate Testarossa]
ARENA 19: Kōsaka Kirino [Shiina]
ARENA 20: Seraphim [Shana]
ARENA 21: [Nagato Yuki] Konjiki no Yami
Uh oh, battle of the quiet book reading girls. This was really close.

ARENA 22: [Tachibana Kanade] Shinonono Hōki
ARENA 23: Asahina Mikuru [Sakagami Tomoyo]
ARENA 24: Nymph [Abstained] Holo
ARENA 25: Charlotte Dunois [Abstained] Louise Vallière
ARENA 26: Li Meiling [Abstained] Yuzuhara Konomi

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Konakaga

I can understand the leaning away from Anizone.net given recent events, but I don't understand how that rules out all october or later characters[we had a few this year already Mio, Sayaka, Shiori, and Mami], and why it also rules out saimoe as an auto-qualification for new characters. And shouldn't the ones who made it into the prelims, but failed to make the regular season have data enough to show their powers to some extend?

Very simple reason is that the SE phase starts in October and ends in Mid-November. We won't have the time to accumulate sufficient data on people's reception to girls who newly appeared in 2011 October, and by November, SE would be ending, so we won't have Exhibition to accommodate them. In order to give these a chance, we would need to hold special matches in December, and that has problems of its own.

As for J-Saimoe, it is a contest where very select group of people are allowed to vote, and sports a format where the correlation value between order of finish and actual strength level in randomized simulations to be much less than 0.7 . ISML wishes to be international event. KBM is no longer considered because they publicly announced that they want to be local event, just like J-Saimoe, but still KBM offers much more access to international anime community in opportunities to vote AND opportunities to directly interact with Staff members. I do not see how J-Saimoe would be better than KBM in any aspect in term of gauging INTERNATIONAL popularity of a character, since J-Saimoe is optimized to be a sport for 2-chan people only ( thus not even the whole Japan ) .

I mean really for example I feel some characters by now should have had an Exhibition by now by their high nomination counts, but failure to make it past prelims[Madoka, Homura, Elsie, or Merry] instead older characters who did much worse in the prelims were given not one, but two matches each[Rei, Asuka, Sakura, Misuzu, both Ai-s] or worse Hinata, Lucy, Chii, and Kagura who didn't even make it into the prelims this year were deemed worthy of two matches each and one of them is probably getting a free ticket into prelim over another character that is actually supported.
Or plenty of pre-october girls from 2010 not getting any Exhibitions who had did decently in prelims, but then were forgotten [Nanoha, Amagami SS girls, Fumino, Saten, Uihara, or Okami Ryouko for examples] or countless ones who didn't make it past the prelims by a small margin to be ignored.

This pattern really makes it seems like Exhibition serve to give the staff a chance to push their favorites into the prelims next year since they select who gets more than one match, or who avoids facing any real threats[Especially Kagura in Amethyst]. And if is the case is true then this can hardly be called better than Anizone.net's actions.

Addition I don't agree with characters getting in from an Exhibitions match where people are forced to vote regardless of their wanting to abstain since in round 8 you have to vote in it if you want to vote for the necklace winner. Which greatly reduces the validity of any character advancing from it to me.

Here is the reason why there needs to be considered some auto-qualifiers.

Some heavy favorites will absorb so much nominations that it will make it harder to judge who are the # 25 to 100 just by the nomination tally. We may be wasting large proportion of resources into counting nominations for those everyone knows to be within top 20 for 2012.

The number 25 is just 2*number of nomination slot + 1. #100 is 96 + 3 ~ 5 , where 3 ~ 5 being the number of contestants being close enough to cutoff point. The argument about wasting resource is because more popular a character is, in more diverse spelling, more diverse error, and more numerous language they appear in the nomination. ISML receives nomination in any language people wants to send them, and do not wish to change that tradition. This means we can't have generic English check box people can use for nomination. This also means we can't have model answers in Japanese like J-Saimoe. The favorite being some kind of nomination sink is a big problem, and the 16 slots set aside for possible autoqualifying via exhibition is a method to best guess who these sinks will be.

