chris dw reza and i got a vote sent in

@Derfellios -

I heard nothing about this, or other announcements at all from Cowboy. The only reason I knew about the template vote at all is Super posted it on our Discord page. The last major vote I only knew about because Reza saw it here and posted on our Discord server. If it was just me, I would say I am just busy/lazy and it is my own fault. But the fact that less than half the clans participated tells me other people don't use the forums either.

I'm not saying PM/chat game everything, but something as important as this should not be left to the half dozen clan leaders that feel like sifting through Blitz recruiting threads to find updates.

And yes, the fact that we got the worst 3v3 templates possible is a big deal IMO. I don't see any issue with the 2v2s. Those are viable templates and assuming we got EU 3v3, we didn't need SZE. 1v1s are fine too, though I think Greece is a solid template, hate to see that missing again.

Not too excited about the 3vs3s either, but there have been worse 3vs3 templates before :)

Chris, checkmqte mailed me as I was the primary contact for {101st} during CL12 reminding me of the vote 1 day and 7 days prior. Reza is your primary contact, and I guess he got mailed too. Maybe it sloppy not to mail both contacts, but I don't know whether this was an official action. Was Reza on vacation during that time or did he have checkmqte blocklisted?
But, there was already a deadline extension and you were aware the deadline was approaching. Checking the forum thread is a reasonable idea to search for the exact date.
Also, most clan league threads are highlighted, and the last post on the last Blitz recruitment thread is exactly one month old at the moment. So today marks a sad day in Warlight history as Blitz' recruitment is closed.

:'(

I'm not saying PM/chat game everything, but something as important as this should not be left to the half dozen clan leaders that feel like sifting through Blitz recruiting threads to find updates.

We now you got me all pissed off. If you don't want to deal with Blitz recruiting then you should just join Blitz you coward.

Edit: Also I only see one Blitz recruiting thread on there. SHOW ME THE REST...coward.

Edited 6/15/2020 16:27:06

Sorry for the delays guys. I worked the night shift on Saturday, and spent most of Sunday taking a nap.

As far as the templates.

3v3s
India
DRoR

2v2s
Biomes of America
Strategic MME (no gift)
Volcano Island

1v1s
Blitzkrieg Bork
Strategic MME
Elitist Africa
Volcano Island
Malvia
French Brawl

When I get off work today, I'll drop the details on the voting.
Also I would like to apologise for the voting not going how I planned, the system worked better in my head than it did in practice. I contemplated changing the voting system to one proposed by AI (15% to 2.5% reductions) based on recency, but after complaints that changing the voting system after the fact was wrong, I will just keep it as it is for this season.

Regarding Chris, I asked my fellow panelists to mail the clan leaders, and in fact they did it twice. I even messaged Reza and Smoove on discord (my primary method of communication).

Also all of this was posted to the CL discord as well as the forum.
If you want me to do everything, then fine, I'll do it, but I want no more hoops to jump through over silly bullcrap.

Secondly, 13 out of 14 clans voted, only BIA missed out, and that was because of his work schedule, not that he wasn't notified.

Thirdly, Greece didn't miss out "again." I literally won the tourney in A last CL. As much as I love it I do see the value in keeping variety from season to season.

Finally, the 3v3s are fine. DRoR has 2 seasons in CL now and has established itself as a good template, and I like India as well. Just because you think they're bad, doesn't make them bad.

Derfellios is correct. I mailed primary contacts of each clan in A/B, which in this case was Reza. He and Smoove, like Smoove said, got the votes in.

Thanks for all your work Cowboy! Looking forward to the next season :)

we wuv you cowboy

If you care about clan league to the degree Chris makes out to be the ideal move to become updated is to simply join the CL discord, every question can be readily answered instantly.

Simply mail Cowboy even.

But to be complaining and making parallels to one owns tenure of leading CL, while wandering like a lost child on the forums who didn't know what homework it had the other day is so nonsensical.

If Cowboy is spending hours running the league daily, you can spend time going through the Blitz recruitment threads, which are absolutely amazing btw to gather the information required.

The other points are totally valid but on the topic of questioning communication methods it's so sinfully lazy it deserves to deserve a shut up answer.

Because this system, with it's arbitrary penalties, enabled a template that only 3/13 clans wanted to feature in clan league, it only makes sense that we change it. The common sense move would be to change it for this season and not force a majority of clans to play on templates they didn't vote for. The simplest solution is to create an independent panel - perhaps we could call this panel the 'template panel' - who would edit the current crop of templates to something which better reflects the desires of the clans. This 'template panel' would disregard the penalties and just select templates based on the votes, they would also try to minimise the amount of repeated templates as diversification seems to matter to the community. This could be done in a day if you picked an active panel.

