[ROOTPetraeus]

Originally Posted by xGKingLight

My own opinion is that its too easily achieved.

Exactly minus this :P
Please suggest some more balanced guidelines to be achieved.

[nGenLight]

Well, I've stated some before. My personal opinion is that - I am much more inclined to allow players who are proven to be apart of the community like SoulmanSPR than towards a player who has just begun to intiate as part of the community. To me, 100 ladder games is an indication that a player is initiating to become part of the community, but 100 ladder games is far too less to prove that this player is/will continue to be part of the community. 100 games is achievable in a couple of days, to say this is proof of community involvement is an exaggeration.

I certainly don't disagree with "admin discretion". Because admin discretion is necessary for situations where a brain is going to be more useful than written words. However, I am disagreeing with this 100 games rule as the future standard.

Hence, if my suggestion would be the "invite-only" system where admins invite players of their own accord with announcement of why they are invited if they are not SEA regulars. This makes things alot more transparent.

Please keep in mind that I have absolutely no opinion of whether SEA tournaments should expose to the world/foreign players or not, I simply wouldn't care if SEACL was open to foreigners (probably great exposure/challenge as said) - But if we are going to keep the event specifically for SEA - Then yes these grounds rules needs to be set. It further doesn't bother me whether I play a SongheeSPR or BalloonSPR if I do get to play in the SEACL (In my current condition I'd be lucky to take a game off anybody). The only reason I am on this issue is because of politically correctness, and not wanting for SEA to sound/look hypocritical in how we handle things.

[ROOTPetraeus]

Originally Posted by xGKingLight

Hence, if my suggestion would be the "invite-only" system where admins invite players of their own accord with announcement of why they are invited if they are not SEA regulars. This makes things alot more transparent.

To be honest, I like this idea a lot. However, how would you achieve non biased decisions? Who would decide the invites?

[nGenLight]

The admins of SC2SEA do a pretty good of not being biased. However, it could be improved by including community leaders(Clan leaders like - Del, Jump. Prominent figures like - Benji, Dox) from all over SEA as part of the voting comittee to decide on important things like - whether a player is hacking/ruling etc.

However the main idea here isn't aimed at completely eliminating biasedness, but to make things more transparent. Instead of saying "You played 100 games, we now consider you active" which I consider weak. My opinion.

[Peleus]

Ok, so I'm posting on my laptop now instead of the iphone, hopefully I can explain what I mean a little more and articulate my thoughts better.

Light - I apologise if it seemed like I was taking pot shots at you, I'll try and explain what I was getting at a little better.

In your post you state

So is the rule: 100 ladder games on SEA + Posting on SC2SEA.com? Because if that was the case MasterSPR would have taken that option in a heartbeat.

Taking nothing away from Balloon's introduction thread, it is authentic and warmful, it just came at a controversial timing

Drawing links between a post made at 8:09PM, and a decision that was made at 1:32PM was invalid, which was why I was pointing out that Balloons post had nothing to do with eligibility. I don't see it as a controversial timing because it was after any decision was made. If he posted it a day before I asked independently if he could play - you'd perhaps have a very reasonable point.

Ok, the 100 games. Firstly I wasn't here for the master debate with regards to anything taking place in the masters cup, so I apologise if ground was covered there and I'm missing some context. I can say however that I have been involved in the rather large healthy debate about eligibility specifically for SEAL located here - http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=3202

You say that 100 games in itself is not a high enough bar for entrants, no problems I can accept your opinion on this matter. The much harder question is - what do you (and the same question for the rest of the community) find acceptable?

I can think of three independent metrics associated with the SEA community.
1) Total games played on the SEA server:

Although it appears this is what the admins have decided to do in this case, it still meets a lot of resistance. There is a perception that ladder games mean nothing, and KR people can simply play 100, 200, 500 games for the sake of eligibility. I'd actually argue that once you do complete 100, 200, 500 games then in some ways you've actually been more active on SEA than many other players on our server, and if anything you could say their contribution has been higher than many 'native' SEA players, but regardless that's the issue thats commonly raised this this metric, making it in some minds, ineligible for measuring.

