Questions about the WBO

(Dec. 03, 2017  8:33 PM)Jimmyjazz39 Wrote:
(Dec. 03, 2017  5:31 PM)Ayane_2355 Wrote: I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but, is there some kind of WBO event/celebration happening on the fifth of December (or anytime around then)? I have a feeling there is, but, my memory is terrible, hah.

its usually the 4th but last year it was later because of the renovations to the site
we'll have to see when it is this year (Scavenger Hunt #2 here i come (even though i still havent gotten all of my prizes from last year haha)

What is usually the fourth exactly? I'm sorry for being so daft, but, I'm still a bit confused, hah. But, thank you, anyway, for answering my question!
(Dec. 03, 2017  8:41 PM)Ayane_2355 Wrote:
(Dec. 03, 2017  8:33 PM)Jimmyjazz39 Wrote: its usually the 4th but last year it was later because of the renovations to the site
we'll have to see when it is this year (Scavenger Hunt #2 here i come (even though i still havent gotten all of my prizes from last year haha)

What is usually the fourth exactly? I'm sorry for being so daft, but, I'm still a bit confused, hah. But, thank you, anyway, for answering my question!

The WBO anniversary event. There will be events like the scavenger hunt and the Beylotto, it's filled to the brim with prizes too!
(Dec. 03, 2017  8:58 PM)Mage Wrote:
(Dec. 03, 2017  8:41 PM)Ayane_2355 Wrote: What is usually the fourth exactly? I'm sorry for being so daft, but, I'm still a bit confused, hah. But, thank you, anyway, for answering my question!

The WBO anniversary event. There will be events like the scavenger hunt and the Beylotto, it's filled to the brim with prizes too!

I probably won't enter, but, that does sound like a jolly good time! Thank you, for answering my question! And, I had a feeling that it was the anniversary, I just wasn't fully sure, hah.
When is the community going to post about the 9th Anniversary Celebrations  :D :P
I have a question involving painting burst parts. I have found some Gundam markers and noticed that the paint of the Gundam markers didn't made any weight differences because the paint was very thin. I am not sure if the paint will make any difference with the weight since it's thin enough to rub the paint off.
(Dec. 02, 2017  8:58 PM)SUGOI-KONICHEWA Wrote:
(Dec. 02, 2017  7:57 PM)TrainiacJ Wrote: If I'm trying to schedule an event/take the organizer's test, which order do I go about doing it in? Do I take the test and wait for results before submitting the event, or do I submit the event first and then take the test?

Take the test, wait for the results then purpose an event after you’ve become an organizer.

@[TrainiacJ] Actually, you have to propose the event with at least four confirmed participants first. The step-by-step instructions can be found at the bottom of the page here: https://worldbeyblade.org/Forum-Become-an-Organizer
(Dec. 04, 2017  3:09 AM)Kei Wrote:
(Dec. 02, 2017  8:58 PM)SUGOI-KONICHEWA Wrote: Take the test, wait for the results then purpose an event after you’ve become an organizer.

@[TrainiacJ] Actually, you have to propose the event with at least four confirmed participants first. The step-by-step instructions can be found at the bottom of the page here: https://worldbeyblade.org/Forum-Become-an-Organizer

I'm trying to propose an event but I cant get in the sub-forum. Do I still have to do something to be able to get into the sub-forum?
(Dec. 04, 2017  3:09 AM)Kei Wrote:
(Dec. 02, 2017  8:58 PM)SUGOI-KONICHEWA Wrote: Take the test, wait for the results then purpose an event after you’ve become an organizer.

@[TrainiacJ] Actually, you have to propose the event with at least four confirmed participants first. The step-by-step instructions can be found at the bottom of the page here: https://worldbeyblade.org/Forum-Become-an-Organizer

well that would have been great to know two days ago
is it possible to view how many views a thread got? or that feature ir removed completely? any chance that feature would brought back?
It'd be a cool statistic. But no, no plans to bring that back.

