Nationstates Olympic Games Discussion Thread

[Kelssek]

Let's get this out of the way first. This is not a sign-up thread. If you wish to participate in the Olympic Games please wait for when they're actually taking place; watching this thread would help give you clues to when that will be. There is no point in filling this thread with "(nation) joins the Olympic Council" type posts. To give you an idea of what it's all about, particularly if sports RP is something you're new to, check out the RP thread and the results from the 4th Summer Olympics.

Also, please do not bid to host unless you know what you are doing. Hosting the Olympics is a tremendously big and time-consuming undertaking, and is much more than posting photos of stadiums and coming up with a spiel about one of your cities. When I did it I spent literally weeks processing the signups and loading them into the scorinator, in addition to at least 2 hours per day to generate the results. And that's for the Winter Olympics, which has less than a third of the events that the Summer Olympics does. In any case, it is very doubtful you would be accepted as the host if the participants didn't have confidence you could actually carry through with it.

Now, with that cautionary note out of the way, let's get on with it. This thread is intended for the discussion of stuff pertaining to the Nationstates Olympic Games. Let us proceed.

Olympic Games article on NSSWiki

OLYMPIC COUNCIL
Announcements thread (has links to all previous Olympics threads)
Olympic Charter

PAST GAMES
For links to the threads of past Games, please see the Olympic Council thread.

The last completed Games were the 15th Summer Olympics in August 2021.

SPORT FILES
As real-life scoring systems and rules evolve with time, in many cases the default xkoranate files have become inaccurate. Updated files used in the Olympics and related events will appear here.

Draw shot challenge (curling tiebreaker) - by Kelssek, used in 14th Winter Olympics
Snowboarding - women's parallel slalom qualification - by Kelssek, used in 14th Winter Olympics
Snowboarding - men's parallel slalom qualification - by Kelssek, used in 14th Winter Olympics
Multiple sports - by Liventia used in 16th Winter Olympics.

[Kelssek]

The next Olympics should be the 4th Summer, if someone's willing to take that up.

At this time, I do have preliminary hopeful provisional plans to host the V Olympic Winter Games to coincide with the real ones next year, in the same way CH mirrored the Beijing summer Games last year.

Also, perhaps it may be worth discussing how we will choose a host in the case of competing serious bids (or even to formally reject clearly insubstantial bids). There was the Upper Council setup which is largely irrelevant since so many of them aren't active any more, and the suggestion (from CH I believe), that participants in a given Olympics could vote for that host.

The problem I do have with that idea is that processing the signups themselves is at least half of the work and to do it after signups close and the vote is held would lead to unacceptably long time lags before the Olympics could actually get going.

[Bluth Corporation]

I agree, the choosing of the hosts needs to take place well before the process actually starts.

The old system worked; just because most of the original people are gone is no reason to abandon the method they used.

A formal bid process is a good idea; perhaps immediately upon the conclusion of one Games we immediately begin the process of selecting the next host, for the alternate type (so after a Winter Games we start choosing the next Summer Host). This should give everybody plenty of time to do everything necessary without doing things so far in advance that there's a likelihood of a selected host leaving NS before it's time. While anyone who would get selected has made a serious commitment to NS and is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, if you choose the host too far in the future then the actual date of the Games may be well past "soon."

The easiest way to reject clearly unacceptable or unworkable or insubstantial bids when those are the only ones made is that, first, each member of the committee gives a yes/no vote on each individual bid based on its viability. Only those proposals deemed "viable" (by receiving enough votes to put it past a threshold--could be majority, 2/3, whatever) are put up for the main vote to decide who actually wins the Games.

Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to brag once againabout being the overall medal champion in the last Winter Games despite it being our first-ever time participating (though not my OOC first time, as I have participated with other countries in the past).

[Taeshan]

we should all just vote and see who wins.

[Bluth Corporation]

we should all just vote and see who wins.

