Keeping Vintage Tournaments Fair and Thriving- Tournament Organizers’ Solidarity

[Myriad Games]

Myriad Games currently runs its Vintage events at REL Regular (previously REL 1). Since the latest update of the DCI Penalty Guidelines, Unsporting Conduct penalties are the same across all Rules Enforcement Levels. USC Minor = Warning. USC Major = Game Loss. Randomly Determining a Winner, Bribery, Aggressive Behavior, and Theft of Tournament Material all result in Disqualification without prize. The same applies to all instances of Cheating including Stalling, Fraud, Outside Assistance, and Manipulation of Game Materials. So regardless of the REL (Regular, Competitive, or Professional), these penalties are now the same across the board. Were there a TMD standard of tournament organization, Myriad Games would certainly subscribe to that and forgo any unique modifications such as making finals matches best of 5.

I agree that quality, consistent judging is essential to running smooth events. However, making each event entirely separate does not allow for accurate or fair enforcement, regardless of the quality of judging. By isolating the consequences of misbehavior at any given event, we remove the judges' ability to eliminate inappropriate behavior all around. I think the best way to implement a database of penalties would be to only report Game Losses and Disqualifications, along with the reasons for each. As many have mentioned, this would need to be an organized and well-reasoned system, but failure to have any system in place to deal with disruptive players is irresponsible to the health of tournaments in general. Naturally there would be an appeal process for players. In order to have combined oversight, no single organizer or judge would have the power to suspend a player. Rather individual judge and TO reports would be considered along with player testimony in any investigation, as is currently the case with the DCI. Yes this would require oversight and caution to implement properly. Yes it is necessary for discouraging and eliminating inappropriate behavior. To avoid implementing any sort of supplemental List of Suspended Players only serves to reduce the stability and legitimacy of the format.

[Demonic Attorney]

While I want to emphasize that I speak only on behalf of myself and not the staff, I agree with Dan's suggestion.  To add to what he said, a central list of players who receive significant penalties has yet another advantage-- it operates as a reciprocal check on Tournament Organizers just as much as it allows punishments for egregious misconduct to follow habitual rule-breakers between venues.  That is, if a local venue's judge makes an extremely unfair call or imposes an excessive penalty, that too will be brought to the attention of the community when it is added to a public list, and TMD can respond accordingly.  This type of public scrutiny should inspire TO's to exercise great care when administering penalties, just as much as it should lead players to take care to respect the rules.

[Dante]

It is my nature to see flaws in any plan, so I'll do that here. Having good coordination between TOs is an excellent idea. Having a standardized system to record top-8s and a ratings system based on this is also a great idea. However, as Nataz is pointing out, putting together enforcement with a universal "ban list" is a potential source of some hefty problems.

Dan, I love your events, but they aren't really DCI-formatted. You have different penalty levels for different sorts of infractions, and you play best-of-5 finals. These things are both perfectly fine on their own and I won't complain about them at all. However, they do mean that your event is not the closest possible approximation of a DCI event. (Yes, a few dci events might be best-of-5, but only the really high level REL5 type events I think).

Moreover, I fear witch hunts and errant TOs. I trust all of you guys who have posted here. However, there will always be the potential for abuse and incoming TOs might bring further problems. The DCI has a large process to handle discipline -- we would not be able to be so rigorous. If we did have such a system, we would need to take great care with it; it would be a potential source of some very large issues.

I agree with all of these points above.  Furthermore, all of Dan's points in reply #23 (9/5 2:43pm) are all informational - gathering top 8 data/rankings, suggested primers, etc.    All of those suggestions allow better information for players and TO's and create suggested guidelines for new TO's.

What I don't think will work is ANYTHING involved ANY sort of committee or any sort of decision.

What I waffle about is a centralized list of "player penalties" - like people have mentioned, the DCI has a more-or-less thorough investigation process, there's no way a TO committee could competently do that objectively.

