I was thinking a simple buy-in like $10-$20 or something. Prizes would depend on the number of entrants. Tournament would be 3-4 games, maybe with a drop round starting in October or later depending on when things can get ironed out.

I'd love site backing to place a logo or emblem/trophy on player pages for the top 3 places, best country winners and whatever other awards are given along with the year of the tournament (2014 or 2014-2015).

I'd have a scoring system in place for everyone to review and have either (a) fill-in players for unfilled boards who would not pay and wouldn't be eligible for prizes, or maybe design a rotation schedule to allow for less than 7 players per board (if possible).

Thoughts?

Full press, although a gunboat one could be setup if there was the desire or if this went off well.

i would be in for full press---no interest in gunboat

I thought at one point people said this was against the licensing rules of the game or something.

if the proceeds go to the site and are not paid out to individuals, my guess is that would not apply

We have real tournaments across the globe all the time. Winners usually receive plaques, so if cash prizes aren't permitted by law, then I'd do plaques in place of that or another idea, but it's not against the rules to have buy-ins

I'd be interested depending on the specifics.

You will have to get both Kestas and Zultar to sign off on this before the mod team could give an okay on it.

-WebDip Admin

just call it a fund raising tourney

I won't sign off on this since I don't know the exact legal implications. I do know that the site turning a profit isn't legal. Whether calling it donations is, I'm not sure. That's why until both owners discuss it we can't give it a go.

I think the worry is it could bring Hasbro's attention if a site is making money through their game, as this isn't officially licensed.

I'd be interested, though.

One legal option would be: $10 site donation entry; $70 pot -- let's say there is a solo winner. That winner would get the $70 full donation against their profile (gold/silver/bronze donation rating). No monetary payout. No confusion on the $10 donation -- the only manipulation would be on the sites internal rating system.

what if you already have that donation rating?

Then maybe more tiers can be made; or a separate icon/rating for tournament donations. Not sure if the demand would be worth the work by the site.

It all sounds like a lot of risk for minimal reward to me.

If there's a lot of interest, then let's see what we can legally do and what we can't. Based on the success of FtF tournaments, it's fair to say that money can be collected to:

--pay for a venue
--purchase plaques or other physical (non cash) prizes.

If the payment to the site is for the paying of venue space and to pay for the right to place an emblem or icon on player profile pages, then this is not different than anything else.

Another option would be to make a high stakes game, play it out on the site, and then pay it out separate from the site & forums. You can paypal me the buy in. $100 entry.

ya cuz giving you $100 is worth it.

I suspect two things: contributions to running this site are legal (or we are already in trouble) so a fundraising donation campaign would be legal. As a player organized event, we are merely working to defray the expenses of running the site. Second, if the cash was handled by the players not the site with praises paid out and remainders donated, that would keep

im in for a 100

I just wanted everyone to know that Kestas and I are aware of the thread and we are talking about it to see what is legal, what's reasonable, if we can add badges, how many kinds of badges could there potentially be, how prestigious this tournament would be is relative to other tournaments and ghostratings, etc. We want to be thoughtful and think through some of the ramifications and feasibility before we can move forward.

We are, though, not comfortable with collecting and distributing money to members. It's one thing to consider an entry as donation to the site for site maintenance and such, but it's another to distribute cash prizes or physical awards. We definitely do not want to move towards the donations as gambling or any sort of monetary gambling path.

It would be helpful if folks can give us some ideas about the aforementioned issues and think with us about long term effects/consequences.

How can you make anything that happens on Webdip prestigious, simply by attracting a bigger audience and in these terms I mean the best on-line diplomacy players in the world, then any tournament won would be worth having regardless of any cash incentives. What could you guys do to attract the very best players, a cash prize is one option but why not ask the best players what would incentivize them to play in a Webdip tourney, where the best players play others will follow.
Go get 'em Floyd.....

I have concerns about the quality of a longish tournament like this. We've seen very strong efforts put forth to create high quality tournament but inevitably people drop out and the games are a little disappointing. Would money change that? Maybe. I'm not sure.

The tournament wouldn't be the 7-round tournament that you saw with the Masters Tourney. 3-4 rounds would suffice. 3 rounds without a drop round and 4 with.

@Zultar: what is the possible ramification for donating to the site as entry where winners receive a plaque (I'd be more than happy to have plaques made here in Bowling Green and sent to winners)? It's done in Face-to-face tournaments all the time. I can understand cash prizes being a problem.

I think plaque awards would be just fine with a donation to the site to pay for the icons to be created and placed on player pages.

For icons, I was thinking that 1st, 2nd and 3rd place would be gold, silver and bronze trophies with the year beneath them and best country awards would be the icon of the army used in games but different colors depending on which award is given (blue for France, yellow for Turkey, etc).

I think plaques would be ok. I think the concern is that what if others started moving to other physical prizes in an up-the-ante kinda competition where there is more monetary worth to the prize? I think we would have to say that only plaques costing up to some X reasonable amount is ok and not allowed any other form.

In regards to the icons, there are at least a couple of different issues. One, I'm not sure about the capabilities of creating so many different icons and along that line, if it is doable, how long it would take for Kestas or jmo or Oli to create something like that, particularly since we have other features that we think should be implemented first like the preview feature, reliability rating, colorblindness. Two, what if other people wanted icons for other tournies or for ghostrating and sub-categories? We would either have to be willing to create additional icons on a regular basis or say that there is only ONE tourney worthy of icons per year. We have no capabilities of doing the former (and there are other reasons why we don't want to do it anyway) and if it is the latter, it would have to be a site-wide tourney where anyone can enter, which has a host of issues like NMRs, CDs, metagaming and multigaming and the logistics and maintenance would be very very high for the TDs as well as the mods. Based on our experience with prior tournies, this would be a nearly impossible task to do well and would require substantial resources of the entire mod team. These are just two main issues and I can go on.

From the most practical point of view, I think we can do donations as entry and plaques for the winners and I can put up the results on my profile. I can also talk with Kestas and Jmo about creating a new page where we can list the winners of tournies by years and we can update that after each tourney.

Is it feasible to say the tournament is open to anyone that has played at least 5 games on the site? This would cut down on the possibility of CDs (NMRs are a fact of life), and multis.

I'm sure getting someone from the site to create the icons and ok them with site admins.

i think a min of 20 games on site should be required

you will get less CD or NMR is the monetary commitment is high enough

@tru, what are you thinking the games would look like---time of phases?

First, from other prior tournies and on-going tournies, the number of games played is not a good predictor of reliability. This is a huge issue for tournie games and for us.

Second, if the price of entrance is high, then it is not a site-wide competition but a competition among people with monetary resources.

Third, creating icons and implementing them are two different things. Kestas is a busy person and he has devoted as much time and resources as he can. We have almost all of the work on RR and preview done, but due to some bugs and kinks, we still have not been able to implement either. It isn't easy to make site-wide changes.

Fourth, even if we could implement big enough icons other than just the circles or mod boxes, what if other people wanted icons for other tournies or for ghostrating and sub-categories? We would either have to be willing to create additional icons on a regular basis or say that there is only ONE tourney worthy of icons per year. This cannot be glossed over.

Man, there is no fucking way I'm playing in a Diplomacy tournament. I'm not persuasive and I'm a terrible strategic thinker. To lose money on top of that would be unbearable.

Awe, and I was counting on taking yours.