I think there should be two levels: tournaments and challenges. Torunaments should be more strictly controlled and sanctioned by the mods while challenges would be the more free form and run the risk of cancellation and possible corruption. In short, join challenges at yur own risk but you can feel a tournament is above reproach and run honest.

To the end, I already asked Kestas after my last (not inconsiderable) donation to male a TD role where a mod could assign TD powers to specific games recognized as sanctioned tournaments. Then the TD could boot players or rearrange powers or force pause/unpause if necessary.

I think that we should have one, codified set of rules for tournaments. That way, everybody knows what they are going in. And if someone wants to start a "unique" tournament, they can make alterations to a set of rules that are already in place.

I agree that Tournaments and challenges/custom games should be treated different. What seems to have happened is over time these custom games have somehow all morphed into Tournaments.

@Jim - Then there would be no distinction between them. There needs to be the variation like anon versus non and simultaneous versus sequential or staggered games and such.

I don't think there should be a vigorous approval process for tournaments, but there should be a vigorous approval process for TDs.

@Draug - But the basics would be the same. How people are notified. How long you have to join. What happens going into the second round. Stuff like that.

I like Draug's suggestion - tournaments like the Masters and the Leagues require time and effort to organise, and committed players, and shouldn't be set up willy-nilly. Giving them Official sanction seems fine. And the rules for those are pretty well established

What I feel we need to do is create a set of existing, cyclical tournaments (for example, the Masters Tournament) that we can specifically designate as tournaments while everything else would have its own category, like Challenges. The difference between my proposal and Draug's is that there would be *no* approval process for tournaments; rather, every to-be tournament would begin as a challenge and could eventually become a tournament if a) the members of the original challenge thought it was run well, and b) it generates enough interest to play more than one game so that you have a championship, bracket-like feel. If there's only a single game, it shouldn't be a designated tournament.

But, who's going to oversee all these challenges? The Mods? That doesn't really save any time.

@abge - like I said above, make becoming a TD into some sort of approval process. Have the mods only approve people that they are sure can handle the tourney and will not just skip town while it is going on. That should reduce the amount of mod time considerably.

OK, so are you proposing the Mods basically stop supporting custom games that aren't tournaments?

@abge - What do you define as custom games?

For instance, Draug recently wanted to try a game where points are returned at the end. That's a custom game that requires Mods support.

By itself, that's not a big deal, but when you have 50 such games that are more involved, it becomes very time consuming.

If that is the definition, then absolutely. Why make this harder on the mods than it already is? Tell us what it acceptable and screw the rest.

My thoughts, for what their worth. After the games/tournament is set up, the mods job is done. If the people who join bitch because they thought it was something other than what it is then next time "let the player beware". Since I mostly play in gunboats, the only role for a mod, IMO, is for them to rearrange countries so a player isn't playing the same one more than once IF that is stated before the tournament starts. The only other time a mod would be involved would be IF there were a cheating accusation made, but that is no different than a normal game any way.

Jut saw the point thing. That would be something the mods would have to do. I can see where that would be a pain.

It does seem like having a TD role that mods/admins could hand out to those they approve would help you greatly. Then the definition of a tournament depends on whether or not the games are being run by a TD or not.

Other "special rules" games are then something that mods/admins could choose to support or not, depending on the expected load and what they are willing to do. I think mods/admins should feel okay about saying no.

Of course having a limited mod account type would help, but that isn't going to happen, so we're trying to come up with other solutions.

You guys could always add some more people to the crew if the populous here is outgrowing the work that you guys are expecting to put in. It may not solve all of your problems but it could help with the workload aspect.

Thank you abge for posing this question. As both a mod and a TD, I have to say being a TD saps a lot of my ability to do mod work, but really to be a TD for most of these tournaments you need to be a mod, or be in constant contact with one.

Then, if you really have to be a mod or in constant contact with one to be a TD, it seems easier for mods to be the only TDs. And since you guys are stretched thin, then tourneys should be few and far between. Maybe if each mod takes one or two tourneys each year, it would save time, and mod work, in the long run.

how many tournaments do there really need to be? masters, leagues, gunboat, world cup and gfdt. and these only need to be run once a year and in the case of the world cup, maybe even less. am i missing anything?

So lets say I want to start a "tournament." Since it is not one of the official tourneys, there will be some changes. First, no shuffling of powers. That is a mod thing and I am not a mod, so I don't ask. I set up the games, make the brakets, etc. Everyone knows it is not an official tourney, so it is join at your own risk. Save the mods for the few real site approved tourneys that are agreed upon.

I know this requires coding, and that seems to be a big no-no, but what if we could have some sort of 7 game structure in place just for tourneys. Kind of a plug and play. The 7 players enter, they are randomly assigned a power in the first game, then the second, etc. with no one being assigned a power more than once? These special tourney setups could be used by anyone with 7 players that want to compete in a tourney structure. They could be adjusted just like every other game. Points, anon, PPSC, etc. This would take the mods completely out of it. Need a bigger tourney? Enter one or more of these special structured tourneys.

The refresh button at the bottom of the screen is new right? If so, great change!

@abge, thanks for posting this.

@everyone else, tournaments take a lot on the mod team. We have to be up to date on every game with special rules because many of the problems are of the "someone is going to nmr in 10 minutes, pause the game" or, "please remove this person". In each case we have to make sure we aren't going beyond the agreed upon rules of these special games. So nailing down some ideas/ways to run these would be very helpful.

I really appreciate that this issue is being addressed. I think tournaments are a great part of the community and site but, after running the Triathlon, I'm hesitant to start something up again of my own initiative because of how heavily I had to rely on the mods. It's not really fair to commit them to helping an additional initiative that they haven't really agreed to do.

The obvious solutions are to either a) be able to give players the ability to edit the games the create (or just certain players in certain circumstances) or b) to add a 'mod' or two that are solely dedicated to tournaments. I understand the desire to keep the mod circle small so that the policing and other grey area issues can be handled with consistency by reliable people. However, assisting to run a tournament can be more of a black and white issue so adding some people to do that could be a viable option, at least from an outside perspective.

What my preference would be is for tournament organizers to have to propose a tournament to the mod team. If the mod team feels like the rules are laid out well enough and that the tournament organizer is reliable enough, then they give them ability to 'mod' their own games.

There's something else that I'd suggest though. Before agreeing to help people run a tournament, make the tournament organizer contact a mod first. This should help the mods outline what sort of commitment they're willing to undertake and also help straighten out what rules the mods need to know about the trny. I also suggest that the mods tell the tournament organizers how to format their e-mail etc. I think, by the end, I was getting them correct for the Triathlon but it was just by trial and error. If I had known from the start, then I could have the saved the mods a lot of the headache.

It'd also be cool if purses or profile icons were attached to certain tournaments so that winning them has some added significance but that's not really what we're debating here I guess.

Also, +1 for the refresh button.

Ah shoot, Yonni you just reminded me I have to deduct 50 from everyone who joined the Masters haha.

But still jimgov, running a tourney means endless streams of "I can't continue" or "I"m going on vacation" emails that must be dealt with, the occasional force pause, etc.

I say do it in whatever way makes the mods do less work.

I tried hiring a Tournament Mod once; it didn't work great, for several reasons:

1) Managing many tournaments is terribly miserable work. It's hard to get someone to volunteer for only that task

2) They are still full mods, so they needed to meet all of the mod requirements, even though they weren't doing real mod work

3) Mods are in short supply, so when I find a good mod, I want them to mod, not work on tournaments.