2) Tournament participation:

Well, it would make sense that people commonly playing within tournaments would be considered part of the SEA community. Let's look at track record though, no one would deny that yCh and TiGer have played in many SEA tournaments, to a point where playing in them itself was the issue. Even when banned from a certain amount of them they still sign up for those which are available to them (i.e. masters cup), yet as we saw in the latest admin decision it wasn't enough to be deemed as 'community involvement'. Therefore it seems as though tournament participation is deemed as irrelevant, before we even get to the fact that it's hardly a fair metric considering many players are bared from entry in the first place.

3) Posting on sc2sea.com

It seems like this is the only metric people are willing to accept, and it boils down to "how many friends do you have here". I'd say this isn't a metric at all, and it's only popularity contest. I also got a little upset in my initial posting because it seemed as though (perhaps incorrectly) even this metric was being called into question with Balloons posting being 'controversial'. I'm sure you can appreciate my frustration if for example someone is told out of the 3 metrics (1) is irrelevant, (2) is insufficient and even when trying to do (3) it's questionable, hence my "Well what do you want?" comment.

I agree completely that clear, objective rules are needed for eligibility. I have been pushing for them quite clearly in other posts. The community however is going to have to accept that no matter what objective rules you post, someone can ALWAYS try and break the system and only complete the bare minimum to be eligible, so a level of trust is going to be needed no matter what. If we can't agree on the trust then we're going to be setting eligibility requirements so high that 95% of SEA players would never meet them, simply to ensure that "someone doesn't slip through" which I think is silly.

Make a reasonable amount of games the metric in my opinion. If you want to ensure it's not a "smash them out" situation then set a minimum of 100 games for the preceding season also. If someone is simply trying to "game" the system by playing 100 games in two consecutive seasons, I'd say they are simply actually being part of the community.

I think this is highly relevant.

http://xkcd.com/810/

[ROOTPetraeus]

Originally Posted by xGKingLight

However the main idea here isn't to complete eliminate biasedness, but to make things more transparent, instead of saying "You played 100 games, we now consider you active" which I consider weak. My opinion.

Its not so much the amount of games, in my mind. Its the time the solidarity of it. Most of the other suggestions have been quite vague and in my opinion, solid rules being put in place will avoid a lot of arguing. Then again, if nothing but a committees decision is mentioned, then there is nothing to argue against. But its almost impossible to not be biased with that sort of thing.

I personally don't see this as a big enough deal that 100 Games won't suffice. However, others do.

I'm not entirely sure about this 'committee' but I would support the idea of invite only, if it was thought out well.

[Stallion]

i think a time rule would be better over a games rule as said they could pump those games out easy. like y not see them active over say the 2 months( a season) before a masters cup that allows the korean players. The big problem with this is what do you deem active? id say 30 games a week would be fine as an active player. This would be 30x8 (assuming there are 8 weeks) = 240 games or make it something like 400 games total if not over that time to force them to really play on our server i feel 100 is really light for a korean player.

Quick Comments

	nGenLight:	Good direction!
	asdfSchnitzel:

[ROOTPetraeus]

Originally Posted by cruxStallion

i think a time rule would be better over a games rule as said they could pump those games out easy. like y not see them active over say the 2 months( a season) before a masters cup that allows the korean players. The big problem with this is what do you deem active? id say 30 games a week would be fine as an active player. This would be 30x8 (assuming there are 8 weeks) = 240 games or make it something like 400 games total if not over that time to force them to really play on our server i feel 100 is really light for a korean player.

If your going to have a rule based purely on the amount of time/games spent on SC2, then that amount just isn't fair. So many SEA players don't play that and to make a foreign player commit to that many games is near impossible. The idea of a 'foreign player' means they don't play mainly on our server.. Either have a small amount of games to play or use another method that they have to prove themselves in.

[Bugalugs McScruffin]

Originally Posted by Petraeus

If your going to have a rule based purely on the amount of time/games spent on SC2, then that amount just isn't fair. So many SEA players don't play that and to make a foreign player commit to that many games is near impossible. The idea of a 'foreign player' means they don't play mainly on our server.. Either have a small amount of games to play or use another method that they have to prove themselves in.

