Following Kei's post I opened this thread to discuss about this subject: What can be done to improve what gravitates around the organized play?

Starting with what Kei has said...

"The ideal is certainly for the WBO to be a unified community, but if people have reason to not host with the WBO (outside of being in a region TAKARA-TOMY administers), it's better to place the blame on ourselves and do what we can to make things easier for people than to be upset that people have chosen to go on their own. It means over the years we've allowed things to become too hard, too complicated, or we aren't communicating our value well enough. All things we are in control of. Our mission should be to eliminate as many barriers as possible to bring more people together without compromising the standards we believe are necessary to endorse Beyblade events we can be confident will be fun, competitive, and organized well. We've been taking small steps, but look for this to be a stronger focus in the future."

...we can start argue.

IMHO the milestones are:
- Simplify organizer's life.
- Simplify the rules for hosting a tournament, without decreasing the quality of them, using more standardized structures.
- Rulebooks translations is very interesting, often the language barrier could stop someone from hosting a WBO tournament. But I suggest that this task should be assigned to paid translators instead of users, at least for the communities that already have a subforum on the WBO (Italy, Indonesia, France).
- Eventually adding more subforums for local communities. I saw many german bladers around the forum, for example, but they don't have a subfroum yet.
- Promoting the WBO, even more than before, outside English-speaking countries.

Of course this is only what I think has more urgency of debate, as well you could post everything that in your opinion is an improvement to what the WBO offers today.

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- Simplify organizer's life.

Here is some things what I can suggest: 

• Expanding Organized Play Team to every country, where is users: WBO have now much of countries, but Organized Play Contributors is not so much of countries. I suggest to expand Contributors team to every country, where is at least some users and who can visit events and help Organizers. Bigger countries need more Contributors, but like in Estonia I think 1 Contributor is enough, because Estonia is so small. Additionally, this help to review quizzes faster, process tournaments faster, get more support faster etc.
  
• Results Submitting: Currently all Organizers need to fill sheet about tournament, but Results tab filling need much of time, especially after bigger event. I think Organizers should send only Challonge sheet, Winning Combos and payed fees (when fees is required again). When WBO expand Contributors team, Contributors should start to make sheets for processing.
  
• New Usergroup: Judge: This usergroup will get user, who active judging in WBO events and who know all rules. Organizers will find judges easier with this.
  

For a note for first suggestion: I don't mean WBO should add half of users to Contributor (I seed forums, where 1/2 of users have moderator access, 1/4 Admin CP access and other 1/4 is banned) but every country should have 1-5 Contributors.

- Simplify the rules for hosting a tournament, without decreasing the quality of them, using more standardized structures.

Current rules is mostly easily understandable for Organizers, but there is some things, what need more explaining:

• Formats with paper and pen marking and seeding
  
• And maybe more simple Deck Format rules.
  

- Rulebooks translations is very interesting, often the language barrier could stop someone from hosting a WBO tournament. But I suggest that this task should be assigned to paid translators instead of users, at least for the communities that already have a subforum on the WBO (Italy, Indonesia, France).

First, I'm sorry for not finished Estonia translation (I try to finish Burst rulebook soon). But I don't think this need paid translator. Let's use this money for giveaways . I think most of peoples know he country language (and English too), so I think we can make this without spending money for this.

- Eventually adding more subforums for local communities. I saw many german bladers around the forum, for example, but they don't have a subfroum yet.

German and much other countries users is here. It's very good idea.

- Promoting the WBO, even more than before, outside English-speaking countries.

I think for this should WBO spend money. WBO should find partners, add ads etc.

This is a twofold issue; the first is making the barriers to entry for organizers a little less difficult, the second is that some people are not going to mesh well with the WBO no matter what you do.

If a person opens thread after thread and 90% of them get closed, it is clear they aren't learning from their mistakes, and they're not going to wind up becoming an organizer. For some people, the WBO isn't going to be a good fit; not everyone is going to mesh decently well into every community. That's nothing the WBO can fix.

The other issue is making the barriers to entry a little bit lower. It is important that organizers follow and understand and implement WBO rules at their events, which takes a lot of reading and a lot of understanding. It also requires, to a certain extent, the ability to set up or book a venue, with or without a parent's help, and handle the money (with or without help) and log the results and file them correctly. That's actually a lot to do! And a lot of people who want to organize underestimate how much effort it takes.

But at the same time, that's a lot. That's more than most people can do. Lately there have been better breakdowns of the responsibilities and tasks for organizers, but I'm not sure what WBO can do differently to get people authorized as organizers while maintaining high standards for the quality of events.

