To Break Or Not To Break

Okay, so... I've been getting a looot of mixed messages from people on this one, both in the Discussion chat, and via private and personal messaging. Basically, if we keep everything to schedule, it'd make the next round of combat run from the 21st to the 28th.

Now, for those of you not yet seeing what the issue might be, Christmas is obviously on the 25th, so obviously people may struggle on that day. There's also other things around the Christmas period which may busy up people's schedules, such as Christmas shopping, family visits, and similar such. As such, there has been the consideration of delaying Round 2 til after this period.
On the other hand, the week after, there's New Years Eve/New Years Day to contend with too. Obviously could delay through that too, but we're essentially just delaying more and more at that point. That sorta thing could really slow the momentum of ongoing events, and start getting people feeling detached and such.
There's of course, the possibility of extending the event time slightly, although personally I'd rather not to do that, as I worry it runs the risk of making certain combats draw out for way too long, and when we're still in the early rounds I'm wanting to avoid that. I'd personally like to keep fights to just 1 week until at least round 3.

In the end, I'm putting it to you guys what you'd prefer, via a poll, considering it's been... well, way too back-and-forth in discussions to get a precise conclusion. The poll is multiple choice to allow a bit of leniency on what your preferred secondary options might be. I've also added the chance to remove your vote and such if you change your mind. Please, if you have an opinion, vote ASAP just to let us judges know how long we have for prep.

If only to bring up a bit of discussion in this thread itself alongside the poll, I'm rather surprised that "carry on as normal" is winning over at least break for Christmas.

I can kind of get why people might want this option, but when it comes to the holidays the RP forum is one of the last things on my mind. I'd rather just be able to focus on my friends and family during that time, and I'm sure there's someone who agrees with my sentiment. 

I just find that a bit surprising is all and I have to wonder why.

I could potentially give insight to this, most of the time families just open presents, eat, then go back to sleep for a few hours. It would only take me a few minutes to post something then continue with the day. It really makes no difference to me whatever the outcome is but I'd just give my opinion.

Oh good. I made a response. Then the forum glitched out and lost it. Sigh.

Either way, I was intending to say I agreed that I was surprised about that, but the reason this topic actually came to be is because of people messaging me on Skype like 'Christmas is one day it'll be fine.' Then I was like 'But what about Christmas shopping?' Then they were like 'I dunno, sure it'll be fine.' And I was like 'I'm not so sure...' and thus made topic.

Unfortunately, at the moment, my least favourite option (extending the match time) is winning. Welp... whatever the people say I guess.

Getting onto the forum for one minute at least is totally plausible. Christmas shopping does not take a solid 24 hours. For me, Christmas isn't very special in terms of what happens. It's: Wake up, open presents, see everyone elses, visit a few people, then whatever I want.

Of course, I'm not fighting in the tournament again or anything so it's not exactly like my view matters, but I've voted for just going through with it like normal.

1 minute of time isn't going to kill you.

Burning-Fox wrote:Getting onto the forum for one minute at least is totally plausible. Christmas shopping does not take a solid 24 hours. For me, Christmas isn't very special in terms of what happens. It's: Wake up, open presents, see everyone elses, visit a few people, then whatever I want.

Of course, I'm not fighting in the tournament again or anything so it's not exactly like my view matters, but I've voted for just going through with it like normal.

1 minute of time isn't going to kill you.

Honestly not even in the tournament myself and I voted for a delay in the polls.

Yes, people can get on the forum for 'one minute' as you say, hell I know Christmas Day I'll be able to do just that inbetween the madness I go through, but do you honestly think anyone will have time to post around that holiday time?  I can tell you how hard it is already for me to TYPE anything when I check here since its usually on a mobile device and that not even during the holidays.  Not even to go into the fact some people are usually busy from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and hell even the day after Christmas.  You also have members like me for example that have jobs outside of here and WORK all the week up until Christmas too with very little time for ourselves.

Consider the fact other people celebrate holidays differently, not all of us have short holidays and free time around it.  It why I voted for the delay myself.

One minute of time definitely won't kill you, but I feel like that's a close minded way of looking at it especially considering it's not exactly our obligation to post here especially around the holidays. 

Forum RP isn't a job, we didn't sign up to be bombarded with deadlines and pressured to post when we may be busy. I voted for the delay, because I don't want to have to worry about yet another thing on top of what I already have to worry about currently.