I think this is the issue though. You have a couple of different standards. You have the SEA residents who get automatic registration no matter what. And then you get the Korean players coming in just for the tournaments and then leaving again. The burden is on the foreigners to prove that they are part of the community. It's the difference between participating in a community event, which the SEAL is, because you are part of the community and coming in to win some prizes and then leaving again.

One question I would ask is whether we would consider Nemo or Frogmite to be foreigners? Sure they're from France, but I consider them to be part of this community because of the time and effort they put into building this community. The biggest problem is that this is a subjective measure.

If you want an objective measure of ladder games it is always going to be tipping against foreigners. It will always look unfair compared to residents of SEA because it is. This is no disputed, residents and foreigners are under different eligibility requirements. I think that one of the better ways to have an objective measure is to base it on ladder games over time like Stallion suggested. It's much greater than what many SEA residents play, but that's the point, the foreigner needs to prove they are committed to the community/ladder. If they're not committed then they can find tournaments elsewhere.

Two cautions in all of this. Firstly, post count minimums on SC2SEA are not a good idea because it promotes spamming of posts, reducing the quality of the site. Secondly, I believe it will be very rare when there is a disputed case where a player believes they have contributed to the community and they are still refused entry into a tournament. In most, if not all, cases it will be obvious either way.

I think the best situation is to have two different routes of eligibility. Either active on the server, as Stallion suggested, or a variety thereof. Or an active member of the community on the site, ie. Nemo or Frogmite.

One last question for PeleusSPR, where are your players in this discussion? What are their thoughts on all of this? If I've missed them, feel free to point them out, I haven't read the entire thread.

[Peleus]

Also, the issue I see with an 'invite' system is that it's simply no different to an admin decision system, in the sense of it's largely a popularity contest and there will always be bias' etc with any human interaction system.

Any time a player cannot look at a rule sheet, and instantly tell whether or not they are eligible there is a level of subjectiveness involved, and hence a level of controversy. Don't forget if we do implement an objective system (i.e. XXX games over Y seasons) and it appears that it becomes broken due to ineffective benchmarks (i.e. games set to low, seasons not long enough) then we can simply change the rules to be more effective / accurate of what the community wants.

This is why however I'm against any 'invite', 'admin decision', 'what the community thinks' type decisions, because subjectiveness always leaves room for controversy and perceived bias in decisions.

[TAEdgE]

Originally Posted by PeleusSPR

Also, the issue I see with an 'invite' system is that it's simply no different to an admin decision system, in the sense of it's largely a popularity contest and there will always be bias' etc with any human interaction system.

Any time a player cannot look at a rule sheet, and instantly tell whether or not they are eligible there is a level of subjectiveness involved, and hence a level of controversy. Don't forget if we do implement an objective system (i.e. XXX games over Y seasons) and it appears that it becomes broken due to ineffective benchmarks (i.e. games set to low, seasons not long enough) then we can simply change the rules to be more effective / accurate of what the community wants.

This is why however I'm against any 'invite', 'admin decision', 'what the community thinks' type decisions, because subjectiveness always leaves room for controversy and perceived bias in decisions.

Can't give rep but yeh this is very true.

Quick Comments

nGenLight:

I can give you rep for agreeing with you but

[nGenLight]

PeleusSPR:

Good I love this attitude much more as we are getting into some discussion.

"Drawing links between a post made at 8:09PM, and a decision that was made at 1:32PM was invalid".

I apologise, I can understand why drawing a link can be considered offensive, I didn't look at the timing either. However my point still stands - would making such posts (authentic or with agenda) help your case on eligibility?

I don't exactly know what is "acceptable" and hence this is why I am trying to encourage discussion into this topic. You listed 3 main points of which I completely agree with and I tend to think a mix of 2-3 of these is usually good enough in demonstrating involvment in SEA. The common similarity all these points have together is - Time. Players like yCH and SoulmanSPR are instantly recognised as SEA regulars because of the immense time they've spent on ladder, tournaments (even disregarding posting on sc2sea).

My concern is that 100 ladder games can be achieved way too quickly - especially if they are all played right before a tournament requiring you to play those number of games. This does not prove that a player is a part of the community, because a quick number of 30 games days is not an indication that the player has spent much meaningful time on the SEA server/community, merely that the player has just begun to intiate into the communty. Whether a player is already a part of the community or whether the player has just begun to play within the community are very different in my opinion - 100 ladder games certainly cannot deferentiate that boundary.