As for potential for Staff to push certain characters upon the voters, we are aware of the whole thing appearing as such. We do hope to use as many data as possible in selection of the characters and matches for the auto-qualifying cases. The data we look upon will still include J-Saimoe, but we will look at the plethora of polls out in the world, as well as constantly hold polls in the forum to see how people's interests are changing. We will make sure that we will have very good supporting data to present for each character's qualification. Still this can't be guaranteed to satisfy everyone, and we may miss a key character or two by accident. Please understand that we try to please as many people as humanly possible, but we mere mortals have limits despite our best attempts to overcome them.

As for newer characters you mentioned, they all will be in exhibition matches soon. One of the reasons they weren't exhibited yet, was because we wanted to know more of their lasting power. We haven't forgotten them and will give them fair chances soon.

Another thing to note is that older character's popularity is harder to judge compared to characters that were around for a year or two. There are much conflicting data around them, and there also exists certain regions in the world which still supports them fervently. For example, if the number of voters from Korea was twice what it was in prelim, you would have seen those older or weaker characters do much better in the prelim. Can Korea increase its participating voter by twice? I think so because the largest number of voters from Korea in our records was not from 2011 : They were larger before and may return to that number or exceed them. It was these and other difficulties that lead us to try an old-timer tournament in the exhibition matches, the tournament which abruptly had to be stopped due to lack of support from poster here.

The issue of being forced to vote is one that puzzles me. None of the votes can be forced, but we should try to accept as much input from the people as possible. There still isn't any match where you must vote. We merely made exhibition mean little more than it used to. Why must the side match, which we call exhibition match currently, be kept as meaningless as possible? In fact, do most people want to keep it as meaningless as possible?

If people object to these exhibition slots, we will get rid of them. Then we will have straight 32 from ISML 2011 regular season, and 112 from nominations. I do not think this is a good idea even if people are allowed to nominate 18 characters, but would this be more appealing to you?

Also, can you kind of give us review and summary of some concrete details of what changes you would like? So far it seems that you want
1. Increase in nomination slots, perhaps to 18 or more.
2. Keep J-Saimoe as autoqualifyer condition.
3. Not use exhibition for autoqualifying condition.

Are these right? Please tell me if I misread you and/or there are other changes you would like to see.

Finally, think of the 3 who are penciled in via exhibition. Kinomoto Sakura always made the prelim or even regular season in every year prelim was held. Sakura remains favorite of so many people, I have no doubt she will garner large nomination again. Kagura is from Gintama which is still on going. Kagura always received heavy number of nominations from female anime fans, and I see many indication that this will continue for very long time. Kagura also made to prelim in 2009 and 2010. Kagura missed this year's prelim by mere 2 votes. Recent data indicates that number of female voters are increasing and they will support Kagura more than most of the candidates you mentioned. We might as well honor female anime fans with Kagura Auto-qualifying. Shiomiya Shiori was one of those to narrowly miss 2011 regular season, and she beat Tomoe Mami in the group match stage. I really don't see much chance that she will be missing from nomination in 2012. We also need to consider that Shiori has continuing role in the manga, and upcoming Kami Nomi OVA may have some scenes for her. All these 3 are extremely unlikely to not make it to prelim via nomination, so my argument is why waste valuable nomination slot for them?








Plea to everyone : I would really like to hear from everyone, no matter how short or unsure your opinion is. Surely you don't want the whole thing do be decided by discussion between only the staff and Konakaga?

[Ash Falls Town]

You have to vote in all 5 matches in the necklace rounds if you want to vote in any match in the necklace round.

The issue of being forced to vote is one that puzzles me. None of the votes can be forced, but we should try to accept as much input from the people as possible. There still isn't any match where you must vote. We merely made exhibition mean little more than it used to. Why must the side match, which we call exhibition match currently, be kept as meaningless as possible? In fact, do most people want to keep it as meaningless as possible?

In regards to necklace matches this is therefore completely false.

Anyway exhibition matches are a chance for people to vote for girls they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Making them important for next year restricts the girls you can put in exhibition matches in good faith.

