Just throwing out an unsolicited opinion, but I do not think that this tourney should be the first test case. With lando participating in his own tourney, this becomes a very tricky juggling act. And with all of the hard feelings on all sides, I would see if someone could take over the tourney and run it to its conclusion. In the future, if you decide to give lando these new TD powers, everyone would know that he is running it and give themselves the opportunity to either enter or not, depending on how they see him as a TD. Just my opinion.

He'll have the same capabilities as any other game he's directing. If he wanted to he could set all other users to CD and win (I doubt many people would sign up for his next tournament though, and probably the mods wouldnt be willing to set him as TD in future. Also this might fall under "don't use the software to gain an unfair advantage" rule.)

He can't see any information he couldn't see before though; directors can do a small subset of the mod/admin functions: Draw game, cancel game, toggle pause, make a public game private, make a private game public, make a user CD, reset the process time, process game now, change phase length, reallocate countries, and change the press rules.

I see what you mean jimgov, I was thinking along those lines too, but really I just want to draw a line in the sand and remove the association between private/unofficial tournaments and the mod team. If the majority of the players in the tournament wanted it to be taken over by the mod team now that might be different.. (But I think most just want to get things rolling again)

@kestas - Do you forsee any "official" tournaments, or will all tourneys be unofficial and not associated with the site?

Not sure jimgov, I guess it would depend on what would make an official tournament official. I think the mod team is in the best position to answer that

@kestas: This seems like a difficult change to make mid-tournament, and if it's completely un-guided, leaves open the possibility of all sorts of messy things. For example, if Lando decides he wants to attack me as much as possible, as I understand he it could choose to CD me in any games I might be doing well in and leave me in any games I might be doing poorly in, on the theory that it hurts my points, GR, etc. as much as possible. Unless Lando is my direct opponent, that would presumably not fall under "don't use the software to gain an unfair advantage". And then my only recourse is...that I don't sign up for a future tournament with Lando as TD?

The point is, we didn't sign up with this rule, and some of us might not have signed up with this rule. I think it's a reasonable rule to write going forward, but if you are going to institute this rule mid-stream, then I think it's only fair to give every remaining player a one-time chance to immediately withdraw and leave all of their games, and if they choose to stay in, then they're agreeing to a Lando-run tournament. Given such a choice, I would certainly choose to withdraw.

I see what you mean CS, but I think ultimately there needs to be someone with the final say in this case, and that means either Lando continues to run it (now using the new capabilities so it's clearly Lando and not the mods) or it gets taken over by the mods and Lando is no longer the TD.

I think it's reasonable that if the majority of people in a tournament aren't happy with the TD then something must be seriously wrong, and I'd be okay to have the tournament taken over in that event (perhaps something like this could be coded into the rules, I know it's a bit ad-hoc at the moment but the mod team are great at nailing stuff down into sensible policy). If you think that's the case maybe we can have a poll?

Otherwise I think one option is to export the GR data etc with the director information; this could give a way to actually exclude tournaments from the GR (even based on who was running the tournament), and regarding points .. that's a tricky one that perhaps the mods and I can think through. Hopefully an element of reputation will come into it, so you won't have big-point tournaments run by unknown TDs? Anyway I'm not even sure how points work in the current system, so perhaps I can discuss with the mod team the specifics.

But I'm sure we're both hoping Lando proves you wrong and carries the tournament onwards in a capable, fair way.

@kestas: It's fine with me that Lando has the final say in a tournament he's running. It's what's best for the tournament.

But, these aren't the rules that we signed up with. If you're going to make this sort of substantial change to seven games that we signed up for, we should be able to opt out before continuing. After all, these have changed from games on the site under the site rules to something else, and it's not what we signed up for.

I, too, hope Lando proves me wrong and carries the tournament onwards in a capable, fair way. But, I want him to do so without me, and I think it's only fair that I have that option.

Zultar had a good idea and put together a quick survey for tournament players to fill out:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SQNP86Z

If we can see what people's opinions are on how we should go forward with this we should be able to get this resolved and move on.

@CS: That makes sense, if Lando carries on as a direct TD people will be able to opt-out

@kestas - I know that you all made the survey for "tournament players." Does this mean anyone who has ever entered a tournament? Anyone who originally played in this tourney? The players who are left in this tourney? I filled out the survey because I was in this tourney, but we need a little clarification on this issue. And anyone who plays tourneys and hasn't kept up with all of the issues won't have a truly informed basis for their decisions.

