Nationstates Olympic Games Discussion Thread

[Krytenia]

CAF: On the list of events, you have the men's skiff as a two-man crew, and the women's skiff as a single-woman crew. Is this correct?

[The Archregimancy]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why are so many nations announcing in the sign-up thread that they're 'neutral' or 'opposed' to proposed demonstration events? This seems wholly irrelevant.

Last time I checked, demonstration events don't seem to be decided via a yes/no vote. A proposed event gets included if eight nations are in favour and enter teams; there's no proviso that I see for considering the views of nations who are neutral or opposed to an event's inclusion. If you don't like a demonstration event - or if you're wholly indifferent to it - ignore it.

If you're strongly opposed on OOC grounds, then perhaps it would be better to raise those objections here rather than in the sign-up thread.

[Passionate Redheads]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why are so many nations announcing in the sign-up thread that they're 'neutral' or 'opposed' to proposed demonstration events? This seems wholly irrelevant.

Last time I checked, demonstration events don't seem to be decided via a yes/no vote. A proposed event gets included if eight nations are in favour and enter teams; there's no proviso that I see for considering the views of nations who are neutral or opposed to an event's inclusion. If you don't like a demonstration event - or if you're wholly indifferent to it - ignore it.

If you're strongly opposed on OOC grounds, then perhaps it would be better to raise those objections here rather than in the sign-up thread.

In the section on demonstration sports in the signup thread OP, the host writes . . .

Why the sport must be considered a "summer sport". Please explain why this sport fits with the overall idea of the Olympic Games, and wouldn't be more suitable for the Winter Olympic or another multi-sport event. (emphasis added)

The objections that have been raised so far speak to this specific requirement of the host, and appear to be at least nominally IC. (EDIT: Checked back -- not all.)

I see the announced neutrals as broadly saying, "We're not sure," which is useful for others to know in considering such sports.

[Cafundeu]

CAF: On the list of events, you have the men's skiff as a two-man crew, and the women's skiff as a single-woman crew. Is this correct?

No, it's me putting the number for the women's event wrong due to the haste... I'm correcting that.

Also, I understand the intent of the people opposing themselves to demonstration sports, but Arch is completely right in this point: if the sport receives the basic support (and the basic support must come from people willing to participate in the same event, because the rule about support is basically to ensure that the sport will have enough participants - so, for example, with only the women's softball event receiving enough support, only it will be held), the neutral/opposed comments won't make much difference. As for the "summer sport" rule, this is more to avoid winter sports from entering the Games, absurd events or those war sports that are popular for some nations... but the duplication point raised by some will also be considered, didn't think of it before. But, apart from this, the proposals seem fine so far... we had even had some curious events before, such as the Cliff Diving and Poker, so the rules won't be extremely rigid.

[Delaclava]

Okay, there's something that's bothering the hell out of me, and anyone who could help me out, I would appreciate it.

I was looking through the Fifth Summer Olympics results to see who my medalists were so I could assign style modifiers. On Day 20A, as detailed in this post:

viewtopic.php?p=2935290#p2935290

I had previously been at 9 gold medals, but was credited with a 10th on that day. Problem is, I can't find where my gold medal is on that day. I did have a silver medal from Sinibou Caelticon in the women's 200 meters, which was uncredited at the time but would be later included in the final tally after the Olympics. If someone could help me find it, that would be great, because I counted up my medalists previously on my other computer and I don't remember having the problem.

[Chetkosk]

Do you think, perhaps, considering how long the list of Olympic events is, people could please put their sign-up lists in a spoiler? I don't particularly want to have to scroll through 20 of these things to see the bottom post.

[The Archregimancy]

The objections that have been raised so far speak to this specific requirement of the host, and appear to be at least nominally IC. (EDIT: Checked back -- not all.)

I see the announced neutrals as broadly saying, "We're not sure," which is useful for others to know in considering such sports.

Oh, I have no real problem with people raising substantive objections, for example if they think an event is to close in format to an existing event; but as your edit acknowledges (I think), we have several participants simply stating without detail that they object or they're neutral, which I don't think offer anything substantive to the thread.