(Dec. 04, 2017  10:33 AM)TrainiacJ Wrote:
(Dec. 04, 2017  3:09 AM)Kei Wrote: @[TrainiacJ] Actually, you have to propose the event with at least four confirmed participants first. The step-by-step instructions can be found at the bottom of the page here: https://worldbeyblade.org/Forum-Become-an-Organizer

well that would have been great to know two days ago

I mean, technically how Kei is describing it is not what the system currently allows. That's why I've been encouraging people to do the Quiz before making a proposal, haha.

We'll try to revert it back to how it was in the system Kei suggested though.
(Dec. 04, 2017  1:49 PM)~Mana~ Wrote:
(Dec. 04, 2017  10:33 AM)TrainiacJ Wrote: well that would have been great to know two days ago

I mean, technically how Kei is describing it is not what the system currently allows. That's why I've been encouraging people to do the Quiz before making a proposal, haha.

We'll try to revert it back to how it was in the system Kei suggested though.


Here's a (woah, lengthy!) follow-on from that situation, as a question about the protocol for getting a tournament together. The Deux Point Five tournament (which sounded awesome, by the way) was apparently organised at the last minute, with just the "leftovers" from a larger tournament earlier in the day. I've heard of this happening in other cases too. Essentially, we see here a WBO tournament being organised spontaneously and coming off without any obvious problems. I'll start by asking: what were the circumstances which allowed this to happen?

But I'll also explain where I'm coming from here.

The group for that tournament appears to have had a mix of committee members and existing organisers, meaning that the event could be proposed and approved on the spot, yes? Which sounds awesome, and it appears to have worked very well, bearing in mind this is something other members around the world apparently cannot do.

Being a spontaneous event, it also had the luxury of knowing (before it began) exactly how many people would be showing up. There were eight people, right? Not too many and no random wildcards or babysitting. So it was a sure bet, under those tightly controlled conditions, that the tournament would be able to be played in a very short period of time. Effectively, because of the spontaneous nature of the organising, this tournament was practically invite-only. Even if the proposal had shown up on the forum (did it?) there would have been no time for anyone else to respond, let alone attend. And this appears to have been totally cool, no problems on the day, even making the whole thing easier than usual for the people on the ground.

I think we can all agree it was a special set of fortunate circumstances with a great outcome.

It also demonstrates to me the basic problem with hosting tournaments in Australia - and I expect this applies elsewhere too. Recently, Giraton held a non-WBO Beyblade tournament in Melbourne, Australia. It was the first big event here in years and he was basically inundated with entries. Apparently the event was great (thanks to Giraton) but without any maximum-limit on the entries, he spent the entire time struggling to keep up with the show. Basically everyone was a noob and Giraton had to run the event from scratch.

Now, Giraton did not run this tournament under the WBO and I expect this was largely to avoid using Deck format. Giraton rightly assumed that basically everyone who showed up would not be WBO members and would have no idea what Deck was. Without any upper limit on entries, using Deck would have been confusingly novel for everyone - and disastrously time-consuming. Beyblade is REALLY BIG in Australia and Giraton appears to have known the numbers would be too overwhelming for a first-time introduction to Deck - though I haven't discussed it with him, I feel like it's pretty obvious really.

So... Deux Point Five came off so smoothly (ie; fast, no problems) because the organisers knew exactly who would be participating. They knew it would work. In Australia, there is a very real possibility of many dozens of people showing up to a tournament and the organiser really not having the power to cope with the weight of entries, let alone teach everyone how to play Deck properly. A sanctioned upper-limit on entries would largely solve this.

But the flipside to tournaments in Australia is just trying to get people to sign up. Choose the wrong day or wrong time or wrong city and nobody will even put their name down, let alone attend. I actually feel this is mostly because most Aussie bladers are not WBO members and won't get the memo unless you advertise more broadly, like Giraton did, which risks entry-inundation again. Small, easily managed, introductory tournaments for new organisers and players are basically impossible here (how things change!).

This is compounded by the need to have an event approved - something which Deux Point Five was not hindered by. Having to plan a tournament so far in advance (even a few weeks) kills the Australian scene because it puts too much risk on the organiser. They might choose a bad day and get no entries at all or they'll be swamped with entries they can't handle logistically (bearing in mind Aussie organisers basically never have backup from other organisers because we're so spread out geographically - again, not necessarily an Aussie-specific issue). Deux Point Five was organised on the spot because the certainty of it made the outcome predictable. That's awesome. There have been cases in Australia where a bunch of bladers have gotten together (spontaneously, not realising they'd all be there in advance) and could easily have held a Club format event on the fly... But couldn't. No proposal. No approval. A missed opportunity.

