The World Cup Discussion Thread (OOC, Version IV)

[TJUN-ia]

I feel like I'm still having fun though tbh, things do get stressful at times...rarely, of course, but those feelings exist.

Sometimes, I feel like the pace ebbs and flows too erratically and it can be difficult at times to keep up with everything. But other times, it's easy to deal with.

I love being here though, I love being a part of all of this with all of you guys and while things do feel like they're happening too quickly at times, I wouldn't change a thing about all of this.

[Hapilopper]

Honestly, I'm taking a bit of a break from anything related to NS Sports right now, which is why I didn't really RP Wreckeria that much in the Cup of Harmony. Writing huge RPs takes a bit of time and energy, so between that and my real life situation, which still involves that butt-ass-long commute to and from work, it takes its toll.

However, this shouldn't be implied to mean I'm tired of it. I enjoy this greatly. As strange as it sounds, RPing with you guys does wonders for my mental health, so I don't want to lose it. I love writing about my characters and how they deal with yours, so I'm staying here. I'll certainly be back for WC92, both Wreckeria and Hapilopper, so whenever signups open up, I'll be here.

[The Plough Islands]

So: how are you doing, are we still having fun? How do you feel about the pacing of everything, whether you're balancing multiple sports or not?

I absolutely am still having the most fun - even if I've only just got over my jetlag from going to America - although that's with the caveat that the football World Cup isn't for me and hasn't been for a while :P
I do think that the current pace of Worlds Cup at three or four a year is about right, though - it doesn't stifle the progress or RP level of other, non-football sports, and it allows plenty of time for regionals. I don't think I'd really appreciated how much work goes into properly administering regional competitions until I started to get involved in Anaia and saw a little of what happens behind the curtain - and given that regional events are (once again?) starting to expand beyond football, more time to run them can only be a good thing!

[Starblaydia]

Congrats to Grænt, commisserations to Turori (though, finishing 2nd is still a hell of an accomplishment), and thanks to Farf, Graint (not to be confused with Grænt), as well as Tumbra, Mertagne, who, in various combinations hosted a great BoF, CoH, and World Cup

Seconding this, as it's easy to drop a congrats or an emoji reaction on Discord, but as has been observed, not much of this has happened in the WCDT.

So: how are you doing, are we still having fun? How do you feel about the pacing of everything, whether you're balancing multiple sports or not?

I'm finding it extremely hard to keep up with only international football - missed the U18 signups entirely, didn't manage an RP in the DBC, the WCQs were a spiraling cavalcade in a new chapter of Starblaydi non-success, and the CoH is barely down to the super 16 and I'm having to post a regional roster already to make the 'no earlier than' cutoff and currently have little to no idea how to judge the relative talents of my own players to even pick that CAFA squad, which is why it's essentially a cut-and-paste of the CoH one.

The national team's under-performance (compared to both IC expectations and OOC RNG) at this moment in time isn't what's limiting my fun (in fact quite the opposite), I just currently don't have the time for anything, try as I might. For me the World Cup cycle currently is going by at such a pace, even with 48x2 scorinations, that I just can't keep up. My personal RL situation is responsible for some of that, but the forum is whizzing by even when I do have the spare time for anything.

Once more I'd like to apologise for everyone who contributed to the Starblaydia 2,000th game Multiverse match that I still haven't posted things about, I will surely get to that soon^TM.

[PotatoFarmers]

I remember 9 months ago, at the domestic front, a bunch of people wrote long letters complaining about their involvement in IFCF, resulting in me having to use 2 surveys to figure out the way going forward in IFCF. One of them talks about how the domestic and international cycle should proceed in what ratio, and we figured one year IRL should approximate to a full cycle in the respective rankings, meaning, around 10 weeks between IFCF cycles, and 3 WCC cycles a year.

9 months on, I felt a little burnout with regards to attempting to RP football, both domestic and international, as well as other sports in general. As a result, I will be giving up on the TGI and its football presence, instead using the nation for other sports which Poafmersia is not a member of. Meanwhile, I would probably dedicate my football RPs and participation to Poafmersia itself. The realignment probably helps me a little better in order to manage the burnout and writer's block which I have been experiencing.

[Graintfjall]

I was going to wait for the CoH to be over before commenting. I still am. But just so it doesn't seem like I haven't acknowledged above, thanks everyone!