Suggestions for the Template Panel:
AI
Master of Desaster
Innerspeaker
Rakleader
Jefferspin
Goralgn

Edited 6/15/2020 23:12:27

If you look at raw votes, and if I understand correctly, 6/13 clans gave Europe a first vote, and 10/13 clans gave it either a first or second vote! A simple majority of clans wanted Europe as one of the templates in this clan league.. Like, even if we were to use just dowdall, Europe wins in a landslide. The "penalties" system that the cl panel used seems to actually make the templates that clans generally favor more to be less likely to chosen. How does this make any sense?

To keep variety in Clan League and combat strategic voting a 10% point deduction will be added to every template that was played the previous 6 season, stacking up to 60% reduction. A and B clans will be allowed to vote.

If you want to do this Just specify in the future that 2 (ie, 1 1v1, 1 2v2, I don't think it is good to do this with 3v3) templates or so are required to be templates that have not been played before. Just let clans vote normally, isolate new templates into a separate pool, and look at the new templates that scored highest.

Edited 6/16/2020 03:34:18

@Xeno 2 things:
1. I'm pretty sure you're aware, but the penalties are not arbitrary (the size is based on how many recent CL season it has been in)
2. just wanted to point out, the majority of clans are almost always forced to play on templates they didn't vote for. 😉 Unless one season D has hardly any clans in it.

That said, I honestly don't care what the template voting system is, I just think that once we have voted on the current system, don't try change it after you've seen the outcome! If all the templates you'd wanted had been voted in, there might possibly still be a few complaints about the system, but not as many as now! So I think Cowboy is making the right choice here. Change the rule after the current season, not during it. (In fact, wasn't this the exact same ruling with the Masters case this year?)

1. They absolutely are arbitrary. Cowboy picked a random number and timeframe, without much consideration of the consequences, he has even admitted as much.
2. Div C and D clans are denied a vote for valid reasons. As you know I was simply referring to the clans that voted.


Changing the system after the outcome is preferable to proceeding with a bad outcome. We have months before any games are created, it won't hurt anyone to change it now.

Edited 6/16/2020 03:32:56

i don't know that this is a "bad" outcome. i disagree with randomness prioritized over what people want. but he is running it and values variety more. that isn't inherently bad, it is just different. rather than redo it, i am focusing on leaning the new template

Very big of you.

I'm going to give my input as a statistician (the profession, not the clan member) on the voting system in general, not the outcome.

Generally, letting participants give a ranking is generally advised AGAINST if you want to obtain a final ranking. The main reason is that it is very difficult to know how close one participant perceives subsequent items to be.

Example:
* participant 1 likes A, and dislikes B and C: Ranking: A C B
* participant 2 likes A and B and dislikes C: Ranking: A B C
* participant 3 likes C and B and dislikes A: Ranking C B A
* participant 4 likes B and dislikes A and C: Ranking B A C
The winner with most (all?) ranking systems would be A.
However, if we count "likes", we have: B: 3, A: 2, C: 1

One alternative is to let each participant rate each item. In this case, clans could then upvote or downvote the template of their preference. Rating has many advantages, with its only disadvantage that it doesn't force a choice (you could just rate all items the maximum or the minimum).

The other alternative, and likely best in a situation like this, would be to let clans distribute a fixed number of points over the different templates, based on a system where participants have to divide their points over the different items. In Clan League, the best approach would like be to assign 10 points per template chosen with the points given to each template between 0 and 10. This would mean all clans can divide 20 points between the 4 available 3v3 templates, 30 between the 16 available 2v2 templates and 60 between the 27 available 3v3 templates.

To revisit the first example with "1 template" chosen (10 points distributed):
participant 1: A 8, B 1, C 1
participant 2: A 5, B 5, C 0
participant 3: C 5, B 4, A 1
participant 4: B 9, A 1, C 0
Total: A 15, B 19, C 6 and B is chosen, correctly identifying the choice with most support.

A clan with a very strong preference for specific templates can just give 10s to the few that they really like, while a clan that has a more broad preference, could give scores like 4 or 5 to multiple templates, and still 0 to the ones they dislike.

Another advantage of this approach, would be that points can be weighted between divisions. Clans in A, B and maybe even C could have different weights so the voices of most clans are heard, but the clans in higher divisions get a little more weight.
With ranking, such weighing is harder to do and its impact potentially outsized.
Similarly, "penalties" can be easily and naturally applied as well.


My professional advice would be to use this kind of system for template voting for the next season, and maybe also for the Seasonal Ladder choice, ethics panel elections, and any other voting system where you'd initially consider ranking, especially if more than 1 "winner" is to be determined.

Edited 6/16/2020 13:24:17