I read about awesome events such as Deux Point Five, which is an example easily extrapolated across the entire North American scene, and I see a list of reasons why many Australians (and others?) don't feel the need to be members of the WBO. Fact is, those North American localities frequented by committee members simply have an easier time organising events, on a logistical level. I don't mean to diminish the effort put in by these awesome peeps in setting up events and running them. That's awesome and they should be applauded no-end. And I know it's annoying to hear yet another WBO non-organiser "complain" (seriously, this is not a complaint guys) about the lack of local tournaments. All I'm saying is that life for Australian organisers would be MUCH better (and therefore better for all members) if it was even possible to throw together tournaments in the same manner as Deux Point Five. But we can't. And that feels like a bad thing.

From a personal perspective, it'd be easy to throw together a Club event at my favourite pub and have four people show up without needing to be die-hard Beyblade fans. I'd do that every week! And in that context, Deck would be awesome! But you can see how that's a problem if I'm throwing open the doors to a Giraton-style event, right? It's a risk I'm powerless to mitigate. But remember this is less about me and more about actual organisers, like poor old Giraton or the Sydney/Gosford guys. Life's hard.
If I'm right in reading, you take issue in:
  1. Second events being able to be approved on the spot.
  2. Some events seeming like invite-only events as a result.
  3. The lack of a participant cap for events.
  4. The complicated nature of Deck Format for younger Bladers.
  5. The requirement of Event Proposals to have some advance notice.

To address those in order;

1) To make it clear; if we've approved an Organiser to host an event, they can change the date, time, location etc as they see fit. Sometimes, these details simply don't work, and we trust our Organisers to handle their events as needed to ensure they run.

To further this, if an Organiser feels that they could run a second event in the same day, we'll trust them on that as well. For the most part, this'll have been planned in advance (like FIREFIRE CPB has done recently with planning multiple events for the 26th December). However, if the ability arises on the day of an event for an Organiser to effectively host a second event with little-to-no notice, we wouldn't contest it and we'd trust the Organiser to both let us know it's happening, and to manage said event to success as they did with the first one.

In the instance you're mentioning here; yes, Deux Point Five did benefit from Committee members being present to give the go-ahead without any concerns. But as stated above; we will not stop other Organisers who run multiple events in one day, perhaps at short notice. If you're an Organiser, we have trust in you that you wouldn't make any decisions that we might consider sketchy anyway. Just let us know in-thread or by PM that you're doing it.

2) Unfortunately, yes, events being created on-the-spot after an event has already taken place does create a scenario where it seems like the event is invite-only. There is no helping that issue really. The only solution to prevent that would be to prevent second-events from taking place on short notice at all.

As a general reminder; we don't permit invitation-only events to take place. Events must always be open to everyone who wants to attend, and should take place in a location that everyone can attend as well. In the instance above; while the feeling of the event seems invitation-only, there is nothing stopping passerbys from joining in, or for an Organiser to consider the possibilty of a second event while the first event is ongoing and quickly making a post online.

If this is considered an issue in general, it's something we can discuss as a Committee. But I would imagine the likely result of this would be that second events would not be created on the spot under any circumstances, and said event would simply be run off-the-books and considered a personal event with no WBO endorsement instead.

3) Same as above; we don't impose participant caps on our events, and everyone should be free to join. If you're anticipating a large number of attendees, or even noticing that a large number are showing up, we recommend that you bring others up-to-speed on how the tournament will be run and have them effectively co-host your event with you. To use a recent example; our recent London event, It's Beyxercise Time! II, attracted 21 participants. This was beyond what I could handle by myself and I could thankfully have the help of three others at the event to relieve the load and help run things smoothly. These people weren't all Organisers either, but could still provide a helping hand with their own knowledge.