The problem with this approach is if all the proposals made are bad or (to use Kelssek's terminology) insubstantial, a bad or insubstantial proposal would necessarily win.

Using the method I described (or something conceptually similar), no bad proposals could win, because they would be all weeded out at the first stage. And if after the first stage there were no proposals remaining (because all that were made were bad) then we'd just reopen the process and start it over again, and it wouldn't proceed until we got at least one good proposal.

After all, no Olympics is preferable to a poorly-conceived and poorly- or unreliably-run Olympics.

[Kura-Pelland]

As someone who tried and failed to host the Games with my old nation (although I understand the incomplete Kaza Games were the least-unsuccessful Summer Olympics at the time), I thoroughly agree with Bluth Corp.

I would put myself forward for hosting, but I would be very surprised if I could do it justice, and even if I could, I don't think it would be the highest-utility use of my time. I admire anyone who does, though, and would be very willing to help out with scorination of new test events and the like (although my knowledge is confined to spreadsheets, not Java).

[Qazox]

Just doing a 1/3 of the load of a real Olympics (in my Qazoxian Sports Festivals) took me at least an hour a day to scorinate, giving me shoewhat of an idea as to the complete scope of hosting a NS Olympics.

If the World Cup is a 10 on a scale from 1-10, the Olympics is at least a 23. Or harder, concidering there is only ONE person doing everthing, usually without someone to help!

[Nethertopia]

In that case, why don't we use multiple hosts?

I know that we're trying to achieve an Olympic Games situation in which one host should be elected. We could do that, but say IC, for example, that three other nations would send 'officials' to several types of events. Maybe even in a local/regional bid. That way we'd have the security of multiple hosts in a way and the pressure on the single host system would somewhat tone down.

[Secristan]

Having played in a couple Olympics now, this is what bugs me"

Do we have to finish it in two weeks just because it's finished in two weeks in the real world? Compressing the schedule creates a ton of daily work for the hosts, but in addition, I felt as though when I made efforts to RP, I had so much information in front of me from the day that it was really hard for me to "get into". Why not made it a four week ordeal? Cuts the work a host needs to do per day (although they will have more days to have to work), and is also less information and numbers that the RPer has to process, and therefore can be more enjoyable to RP.

[Bears Armed]

Having played in a couple Olympics now, this is what bugs me"

Do we have to finish it in two weeks just because it's finished in two weeks in the real world? Compressing the schedule creates a ton of daily work for the hosts, but in addition, I felt as though when I made efforts to RP, I had so much information in front of me from the day that it was really hard for me to "get into". Why not made it a four week ordeal? Cuts the work a host needs to do per day (although they will have more days to have to work), and is also less information and numbers that the RPer has to process, and therefore can be more enjoyable to RP.

I second this suggestion.

[Starblaydia]

The two hosts idea for Olympics is tricky in the unfortunate event of one disappearing if they've divvied up the events between them beforehand. Otherwise there's lots of back and forth with files that they ideally wouldn't need to use. It's certainly possible, but the multi-sport nature makes it difficult.

I, too, have no idea why everything has to happen so quickly - less days of work for a host is always good, of course, but compacting it into two exhausting weeks is perhaps a bad thing. A more... 'relaxed' schedule may be better.

[Kura-Pelland]

Four weeks would make sense, and I would be prepared to commit to such a schedule as a host. It'd improve the depth of RP too.

[Gerainia]

I second the four-week idea, since I would really like to host a Winter olympics sometime. (2011 is out of the question due to exams.)

[Bluth Corporation]

The two hosts idea for Olympics is tricky in the unfortunate event of one disappearing if they've divvied up the events between them beforehand.

Someone wouldn't have been picked as a sole host if everyone responsible for making the decision wasn't confident that they could handle the workload and would be around the whole time.

Surely there's more than one person at any given time who would meet that decscription. If someone intends to do an OOC-multihost, just make it transparent so we know who will be doing what, and then we can judge their reliability just as we would judge a sole host, using the same criteria.