Re: IBC, WCoH... as far as I'm concerned, other tournaments shouldn't be beholden to WC (though I don't mean that in an adversarial sense, just a purely neutral one). I'll open signups for IBC whenever I think it's time for another basketball tournament, and really my only consideration on that will be avoiding Summer Olympics/NSCAA. The WCoH was RPed pretty well, all things considered, though I did purposefully choose a shorter format than 42, which would have been too intense to overlap a WC, probably.

My thoughts on the WC I will post after the CoH is over.

RPing the WC final I will do... urgh, why does my motivation always collapse the moment I don't have a deadline to meet!?

I'm having to post a regional roster already to make the 'no earlier than' cutoff and currently have little to no idea how to judge the relative talents of my own players to even pick that CAFA squad, which is why it's essentially a cut-and-paste of the CoH one.

Much as the roster-to-enter format has been lauded, and I am not specifically commenting on CAFA of which I'm not a part, but this situation is worth considering as a possible downside.

[Bears Armed]

All being well, I intend to bring the Bear-Belles back for the next DBC, and probably for that cycle's World Cup qualifiers -- and hopefully the Cup itself -- too.

[Huayramarca]

So: how are you doing, are we still having fun? How do you feel about the pacing of everything, whether you're balancing multiple sports or not?

I pretty much share feelings with Hap, NSS is doing wonders for me when it comes to mental health, specially when I live in a RL nation where things are going terribly and pessimistic, so having a scapegoat like this one is helping me a lot. Also, as important as what I said before, I really appreciate the sense of community here and how RPing with you all has helped me to develop as a person, since I arrived here with a really poor level of English, now I guess I've managed to get enough command of it.

In regards of timing, I feel we're doing it decently and I'm still having fun with how things are scheduled here. Our current pace in football and related competitons is enough for me to take breaks from NS and then returning to RP with different ideas, also lets me work with worldbuilding and even a domestic league I'm trying to structure out.

I plan to keep in NSS, I'm satisfied with the pace, community sense but there's some slime chance that my activity could get interrupted if a plan I've been building during the last year comes to fruition, but only for a couple of weeks as I settle myself.

[Milchama]

So now I've been back for about a year at this point and so I was trying to figure out how much I can handle RP wise and I've figured out it's about 3 sports meaning WC/WBC/Cricket/Regionals and that's about it.

Considering that was about what I did before I left c. 2015 it seems like things are about the same and we're doing ok on timing etc. I think 4 WCs is about right but I also think that it's ok to have more WCs, if we understand that people will RP less per WC.

I'm definitely not burned out after a year so that's a good sign on how things are progressing!

[Independent Athletes from Quebec]

I've been waiting on saying congratulations and commiserations as Cup of Harmony's ongoing. But once again, congrats to Graintfjall and commiserations to Turori. Same go to Brenecia and Tumbra. All four teams have achieved a feat of their own in this journey to the World Cup, and therefore deserves all our shout-outs.

That brings me to my point: I'd like to ask you about how you're doing, how you feel about the pacing of everything that's on, knowing that it varies heavily whether you're on NS(S) daily or less often (because if you don't feel like it, don't make it a daily thing!) and what sports you're involved in. Basically, I/we have to avoid burnout, and (seemingly) with the spike of new influx during the Covid times over (or so I'm hearing from various hosts), we can sit and think about where we're going a little. I intend to open the next signups a little later, maybe, depending on the discussion.

So: how are you doing, are we still having fun? How do you feel about the pacing of everything, whether you're balancing multiple sports or not?

Doing slightly well and I'm having fun, as always. Pacing appears to have been slightly complicated due to the current CoH's elongated format, but people seems to have adjusted to it more or less.

I do have to admit that regionals opening their signups super early were a surpriser, but understandable especially with the giant, pleasant elephant in the room for later half of summer. Still, there is no doubt a gap - WBC happening around late-July to most of August, and NSCF + WB happening late-August and all of September...it does feel slightly weird.

I remain firm on opposing a drive to start WCs more frequently - right now we have around 2.5/3 WCs and 5-6 IFCFs a yr. Other tournaments can adjust and sometimes they may (accidentally or not) skip a cycle - but increasing WC frequency would most likely affect the domestic football more than less.