It will be opened to everyone, but since we asked for names/emails, we can see what the tourney players say and what everyone else says. If there is a difference in agreement between tourney players and everyone else, then Kestas will decide how we will move forward.
We want this to be comprehensive enough so that we can make a good decision on future tourney policies and what to do for this case.

I hope that makes sense.

Perfectly, zultar. Thanks.

Since this survey is now holding up the tournament from continuing, when will it close? That will at least give the players who are still in an idea of when it will resume.

CS - "For example, if Lando decides he wants to attack me as much as possible, as I understand he it could choose to CD me in any games I might be doing well in and leave me in any games I might be doing poorly in, on the theory that it hurts my points, GR, etc. as much as possible. Unless Lando is my direct opponent, that would presumably not fall under "don't use the software to gain an unfair advantage". And then my only recourse is...that I don't sign up for a future tournament with Lando as TD? "

If a TD abuses his or her TD position, I would assume that is reportable to the mods under the "don't use the software to gain an unfair advantage" rule if not others. So not signing up in the future wouldn't be your only recourse.

@kestas, if a TD performs an action on a game, such as a force pause, or kicking someone from a game, would it be reasonable to have that game action reported to the global chat? Possibly also worth doing so for mod actions as well?

Agree with Alderian above. The mods are still the first course of appeal for players for abuse. To me, this underlines the fact that we should have guidelines for how mods deal with TDs and tournaments, we cannot just leave it up to the responsibility of players in the tournament and expect them to police the tournaments themselves.

I think the easiest way out of this is still to sanction a small amount of tournaments with clear site backing (maybe full press, gunboat, league), and then leave the rest for the unbacked approach Kestas proposes..

Some very valid points were raised about the new TD position in general. The team is working with Kestas to get a set of guidelines and rules set up to go with this cool new feature. We will still be involved with tournaments though, like the Masters or others that need some mod intervention (like shifting points) not available in this new role.

Ok clear. Thanks jmo for that reassurance.

> @kestas, if a TD performs an action on a game, such as a force pause, or kicking
> someone from a game, would it be reasonable to have that game action reported to
> the global chat? Possibly also worth doing so for mod actions as well?
I think that'd be a good idea, though for no press games they wouldn't show up. Director actions are also logged like moderator actions FYI, so they can also be looked over as needed.

Quick Update:

The Tournament will be set to continue under a new TD. zultar will be taking voer the tournament and I will stay on to work with him. This new set-up will allow us to maintain the original goals of the tournament, allowing myself to still have leadeship over the direction of this thing while also adding a second brain to the mix, one which is not involved in the playing of the tournament.

zultar and I are hopeful that this solution will allow most everyone to continue to play.

At this time, we are trying to determine what CSTEINHARDT's final decision is to be and we can move on from there. Any questions comments or concerns pelase feel free to PM myself or z.

There was a number of issues that would have remained regardless of how Kestas and the mod team decide to move forward. It turned out that the survey just told us what we already knew: the community was fairly divided as to what would be the better outcome from the given choices. So in consultation with Kestas, Lando, and the mod team, we have come up with a different solution:

Lando has voluntarily resigned as the current TD, and he has designated me as the new TD. I will take over Lando’s role immediately. Lando will remain as my advisor to help me since this was his tourney to begin with. I have also talked with CSteinhardt. He will play the rest of the games to the best of his ability, and if he should be fortunate enough to move on to the next round, he will do so and he will play to win. I hope this will satisfy everyone involved, and we can move forward with this tournament without further ado.

Kestas and the mod team are also working on codifying new tournament and TD policies. We are very excited and hopeful that these new rules and features will encourage more and better tournaments in the future.

Your new TD,

zultar

I take offense to the new TD's message. I want out.

I take offense to Mapu's offense taking and I want out of 1/2 of my games...

I take offense at Josunice taking offnese at Mapu's taking offense and want back in the Tournament.

I'm glad I stopped following this thread.

In the Spirit of Vegas (Baby) you're up now quit while you're ahead and get some sleep, come back with a new energy after some coffee and food.somtimes it's not about winning, just surviving Baby

I'm not sure if Mapu was joking or not, but if you weren't joking, please PM me as to why you have taken offense.

The games have been unpaused, the phase reset so that everyone has 36 hours to move per the original phase length, and let the games begin.

He was definitely joking.

He was positively joking.