I can't see us imposing a participant cap on our events anytime soon. My recommendation is simply what I've stated above; if any indication of a large number of participants appears, make sure you're seeking assistance from others at your event to help this run smoothly and also alerting participants that the event may take longer than expected. If you feel comfortable giving an approximate duration, do so. Extra stadiums can help to run a tournament at a faster pace, and in turn may help ease potential complaints from parents as well.

4) There's a lot to think about with this point, and a lot of internal conflict over whether I agree or disagree with said point, for various reasons on both sides. However, ultimately, I think I'll have to get back to you another time on this. This is something even I have to think about in my own time for a bit first, haha.

5) Yes, we'd prefer notice for events so that we can get around to seeing the proposals. If you're proposing an event two days in advance, you're pushing the boundaries of whether we can check it and get back to you about it, especially given that we all also live our own lives and are not always browsing the site.

Personally, I have alerts turned on for the Schedule an Event subforum, so I'll try to get to an event thread as soon as I possibly can when I see said alert. But none of us can guarantee a turnaround time on event proposals given how unpredictable a lot of our working schedules can be. If a proposal needs urgent attention, I encourage Organisers to PM one (or multiple) of us to prompt a check ASAP.
(Dec. 05, 2017  3:12 AM)~Mana~ Wrote: If I'm right in reading, you take issue in:
  1. Second events being able to be approved on the spot.
  2. Some events seeming like invite-only events as a result.
  3. The lack of a participant cap for events.
  4. The complicated nature of Deck Format for younger Bladers.
  5. The requirement of Event Proposals to have some advance notice.

Thanks for the speedy reply, Mana!

Just to be clear, I certainly don't take issue with anything that happened with Deux Point Five. Quite the opposite! Deux Point Five and other tournaments like it are so awesome that I feel we should be encouraging more impromptu tournaments (assuming all the paperwork gets done eventually). I feel impromptu tournaments (like Deux Point Five) could very well lead to a sharp increase in the number of actual WBO tournament events, particularly in Australia, even if the attendance numbers at each event are individually lower than those experienced by Giraton (>20).

(Dec. 05, 2017  3:12 AM)~Mana~ Wrote: 1) To make it clear; if we've approved an Organiser to host an event, they can change the date, time, location etc as they see fit. Sometimes, these details simply don't work, and we trust our Organisers to handle their events as needed to ensure they run.

To further this, if an Organiser feels that they could run a second event in the same day, we'll trust them on that as well. For the most part, this'll have been planned in advance (like FIREFIRE CPB has done recently with planning multiple events for the 26th December). However, if the ability arises on the day of an event for an Organiser to effectively host a second event with little-to-no notice, we wouldn't contest it and we'd trust the Organiser to both let us know it's happening, and to manage said event to success as they did with the first one.

In the instance you're mentioning here; yes, Deux Point Five did benefit from Committee members being present to give the go-ahead without any concerns. But as stated above; we will not stop other Organisers who run multiple events in one day, perhaps at short notice. If you're an Organiser, we have trust in you that you wouldn't make any decisions that we might consider sketchy anyway. Just let us know in-thread or by PM that you're doing it.

2) Unfortunately, yes, events being created on-the-spot after an event has already taken place does create a scenario where it seems like the event is invite-only. There is no helping that issue really. The only solution to prevent that would be to prevent second-events from taking place on short notice at all.

As a general reminder; we don't permit invitation-only events to take place. Events must always be open to everyone who wants to attend, and should take place in a location that everyone can attend as well. In the instance above; while the feeling of the event seems invitation-only, there is nothing stopping passerbys from joining in, or for an Organiser to consider the possibilty of a second event while the first event is ongoing and quickly making a post online.

If this is considered an issue in general, it's something we can discuss as a Committee. But I would imagine the likely result of this would be that second events would not be created on the spot under any circumstances, and said event would simply be run off-the-books and considered a personal event with no WBO endorsement instead.

Well yeah, this is great! I don't think there's anything wrong with how Deux Point Five happened. I think it was so awesome that it'd be nice to see the impromptu event idea become much more normal across the WBO. Like you say, it does kind of happen anyway, under certain strict circumstances, so clearly it's not a game-breaking phenomena - assuming the hosts are already organisers with the WBO.