If I were a staff member and Sumomo and Yako showed up in the exhibition match I'm sure all the voters would be suspicious. And by that logic no one from Sora no Manimani will ever be able to be an exhibition character without suspicion being cast on Kholdstare. Etc
(Sorry I just know you like that show and that it's not that popular.)
(You still haven't done the Raimei/Cross Game girl exhibition match you promised in 2009.)
(I probably should worry more about ISML politics when I ACTUALLY VOTE IN THE TOURNEY ON A REGULAR BASIS though.)

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Ash Falls Town

You have to vote in all 5 matches in the necklace rounds if you want to vote in any match in the necklace round.
In regards to necklace matches this is therefore completely false.

Anyway exhibition matches are a chance for people to vote for girls they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Making them important for next year restricts the girls you can put in exhibition matches in good faith.

If I were a staff member and Sumomo and Yako showed up in the exhibition match I'm sure all the voters would be suspicious. And by that logic no one from Sora no Manimani will ever be able to be an exhibition character without suspicion being cast on Kholdstare. Etc
(Sorry I just know you like that show and that it's not that popular.)
(You still haven't done the Raimei/Cross Game girl exhibition match you promised in 2009.)
(I probably should worry more about ISML politics when I ACTUALLY VOTE IN THE TOURNEY ON A REGULAR BASIS though.)

1. Starting from Ruby, there will be total of 6 matches in the Necklace group round.
2. Starting from Ruby, at least 3, if not more, of the matches will feature characters from popular series in 2010 to 2011.
3. Having multiple level of voting reduces the chance of staff being dictate who gets autoqualify. Of the 14 characters in Exhibition match in a necklace period, only 1 may get auto-qualified. That 1 character would have to beat 6 other exhibition winner. As long as 3 or more of the winners are characters who seems to enjoy good amount of popularity, I think we still will be able to select someone with good amount of popularity and fervent fan base.
4. Who we have in exhibition is a choice that is not easy to make. We have following competing desires to satisfy.

1. Characters unlikely to appear in ISML via nomination or prelim
2. Characters people used to like yet have forgotten
3. Characters chosen by people who won the Fantasy Game
4. Character who is chosen by someone as reward for their service
5. Recent character who are popular
6. Character whose strength level is in question
7. Characters in interesting rivalry
8. Characters we expect to see in the next year
9. Other reasons

Complicating the matter is that there are some characters that is buried in people's memory. These characters gets strong support in 1-vs-1 setting but do poorly in group match setting or open nominations. Also, for some reason, certain character just don't do well against a certain other character. This year, we tried to make things more exciting by holding an exhibition tournament. The posters here never supported it, thus it was scrapped. We believe we can maximize the potential to use the exhibition matches as means to gather data. As of now, I can only promise that we will try our best to balance all these competing needs.
5. As noted before, use of exhibition and way to use the exhibition has not been fully decided. It would help us greatly if you can provide us with some ideas as how to address the problem of heavy favorites being nomination sink. If people really wants to use J-Saimoe or KBM as we used to, we can do that, but you have to let us know not only that you want us to use them, but also how to use them, because there are so many possibilities: just accept the winners? top 4? top 32? Wait do they have top 32 ?
What should we do about the overlaps? etc.
6. If there are 2 or 3 weak character matches in exhibition, the winner of these matches won't do well in winners' group match. Again, as long as we have 3 or more popular character matches within a necklace period, I think we can juggle having auto-qualifying relevant matches, hard to see matches, and some interesting matches proposed by people like you.
7. My apology about (You still haven't done the Raimei/Cross Game girl exhibition match you promised in 2009.) . I will bring this up to staff meeting and see what I can do.
8. Do vote, please. All this talk about using exhibition matches is partly motivated by the fact that people typically ignores those matches. Many people have asked a character to be in the exhibition so more people may enjoy these characters. We hope this increase in the importance makes more people research the characters being exhibited .
9. I welcome more criticism and comments. All your concerns can't be immediately addressed, but once we know them, we will think about them and try our best to satisfy you.