One idea is that more organizers and committee members could help oversee organizer quizes, those tend to linger in the queue for a very long time, and it sounds like only one person is actively reviewing them.

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Hey, parents! Here are all the answers to any questions about WBO Tournaments you might have! Thread-Guide-Hey-Parents-Answers-to-your-WBO-Tournament-questions

Please consult this guide linked below on how to arrive at tournaments before they start! https://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-How-to-arrive-at-tournaments-and-other-events-on-time

I want to clarify something - if I hold a WBO tournament, *must* it follow WBO rules, even if it is unranked?

I would think that many people want to host tournaments, and WBO would be a good place to attract players. But not everyone wants to follow WBO rules - us in Asia are already accustomed to WBBA rules, which I think is easier to understand and more fun.

I want to clarify something - if I hold a WBO tournament, *must* it follow WBO rules, even if it is unranked?

I would think that many people want to host tournaments, and WBO would be a good place to attract players. But not everyone wants to follow WBO rules - us in Asia are already accustomed to WBBA rules, which I think is easier to understand and more fun.

You MUST ALWAYS follow format rules. No exceptions.

Thanks for starting this thread C a o S³! I'll reply more later, but just wanted to quickly reply this:

I want to clarify something - if I hold a WBO tournament, *must* it follow WBO rules, even if it is unranked?

I would think that many people want to host tournaments, and WBO would be a good place to attract players. But not everyone wants to follow WBO rules - us in Asia are already accustomed to WBBA rules, which I think is easier to understand and more fun.

Technically, what ks123 said above is correct.

However, I do believe that we should be more lenient for unranked events. The reason why ranked events need to use WBO rules is because a standard set of rules makes the actual rankings more accurate. If everyone is using different rules, then you can't really compare players fairly.

In the case of unranked events, I don't see much reason why we shouldn't be more flexible since there is no need for players to necessarily be compared on the same level as ranked events. There should still be structure and rules, but there should be more options. If you look at what we have for Club Format you'll see that we created new formats better suited to events of that size, so I'm not opposed to opening things up more for unranked events. In fact, I've even wanted to try experimenting with WBBA Deck Format here at some point; just haven't got around to it yet.

I think the only reason why this hasn't really happened yet is because historically we've placed so much emphasis on ranked events that people don't tend to view unranked as being particularly valuable. Especially because with the rules as they stand now, unranked events are not eligible for prize reimbursement.

If we became a bit more open for what Organizers are allowed to do for unranked events and also increased the value proposition (by allowing for reimbursement or maybe recording wins/losses on profiles even if they aren't ranked so you can still keep track of that data), you're right that it might be a good way to attract a wider audience.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

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Mh I don't think that unranked needs reimbursement, with this kind of format the scam could be easily done.
What about some other WBO gadgets to give as a consolation prize to everyone in unranked format? The same could be applied for all the participants in ranked as well.

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I have organized quite a few tournaments so far - and all of them have customized, novel rulesets. An example would be a “classic” format which allowed right-spin single/dual layers only, played in WBBA deck format. An upcoming one would be a “worst deck” format, where players form the worst possible combos they can think of, and players have to use their opponent’s deck during the match.

Personally, the necessity to adhere to rules is the biggest hurdle for me. We already have weekly events hosted by distributor/Takara Tomy, and the format is usually always the same. This makes the game very stale as most people stick to meta combos. By having novel formats, players are more enticed to join the events.

If we don’t seek money from WBO for prizes, nor do we have the events ranked, I don’t see the rationale to forcing “casual” tournaments held with WBO rules. I don’t mind doing the paperwork and uploading the scores, but the rules really get to me.

If you’re interested to see the tournaments I mentioned, you can view them here -
http://beyleaguesg.home.blog

I have organized quite a few tournaments so far - and all of them have customized, novel rulesets. An example would be a “classic” format which allowed right-spin single/dual layers only, played in WBBA deck format. An upcoming one would be a “worst deck” format, where players form the worst possible combos they can think of, and players have to use their opponent’s deck during the match.

Personally, the necessity to adhere to rules is the biggest hurdle for me. We already have weekly events hosted by distributor/Takara Tomy, and the format is usually always the same. This makes the game very stale as most people stick to meta combos. By having novel formats, players are more enticed to join the events.

If we don’t seek money from WBO for prizes, nor do we have the events ranked, I don’t see the rationale to forcing “casual” tournaments held with WBO rules. I don’t mind doing the paperwork and uploading the scores, but the rules really get to me.