[Farfadillis]

I'm doing fine, but that might have to do with the fact that I don't mind severely reducing my output when RL doesn't allow me to focus much on NSS (see: this IFCF cycle, WC 88, the IFCF cycle that was around Christmas, most AOCAF Cups, etc). I don't feel like I've been lacking inspiration and I've even gotten back into hosting (despite some RL issues) so I'd say pacing hasn't been an issue.

I think 3 ≤ x ≤ 3.25 WC cycles is probably best to avoid burn-out while not fossilizing the rankings, and we're roughly there so no complaints on my part.

[Fort McKinley]

I'm only just reading this, logged in as this puppet so I can finish up my story arc for the COH.
Am I having fun doing NSSports right now? These last 2 cycles have seemed like a blur--I'm still trying to process that Vil and I were doing AOCAF 65 in December and this is now June.

If having fun is about enjoying the interactions with other nations/users, having to think about different scenarios as circumstances arise and then translating that into worthy effort, the answer is yes.

The pacing of events is still all or nothing in terms of trying to put RP efforts in for three or more events that overlap, then have a lull where nothing is happening. That's a function of the things one chooses to signup for, so it is different for everyone.

Thanks Ko for bringing up this thought provoking discussion.

That's Baker Park's/Ft McKinley's/Captina Island's position.

[Squidroidia]

Hey there it's Squid again. Congrats to Grænt on winning the World Cup!

That aside, yes Adam Johnson has stepped down from his role as the manager of the Squidroidian national team. With control of the Squidroidian national team going from the Squidroidian Football Association (SFA) to the new Squidroidian National Team Association (SNTA), the SNTA is looking for a manager for the next 3 cycles. For the SNTA, qualification for the World Cup should be a given for these next 3 cycles, but they can afford trading one qualification for a Cup of Harmony run should need be. If any manager wants to take up the offer, please TG me.

[Tumbra]

Hey everyone. It's Tumbra. You may know me as one of the two hosts of the recently-completed Cup of Harmony, amongst other things.

First off, congratulations to the winners of the final matchday and commiserations to the losers. Everyone who reached that stage very much deserved their spot in the semi-finals.

With the completion of the 83rd Cup of Harmony, Mertagne and I decided to do a sort of after-action review; to provide some reflection, bla bla bla. Anyway, we've got two main things to discuss:

1. The format

The two of us will readily admit that our format was quite long; almost too long. Our idea when coming up with the bid was to try and reward consistent RPers with more chances to correct their fortunes through more matches. A seven matchday group stage, though, did prove to be pretty taxing; and it did attract warranted criticism, which we did take into account. We'll stand by the format that we chose — but a suggestion to future Cup of Harmony hosts attempting a longer group stage format would be to utilise double scorination in the group stages. If we'd done this, we'd have done 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 and 7 as a standalone scorination, cutting six days from the tournament; but we figured that since we hadn't mentioned this in our bid, we wouldn't go with this.

2. The number of invitees

We'll be forthright about this — 56 is going to be very difficult for future Cups of Harmony to achieve. Right up to the deadline Mertagne and I were sweating that enough people weren't going to accept their invites, and we did see quite a few rejections from users. Our advice for future hosts of the Cup would be to set your targets lower, be it in numbers or criteria*. After all, despite the world still being on fire etc., we're seeing life being brought back to normal, forcibly or not, and that has an impact on how much activity there will be on this site.

_{*uhhh preferably one of the two, but that's an entirely different conversation that will probably start hours of screaming and strangling either here or on the discord server that i really don't feel like getting into}

If you have any other feedback for Mertagne/my hosting, it's very much welcomed; either here, on the server, or privately through telegram/etc. Preferably here though. Have a good one.

[Graintfjall]

Congrats to

Audio

and

Cassadaigua

and well done to Tumbra and Mertagne on a well run tournament.

I was not super keen on the CoH overrunning the WC so much but I think it may have worked out well, to the point where I might have changed my mind on that. Normally the CoH finals get rather swamped by the WC but this time there was more attention paid to them. (The storylines and nations involved may have helped too.)

Thank you to everyone who competed in the WC and I hope we lived up to your expectations as hosts. Thanks especially to Farf for calming me down whenever I had my panics about it all, to Zwangzug and Turori for co-hosting the quals, and to Mertagne, who was originally a possible partner in the plan, and ended up doing more hosting than any of us this cycle!). Special thanks to Turori for his spreadsheet wizardry. Thanks again to Turori for being so sporting in defeat. Basically, Turori rocks.