I'm concerned that the sign-up thread will become unnecessarily cluttered if people persist in simply listing demonstration sports they don't like. If Caf disagrees, then that's fine - it's his event to run - but I would find it more constructive to limit these posts to simple endorsements and substantive objections. If no endorsement is offered and no substantive objection is forthcoming, then I'd assume it as read that otherwise the participant is neutral towards the other proposed events.

I stress I'm writing in a purely personal capacity - not in my mod capacity - and perhaps I just have my old fogey hat on today.

[Citadel of Cittagazze]

Okay, there's something that's bothering the hell out of me, and anyone who could help me out, I would appreciate it.

I was looking through the Fifth Summer Olympics results to see who my medalists were so I could assign style modifiers. On Day 20A, as detailed in this post:

viewtopic.php?p=2935290#p2935290

I had previously been at 9 gold medals, but was credited with a 10th on that day. Problem is, I can't find where my gold medal is on that day. I did have a silver medal from Sinibou Caelticon in the women's 200 meters, which was uncredited at the time but would be later included in the final tally after the Olympics. If someone could help me find it, that would be great, because I counted up my medalists previously on my other computer and I don't remember having the problem.

The gold medal missed was Devin Kellogg in the BMX on day 19B

[Delaclava]

The gold medal missed was Devin Kellogg in the BMX on day 19B

Ooh, thank you so much! It was bothering the hell out of me (probably unhealthy that a game does that, but meh ).

And on another note, to Cafundeu: will demonstration event entries be included in the 500 maximum?

[Kelssek]

stuff

Total agreement here. In any case, if there's going to be discussion about the demonstration sports or indeed anything else to do with the Olympics, we should probably keep it out of the signup thread, and perhaps use some kind of thread dedicated to discussing Olympic-related issues... oh, hey!

[Newmanistan]

If anyone wishes to use this in their RP for the Olympics:

ICly, Newmanistan boycotts the games due to baseball being excluded as a medal event.
OOCly, I more then understand that you are mirroring the RL Olympics.

Would there be objections to me popping in the RP thread just for an IC RP here and there about this boycott even though I won't actually have a delegation?

[Cafundeu]

And on another note, to Cafundeu: will demonstration event entries be included in the 500 maximum?

No, demonstration event entries do not count in the 500 limit, and also their skill modifiers aren't counted together with the main delegation. This means that the main delegation has to have the 0.5 average without counting the demonstration event athletes and all the demonstration event entries together also have to respect a 0.5 average rating without counting the main delegation athletes.

[Saugeais]

OK, being a first time participant in the Olympics, what am I to expect as far as promptness of scorination, and will RP bonuses count? I'm sure I have more questions but for now, these are the two important ones I can think of?

[Liventia]

What are the limits on puppets, if any? Is there, for example, a limit of, say, 300 events for puppets, or a limit of 800 events combined for master and puppet?

[Quintessence of Dust]

stuff

Total agreement here. In any case, if there's going to be discussion about the demonstration sports or indeed anything else to do with the Olympics, we should probably keep it out of the signup thread, and perhaps use some kind of thread dedicated to discussing Olympic-related issues... oh, hey!

Fair enough, and in that case, here's my opinion on demonstration sports:

They are out of control. I don't see what the point of them is. Perhaps it used to be the case that the Olympics provided a rare opportunity for minor sports to get a properly scorinated tournament, but with the sports upgrades to xkoranate 0.3.2, that is no longer the case. NSFS3 and xkoranate are very easy to use in comparison with past versions, and the dedicated NS Sport forum means there are always participants on hand. In other words, anyone can run a tournament in pretty much any sport they like. They don't need to piggyback the Olympics if they want a minor sports tournament: they can just run their own.

Looking at how much RPing of demonstration events there has been in the past, I really don't see what piling on multiple demonstration events adds to the Games. There are already huge numbers of events that see very little RPing, and Caf will already have a very busy August scorinating a long series of events, some of which (gymnastics and archery qualifiers, first round of tennis and 100 m) may in their own capacity take him an entire day.

If QoD signs up, then, we'll endorse rugby sevens (which we think by now deserves full medal status in any case) but no others - which says nothing of our possible participation in non-Olympic tournaments in those sports. And I would support an amendment to the NSOC Charter saying that demonstration sports are limited to 1-2 per Olympiad.

[Commerce Heights]

And I would support an amendment to the NSOC Charter saying that demonstration sports are limited to 1-2 per Olympiad.