If you’re interested to see the tournaments I mentioned, you can view them here -
http://beyleaguesg.home.blog

Personally the idea behind the "worst deck" format leaves me somewhat puzzled, I can't really understand the reason behind it.
Anyway I agree with you that the WBO needs more esoteric formats in addition to the classic ones, but obviously they can't be ranked formats.

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Kei, what do you think instead about the other points that I pointed out?

specifically:
- Rulebooks translations is very interesting, often the language barrier could stop someone from hosting a WBO tournament. But I suggest that this task should be assigned to paid translators instead of users, at least for the communities that already have a subforum on the WBO (Italy, Indonesia, France).
- Eventually adding more subforums for local communities. I saw many german bladers around the forum, for example, but they don't have a subfroum yet.
- Promoting the WBO, even more than before, outside English-speaking countries.

The last two points in reality should coexist.

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Personally the idea behind the "worst deck" format leaves me somewhat puzzled, I can't really understand the reason behind it.
Anyway I agree with you that the WBO needs more esoteric formats in addition to the classic ones, but obviously they can't be ranked formats.

I reckon that you’re asking about how the “worst deck” format will work?

Basically, all players will be forced to use combos that their opponent make for them. Essentially you’ll want to form the worst combos possible, so the opponent will be disadvantaged when using it. Your opponent will obviously have the same mindset, so you’ll be forced to use the bad combo he/she made for you.

This way, we’ll be able to see the worst parts being used competitively for once. Players will also learn the competitive nuances of launch strength - many players will form combos with insanely bad burst resistance, thus players who launch hard all the time will be penalized with high probability of bursting.

- Rulebooks translations is very interesting, often the language barrier could stop someone from hosting a WBO tournament. But I suggest that this task should be assigned to paid translators instead of users, at least for the communities that already have a subforum on the WBO (Italy, Indonesia, France).

I definitely agree that it would be nice to have rulebook translations. The problem however is that the rules are constantly being updated or added to (as the News Forum indicates). This means that the translations would need to be constantly updated as well.

Once we solve the issues with our PayPal we could consider paying translators on an ongoing basis, but it would require someone on our end to manage the flow of information and translation requests as well as new rules are added or old one are updated. We would need to establish a solid workflow to ensure nothing gets missed.

However, I’m not sure if it’s worth it to do that until we have spent time refining/simplifying our Organized Play structure in other areas. I wouldn’t want to spend time translating guidelines that may be changing in the near future.

- Eventually adding more subforums for local communities. I saw many german bladers around the forum, for example, but they don't have a subfroum yet.
- Promoting the WBO, even more than before, outside English-speaking countries.

I’m behind this idea conceptually, but I’m just not sure if it is worth it in reality at this point. Most of our other language forums at the moment are not particularly active. They really require one or a team of people to step up and manage them almost as a separate version of the site.

If we’re talking about the “Beyblade Communities” forum however, we definitely would like to change how that forum is structured. The forum feels like a relic compared to the WBO Beyblade Tournaments forum. We’ve thought about restructuring and redeveloping it to be more user friendly. A few ideas:

- Display threads with flags
- No sub-forums
- filter by country or state/province
- automatic notice for new user when they are about to create a thread for a region which already has a thread?
- greater emphasis on search

This is the type of change that would require some additional development/new functionality, so it isn’t a quick fix necessarily.

• Expanding Organized Play Team to every country, where is users: WBO have now much of countries, but Organized Play Contributors is not so much of countries. I suggest to expand Contributors team to every country, where is at least some users and who can visit events and help Organizers. Bigger countries need more Contributors, but like in Estonia I think 1 Contributor is enough, because Estonia is so small. Additionally, this help to review quizzes faster, process tournaments faster, get more support faster etc.
  

I’m not sure if our requirement would necessarily be to have someone in every country, but we definitely are looking at expanding the Organized Play Contributor Team. We need more people to be accountable for handling some very specific roles/tasks that need to be done, like reviewing quizzes.

Look for changes on this front sooner rather than later.

• Results Submitting: Currently all Organizers need to fill sheet about tournament, but Results tab filling need much of time, especially after bigger event. I think Organizers should send only Challonge sheet, Winning Combos and payed fees (when fees is required again). When WBO expand Contributors team, Contributors should start to make sheets for processing.
  

I’ve thought about eliminating the spreadsheet, but it would help to explain the origin of the results spreadsheet and why it is important before dismissing it:

When the WBO first started, there was no set guidelines in place for how results should be submitted or communicated to staff. We also didn’t use Challonge (it probably didn’t exist back then). I remember submitting results in the early days as just unstyled text documents with a list of the results. It was a nightmare to mange. Everyone sort of did their own thing. We needed consistency and standardization.