Hard as it is to judge on one set of results I thought splitting SQIS/NSFS went OK. Though a couple of big names missed out on the WC, that's happened before in NSFS qualifiers and the results didn't seem wildly wacky compared to rankings and expectations. The finals supplied some upsets (one in particular, which I will not be the one to complain about) too.

I hope the RP bonus info was taken as evidence that most RPs earn a decent grade but few RPs earn the absolute top grade. Consistently -- even across different graders -- that's what the data seemed to show.

Giving third place qualifiers a chance didn't lead to many upsets in the playoffs, though Tumbra finished third and went all the way to the semifinals. Whether or not it's a good idea probably depends on if you finish 2nd, 3rd, or 4th, but I hope it did leave more teams in the running to advance later in the qualifiers, rather than giving up at halfway.

If anyone has any feedback etc. they are welcome to post here or speak to me/Farf/my grand aunt Bertha in private.

---

I have been extraordinarily fortunate, quite possibly the luckiest single user in the history of the WCC. (I guess Crosshill or Brasilico have a shout, actually.) I'm trying not to let that blind me to the fact that not everyone has been so lucky with results. Nonetheless, here's a controversial statement: I think the World Cup is the single healthiest RP on the entire NS site. Look around the NS/II, P2M, GET forums... there are some good, and some great, RPs there, some long running ones, but I cannot think of a single RP that produces this many RPs over such a concentrated period of time. Across all my internet experiences, in fact, I wouldn't say there's a single BB-style forum RP that has maintained such a healthy participation rate and quality in 2022. That is (a) hugely cheering and (b) pause for thought about why that is. I don't feel we retain enough newer players, but, forum roleplaying is not what it was in 2003 in terms of appealing to new users.

So, Ko-oren -- yes, I am still having fun! But, I'm absolutely open to the perspectives of those who aren't and I hope we can make sure the WC keeps going as the remarkable collaboration that it is.

[Graintfjall]

Oh, one more thing.

I deliberately didn't enter a puppet this cycle (holding back in case we needed 1 last minute addition to make numbers work). After not RPing for ages, I then found it pretty hard to crank back into RPing gear for the finals.

So, my perhaps controversial advice, for future hosts, would be to enter a puppet, or at least, keep up your RPing, maybe in another tournament, alongside the qualifiers (assuming it's not too much of a burden). Obviously that's just my perspective but I thought I'd pass it along as a thought! My far more consequential advice would be... use Google Sheets! It greatly aids in coordination and enabled far quicker formatting of results.

[Saterun]

Congrats to Audio and Graint for sealing a NSWC Treble of the WC, BoF, and CoH. An incredible achievement.

[Audioslavia]

Cheers Saterun! Though depending on whether you believe the CoH happens before, during or after the World Cup it'd actually make me the fourth or fifth out of five, and certainly the fifth OOCly. Sarzonia, Nephara, Turori and Graintfjall are the others.

While I'm here: congrats to the various hosts for three very smoothly run tournaments. I don't have anything to add with regards to Ko's question from last week. I'm generally content with how things are and, naturally, am generally open to any changes or experiments the community would like to make.

Oh, and it's been great to see C&M jump back into NS Sport after a decade. I haven't gotten around to diving into their RP yet but it's on the list.

[Saint Eleanor]

To be clear: I do not assert, warrant, or otherwise claim that either of my proposals are supported by any WCC member other than Saint Eleanor, including any other player mentioned below.

Proposed constitutional amendment: Article 2.2.1.i of the Constitution shall be amended to read "A nation must not have previously participated in a WCC-sanctioned Baptism of Fire".

SOME IMPORTANT FACTS:

1. After the World Cup Constitution was ratified in the 47th cycle (with 90% support), Baptism of Fire entry requirements barred any nation who had participated in a "Baptism of Fire." During the 63rd cycle, they were amended (with two-thirds support) to forbid any nation that had participated in a "WCC-sanctioned Baptism of Fire." The general consensus that only previous entrants into a Baptism of Fire may not participate in a future one has been maintained until this cycle.
   