"Make a reasonable amount of games the metric in my opinion. If you want to ensure it's not a "smash them out" situation then set a minimum of 100 games for the preceding season also. If someone is simply trying to "game" the system by playing 100 games in two consecutive seasons, I'd say they are simply actually being part of the community."

This is a great example of the type of answer I am looking for in this thread, I thank you for this. May the discussion continue.

[nGenLight]

I'm taking back my "invite-only" idea after consideration of some insightful posts. I feel like the quickest/simplest answer lies within an metric system of ladder games + activeness in previous seasons.

I propose that player has to be active for the last 2-3 seaons (150-200games) including the current season. Meaning if the player was active in season 2, 3 and 4, and skipped 4 seasons and wants to rejoin a tournament in season 8. He better have a good reason for admins discretion. This shows that the player is active in the SEA ladder scene and can be considered a SEA regular. An introduction post like what Balloon did would help immensely too.

My only concern would be if players used their accounts to boost up the number of games. However that would be an integrity issue which we will leave to another discussion.

[|Erasmus|]

I like a metric system for the sole reason that players know where they stand. They don't put in what they see as a reasonable effort to 'be involved' only to be stuck in limbo waiting for an admin to 'decide' if it's good enough with the possibility of rejection.

As long as they know where they stand so they aren't putting in effort specifically to try and be eligible only to be rejected, I don't care. Cause that's just mean...

[Bugalugs McScruffin]

Originally Posted by |Erasmus|

I like a metric system for the sole reason that players know where they stand. They don't put in what they see as a reasonable effort to 'be involved' only to be stuck in limbo waiting for an admin to 'decide' if it's good enough with the possibility of rejection.

As long as they know where they stand so they aren't putting in effort specifically to try and be eligible only to be rejected, I don't care. Cause that's just mean...

I take to long to write my posts.

Quick point about the stuck in limbo waiting for an admin to decide. For the few players that would be unsure either way, and believe it would be only a few the Admins should be able to give suggestions as to what would improve someones contribution to the community. If there is not enough time before the start of the season and they are a border line case then there would be the possibility to join on a probationary term with specific increased community involvement being the requirement beyond a certain number of weeks.

[Maynarde]

God I love this site sometimes, I saw the thread up in the corner and went "UH OH, DRAMA INC" but I've read through it's so sensible and structured I think I'm going to cry manly tears T_T excellent discussion guys.

Us admins were having a REALLY hard time deciding how to quantify a good amount of activity on the SEA ladder that would keep everyone happy. I initially thought that showing a good amount of activity for something like.... 4 seasons in a row would be a good indicator but it was decided not to be. We were initially at 200 games, dropped it to 100, and I personally feel like this discussion is necessary to help us help you.

Keep it going guys Excellent thread Light.

Quick Comments

AxSGRiM:

[xpaperclip]

I've never been a fan of this "x ladder games this season" criteria, because as many have pointed out it doesn't indicate long term activity. It has also been pointed out that the criteria would be one which many SEA pros would fail because they either play customs, or ladder on KR or another server. Demonstrating activeness on SEA should be achieved by playing "many" ladder and custom games over a suitably long period. Unfortunately, this information is somewhat difficult to extract quickly. I like Light's idea of ladder activeness over a number of seasons, as long as they remain as short as they are now (around two months).

A lot of the debate is also around how to define "many", with somewhat arbitrary numbers being thrown around and argued to be too high or too low or both by different people. I think a fair method would be to compare them to other high level players in SEA (i.e. the grandmaster league). I realise the GM league is flawed, but for the purposes of this I think it is OK. In fact, being GM (+ bonus pool) already imposes some form of activity constraint (although probably nowhere near enough).

The benchmark could be set to be having a comparable number of games being played to some percentile of the GM league by the start of the registration date (details can be worked out by admins later on). The pros on SEA are particularly suitable because we don't have a totally messed up GM league, and they also play customs for practice and frequently ladder on another server (KR), so the amount of games is not concentrated into ladder making the number infeasible as a "secondary server player".