[Chaos2Frozen]

ARENA 01: Fujibayashi Kyō [Shiina Mafuyu]
ARENA 02: Laura Bodewig [Gokō Ruri (Kuroneko)]
ARENA 03: Izumi Konata [Abstained] Yui
ARENA 04: Furukawa Nagisa [Akiyama Mio]
ARENA 05: [C.C.] Sanzen'in Nagi
ARENA 06: [Katsura Hinagiku] Last Order
ARENA 07: Hirasawa Ui [Abstained] Nakano Azusa
ARENA 08: Aragaki Ayase [Senjōgahara Hitagi]
ARENA 09: Haruna [Abstained] Hirasawa Yui
ARENA 10: [Victorique de Blois] Iwasawa Asami
ARENA 11: [Misaka Mikoto] Shirai Kuroko
ARENA 12: [Kotobuki Tsumugi] Hiiragi Kagami
ARENA 13: [Eucliwood Hellscythe] Tōsaka Rin
ARENA 14: Nakamura Yuri [Index L. Prohibitorum]
ARENA 15: Huang Lingyin [Saber]
ARENA 16: Aisaka Taiga [Abstained] Kuroi Mato
ARENA 17: [Sengoku Nadeko] Kasugano Sora
ARENA 18: [Suzumiya Haruhi] Fate Testarossa
ARENA 19: [Kōsaka Kirino] Shiina
ARENA 20: Seraphim [Shana]
ARENA 21: [Nagato Yuki] Konjiki no Yami
ARENA 22: Tachibana Kanade [Shinonono Hōki]
ARENA 23: Asahina Mikuru [Abstained] Sakagami Tomoyo
ARENA 24: [Nymph] Holo
ARENA 25: [Charlotte Dunois] Louise Vallière
ARENA 26: [Li Meiling] Yuzuhara Konomi

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by wontaek

1. Starting from Ruby, there will be total of 6 matches in the Necklace group round.
2. Starting from Ruby, at least 3, if not more, of the matches will feature characters from popular series in 2010 to 2011.
3. Having multiple level of voting reduces the chance of staff being dictate who gets autoqualify. Of the 14 characters in Exhibition match in a necklace period, only 1 may get auto-qualified. That 1 character would have to beat 6 other exhibition winner. As long as 3 or more of the winners are characters who seems to enjoy good amount of popularity, I think we still will be able to select someone with good amount of popularity and fervent fan base.
4. Who we have in exhibition is a choice that is not easy to make. We have following competing desires to satisfy.

Thank you for the info on that for 1., that's an important change as not being able to abstain in any of the group gives false interest/support of character since some people would likely just voted based on some minor factor since they have to in accord to vote for who they want on the necklace currently. With that change I'd be much more for that Exhibition round possibly being used autoqualify, though I am still againist some characters being given multiply chances in it compared to others. If it isn't used for autoqualify then it's fine, otherwise it's a bit unfair. As long as Exhibition matches that give a chance to autoqualify are restricted to one per character[then can still appear a second in the extra ones during round 8s] and you have some choice to vote or not on it in round 8, I am not againist it. Those were my two biggest issues with it aside from the character choices for it .

Also I can see the issue with usage of J-Saimoe/KBM results, but there should be someway to allow some of larger new nomination sinks to be avoided. So I am not quite sure what do about this. A possible solution to it perhaps is to use the top 16[or 32] of J-Saimoe[who aren't in ISML top 32] for a set of Exhibition matches during the elimination round[timing wise allows this] and the 4[or 8?] that did best[thus most support] would be autoqualified for prelim next year, thus allowing a chance for some newer characters to get in thus hoping reducing nomination sinks somewhat, but still gauging that have support in ISML. I think something like that would better than simply just using results of either of them to autoqualify characters.

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Konakaga

Thank you for the info on that for 1., that's an important change as not being able to abstain in any of the group gives false interest/support of character since some people would likely just voted based on some minor factor since they have to in accord to vote for who they want on the necklace currently. With that change I'd be much more for that Exhibition round possibly being used autoqualify, though I am still againist some characters being given multiply chances in it compared to others. If it isn't used for autoqualify then it's fine, otherwise it's a bit unfair. As long as Exhibition matches that give a chance to autoqualify are restricted to one per character[then can still appear a second in the extra ones during round 8s] and you have some choice to vote or not on it in round 8, I am not againist it. Those were my two biggest issues with it aside from the character choices for it .