   
2. The new Article 2.2.1.i prevents BoF entry by any nation that has entered a "WCC-sanctioned tournament." The list of World Cup signups over time is longer, and much less easily accessible, than the list of historical Baptism of Fire entries. We, as a community, are now asking BoF hosts to spend more time checking signups against a longer list for no obvious reason.
   
   
3. Very few, if any, Baptism of Fire signups in any given cycle are returning nations who never took part in a previous BoF. Those nations, regardless of their past experience, are not necessarily guaranteed progression or tournament victory because of the quality of their roleplay. There is no reason why BoF hosts should be constitutionally obliged to act to minimise a problem that, for the most part, is not a problem.
   
   
4. The "WCC-sanctioned Baptism of Fire" wording that was used until this cycle was not a "loophole" - it was a measure designed to guarantee fairness and integrity in the BoF. It provided a means for previous World Cup signups who debuted in the twelve or so cycles before the BoF existed, or who joined without realising that there was a BoF to sign up for, to take part in a rank-free WCC competition on equal terms with all other Baptism of Fire entrants.
   
   
5. Article 2.2.1.i does not currently prevent, and has never prevented, experienced or returning users from signing up new puppets to the Baptism of Fire - which is not widely considered to be a problem. Such puppets are also not guaranteed progression because of their roleplay. This nation, a puppet of BoF non-participants (and former Cup of Harmony winners) Tinhampton, signed up to the 76th Baptism of Fire, but failed to progress beyond the quarterfinals of that competition.
   
   
6. The "WCC-sanctioned Baptism of Fire" standard is more targeted, more necessary, less ahistorical, less unfair, and requires less work from hosts than the "WCC-sanctioned tournament" standard.
   
   
7. The new Article 2.2.1.i is statistically the most controversial Article in WCC history. There is no reason why there should not be further discussion about it.

---

---

---

Proposed KPB amendment, pursuant to Article 3.1.iv of the Constitution: Each team which has qualified for:

1. the last World Cup finals shall receive points divided by games played, multiplied by 8, with this figure added to a qualifying bonus of 24/7 points,
   
   
2. the second-to-last World Cup finals shall receive points divided by games played, multiplied by 4, with this figure added to a qualifying bonus of 12/7 points, and
   
   
3. the third-to-last World Cup finals shall receive points divided by games played, multiplied by 2, with this figure added to a qualifying bonus of 6/7 points.

Why? This is roughly how I explained my proposal to ESF, keeper of the WC Rankings:

1. Currently, each team which has qualified for:
   
   
   1. the last World Cup finals receives points earned plus a bonus of three, multiplied by 8/7,
      
      
   2. the second-to-last World Cup finals receives points earned plus a bonus of three, multiplied by 4/7, and
      
      
   3. the third-to-last World Cup finals receives points earned plus a bonus of three, multiplied by 2/7.
   
   
2. In mathematical speak, this means that teams will receive 8(P+3)/7, 4(P+3)/7, and 2(P+3)/7 KPB points for each of the three most recent World Cups they have qualified for, where P means the number of points a team earns. We can decompose each of these figures into a variable term and a fixed term to return 8P/7 + 24/7, 4P/7 + 12/7, and 2P/7 + 6/7 KPB points for each of those World Cups.
   
   
3. In normal circumstances, with each World Cup lasting for seven games, this means that no team can earn more than ~27.43 KPB (= 8[21+3]/7). In other words, a team who wins all seven of their World Cup games will earn 24 + 24/7 KPB points. However, with 48-team World Cups coming soon, it is extremely likely that teams will have to play more than seven games at a World Cup. Under the current formula:
   
   
   1. At a nine-game WC (as proposed by TBI and Cass for WC54 and Poaf in his proposed Improving World Cup Experience Act: five group games as a result of having eight groups of six, plus four knockout games starting with a round of 16), a team that wins out will get P = 27 and thus earn ~30.86 KPB points (= 8[27]/7) - on top of the fixed qualification bonus of 24/7.
      
      
   2. If a future hosting team were to plan for a round of 32 on top of that, that goes up to ten games, P = 30 and a maximum of ~34.29 KPB (= 8[30]/7) plus 24/7.
      
      
   3. If another future hosting team were to run twelve groups of four and a round of 32, we'd get eight games, P = 24 and a maximum of ~27.43 KPB (= 8[24]/7) plus 24/7.
      