What conceivable purpose would that serve? The hosts are more than capable of deciding how many (if any) demonstration events they want to deal with, and participants are likewise capable of deciding not to enter those events if they’d like to focus their stories elsewhere.

[Kelssek]

I too am rolling my eyes at the number of the demonstration events being considered - and which have been considered in the past. That's part of the reason, as well as the massive and unnecessary addition to an already-ridiculous scorination workload, why I only had 2 demonstration sports (4 events, total) when I hosted last year. But in the end it's up to the host's discretion and I don't think it's necessary to have specific rules on demonstration events since even if they might be pretty inane I don't feel they detract from the Olympics overall.

[Todd McCloud]

Yeah the sheer amount of demonstration sports is a bit odd. But I've only been in one of these prior, so I assumed demo sports could be suggested, but only the most popular 1-2 sports would be considered.

[The Babbage Islands]

Sounds like it's time to start drafting a proposal for World Games. A flexible calendar of 20-30 non-Olympic sports per Games, similar to but not necessarily matching RL, should find an audience.

But we need to get clear of these Olympics first.

[Taeshan]

Sounds like it's time to start drafting a proposal for World Games. A flexible calendar of 20-30 non-Olympic sports per Games, similar to but not necessarily matching RL, should find an audience.

But we need to get clear of these Olympics first.

We could also move to break away from rl olympics, and add are own events to the olympics as per the interest of the people who partake in the olympics. I mean vote on inclusion of certain sports who in rl do not have the international interest needed to be an official sport, but here on nationstates have enough interest to be included in the games, this lessens the amount of demonstration events, though adds a bit to host workload.

[Commerce Heights]

We could also move to break away from rl olympics, and add are own events to the olympics as per the interest of the people who partake in the olympics. I mean vote on inclusion of certain sports who in rl do not have the international interest needed to be an official sport, but here on nationstates have enough interest to be included in the games, this lessens the amount of demonstration events

No, it just renames them. It also introduces needless voting which wastes everyone’s time.

[Chetkosk]

We wouldn't have to vote on the proposed demonstration events to include them permanently as medal events. Why not set a rule such that if a demonstration event is endorsed by sufficient nations for ___ number of consecutive Olympiads it is added to the medal event lists? That way the natural "endorsing" process takes care of unnecessary votes, and all the Olympic Committee (or whatever) would have to do is keep a note of the demonstration events played in each Olympiad, and add them to the medal sports list once they had been shown to be consistently popular.
Needs tweaking, but it might be something to consider.

[Commerce Heights]

We wouldn't have to vote on the proposed demonstration events to include them permanently as medal events. Why not set a rule such that if a demonstration event is endorsed by sufficient nations for ___ number of consecutive Olympiads it is added to the medal event lists? That way the natural "endorsing" process takes care of unnecessary votes, and all the Olympic Committee (or whatever) would have to do is keep a note of the demonstration events played in each Olympiad, and add them to the medal sports list once they had been shown to be consistently popular.
Needs tweaking, but it might be something to consider.

Why should Olympic hosts be required to run non-Olympic events?

[Taeshan]

We wouldn't have to vote on the proposed demonstration events to include them permanently as medal events. Why not set a rule such that if a demonstration event is endorsed by sufficient nations for ___ number of consecutive Olympiads it is added to the medal event lists? That way the natural "endorsing" process takes care of unnecessary votes, and all the Olympic Committee (or whatever) would have to do is keep a note of the demonstration events played in each Olympiad, and add them to the medal sports list once they had been shown to be consistently popular.
Needs tweaking, but it might be something to consider.

Why should Olympic hosts be required to run non-Olympic events?

Its not to say they would be required to run them, but based on the past few olympics hosts have let in a lot of demonstration events. Many of them have been the same ones over and over, if most hosts are going to run them anyways why not make them medal events.

[Commerce Heights]

Its not to say they would be required to run them, but based on the past few olympics hosts have let in a lot of demonstration events. Many of them have been the same ones over and over, if most hosts are going to run them anyways why not make them medal events.

Because then we’d have to take this discussion even further and decide which should be made medal events (or which criteria should be used), and not everyone would agree on that, and we’d probably end up having to vote on something. All for a name change.

If it ain’t broke…