Also I can see the issue with usage of J-Saimoe/KBM results, but there should be someway to allow some of larger new nomination sinks to be avoided. So I am not quite sure what do about this. A possible solution to it perhaps is to use the top 16[or 32] of J-Saimoe[who aren't in ISML top 32] for a set of Exhibition matches during the elimination round[timing wise allows this] and the 4[or 8?] that did best[thus most support] would be autoqualified for prelim next year, thus allowing a chance for some newer characters to get in thus hoping reducing nomination sinks somewhat, but still gauging that have support in ISML. I think something like that would better than simply just using results of either of them to autoqualify characters.

The multiple chance issue is from something that happened before changes to autoqualifying rule was suggested. We will have the characters receive equal chances via exhibition for remainder of this year.

Your proposal about an event in Elimination round will be discussed, but I still have problem of using solely the J-saimoe results. It is highly likely that many of the often discussed probable nomination sinks will be assassinated before reaching top 32 in J-Saimoe : J-Saimoe is designed to maximize these assassination opportunity. Despite all its fault, KBM's top 32 is more likely to be populated with those we think are likely to be the nomination sink, but the 'quality' of KBM's results will be much, much worse compared to its glory days in 2007 and 2008, due to changes in its tournament structure and the attitude of the organizer. ( It will take a long wall of text to discuss what we should call 'quality' ) Following example may clearly illustrate this. According to many polls, and especially this one, http://www.internationalsaimoe.com/f...hp?f=27&t=2082 , which is a poll designed to find these nomination sink, Akemi Homura and Elsie's numbers make me guess that these 2 are the ones most likely to show increase in their power in 2012 prelim compared to 2011 prelim, the one where they narrowly missed the regular season. Akemi Homura is OUT in the FIRST round in J-Saimoe. Either Homura or Elsie will be out in the round of 96 in KBM. Due to staggering number of blog posts that mentions Homura or Elsie, any exhibition event in Elimination rounds for auto-qualifying purpose needs to include them to see whether they are worth their hype, or it is empty balloon buoyed by few zealots. Using solely J-Saimoe or KBM will not let us test both girls against some worthy opponents, as at least one of these 2 girls won't make it to top 32 in either tournament. The fundamental reason why ISML strength and these two tournament results differ is because while ISML is interested in playing fair and letting the voter's preference win out often, neither of these two tournaments are interested in playing fair ( Voter selection by these two tournaments before the voting is a good example ) nor letting the voter's preference be reflected as much as possible in the results ( randomly assigned group of 3 match with only 1 winner being allowed to advance is one of the many example ): In fact, both openly seek delight in making as large a number of people as possible, despair.

While the plans for the Auto-Qualifying event in the Elimination rounds are still being made, I think the best one will include some from those who did well in J-Saimoe 2011, some who did well in KBM 2011, and some whom we have some reasons to think that their ISML strength was not reflected in their J-Saimoe/KBM performance. We can try to set the matches so that no match will have all its characters from only one of these 3 groups, thus even if a staff sneaks in some weak characters, they can't survive. The exact numbers are still being debated as there is limit to exhibition matches we can hold, so some inputs as to the number and selection process, as well as advocating and providing some data for certain character's worldly popularity would be very welcome. When considering the numbers, please be advised that in elimination rounds, we will have 3 ~ 4 exhibition matches for every match day. I also advise advocating for the character in the poll I linked above.

[CrowKenobi]

If the exhibition winners are going to be given a "higher" standing, then I believe that the "qualifying" exhibition winners need to have a SE all their own. I know that it would be hard to run it, but at least we can get a seed rank and find out who has the most potential to make it to the regular season in the following year.

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by CrowKenobi

If the exhibition winners are going to be given a "higher" standing, then I believe that the "qualifying" exhibition winners need to have a SE all their own. I know that it would be hard to run it, but at least we can get a seed rank and find out who has the most potential to make it to the regular season in the following year.