It also occurred to me that it would be valuable to track and archive all of the important data related to our tournaments in one place separate from the website. This led to the creation of the Google Spreadsheet template.

The template was also designed to be formatted similarly to all of the sheets on our Public Tournament Data Archive so that staff could more easily copy over the information.

We also had a complete master WBO OP Results spreadsheet featuring all battles that was formatted similarly so that we could have a master reference document should anything ever happen to the website.

We’ve been pretty good at keeping the Public Tournament Data Archive up to date, but the master results sheet not so much.

In any case, the results spreadsheet is still important for the sake of making pre-processing easier. If people just sent in Challonge links we would have to manually input every winner and every loser from every battle. Not fun. We did it for many years before pre-processing was introduced.

We could look at removing the Winning Combos from the results spreadsheet template or removing the requirement of posting them in Beyblade General. However, both serve important purposes … I’d be more inclined to remove the Winning Combos from the results spreadsheet template if Wombat (who helps update the Public Tournament Data Archive) would be fine with manually inputting them every time. But it would make his job harder since he can’t just copy/paste the rows from the spreadsheet that are synced with the archive spreadsheet, so not sure if he’d be willing to do that.

It is my belief that Organizers should primarily be responsible for their own spreadsheets, but you’re right that when we expand the team it could be possible that we have some people assist with them in some capacity.

[*]New Usergroup: Judge: This usergroup will get user, who active judging in WBO events and who know all rules. Organizers will find judges easier with this.
[/list]For a note for first suggestion: I don't mean WBO should add half of users to Contributor (I seed forums, where 1/2 of users have moderator access, 1/4 Admin CP access and other 1/4 is banned) but every country should have 1-5 Contributors.

Technically, all judges should have the DJ Bit. But we could consider this.

That being said, I would understand if people didn’t necessarily realize they could check the DJ Bit. As I mentioned elsewhere recently, it is our intention to create improved, clearer, and more distinct documentation for the process of onboarding new qualified Judges.

Current rules is mostly easily understandable for Organizers, but there is some things, what need more explaining:

• Formats with paper and pen marking and seeding
  
• And maybe more simple Deck Format rules.
  

Pen & Paper
At this stage I would say we would heavily discourage paper and pen methods. It just make a lot of sense to do things that way when the majority of our communities hasn’t had a problem using Challonge.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest we should place restrictions on Organizers using a pen/paper method for events larger than 16 players (Block Round Robin, Round Robin).

Deck Format
Deck Format is indeed complex at first glance, but I would say it is pretty much perfect as it is right now for what it was intended to do. It’s locked behind the Final Stage wall right now where the best players compete, so I’m fine with it being more complex than the First Stage.

I’d be more inclined to include a simpler Deck Format (like WBBA Deck Format) as an option for unranked events before I even think about changing WBO Deck Format significantly.

This is a twofold issue; the first is making the barriers to entry for organizers a little less difficult, the second is that some people are not going to mesh well with the WBO no matter what you do.

If a person opens thread after thread and 90% of them get closed, it is clear they aren't learning from their mistakes, and they're not going to wind up becoming an organizer. For some people, the WBO isn't going to be a good fit; not everyone is going to mesh decently well into every community. That's nothing the WBO can fix.

This is true; we can’t expect to please everyone. However, it would be unwise of us to not do what we can–within reason–to improve things. Some people might not mesh well with the community and that could be due to issues on their end, but I’d also like to always be open to looking at ourselves critically to see what we can do to make things more welcoming, inclusive, and easy to understand without compromising our core values.

The other issue is making the barriers to entry a little bit lower. It is important that organizers follow and understand and implement WBO rules at their events, which takes a lot of reading and a lot of understanding. It also requires, to a certain extent, the ability to set up or book a venue, with or without a parent's help, and handle the money (with or without help) and log the results and file them correctly. That's actually a lot to do! And a lot of people who want to organize underestimate how much effort it takes.

But at the same time, that's a lot. That's more than most people can do. Lately there have been better breakdowns of the responsibilities and tasks for organizers, but I'm not sure what WBO can do differently to get people authorized as organizers while maintaining high standards for the quality of events.

One idea is that more organizers and committee members could help oversee organizer quizes, those tend to linger in the queue for a very long time, and it sounds like only one person is actively reviewing them.

Yeah, I think there’s really no way around the fact that if you want to host an official WBO event that we endorse … you need to put in effort and carry some level of responsibility. The question is just: how can we make understanding the process and path towards becoming an Organizer and completing the related responsibilities easier?

