The World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC, Version IV)

[Barunia]

The constitution would most likely mandate that the Vice President then have a tiebreaking vote, then it would devolve onto the next highest vote-getters in the election.

Yup, that's how I see it working.

Alternatively, in the rare case that both Pres and VP are both bidders, Pres could nominate a suitable person to make the decision.

[Starblaydia]

Yup, that's how I see it working.

Alternatively, in the rare case that both Pres and VP are both bidders, Pres could nominate a suitable person to make the decision.

The process for 'what if the Prez or VP can't even' is already covered and there's no need to make up even more new rules (especially "I can't vote but I suggest my good responsible friend can...") for this:

1.3.1 Appointment
v) If the President is unable to fulfill his/her duties, then the interim President shall be the first available person of: the Vice-President, the candidates in the most recent presidential election (sorted by highest vote total), the members of the EWCC (sorted by earliest WC hosted), and the hosts of the Baptism of Fire tournament and Cup of Harmony (sorted by earliest tournament hosted). If two or more eligible successors are equal in any of these criteria, then they shall be sorted in alphabetical order.

1.3.2 Responsibilities
iii) If the President is involved in a WCC-sanctioned hosting vote as a candidate, the Vice-President will be called on to collect the votes.

1.4 The Vice-President
ii) The Vice-President is the first user responsible for taking over if the sitting WCC President is unable to fulfill his/her duties.
iii) If the President and Vice-President are both involved in a WCC-sanctioned hosting vote as candidates, members of the EWCC will be called on to collect the votes.

[Farfadillis]

Alternatively we could constitutionally bar the Prez from ever bidding.

[Audioslavia]

For those of you who enjoy moving-picture RPs, The Idiot Project - Christmas Special dropped today.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

[Kelssek]

I'll play the penholder and formally propose this:

Article 2.2.2, paragraph (iii), is amended to read as follows:

The EWCC will be directed by the President to vote: a) for one of the offered bids, b) to officially abstain, or c) to re-open the process for new bids, according to the procedure specified in article 1.5.

Article 4.2 is amended to read as follows:

4.2 – Host voting and tiebreaking procedure
i) The President shall initiate votes to select tournament hosts.
ii) Votes for tournament hosts shall follow the election procedure specified in article 1.5, paragraphs (i) to (iv).
iii) If no option has won after all preferential votes have been allocated, the procedure shall be restarted with only the votes of EWCC members to be considered.
iv) If no option has won after the counting of only EWCC members’ votes, the tie will be broken by the president. If the president is unable to perform this role, it shall pass to the interim president as specified by the order of succession in article 1.3.1, paragraph (v).
v) Users who have submitted a hosting bid for an event may not participate in the vote for the hosts of that event.
vi) If the designated tie-breaker under paragraph (iv) has submitted a hosting bid for the event being voted on, the role of tie-breaker is given to the next eligible person according to the order of succession for the interim president specified in article 1.3.1, paragraph (v).

A new article 4.3 is added to read as follows:

4.3 Amendments
i) Any member of the WCC may propose amendments to this constitution. If an amendment is supported by three other WCC members, it may be voted on by the WCC membership as a whole.

The first and last parts are housekeeping - cleaning up a clunky reference to how BoF votes are to be conducted, and breaking out a point in the old 4.2 that ought to have stood on its own and be more explicit about what it means.

[Equestrian States]

*snip*

Seconded.

[Northwest Kalactin]

Thirded

[HUElavia]

Fourth

[Legalese]

Seems worth noting that if this change is made, it opens the doors to a bid winning even if "reject all bids" is preferred over it by more voters. Example of how that could work:

-Two bids: Bid A and Bid B. Both have questions, but Bid B contains something really polarizing (imagine the least palatable thing you could here -- the hosts want to do a [redacted] format, or the host is [redacted], and that just won't stand).

30 votes (not counting abstentions), come out along the following preferences (from first to second -- skipping last for clarity and because in this case, no ballot will get past the first two preferences)

12: Bid A, Reject All
14: Bid B, Bid A
2: Reject All, Bid A
1: Reject All, Bid B
1: Reject All, no second option.

Under our current system: Bid B leads the first round, but as Bid A would get eliminated in the 2nd, the 12 A voters that would rather reject Bid B over accepting it means the B loses to Reject on round two, 16-14.

Under the proposed: Bid B still leads the first round, but the Reject All first preferences are reallocated instead of Bid A. This leads to B winning on the second round with a 15-14 vote.