My previous post goes even further, suggesting that impromptu events might be useful as a standard way of engaging with the WBO system. Particularly in weird regions like Australia. Yes, I'm kind of suggesting it'd be cool to hold events and do all the paperwork on the spot rather than planning weeks in advance... And I can absolutely see how that idea might seem bonkers if one assumes that every event needs to be approved BEFORE it happens. Fair enough.

But it would be pretty neat if you could approve an event AFTER or DURING the fact, like with Deux Point Five, even if the event in question didn't follow on directly from another. I mean, in the case of Deux Point Five, even the venue changed! It was basically a whole new event! But everything was fine in the end. Nobody complained. Nothing was lost. It was all good! I think that's pretty cool and I think it has potential to become something more.

(Dec. 05, 2017  3:12 AM)~Mana~ Wrote: 3) Same as above; we don't impose participant caps on our events, and everyone should be free to join. If you're anticipating a large number of attendees, or even noticing that a large number are showing up, we recommend that you bring others up-to-speed on how the tournament will be run and have them effectively co-host your event with you. To use a recent example; our recent London event, It's Beyxercise Time! II, attracted 21 participants. This was beyond what I could handle by myself and I could thankfully have the help of three others at the event to relieve the load and help run things smoothly. These people weren't all Organisers either, but could still provide a helping hand with their own knowledge.

I can't see us imposing a participant cap on our events anytime soon. My recommendation is simply what I've stated above; if any indication of a large number of participants appears, make sure you're seeking assistance from others at your event to help this run smoothly and also alerting participants that the event may take longer than expected. If you feel comfortable giving an approximate duration, do so. Extra stadiums can help to run a tournament at a faster pace, and in turn may help ease potential complaints from parents as well.

I guess the problem (for Australia, anyway) is that there is absolutely no way of anticipating how many people will show up. In the current Beyblade climate here, it is simply impossible to know. You might have over 30 people or you might end up with more stadiums than players. On the actual day of the tournament, this might not wind up being such a big logistical deal - maybe - but I would absolutely bank that this uncertainty turns people off hosting to begin with. It's hard to make assumptions about attendee figures with such a small sample, but it should be obvious that Australia has hosting issues. I would say it's not just Australia, too.

Without being able to anticipate attendance, guys like Giraton (and who knows who else) end up hosting outside the WBO because they have greater control over their event and can slim down the housework on the fly to suit the numbers (scrapping Deck, for example). Remembering also that hosts really don't get the kind of support you're suggesting they should, down here. Maybe we're all just holes! But I suspect it's more to do with genuinely being unable to help out, due to inexperience or because we live too far away to show up.

I simply think impromptu events might encourage more hosts and therefore more events. Possibly more BAD hosts and dud events - but presumably this can be ironed out in the paperwork, somehow.

(Dec. 05, 2017  3:12 AM)~Mana~ Wrote: 4) There's a lot to think about with this point, and a lot of internal conflict over whether I agree or disagree with said point, for various reasons on both sides. However, ultimately, I think I'll have to get back to you another time on this. This is something even I have to think about in my own time for a bit first, haha.

Just to clarify, I don't think age is a barrier to Deck at all. Deck is fine. Young people are fine. It's just that teaching people (of any age) from outside the WBO the basics of Deck format for the first time during an actual tournament is a logistical nightmare that must surely take time. In Australia, many of the players who hit the finals will be absolutely new to the game and to the WBO and to Deck. We don't have the same reliability here as you might find in North America - because basically everyone playing Burst here is new to the game.

Admittedly not such an issue for MFB, who are mostly vets.

(Dec. 05, 2017  3:12 AM)~Mana~ Wrote: 5) Yes, we'd prefer notice for events so that we can get around to seeing the proposals. If you're proposing an event two days in advance, you're pushing the boundaries of whether we can check it and get back to you about it, especially given that we all also live our own lives and are not always browsing the site.

Personally, I have alerts turned on for the Schedule an Event subforum, so I'll try to get to an event thread as soon as I possibly can when I see said alert. But none of us can guarantee a turnaround time on event proposals given how unpredictable a lot of our working schedules can be. If a proposal needs urgent attention, I encourage Organisers to PM one (or multiple) of us to prompt a check ASAP.