Finally, admin discretion can be used to accept those which may fail this criteria but are nonetheless accepted as part of the community, (but never reject someone who has passed it). This allows for flexibility as well as a well-defined criteria which players can use to guarantee them entry.

[Frogmite]

I feel i need to post here as i am the one who posted to accept BalloonSPR in SEACL.

First of all, all the decisions are taken within admins, most of the time we're not all in agreement but we always take the decision of the majority.

Decisions of admins:
In a first time we authorized/refused korean players in SEACL according to admin's judgement only, and there were drama because there were no clue for clans to know which player was eligible or not.
We set some conditions, drama again because we shouldn't quantify the number of ladder game to play and that admins should only invite players.
Admins always have to take that kind of decisions. If we are proven wrong with this season, we will make everything possible to rectify it for next season. There will be a feedback thread at the end of the season to help us improve.
This thread is a perfect tool for us to help us which decision to take for next season .

Player impact/entry restriction:
One player play ONE game for ONE match. It means that one player will only represent 20% of the match. There is no all-kill, so the impact to have or not a good player to play against is reduced.
As soon as you restrict the entry to a tournament, you cannot guaranty that the restrictions will be respected. A player can still borrow the account of his friends to play under his name. So to resume you can refuse any player, there will always be a way for them to play in it.

Last point is a bit harsh, i hope no one will be ofended, but i am sure that if we were training instead of wasting our time making drama, we would beat those koreans. They are not more talented than SEA, they just play more.

Quick Comments

alwaysdryToT:

They are not more talented than SEA, they just play more.^^

[nGenLight]

To RyoomakSPR: Hello, and welcome sir. You make some pretty good points and I can see that you are a really nice and reasonable guy. However, you are missing the point of this thread and my intention, and perhaps expectedly so as you even said yourself that you didn't read all the posts within this thread. No one is questioning you, BalloonSPR or anyones rights to buy a SEA account and play on the SEA Server. Infact, I personally love player against tougher competition, as before I stopped playing I regularly got beaten ten times a day by Korean GMs. I am with Edge and Targa's opinion(summarised here: http://www.sc2sea.com/showpost.php?p=59781&postcount=48) in that I believe we should allow everyone to play, it doesnt bother me but rather excites me.

However, this isn't the issue, the issue that is at hand is that of foreigners eligibility to play in the SEACL, which has a rule that states:

7. You may not include players based outside of Southeast Asia or Oceania in your team unless an admin grants special consideration.

Proposing that is infact a tournament to promote the SEA scene and SEA players, which has their own argument and merit, summarised by Chadman's post here: http://www.sc2sea.com/showpost.php?p=59804&postcount=53. Regardless of whether BalloonSPR is the nicest/friendliest guy in the world, he is not classified as a regularly involved in the SEA Server and therefore scrutiny will take place when 100 games(in less than 2 weeks) will instantly classify him as a regular of SEA - therefore this discussion is taking place. This does not take away our love for you guys' skills and our welcome towards nice people such as yourselves. BalloonSPR's desire to play here is noted and appreciated - But this not change the issue at hand, which is one completely revolving around political correctness, and saying and doing what we said and meant.

To Frogmite:

Originally Posted by Frogmite

Last point is a bit harsh, i hope no one will be ofended, but i am sure that if we were training instead of wasting our time making drama, we would beat those koreans. They are not more talented than SEA, they just play more.

Unfortunately, I did get offended by this statement. As you started being rude to me, I don't feel like holding back about the statements I am about to make. How am I wasting time "making drama" when this was an issue that was obviously not resolved to satisfaction, felt by a large proportion of the community. I enjoy posting and debating politics moreso than I enjoy playing StarCraft II. What is it to you?

Noone has stated the reason we don't want "Koreans" to play is because of them being more talented - The reason we are being so difficult is because of this rule:

7. You may not include players based outside of Southeast Asia or Oceania in your team unless an admin grants special consideration.

This rule obviously aimed at protecting the SEA scene from foreign players whilst special considerations for players that is apart of the SEA scene - This is all fine. Then MasterSPR stirred the scene by submitting an SPR lineup filled with many players that are not considered part of the SEA community. MasterSPR tried to use the "100 ladder games rule" (Originally designed for Eddie's Master Cup) to demonstrate these players are "active" for the tournament. This argument/"rule" was completely obliterated unanimously by the community for being way too easy to achieve (Details of this debate can be found here: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?p=57030#post57030).