It's an extreme example, and even though I'm more likely to put a Bid B up (at least in the "what damn fool idea does Legal want to bring to the table this time?" way, I hope), it gives me pause to supporting this change.

[Sarzonia]

I guess now someone other than Krytenia will dread the phrase Sarzonia on penalties.

[Cassadaigua]

12: Bid A, Reject All
14: Bid B, Bid A
2: Reject All, Bid A
1: Reject All, Bid B
1: Reject All, no second option.

Reject All as the first choice needs to be the only choice selected for that vote. How can we be allowing someone to say: 1st choice, Reject All and 2nd Choice: Bid A. Either you've rejected the bids, or you haven't.

Is this not the way the voting is set up currently?

[Kelssek]

It wasn't meant to change anything in the voting system, but the existing WCC constitution is a bit of a mess anyway, so I withdraw the earlier proposal to put forward this one which now spells it out and clearly incorporates the provision about "re-open bids" being unable to be eliminated.

Furthermore, if voting "re-open bids" was meant to preclude having any bid listed as a preferential vote, then that's not what the existing WCC constitution says...

New proposal

Article 2.2.2, paragraph (iii), is amended to read as follows:

The EWCC will be directed by the President to vote: a) for one of the offered bids, b) to officially abstain, or c) to re-open the process for new bids, according to the procedure specified in article 1.5.

Article 4.2 is amended to read as follows:

4.2 Host voting procedure
i) The President shall initiate votes to select tournament hosts.
ii) Users who have submitted a hosting bid for an event may not participate in the vote for the hosts of that event.

4.2.1 Counting of votes
i) Voters shall submit ballots listing the options in order of preference. They may omit options they do not wish to vote for.
ii) The option to re-open bids is not eliminated unless a bid has achieved a majority of votes.
iii) An option that receives a majority of first preference votes is declared the winner.
iii) If no option receives a majority of the first preference votes, counting proceeds to a second round. The bid with the fewest number of votes shall be eliminated, and ballots cast for that option are re-allocated according to the preference order indicated by the voter. An option that has a majority after this re-allocation is declared the winner.
iv) If no option has received a majority of votes after the second round, the bid that has the fewest votes is eliminated and its votes re-allocated according to the preference indicated by the voter. This process continues for successive rounds until an option achieves a majority or a tie between options makes it impossible to proceed further.

4.2.2 Tie-breaking procedure
i) If the counting of votes under article 4.2.1 cannot proceed further, the procedure shall be restarted with only the votes of EWCC members to be counted.
ii) If no option has won after the counting of only EWCC members’ votes, the tie will be broken by the president. If the president is unable to perform this role, it shall pass to the interim president as specified by the order of succession in article 1.3.1, paragraph (v).
iii) If a designated tie-breaker under paragraph (ii) has submitted a hosting bid for the event being voted on, the role of tie-breaker is given to the next eligible person according to the order of succession for the interim president specified in article 1.3.1, paragraph (v).

A new article 4.3 is added to read as follows:

4.3 Amendments
i) Any member of the WCC may propose amendments to this constitution. If an amendment is supported by three other WCC members, it may be voted on by the WCC membership as a whole.

[The Archregimancy]

New proposal

I can support this as a simple and straightforward solution.

We do have a tendency to overthink things at times.

[Cassadaigua]

My point is that, if voting between Bid A and Bid B....

Perfectly Fine:
1) Bid A
2) Reject bids

Should not be allowed:
1) Reject bids
2) Bid A

Once a vote has reached "reject bids" there should be nothing else after the reject bids choice. How is a vote truly rejecting bids if they are saying, "oh yeah, I guess Bid A is fine" later. If they liked Bid A, then Bid A needs to be before Reject bids in their selection.

[Banija]

So I think Legalese and Covello have brought up different examples of what is essentially the same arguments. I'll quote Legalese's but Covello's is just one page prior with different numbers.

Seems worth noting that if this change is made, it opens the doors to a bid winning even if "reject all bids" is preferred over it by more voters. Example of how that could work:

-Two bids: Bid A and Bid B. Both have questions, but Bid B contains something really polarizing (imagine the least palatable thing you could here -- the hosts want to do a [redacted] format, or the host is [redacted], and that just won't stand).

30 votes (not counting abstentions), come out along the following preferences (from first to second -- skipping last for clarity and because in this case, no ballot will get past the first two preferences)

12: Bid A, Reject All
14: Bid B, Bid A
2: Reject All, Bid A
1: Reject All, Bid B
1: Reject All, no second option.