Yeah, this is the part where you call me bonkers, which is fair. But just to throw a grenade among the pigeons, imagine if there was some way organisers could host tournaments on the fly (without an already approved event) and, assuming they collect all the fees and do all the paperwork, have their tournament approved by the committee in retrospect for the results to be submitted to the WBO system.

Doing this would make it SO MUCH EASIER to host, because all the uncertainty in each event proposal would be completely eliminated. Yes, I foresee problems like attendees paying and then having the host mess up the details such that the event gets denied by the committee and people want their money back... But... Is this really going to happen all that often? And when it does, is it really that hard to fix?



Anyway, I've just been reading about these "spontaneous" events lately and they seem to address a lot of the roadblocks I reckon people have with hosting their own events. Potential?
How long does it take WBO to check your proposal after you submit the Organizers quiz?
(Dec. 08, 2017  8:14 PM)Robbie Aoi Wrote: How long does it take WBO to check your proposal after you submit the Organizers quiz?

It depends. There really is no set time. All you need to do is be a bit patient, I promise they're looking at your application very carefully.
This might sound dumb, but how do you make a thread?
(Dec. 10, 2017  7:56 PM)Joeyk Wrote: This might sound dumb, but how do you make a thread?

In the top left of any forum (like Beyblade General) you should see a blue "Post Thread" button. If you click that you should be brought to a new page where you can enter the title/post. Click the "Post Thread" button in the lower right of that page to publish the thread.
"You must read the organizer's guide in full before taking this quiz.
You must have already gathered at least 4 participants for a tournament and submitted a legitimate event proposal in the Schedule an Event sub-forum, otherwise your quiz results will be dismissed"

The page does not let mi enter because I am not an organizer, and that's a paradox.
(Dec. 12, 2017  4:43 PM)aggregor941 Wrote: "You must read the organizer's guide in full before taking this quiz.
You must have already gathered at least 4 participants for a tournament and submitted a legitimate event proposal in the Schedule an Event sub-forum, otherwise your quiz results will be dismissed"

The page does not let mi enter because I am not an organizer, and that's a paradox.

It indeed is. We're working on a solution for this. We want potential organizers to post event proposals with the full event details so we can be sure they actually intend to host an event before we review their quiz.

However, we also don't want event proposals from non-Organizers to fill up the main Schedule an Event forum which contains proposals from approved Organizers. To solve this issue, we may be implementing a Schedule an Event (Non-Organizers) forum that is visible to all members, and then making the current Schedule an Event forum only visible to approved Organizers so that there is some division between the two types of event proposals.

Hopefully that makes sense ... In any case, for the time being we of course are not requiring that particular step and are instead asking for the details inside of the quiz submission after we review it.
Sooo, about the Beylotto. Do you draw winners for the highest prize available?
Ex. All prizes are available, a person if drawn. Does that person get the #1 prize? (Assuming that they have a passport)
If it is like that then what happens if a person without a passport is drawn for 1 of the top 3 prizes? Do they automatically get the 4th place prize?
(Dec. 15, 2017  12:35 AM)Mage Wrote: Sooo, about the Beylotto. Do you draw winners for the highest prize available?
Ex. All prizes are available, a person if drawn. Does that person get the #1 prize? (Assuming that they have a passport)
If it is like that then what happens if a person without a passport is drawn for 1 of the top 3 prizes? Do they automatically get the 4th place prize?

We put all entrants into the List Randomizer on random.org. The winners are determined by the order of the randomized list. If there is prizes in the BeyLotto limited to Passport Holders, non-Passport Holders in positions reserved for Passport Holders are shifted down and Passport Holders below them are shifted up. It's the easiest way to do it so that we don't have to make separate lists. We just check the winners when they're drawn and move them up or down if necessary based on whether they have a Passport or not.
When will the winners be announced and how to you get the prize?
(Dec. 15, 2017  6:09 PM)Robbie Aoi Wrote: When will the winners be announced and how to you get the prize?

The winners will be announced January 5th or later. If you win just PM @[Kei] or another committee member