Having more Contributors reviewing quizzes is definitely one way that we will be looking into soon.

Another thing which I personally have been trying to put a greater effort towards lately (and trying to reinforce with the existing OP Contributor team) is the responsibility we have to guide people who express interest in hosting events. The biggest hurdle is getting started and I think that in some ways, having someone personally encouraging and talking to you about the steps involved would make me feel better about understanding what I need to do if I was thinking of hosting an event.

But not everyone wants to follow WBO rules - us in Asia are already accustomed to WBBA rules, which I think is easier to understand and more fun.

Was just reading this post again and was wondering if you could expand on one thing: what to you makes the WBBA rules easier to understand and more fun? And conversely, what aspects of the WBO rules are hard to understand and less fun in your opinion?

I have organized quite a few tournaments so far - and all of them have customized, novel rulesets. An example would be a “classic” format which allowed right-spin single/dual layers only, played in WBBA deck format. An upcoming one would be a “worst deck” format, where players form the worst possible combos they can think of, and players have to use their opponent’s deck during the match.

Personally, the necessity to adhere to rules is the biggest hurdle for me. We already have weekly events hosted by distributor/Takara Tomy, and the format is usually always the same. This makes the game very stale as most people stick to meta combos. By having novel formats, players are more enticed to join the events.

If we don’t seek money from WBO for prizes, nor do we have the events ranked, I don’t see the rationale to forcing “casual” tournaments held with WBO rules. I don’t mind doing the paperwork and uploading the scores, but the rules really get to me.

Yeah, I’m definitely open to adding as many different and/or novel formats as we can think of for unranked events. More choice is a good thing.

However, there would still need to be defined rules for each format. No matter what, I think that official WBO events will always need to follow WBO rules as we define them in our rulebooks. Whether that means our regular rules for ranked events or something like a WBBA Deck Format event for unranked, you would still need to follow any rules outlined in our rulebooks unless you had prior permission to change them.

The reason for this is that if we allow WBO Organizers to just make up rules on the fly, it would be impossible for us to endorse the events in good faith to the public as being representative of the WBO. It opens up the possibility for a lot of issues. It’s the same reason we vet our Organizers. It’s because we want to maintain a standard level of quality for all of our events.

In order to be a unified global community that can identify with each other, speak with each other, and play with each other on a level mutually understood field, you need to agree to a certain set of values and rules. Otherwise, everything is just chaos and there’s no chance to build something of greater value.

Those values and rules can be as expansive as we want them to be (so that we could allow for more formats like the ones you are talking about), but they need to be codified into our documentation.

Allow Unsanctioned/Unofficial Events to be Posted in Disinct Section?
That being said, this discussion has had me thinking about something we’ve never considered before: allowing unsanctioned/unofficial events to be posted on worldbeyblade.org.

Now, when I suggest this I mean to say that maybe we could consider allowing for unsanctioned/unofficial events to be posted in a separate forum (that also uses our optimized events page template) and separate events box on the index of the site that would clearly state the events are being handled entirely by third-parties.

While it would be difficult to remove all of the requirements we currently have to vet potential Organizers and events on the official side, it would be valuable to allow for unsanctioned events to be posted so that the WBO could in an ideal world become the hub for all Beyblade events worldwide. It would be a good opportunity for people to post about not only larger tournaments, but smaller meet-ups as well in a more formal and visible fashion.

There may still need to be some restrictions on who or how many of these types of events could be posted (just to avoid totally random people from posting random stuff with no details or sense of credibility), but it would be easier than the process for becoming an official WBO Organizer. Or maybe it’s just kept open.

We could even have staff post pages for official TT or Hasbro events so WBO members could talk about who is going to be attending them. Or encourage members to post them if they are attending.

There would be no reason for an event organizer to not post their event on our site because they would be throwing away the opportunity to gather participants from the most popular Beyblade site in the world.

Once such people have posted their unsanctioned events, I think it would become easier to eventually bring them over to becoming official WBO Organizers if we communicate the value of doing so properly.

I reckon that you’re asking about how the “worst deck” format will work?

Basically, all players will be forced to use combos that their opponent make for them. Essentially you’ll want to form the worst combos possible, so the opponent will be disadvantaged when using it. Your opponent will obviously have the same mindset, so you’ll be forced to use the bad combo he/she made for you.

This way, we’ll be able to see the worst parts being used competitively for once. Players will also learn the competitive nuances of launch strength - many players will form combos with insanely bad burst resistance, thus players who launch hard all the time will be penalized with high probability of bursting.

