2000-2001 Post-Season Top 25 Poll

bokonon90 · Sun, 06 May 2001 13:30:50 -0700

I am accepting proposed ballots to be used for a
Top 25 poll - ballots will be accepted from the
present until May 18, 2001. 

E-mail your proposed
ballots to the following address :

actop25_at_... 

 All members of the academic competition
are welcome to submit their ballots. The purpose of
this open ballot request is to create a stable panel
of knowledgeable voters that will vote in possible
future closed polls. (Yeah, I know I said that last time
- this is very much a work in progress.)

There will be substantial changes to next year's poll -
the first being we will have a web page script that
will allow the poll to be conducted and tabulated more
conveniently. 

Voters are allowed to consider a variety
of factors when choosing a Top 25. Ideally they
should pertain to _this year_, i.e. the 2000-2001
academic competition season, rather than focusing on
predictions on how programs will fare in subsequent years.

Schools located outside the United States are allowed to
be considered, but for practical reasons, listing of
schools that have not played any games against United
States teams (whether inside or outside the US) is
discouraged. 

Voters can and should weigh currently
available tournament results (of whatever form) as they see
fit. This poll is not rooted in any particular format
of academic competition, but is intended to
emphasize players currently playing for a given program in
an actual rather than in a "masters" capacity, an
important thing to keep in mind if one wishes to consider
"masters" and/or "trash" tournaments. (In fact, since this
poll is intended primarily for academic-oriented
formats, the use of "trash" tournaments to determine
ranking is discouraged.) 

 Voters are asked to
submit a ranked list of schools from #1 to #25, without
ties. List each school with corresponding rankings, and
list them only once. A vote for "Michigan A" at #3 and
for "Michigan B" at #14 will be counted as a vote for
Michigan at #3, with teams 15-25 being moved up. Make sure
you specify which program you are voting for with
sufficient specificity (some abbreviations, like "UIUC"or
"MIT" will be sufficient, while "U of M" will not be ;
certain abridged names like "Missouri" and "Washington"
are best avoided since they are somewhat ambiguous.)

 Your ballot must contain at least 20 valid
entries or it will be returned to you. 

 Each #1
vote a school receives is worth 25 points, each #2
vote worth 24, and so on until 1 point is received for
a #25 vote. 

 Extreme outlier ballots will
be excluded if they significantly skew the poll
results in any way ; in addition, individuals submitting
such ballots will not be invited to any future panels.

In case of voting ambiguities, the tarot card reader
"Miss Cleo" will not be consulted. 

 -Tim Young

 Poll Administrator