      
   4. And if yet another hosting team were to transpose FIFA's sixteen-groups-of-three format to the NSWC (a concept which is admittedly - and very sensibly - widely opposed by most WCC members), we return to seven games and the current implications that has.
   
   
4. Maintaining the current KPB formula when the World Cup finals are likely to expand, in terms of number and games played, could cause substantial increases and variation in the amount of KPB available, entrenching the absolute advantage of the very best teams even more than at present. Setting the denominator of the WCF formula's variable term to the number of games played - rather than to seven - will reflect the new realities of World Cup organisation, ensure that World Cups remain comparable in KPB terms, and avoid significant new work for the rankkeeper (who is familiar with the WCQ and CoH formulae, which are based on points divided by games played, as well as the current absolute values of qualification bonuses).
   
   
5. This amendment will align the World Cup finals formula's variable term with the WCQ and CoH formulae - where each team's KPB depends on the number of points they earn divided by the maximum number of games they could play, no matter what that maximum number is, multiplied by a fixed number (in this case 8/4/2, rather than WCQ's 4/2/1 or the CoH's 2.5/1.25/0.625) - while retaining the current fixed qualification bonus. The WCQ and CoH formulae will remain unchanged.
   
   
6. In other words, this amendment will ensure that each team receives 8P/G + 24/7, 4P/G + 12/7, and 2P/G + 6/7 KPB points for each of the three most recent World Cups they qualify for, where P means the number of points they earn and G means the maximum number of games they could play. Therefore, no matter how many games are played at a World Cup, a team who wins every game will still receive 24 + 24/7 KPB points, as is the case at present. The formula for traditional 32-team, seven-game World Cups will remain unchanged.

[Tumbra]

can someone more fluent in maths than me please simplify the second suggestion and explain it to me like i have a c in a level mathematics

[The Licentian Isles]

can someone more fluent in maths than me please simplify the second suggestion and explain it to me like i have a c in a level mathematics

While I appreciate the detail Tin has gone into above, it might do some good to have a precis/ELI5 of the proposals. I was confused about what exactly the first was proposing until Tumbra kindly clarified on Discord (which, as we always note, isn't as good a place to have discussions like this).

[Osarius]

can someone more fluent in maths than me please simplify the second suggestion and explain it to me like i have a c in a level mathematics

basically would make it so that the number of games played in a world cup finals doesn't affect the KPB gained
as it stands, a 100% record in a cup with more games will result in more KPB rank points

[Ko-oren]

The infamous rank debate is back! We have had similar talks last cycle. I think it's time for the 'Rank Taskforce' that has been briefly mentioned last cycle, rather than voting on one exact proposal.

A very good summary so far is this:

the KPBs were developed for a community that ran a World Cup every 30 days, wherein almost everyone assumed four IC years between World Cups. Now there's a World Cup every four months and almost everyone assumes two IC years between World Cups. ... Whatever the solution, even if the solution is 'just leave it', it certainly needs to be looked at.

In my opinion, we have to trial various versions and then decide if any of them are better than our current ranking, taking into account:
- Rewarding well-performing teams but not having them run away from the rest of the ranking
- Retaining new users (the 'it takes too long to build rank' argument is still heard a few times, despite two quite new users making it to the WC Final recently)
- Addressing the possibility of a WC with more than 32 nations
- Addressing the perceived 'ceilings' around 30th (making the WC/not making the WC) and 15th (making round 2/not making round 2)
- Assessing whether the 3-cycle KPB still works in a 'slower' world

If you want to be included in the task force, let me know. Please apply only if you can add to the task force: knowledge of the current formula, other formulas used on NSS, and knowing how to come up with and test new potential formulas are all requirements. The goal is not so much to change the formula, it is to find out if a better alternative is available, where 'better' is defined by the 5 worries/characteristics above.

[Sarzonia]

Ko-oren,

Do you really intend to shut out people who don't have technical know-how who may otherwise have valid input into discussions about rank? Because that's exactly what you just did there. Not good

[Tumbra]

Ko-oren,

Do you really intend to shut out people who don't have technical know-how who may otherwise have valid input into discussions about rank? Because that's exactly what you just did there. Not good

I think what Ko's trying to do is instead get people who know what they're doing to come up with something, before presenting it to us, the rest of the people who don't have the technical know-how or are otherwise unwilling to get as involved, for our valid input.