This actually seems pretty fun haha. Although I feel like the person who has the most extensive collection of old parts would be the winner. I imagine there would need to be restrictions on which series of parts can be used (ex. no Layers older than God Layer System).

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There was also a few other ideas I’ve been kicking around lately:

Remove “Bits to be Awarded” from Results Spreadsheet Template?
We recently removed the Credits field from the spreadsheet as we are discontinuing that campaign and it has me wondering now if the remaining part of that sheet called “Bits to be Awarded” is necessary?

While technically this is still useful … Passport purchasers should be listed on the main “Tournament Information & Participants” sheet and Gold/Silver/Bronze Bit winners should be obvious from the Results or Winning Combos tab.

As for Bits like the DJ Bit, Emerald, etc … we could encourage people to leave notes on the main sheet instead. And hopefully in the future things like the win-based Bits will be automatically awarded.

WBO Tournament Attendees Forum
The Supreme One mentioned this recently internally. I think it would be useful for a few reasons:

• It creates a space that is exclusive, but not too exclusive (like the Advanced Forum was) for more focused, informed discussion about Beyblade to occur between people who have experience at our actual events.
  
• It creates an additional “tier” of membership for members to aspire to. It would give them another reason to attend tournaments. If you attend a tournament you could be moved perhaps to a usergroup called “Blader” which would give you access to the forum for tournament attendees.
  

Ultimately, if we are to be successful I feel like there needs to be an effort placed on accepting we are filling a specific niche in the Beyblade community that isn’t filled well outside of Asia: highly competitive play.

While there is more we can and should do to offer more casual formats, I think what separates us the most is how much playing competitively and fairly matters to everything we do with Organized Play.

While activity on the forum at large is great, I can see how it can be hard to feel an emotional connection with it when there’s so many people you don’t know and maybe some people who don’t have the type of knowledge that is garnered through playing at WBO tournaments.

Knowing these things, it makes sense to create a more exclusive group/forum for people who attend our events to make them feel a greater sense of belonging to this niche of people who are interested and experienced in the same thing they are.

And as it stands, this sort of thing is already happening to a certain extent with things like private Discord channels. While there has certainly a shift away from forums in general on the internet over the past several years (and that isn’t something we can stop), I also think that part of the reason this has happened is due to the growth of the WBO making it a bit harder for competitive to find the types of discussions they might be looking for. Forums are great for in depth discussions which are easy to reference at later dates, so I think creating a space that encourages this may be beneficial.

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Summary of Ideas
So, just to summarize these are some of the initial key ideas which I think we should consider:

• Introducing a more diverse set of formats for unranked events (open to proposals for rulesets to add)
  
• Offer prize reimbursement for unranked events
  
• Create Judge’s Guide to make onboarding new judges easier to do and understand
  
• Beyblade Communities forum restructure
  
• Expanding the Contributor team in many areas (especially for things like quiz reviewing, potential Organizer outreach, assisting with results spreadsheets)
  
• Introduce restrictions for using pen and paper to run events (max 16 players)
  
• Consider allowing unsanctioned/unofficial events to be posted in their own distinct section on the site using our existing events template.
  
• Remove “Bits to be Awarded” from results spreadsheet template
  
• Consider WBO Tournament Attendees Forum
  

Curious to hear what you guys think.

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I definitely agree that it would be nice to have rulebook translations. The problem however is that the rules are constantly being updated or added to (as the News Forum indicates). This means that the translations would need to be constantly updated as well.

Once we solve the issues with our PayPal we could consider paying translators on an ongoing basis, but it would require someone on our end to manage the flow of information and translation requests as well as new rules are added or old one are updated. We would need to establish a solid workflow to ensure nothing gets missed.

However, I’m not sure if it’s worth it to do that until we have spent time refining/simplifying our Organized Play structure in other areas. I wouldn’t want to spend time translating guidelines that may be changing in the near future.

I think WBO Rules Translating should be moved to GitHub, where peoples can make pull requests for changing, but others can review changes before releasing them.

I’m behind this idea conceptually, but I’m just not sure if it is worth it in reality at this point. Most of our other language forums at the moment are not particularly active. They really require one or a team of people to step up and manage them almost as a separate version of the site.

If we’re talking about the “Beyblade Communities” forum however, we definitely would like to change how that forum is structured. The forum feels like a relic compared to the WBO Beyblade Tournaments forum. We’ve thought about restructuring and redeveloping it to be more user friendly. A few ideas:

- Display threads with flags
- No sub-forums
- filter by country or state/province
- automatic notice for new user when they are about to create a thread for a region which already has a thread?
- greater emphasis on search

This is the type of change that would require some additional development/new functionality, so it isn’t a quick fix necessarily.