Also I dunno about you but any kind of tournament or competition tends to stress me out a bit at times so I mean, the holidays are a good time to relax.
This competition shouldn't really be forced on anyone if they choose to stay off of the forum and relax for a few days. The fact that it would run through christmas might have been an oversight on their part, who knows.

Aye, the reason it runs through is just due to the timing we started more than anything else. We wanted the tournament to be run as part of the revival process of bringing life back to the forum - didn't consider the proximity to Christmas.

Though another thing to consider is that there are two delay options and only one normal option. 

Now if we added the delay options together, they still wouldn't match the normal option... in the event that that could happen though, what would we do about it? I don't really find it fair that there's one "let's just run it as normal" option and two "delay until..." options, because that kind of splits it in half for those who want that extra break time and those that might not particularly care about the extra break time.

DeuxExDimensia wrote:Now if we added the delay options together, they still wouldn't match the normal option... in the event that that could happen though, what would we do about it? I don't really find it fair that there's one "let's just run it as normal" option and two "delay until..." options, because that kind of splits it in half for those who want that extra break time and those that might not particularly care about the extra break time.

Dregan wrote:The poll is multiple choice to allow a bit of leniency on what your preferred secondary options might be.

Set up the poll with that in mind.

I would say extend the time of the round, but by three days. 21st to 31st. That should give everyone some extra time if they end up having commitments that keep them from getting on here.

I see people saying that posting only takes a minute. I can assure you that for some of us, posting is a lengthy process. On the other side of things, people say they may be busy. Well, isn't that what the absence thread is for? Let others know when you have an issue that keeps you from getting on to post.

I'm pretty sure that a couple of matches in the first round barely had one post per competitor per day. There were no holidays in that stretch, but things happens. You can't just keep putting things off to wait for a time when everyone is free for seven full days. That will never happen and someone will always feel shortchanged.

Not everyone is expected to post all the time though. Another option I might suggest, is staggering the matches based on availability, although that is a big pain in the backside to manage. If you know you're simply not going to be able to post and be online for certain days, maybe time can be added to the end of your match before the topic is closed for judging. But that would be at the discretion of the judges.

Another option, is to move the second round to an earlier time. Say, the 17th to the 24th. Then you avoid Christmas and New Year's entirely. And then you can begin the third round on the first Monday of the new year.

Just a couple of other options along with a bunch of opinion.

Gonna break this down to a few points

C.S.O wrote:I would say extend the time of the round, but by three days. 21st to 31st.

Would probably have to extend it to a little bit longer than that. Not because that's not a good amount of time, but because... well, that'd be New Years Eve. And I dunno about some of our forumites, but I tend to actually attend stuff for New Years Even into New Years Day, so probably wouldn't be able to close them. Could probably get on later into New Years though after recovering from the night to close things. So four extra days would be the probable minimum, which is looking to be the likely case at this point.

C.S.O wrote:You can't just keep putting things off to wait for a time when everyone is free for seven full days. That will never happen and someone will always feel shortchanged.

True, but this isn't a case of finding a point where literally everyone is available, and more finding a point where it's not a case of 'the majority if not all competitors being preoccupied with other commitments'.

C.S.O wrote:Not everyone is expected to post all the time though. Another option I might suggest, is staggering the matches based on availability, although that is a big pain in the backside to manage. If you know you're simply not going to be able to post and be online for certain days, maybe time can be added to the end of your match before the topic is closed for judging. But that would be at the discretion of the judges.

Not only would it be a hassle to sort out, it'd really slow everything down to a massive extent if we're interchangable delaying or timing matches for each and every participant. Rounds would last waaay longer as we adapt to each independent need and well... the purpose of this topic is to ensure we can keep things running smoothly more than anything else. Well, running smooth, and at least relatively fair.

C.S.O wrote:Another option, is to move the second round to an earlier time. Say, the 17th to the 24th.

Had considered this, though me and the judges haven't quite prepared for the next round fully yet. Considering the time now and that we aren't all on and such, it'd essentially give us two days - in which I know Elec at the very least is gonna be busy with school and such. We could probably maybe rush things, but I don't wanna promise things for the other judges, and it wouldn't neccesarily run... quite so smoothly. Plus, this disregards the whole additional points that, yes, whilst Christmas Day isn't struck, it's still gonna be the time people are visiting family, buying presents, plus if you're in retail and such - it's gonna be some of your busiest work time of the year.
Sooo yeah, could potentially do those dates. But I definitely imagine it being a bit, uh, messy.

Looking at the votes and what people are saying so far, I think more than likely the result we'll be going for will be extending the time slightly, to go from the 21st to the 1st January.