It's poll time again. The latest version (Pre-Nationals 1999-2000) of the Informal Academic Competition Top 25 Poll is now underway. Poll votes are due April 4, 2000 at 11:59 PM, and are to be sent via e-mail to actop25_at_.... (_Please_ note the address.) It is suggested that voters view some tournament results from events that took place in areas with which they are unfamiliar, as well as the previous few poll results. Result Publication : The results will be published on this list, and will be archived on the GW Trivia Club website www.gwu.edu/~trivia. Available information for Top 25 teams will include a school's rank, total point score (see below), highest placement on any ballot (and if it received any #1 votes, how many), and number of ballots the school was list on. For other programs that receive votes, their point total and number of ballots figure will be identifed. Also available will include the number of voters from each school. Voter identities will _not_ be disclosed, and individual ballot votes will be otherwise kept confidential. (I believe this strikes an appropriate balance in providing sufficient disincentive to overrate grossly one's own program without having one's identity disclosed.) Result Tabulation : A #1 vote is worth 25 points, a #2 vote 24, etc. all the way down to 1 point for a #25 vote. The Ground Rules : * There is a limit of four votes from any one program (including players, retired players, coaches, etc.) For simplicity's sake,the first four votes from a given program will be counted. Voters must have played on the quizbowl circuit or observed two or more tournaments to be eligible. * Don't vote for "A" or "B" teams. (A voter can choose to count depth vis-a-vis front-line strength as much or as little as he/she wishes.) Votes for "B" teams will not be counted ; if someone votes for, say, "Princeton A" at #7 and "Princeton B" at #23, a vote for "Princeton" at #7 will be entered while the team ranked #24 will receive a vote at #23. * Try to be as specific as necessary in your voting. For instance, don't vote for "Missouri" without specifying more - at least three different schools called "Missouri" have active programs. Ballots that contain such ambiguities will be returned. In most but not all cases, common abbreviations will work ("MIT" for Massacusetts Institute of Technology, for instance, will suffice, but "U of M" for University of Michigan, for obvious reasons, will not.) * The voter must fill at least 20 of the 25 spots - if not, the ballot will be returned. Don't use tie votes - if you do, the first listed school will receive the higher ranking. Ballot Qualification Rules (i.e. technical crap that most serious voters can safely ignore) : This version of the poll has jettisoned the experimental ballot exclusion criteria, as being completely worthless against block voting. The poll administrator did not want to resort to making a case-by-case judgment call on ballot validity, but the voting abuses we have seen recently have made this the most prudent course of action. In order to assist the poll administrator with the review task, a special ad hoc committee will be created during the balloting process to review suspect ballots (with the current level of anonymity preserved.) Between myself and the ad hoc committee, I'm going to count on my/our ability to spot abuses of the system. The extreme outlier criteria developed for the Early Season 1999-2000 poll will serve as a rough guideline but is _not binding_, and bloc votes (substantially similar ballots significantly skewing results) will be counted as one vote for such purposes. Happy voting!
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