I think we should add Communities forum threads map, where you can find this country threads easier. This should be top of the page.

I’m not sure if our requirement would necessarily be to have someone in every country, but we definitely are looking at expanding the Organized Play Contributor Team. We need more people to be accountable for handling some very specific roles/tasks that need to be done, like reviewing quizzes.

Look for changes on this front sooner rather than later.

Yes, maybe not expanding to every country but I think more countries should be added with WBO OPT expanding.

Technically, all judges should have the DJ Bit. But we could consider this.

That being said, I would understand if people didn’t necessarily realize they could check the DJ Bit. As I mentioned elsewhere recently, it is our intention to create improved, clearer, and more distinct documentation for the process of onboarding new qualified Judges.

DJ Bit will help, when host use computer and judge don't have much of Bits. When users have 100+ Bits, DJ Bit searching is so hard and most Organizers don't want to do this. New Usergroup creating isn't hard and this group should have different username color for mobile users.

IMHO having tournaments generates interest in tournaments. I've been interested in hosting an event in my city for over a year. I can't believe how incredibly difficult it is. 50 posts is a LOT. I know, I know; if you're interested in beys it shouldn't be that hard - more like if you don't have a full time job it wouldn't be that hard. Unfortunately, finding time to comment on 50 posts over the course of a year is freaking hard for someone who is always working, and prefers to PLAY in their down time than talk about playing. Please don't take this the wrong way, but hosting an event ain't that hard. What's the worst thing that could happen if you just made it a teeny bit easier? You might have no one show up? More likely you'd get people having mini tournaments all the time, generating interest and building base relationships.

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To add to that, many topics are getting removed and then the post that I made under a topic are subsequently removed, dragging down the number of my posts that are counted. So I'm constantly treading water, trying to keep my post count where it should be.
If I were a school teacher or something, I would've given up long ago. You're taking this activity from those who need it most.
I'm screaming - fix the system! Screw 50 posts, if you're over 18, you should be able to host; unless you higher-ups are going to come to every city and make it as fancy and perfect as it should be. How bout you just be available instead of invisible?
Sorry, rant over.

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I feel like the guy in charge of this site must be living in Bora-Bora, blading with the reef sharks or something. Hey guy, if you see this, please hire an apprentice to get this show on the road; maybe try a chick this time, no offense. <3

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Okay, rant really over this time.

If you can't manage a few quality posts a day over the course of a couple days, then you're not going to be able to demonstrate that you know what you're doing as far as understanding the rules and running tournaments.

If you're having your posts removed, it means you are either making posts that are against the rules or they're totally redundant.

Kei explained this in another thread:
"The 50 post requirement is mainly just to avoid our team being overwhelmed with Organizer's Quiz submissions by users that aren't really serious or qualified. There was many in the past before we had this requirement as you can imagine, especially given the amount of younger users on the site who wouldn't even meet the minimum age requirement. We like to make sure that Organizers of official WBO events we publish in the tournaments section are knowledgeable and responsible enough to handle everything that comes with hosting an event successfully."

Prove that you're serious and qualified. Don't grumble about the 50 quality post requirement, just meet it.

If you think the 50 post requirement is difficult and the Organizer's Quiz onerous, then you're having a hard time with the easy parts. People wranging, venue arranging, and getting everything set up and the event run is WAY HARDER than 50 quality posts, and passing the organizer's quiz.

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Hey, parents! Here are all the answers to any questions about WBO Tournaments you might have! Thread-Guide-Hey-Parents-Answers-to-your-WBO-Tournament-questions

Please consult this guide linked below on how to arrive at tournaments before they start! https://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-How-to-arrive-at-tournaments-and-other-events-on-time

There is a reason for the 50 post requirement as DeceasedCrab mentioned above, but I hear you Chessmaster Chi. There will always need to be some level of prerequisites required to host official WBO events, but there is certainly a wide variety of things we can be doing to make the process easier and to make building a community easier.

Many of our systems and initiatives are the result of over a decade of refinement and additions. They all have good reasoning behind them, but some may or may not continue to exist in the future (at least in the same way that they do now) as we are starting to take a step back and evaluate more seriously what is needed, what is not, and what we want to be.

In this aspect, we're at a very important juncture. We don't have anything to announce at this time, but we are already actively thinking about and working on improvements to every aspect of the WBO, including Organized Play.