If you mean standing as seeding going into prelim round, you need not worry. The NEW phase I of 2012 prelim is designed that even if you assign all seeds totally backward, or just pure random seeding, by the end of phase I, everyone will be aligned close to their true strength. In simpler words, initial seeding won't matter significantly in the final standing. I did several randomized test to make sure it wouldn't matter. Doing a good job in the initial seeding will make the results be more obvious earlier, but the end result will be very similar no matter how you initially seed the characters. There is one draw back though. This requires using a pretty nifty trick from numerical methods for the format, so even though the entire process will be transparent and be replicable by anyone who sees the publicly made known rules to the format, people will have hard time understanding what is happening until all characters 'magically' line up in the 'right' order.

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by wontaek

The multiple chance issue is from something that happened before changes to autoqualifying rule was suggested. We will have the characters receive equal chances via exhibition for remainder of this year.

Your proposal about an event in Elimination round will be discussed, but I still have problem of using solely the J-saimoe results. It is highly likely that many of the often discussed probable nomination sinks will be assassinated before reaching top 32 in J-Saimoe : J-Saimoe is designed to maximize these assassination opportunity. Despite all its fault, KBM's top 32 is more likely to be populated with those we think are likely to be the nomination sink, but the 'quality' of KBM's results will be much, much worse compared to its glory days in 2007 and 2008, due to changes in its tournament structure and the attitude of the organizer. ( It will take a long wall of text to discuss what we should call 'quality' ) Following example may clearly illustrate this. According to many polls, and especially this one, http://www.internationalsaimoe.com/f...hp?f=27&t=2082 , which is a poll designed to find these nomination sink, Akemi Homura and Elsie's numbers make me guess that these 2 are the ones most likely to show increase in their power in 2012 prelim compared to 2011 prelim, the one where they narrowly missed the regular season. Akemi Homura is OUT in the FIRST round in J-Saimoe. Either Homura or Elsie will be out in the round of 96 in KBM. Due to staggering number of blog posts that mentions Homura or Elsie, any exhibition event in Elimination rounds for auto-qualifying purpose needs to include them to see whether they are worth their hype, or it is empty balloon buoyed by few zealots. Using solely J-Saimoe or KBM will not let us test both girls against some worthy opponents, as at least one of these 2 girls won't make it to top 32 in either tournament. The fundamental reason why ISML strength and these two tournament results differ is because while ISML is interested in playing fair and letting the voter's preference win out often, neither of these two tournaments are interested in playing fair ( Voter selection by these two tournaments before the voting is a good example ) nor letting the voter's preference be reflected as much as possible in the results ( randomly assigned group of 3 match with only 1 winner being allowed to advance is one of the many example ): In fact, both openly seek delight in making as large a number of people as possible, despair.

While the plans for the Auto-Qualifying event in the Elimination rounds are still being made, I think the best one will include some from those who did well in J-Saimoe 2011, some who did well in KBM 2011, and some whom we have some reasons to think that their ISML strength was not reflected in their J-Saimoe/KBM performance. We can try to set the matches so that no match will have all its characters from only one of these 3 groups, thus even if a staff sneaks in some weak characters, they can't survive. The exact numbers are still being debated as there is limit to exhibition matches we can hold, so some inputs as to the number and selection process, as well as advocating and providing some data for certain character's worldly popularity would be very welcome. When considering the numbers, please be advised that in elimination rounds, we will have 3 ~ 4 exhibition matches for every match day. I also advise advocating for the character in the poll I linked above.

Hmmm... Yea I do agree on that issue regards to some characters getting taking out too early in one of them due draw in match order. Using both and some others sounds fair and like a good idea to me [Though Staff should try to only pick girls who had a series/movie/OVAs in 2010-2011 for the extra slots during it].

[broken270]

So, who here can tell me who Ana Coppola (Ichigo Mashimaro) and/or Tōdō Shimako (Maria-sama ga Miteru) are because I know nothing about either girls and either shows?

[ion475]

Originally Posted by broken270

So, who here can tell me who Ana Coppola (Ichigo Mashimaro) and/or Tōdō Shimako (Maria-sama ga Miteru) are because I know nothing about either girls and either shows?

They are not really THAT outlandish, are they? (No, I haven't watch either anime either...Ichigo Marshmellow I've heard of (Just b/c it's slice of life...) but it's from like 2005, the time I started following anime VERY closely, while Maria-sama is just too much yuri for me to bother with it...). I mean, at least Maria-sama (at least the latest season) is in 2009, not that long ago...