Under our current system: Bid B leads the first round, but as Bid A would get eliminated in the 2nd, the 12 A voters that would rather reject Bid B over accepting it means the B loses to Reject on round two, 16-14.

Under the proposed: Bid B still leads the first round, but the Reject All first preferences are reallocated instead of Bid A. This leads to B winning on the second round with a 15-14 vote.

It's an extreme example, and even though I'm more likely to put a Bid B up (at least in the "what damn fool idea does Legal want to bring to the table this time?" way, I hope), it gives me pause to supporting this change.

I would not think it's an accurate statement to say reject all bids is more popular than either of these bids, even in this calculation of second place votes.

The point of second choice is to disburse the last place's votes. The accurate way to react to this (Covello's example was 10 for one bid, 9 for another, 8 for reject all bids, so it applies to him and all similar examples) would be to say that the least popular option (reject all bids) was eliminated first. The last thing the voters wanted was to re-open bids, therefore, the voters did not re-open bids. There is a clear preference as evidenced for either of these bids to win over re-open nominations- henceforth the greater first choice vote for both of these bids.

It doesn't make a ton of sense to me to say that the least popular option out of 3, in a ranked choice voting format, should ever then win that vote. Whether it's more popular in a head to head with either of the other options, in my opinion, is irrelevant. It is the option that the fewest amount of voters actually want to pass, therefore, it should be the option that is eliminated first. Ranked choice should be here to help between the most popular options in finding a majority, not to help the least popular option on a ballot find its way to a majority it never had.

The tldr, is that if in a three horse race, two bids both get more votes than RoN, one of those bids winning is not a problematic result- it's a fine result and the most accurate expression of the will of voters.

[Terre Septentrionale]

Well... despite one of the two hosts from the wining bid isn't really reliable, I have made the decision that I will not withdraw.

[Ceni]

Reject All as the first choice needs to be the only choice selected for that vote. How can we be allowing someone to say: 1st choice, Reject All and 2nd Choice: Bid A. Either you've rejected the bids, or you haven't.

Is this not the way the voting is set up currently?

"Reject All" is a little bit of a misnomer, since it's actually "Re-Open Nominations." I could want to Re-Open Nominations as a first preference, yet still prefer one bid over the other if it doesn't win — but you are right, there's no point in ranking any bids beyond that point in the current system, since RON will never be eliminated under the current system.

It doesn't make a ton of sense to me to say that the least popular option out of 3, in a ranked choice voting format, should ever then win that vote. Whether it's more popular in a head to head with either of the other options, in my opinion, is irrelevant. It is the option that the fewest amount of voters actually want to pass, therefore, it should be the option that is eliminated first. Ranked choice should be here to help between the most popular options in finding a majority, not to help the least popular option on a ballot find its way to a majority it never had.

The tldr, is that if in a three horse race, two bids both get more votes than RoN, one of those bids winning is not a problematic result- it's a fine result and the most accurate expression of the will of voters.

Fwiw, RON doesn't beat out Bid A in Vilita's scenario — Bid A convincingly beat RON by a margin of 26-3. But voters actually DID prefer RON to Bid B, by a margin of 16-14, so your extrapolation is a bit misleading.

And to further elaborate on the Condorcet system -- there's actually a Condorcet cycle here (since Bid B actually defeats Bid A in a head-to-head by a slim 15-14). But since voters vastly prefer Bid A to re-opening negotiations, Bid A would win under the two most popular tie-breaking systems (called beatpath and ranked pairs).

Covello's scenario is different, in that RON is a clear Condorcet winner. However, it's misleading to say that "it never had a majority" since a MAJORITY of voters, preferred to re-open nominations over having either of the two "bad" bids.

(A quick note: I'm only elaborating on this since Banija brought it up -- I would support Kelssek's revised proposal if I had a vote, since that's the interpretation I proposed years ago when we last had this debate.)

[Kelssek]

In normal English, a "Condorcet winner" means the option that would beat all (or most) other options head-to-head. That doesn't mean that option should win the vote, though. Perhaps one is a utilitarian and prefers "everyone's second choice" to a polarizing winner.

I am aware of at least one RL Condorcet system which is used to elect executives of a university student union. This involves electing the candidate who wins the most head-to-head matchups against other candidates (but might actually lose one or two head-to-head matchups). It's not bad but in my understanding quite technically complex and opaque. If one really feels strongly that Condorcet is the normative criteria we should use to elect hosts, then I suggest you write up that proposal and show how that could be practically done.