[Bluth Corporation]

I know that we're trying to achieve an Olympic Games situation in which one host should be elected. We could do that, but say IC, for example, that three other nations would send 'officials' to several types of events. Maybe even in a local/regional bid. That way we'd have the security of multiple hosts in a way and the pressure on the single host system would somewhat tone down.

The thought I had yesterday afternoon around the same topic was even simpler, in that we wouldn't even have to invent some sort of IC justification for it. IC'ly, it would appear as though it was totally one host--those to whom some of the tasks had been delegated (with their agreement, of course) would just send the IC host the results of their events and he would be responsible for posting them--or they could even post them themselves, and while OOC we'd all know what was going on, IC'ly we'd just ignore that altogether and pretend it was all one country handling the entire thing.

[Somewhereistonia]

The thought I had yesterday afternoon around the same topic was even simpler, in that we wouldn't even have to invent some sort of IC justification for it. IC'ly, it would appear as though it was totally one host--those to whom some of the tasks had been delegated (with their agreement, of course) would just send the IC host the results of their events and he would be responsible for posting them--or they could even post them themselves, and while OOC we'd all know what was going on, IC'ly we'd just ignore that altogether and pretend it was all one country handling the entire thing.

Potentially the scorers for the events wouldn't compete in those events to ensure fairness, or at least that could work in principle. As long as everybody scores what they are supposed to on time, this should work well.

[Zwangzug]

In the past hosts have competed alongside other countries...there generally hasn't been a problem with it, I don't think we'd have to worry about it with a two-host system.

[Kelssek]

Really, I think the nature of the schedule should be left up to the host. They'd be the ones running it, after all.

I'm also not convinced on multiple hosts, for the reasons Star mentioned. The Winter Olympics is definitely doable solo. The Summer Olympics are more daunting, of course, but two different people have been able to do it successfully solo as well (though Cas, of course, was possibly a hamster). What I would agree on, however, would be a backup host, if that were possible, able to pick things up if the host disappeared or gave up. The option should be left open, though, while it would not be my personal ideal way of doing it with good coordination I don't see any reason multiple hosts can't be done.

[Taeshan]

So when would said Olympics take place.We could start sign ups soon and start a little after June 22nd to coincide with the official begining of summer.

[Kelssek]

We've got to find someone to host it first, don't we?

[Taeshan]

Well technically yes, i was just saying as their are know summer olympics in real life this year or for the next few years at that we could do it anytime. We could also do it where signups are open and we vote for a host like in soccer.

[Bluth Corporation]

Well technically yes, i was just saying as their are know summer olympics in real life this year or for the next few years at that we could do it anytime. We could also do it where signups are open and we vote for a host like in soccer.

Olympics is a huge undertaking; at any given time, there are very few people who are willing and able to do it, and since there are so few the times at which such people are available is not nearly as regular as it is for less-involved events. So it's really better to have a host in place before registration begins.

[Starblaydia]

Well technically yes, i was just saying as their are know summer olympics in real life this year or for the next few years at that we could do it anytime. We could also do it where signups are open and we vote for a host like in soccer.

Olympics is a huge undertaking; at any given time, there are very few people who are willing and able to do it, and since there are so few the times at which such people are available is not nearly as regular as it is for less-involved events. So it's really better to have a host in place before registration begins.

Plus each host may well have their own sign-up format that they wish to use to fit their collating, scorinating and/or copy/pasting need, so much better for a host to be chosen first and for them to start sign-ups.

[Achalya Santis]

I would like to participate in the Games.

Yes, I have read the cautionary explanation. I only have one computer in my house, so it will be hard to do this. It is a week since I try to be active in the forums. There are things of scorebords I do not understand (my computer won't render them well, there's not a ZIP forum). Still, it is my interest to host or co-host.

I will speak with a few of the Commonwealth I'm in before putting up a formal decision. The double-hosting intrigues me.

Again, I would like to participate in any way.

[Bluth Corporation]

Have you participated before?