Other than that, Round 1 results out, nothing special as expected, barely any close match as well (Except, of course, Holo...she won though which should keep Rajura happy...for a round...).

[RegalStar]

Holo should be strong enough to defeat Rin as well, albeit with similar margins. That would be it for Holo in Ruby, though. She can't defeat Index, much less Kagami or above.

Also, R.I.P. Ui and Kuroko.

[broken270]

I am very pleased that Konomi won against Meiling by that amount. Thank you, To Heart series fanbase.

Back to "topic"?, as long as there will be recent girls performing in SE's exhibition matches, I am content. I do understand why exhibition matches are important, but, at the same time, something feels off about that idea. I cannot put my tongue on it. I simply feel that a majority of all of the girls in the exhibition matches that we have currently (looking at round 1-7, not 8) would most likely not do well in preliminary and may even wind up at low tier range. Most of these girls are from series unknown or in the back of people's heads, and I am sure many want current girls of 2010 and 2011 to appear sometime soon. I do understand why Sakura, Kagura, and Shiori might as well be auto qualified for more space to allow more girls to enter the fray. Again, as long as the majority of matches in SE are from recent series matches, I am fine with you guys trying to figure out basing on that data and other data elsewhere which girls would have no problem making it through the nomination period and auto-qualifying them. If the majority of matches bode "old girls" that people may or may not have heard of, there is a problem.

[Team Rocket Elite]

Two strong attempts at joining the 80+% in a match club but Azusa and Mikoto fall short. Kanade is still the only character this year to break 80% in a match (and she did it twice). Hinagiku did well in her match. Without significantly chaging in strength, Hinagiku doesn't really have any debatable matches left but getting stronger never hurts. I mean, Kanade also looked good in her match and there's no one within a lightyear of her in terms of strength. Kirino and Yuri also produced solid results. Yuki has a big match coming up later so a weak performance on Yami isn't a good start. It's not a huge underperformance but Yuki needs to really be in top form. Victorique is on the fringe of making the Top 16 for the year and she doesn't reallt beat Iwasawa as badly as she should. This isn't a match that matters but Victorique really can't afford to have any bad matches that lead to a loss. Eucliwood looks a bit weak against Rin. However, like Hinagiku, Eucliwood doesn't really have any debatable matches left. It would be nice if she got a bit stronger, though. After a pretty good Emerald, Charlotte opens Ruby with a bad match against Louise. It doesn't really matter. Charlotte will probably end up winning her close matches like she usually does anyways.

[wontaek]

Originally Posted by Konakaga

Hmmm... Yea I do agree on that issue regards to some characters getting taking out too early in one of them due draw in match order. Using both and some others sounds fair and like a good idea to me [Though Staff should try to only pick girls who had a series/movie/OVAs in 2010-2011 for the extra slots during it].

Originally Posted by broken270

I am very pleased that Konomi won against Meiling by that amount. Thank you, To Heart series fanbase.

Back to "topic"?, as long as there will be recent girls performing in SE's exhibition matches, I am content. I do understand why exhibition matches are important, but, at the same time, something feels off about that idea. I cannot put my tongue on it. I simply feel that a majority of all of the girls in the exhibition matches that we have currently (looking at round 1-7, not 8) would most likely not do well in preliminary and may even wind up at low tier range. Most of these girls are from series unknown or in the back of people's heads, and I am sure many want current girls of 2010 and 2011 to appear sometime soon. I do understand why Sakura, Kagura, and Shiori might as well be auto qualified for more space to allow more girls to enter the fray. Again, as long as the majority of matches in SE are from recent series matches, I am fine with you guys trying to figure out basing on that data and other data elsewhere which girls would have no problem making it through the nomination period and auto-qualifying them. If the majority of matches bode "old girls" that people may or may not have heard of, there is a problem.

A new twist has occurred making this exhibition talk potentially obsolete. A Radical Idea just emerged from the meeting. And I thought I was the troublemaker who always made things complicated.........

[Crisu]

You still are; don't worry.