[Tequilo]

DIRECTOR, TEQUILO NATIONAL TEAM
This position is now filled, thank you to all applicants: official announcement will come IC during WC qualifying

With a restructure at the top of the game in Tequiloan football (or pitxi, as they call it) to be narrated in the next World Cup cycle, a post will become available for the National Team Director ahead of WC Qualifying. Since the authorities do not yet consider there is enough talent in the pool at a national level, they are seeking applicants from the multiverse. They are looking for a figurehead and strategist to continue the development of the national football plan to dominate all of the nations, all of the time - so someone with a thick skin who doesn't mind working to impossible goals would be ideal. Easily dazzled by former greatness, the authorities would almost certainly appoint a former international player once of great standing with major celebrity appeal even if they have no real experience of football administration.

IC Benefits: Very large pay packet; completely unnecessary company sports car any colour as long as it's agave blue; super-fancy office at the Museo de Pitxi, Tapalupé City (FA HQ) with the very latest fax machine technology and mechanical pencil sharpener; huge extremely passionate and reasonably wealthy market of new admirers who will buy any personal merch you wish to distribute.

OOC Benefits: Will definitely feature in WC RPs for the coming cycle and will pop up with regular mentions thereafter, particularly as 'special guest', 'invited dignitory' or 'Irritated of [Your Nation] writes...'

To apply - TG me a character sheet with a mini history and something of a personality profile to work with. Must be prepared to be involved in, create, and be smacked in the chops by regular doses of chaos. Apart from that and being a comic narrative agent, they will be treated respectfully and even apparently lethal incidents will be entirely reversible via last-minute plot twists of highly tenuous believability. (There are no plans presently to escalate the appointment to incident level: deadly).

[Krytenia]

I guess now someone other than Krytenia will dread the phrase Sarzonia on penalties.

Too soon.

[Sarzonia]

I guess now someone other than Krytenia will dread the phrase Sarzonia on penalties.

Too soon.

NEVER!

[Graintfjall]

Sorry to divert from the constitutional discussions, but a quick BoF hosting note.

Aeprelh has gone CTE. I'm annoyed at myself for not noticing this, but they were active when I ran the pre-MD1 check; I think it must have been a matter of hours. As Sylestone and I are on different time zones and we're entering the holiday break, I'm making this unilateral decision: Aeprelh will not advance to the Ro32; Icecliff (5th in Group E) will take their place.

On the other side of the draw, ArmedKing may CTE before the Ro32 matches begin. I am notifying Sylestone of this but will leave the decision with what to do about them in his (eminently capable) hands.

Now, back to WCC-SPAN...

[Ethane]

World Cup Host Announcement

Hey folks.

The roster thread and the roleplay thread are now up. Start posting. And don't forget that a roster penalty is being implemented this World Cup. A 15% KPB penalty will apply if a roster is not posted before MD1, rising to 30% if not posted by the half-way stage. The roster penalty is removed once a roster is posted. For more information check out the roster thread OP, the bid thread, or contact either Taeshan or me. Pots and further details will be provided over time.

For more information on formats and numbers, some information is provided in the OP of the roleplay thread. At this stage we have 189 signups (this is subject to a CTE check which I will do tomorrow). The ideal format from here requires 3 more signups. If anyone is yet to signup or still wants to sign up a puppet, please sign up in the signup thread. You'll be placed on a waitlist, with a spot provided if we reach 192. Signups above and beyond 192 would be placed on a waitlist in case of any CTEs.

If we do not reach 192 participants, then we will have to cut numbers down to 182 for our original format of 15x12. At this stage, any signups on the waitlist would be removed, and puppets which signed up last (excluding those in the Baptism of Fire) would be removed from the participants list. We'd prefer not to have to force people out of the competition, so if you are willing to withdraw your puppet from the tournament if we don't reach 192 signups for the draw, please let Taeshan or I know.

If you have any other questions or concerns, post them in this thread, TG us, or PM us on the Discord server. We sincerely look forward to hosting this tournament for the community, and we hope you all enjoy the experience too. Thank you for putting your trust in us. See you in the World Cup.

[Blouman Empire]

I like Star's proposal not least because I made the same proposal a few pages earlier.

[Blouman Empire]

*snip*

When do you expect MD1 to happen?