However, after all that debate, the final ruling for the SEACL was still that "100 ladder games" to be the required number for foreign players' eligibility in the SEACL. This not only makes the SEA community look hypocritical in that it's using the same ruling it was very publicly against, but it also is a pretty pathetic of a ruling to try determine a foreign's players involvement in the community, as it fails to address issues like foreign players "smashing out" 100 ladder games in a couple of days, the longevity of these players' continued involvement in the community after the tournament. As you've probably gathered, I am strongly cynical of this "100 ladder games rule" and felt it was decided without ample thought. I am sure a large part of this community feels that this ruling was insufficient, including Nirvana himself who tended towards the higher vote count of his staff. Any player can bypass this "100 ladder games rule" with 2 weeks to go in the tournament - Does 2 weeks of involvment in the scene really spell a player to be apart of the community? I think not.

Regardless, as you have said, whats done is done and let us focus on the tournament and have a good time. Just know that the precedence has been set and I feel that this may lead to the complete abolishment of the non-foreign player rule, which I feel is probably beneficial to SEA anyway.


To iStSPR: Your sentiments (http://www.sc2sea.com/showpost.php?p=59848&postcount=54) are completely in-line with an answer that I have in mind. The three main component of activity in the SEA server can be broken down to: (1) Ladder activity - measured moreso by quantity and time. (2) Activity on SC2SEA.com - measured moreso by quality and time. (3) Extra-curricular activities like streaming, pariticipation in SEA clans and joining tournaments - time. What they all have in common is that they all require huge amounts of time invested in the SEA scene. I do not believe you need more than even one of the above component to be considered active in the SEA scene (although having multiple components does help your case), just ample amount of time. As you have said, someone who has all three components covered like SoulmanSPR had not a shroud of doubt whether he was a regular on the SEA server.

What I propose for the purpose for the future of SEA tournament eligibility is a metric system that covers a timespan of more than 2-3 seasons of ladder in either of the three components: (1)150 Games in 2-3 seasons (yCh). (2) Continued SC2SEA.com activity across 2-3 seasons (Nemo). (3) Known to do extra curricular ideas for SEA scene across 2-3 seasons (More vague, but definitely expandable). Intro posts like what BalloonSPR only help to define himself as part of the server and can be considered into category 2. However, to be honest, I forsee the future of SEA tournaments to be openly avaible to the world as this is probably the better direction to head towards, and trying to protect the SEA scene with 100 ladder games is, as you said, utterly insufficient. Alas, I do not doubt this proposal will stand to no value as the emphasis should now be placed on the actual running of the tournament.

Quick Comments

	Bash:
	Frogmite:	good points

[Peleus]

On iPhone again, so I'll put a more detailed response later but one quick point frogmite.

Firstly id agree by and large there was a little drama to begin with because clans didn't know who was / wasn't eligable.

Id disagree a little with your second point though. I don't think drama was created because admin laid down an objective rule for people to follow and others wanted an invite system (light has actually changed his mind on that now), but rather because it seemed as though objective rules were put in place (a VERY good thing) but rather some members of the community feel like they didn't have a chance to have input into what that objective rule was, hence this discussion.

Taking out of this, it seems that a rule which measures games over 2-3 seasons would be good. Intense activity doesn't seem to be as important as consistent activity. I don't think the amount of games should matter hugely (make in reasonable yet highish) ie 100-150, but really would you ever say 200 is 'participating' and 150 isn't? Don't forget finally we also want them to play on KR ladder, they can't be expected to take extreme requirements and push people alway because they don't devote 100% of their time here, we just want it to be preventative of 'hit and ring' style problems.

Last point (this was meant to be brief *eye roll*) don't focus hugely on SEACL and that one decision. Yes it may have been a catalyst for the discussion, but I personally believe we're discussing the groundwork for the potential hundreds of tournaments to come on sc2sea. Focusing on one case will be to the detrement of others.

Quick Comments

	Xenomorph:	well said
	Maynarde:	Such a good post. I believe time on ladder > amount as well.