In the mean time, I thank you for your feedback as it is really valuable; it lines up in some ways with a lot of what we've been thinking about lately. I ask that you bear with us as we endeavor to make the WBO easier to understand and more valuable to all Beyblade fans! If there's anything we can do to help you work towards becoming an Organizer and hosting your first event with the WBO, please let us know.

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Tl:dr:
- unranked Tournaments good for establishing communities
- get rid of the minimum participation clause in unranked format
- get rid of the Standard Type BeyStadium necessity in unranked format
- use the unranked format to test and train upcoming organizers and judges
- allow to filter the memberlist for countries mentioned in their profile
- i love this forum <3

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In my Opinion the system and rules for organizers, judges and players for ranked Tournaments are completly ok, not perfect and probably improvable but as an bloody amateur i can't identify anything. I just read them and they are all complex enough to guarantee an even battlegorund around the globe and therefore a compareable ranked system, but easy enough to understand everything. Perhaps all the special exceptions regarding mode changes are not very good formulated. You shouldn't put important informations in the appendix especially if a lot of these exceptions refer to information in the appendix.
My problem or better my criticism in the WBO Format is grounded in the unranked Format.

It's quite hard to start a local beyblade community with WBO. Dont get me wrong i really like the WBO Forum and Tournaments and the community forum is nice but it's difficult to really organize something in there. It seems that WBO is very good for established communities.

Now, when I suggest this I mean to say that maybe we could consider allowing for unsanctioned/unofficial events to be posted in a separate forum (that also uses our optimized events page template) and separate events box on the index of the site that would clearly state the events are being handled entirely by third-parties.

This is a great idea. On my first visit on the WBO page i saw all the upcoming tournaments and got a little disappointed, i didn't saw any Tournaments held in Germany. So i think visability is very important to generate attention and interest. But you need something to make visible and if there aren't any Tournaments you can show and promote than you can't generate attention and interest. Conclusion: You need more Tournaments for more visibility and therefore more generated interest and in the end a growth in community activity. But how should WBO get more Tournaments? There are good reasons why the ranked system has these kind of knowledge, forum activity and equipment wall that a potential organizier and judge need to overcome to deliver the minimum quality needed for a fair and square worldwide rank system. So ranked tournaments aren't optimal to establish a local community and since a rank tournament need a minimum of participants they allways assume that the organizer has allready somekind of community.

I think the unranked fun tournaments are the way to go here and with this to my next point.

If you can't manage a few quality posts a day over the course of a couple days, then you're not going to be able to demonstrate that you know what you're doing as far as understanding the rules and running tournaments.

Yes you're right in someway, with under 50 post it's likely that you dont know enough to host and organize a ranked tournament (i would argue that 50+ post cant proof this ability neither). But why shouldn't you host an unranked tournament? Because you dont know enough, cant run a tournament? I think these points are valid for a ranked format but dont apply on an unranked format. If the results are "worthless" for a worldwide or regional competition, why bothering with the organizers organize everything perfect and can judge everything  optimal? Let the unranked format be a class to stress test and train your capabilites as an organizer or judge. Let the unranked format be a class to build up a solid local comunity.
The unranked rules now do a very good job in the first point to train and test an organizers skill, have a ruleset wich dont divide to much from a ranked format but allows the freedom to do mistakes or simply have fun with friend and unkown people. But the unranked system, or better the overall system of WBO Tournaments fail in the point of establishing new communities since you even need a minimum of participants for unranked matches. We need someway to get rid of the minimum of participants for unranked Tournaments. Like @Chessmaster Chi said

IMHO having tournaments generates interest in tournaments.

But this is the end of my ideas. I complete understand the point behind a minimum of participnats and i see the danger in get rid of it. Perhaps dividing the Tournament section between "Announced" and "Planed" but seperating the tournament section seem kinda counterproductive :S

Another point. Unranked matches shouldn't be necesserly held in the BeyStadtium Standard Type, be flexible with the Stadium. The Standard Types are kinda expensive if you want them originally and  more of them. This generate another hurdle to overcome.

I can see why perhaps old bey veterans argue against these changes, perhaps (and very likley) with good arguments i didn't saw, but coming from a newby perspecitve i find it hard to establish anything in my area even unranked formats.

Last but not least somekind of map or a search function in the member list to see wich persons in this forum are in my country to contact them directly would be helpful. I mean, if these users gave these information visible on their profile why we shouldn't use these informations.

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So i hoped this wall of text isn't to ranty and didn't insult anyone. Feel free to argue against me, again i'm a bloody newby and probably didn't saw a lot of good and established points.

Sincerly
Tristan alias Sir_Tantris