[Myriad Games]

I'm glad to see that most respondents agree that these ideas of improvements to the player ratings, tournament summaries, consolidated proxy guidelines, application of the DCI Universal Tournament Rules and Penalty Guidelines, and tournament organizer and scheduling primers. I understand a hesitance to establish a formal committee to oversee a list of penalties and manage a supplemental list of suspended players to complement the existing DCI list. This is the stickiest point of these improvements, and also one of the most important, as it cuts to the core of what needs to happen in order to maintain responsibility and integrity in unsanctioned events. Without consistent and clear ramifications to penalize unscrupulous players, those penalties lose potency and relevance.

Please reply with your thoughts on how we might address this key issue successfully.

[Dante]

I understand a hesitance to establish a formal committee to oversee a list of penalties and manage a supplemental list of suspended players to complement the existing DCI list. This is the stickiest point of these improvements, and also one of the most important, as it cuts to the core of what needs to happen in order to maintain responsibility and integrity in unsanctioned events. Without consistent and clear ramifications to penalize unscrupulous players, those penalties lose potency and relevance.

Please reply with your thoughts on how we might address this key issue successfully.

I think without a PROPER oversight body (and I do feel that no informal [e.g. not professional] group of players/TO's can provide proper oversight), that trying to maintain a "penalty" list or have penalties cut across multiple TO venues has the potential to do far more harm to the community than good - Vintage already has a "TMD elite" stigma to get over without some sort of TMD-based system trying to enforce people getting banned with nothing more than a kangaroo court and court of public opinion (again, unless you're the DCI and paid/trained to do the investigation, I truly believe it can't be fair or impartial). 

I really think this item cannot be done fairly and thus I feel it CANNOT be done successfully at this point in time.

[Myriad Games]

Could someone more mathematically inclined provide a suggested option for how to deal with rating points? It seems like the system should take into account the size of the event. Perhaps something of a tiered system where events of 24 players would award a certain number of points to Top 8, events of 32 players would award more points, events of 40 points more, and so on up in increments of 8 players. Points could be limited to just Top 8 or including players that miss Top 8 / Top 16 on tiebreakers as well. All that would be required from TOs would be a list of the final standings along with a summary of decklists for the top places.

[moxpearl]

I've been reading this thread and thinking about the rating system for the past few days, and I think it's a great idea.
I also think the warning/banning history recording can work, but to temper the abuse, we could limit the access to such a board to TO-only + select-TMD moderators.

Well, I'm an actuary, so I'll raise my hand on a "mathemetical inclination."  Here's a proposal on a point system.  The theory behind this is to give points comparable to the number of matches you win. 

                                                    POINTS AWARDED               
# pl    Rounds    Top  #wins-1st  top1  top2  top4  top8  top16  top32
13-16        4         4          5           3         1            
17-32       5         8          6           5         3        2        1      
33-64       6         8          7           6         4        3        2      
65-128     7         8          8           7         5        4        3         2   
129+        8         8          9           8         6        5        4         3         2
                              
More sophisticated point system would be to award points as:
* Points = # match wins - 3.                              
* Bonus point for making single elimination rounds.                              
* Bonus point to 1st Place (only if match is played.)                              
* For Splits, players are awarded points as if they both lost                           
                              
Rating is computed four times a year, 3/31, 6/30, 9/30, 12/31 based on:                              
Greater of:                              
   Points from prior 24 months                           
   Average of 12/31 ratings from prior three years                           
                              
Comments:               
* If you want to simplify more, you could just cut off the points at the top 8, ignore top 1, 2, and 4 results.               
* The more sophisticated point system gives points for barely missing top 8.                  
* Of course, the system can be made more complicated, but I wanted to keep it somewhat simple so it wouldn't be too much a burden to compute.
* We can simplify this to ratings computation to two times a year.                           
* Can add exception to recompute on the 1st of a month prior to a Major Event (TMD-Open, Vintage Champs)               
* Wasn't sure how to let ratings slow decrease if you didn't play, but three years seemed liked a good horizon.                              
EDIT: I added a minimum 13 players.

[iamfishman]

I've been reading this thread and thinking about the rating system for the past few days, and I think it's a great idea.
I also think the warning/banning history recording can work, but to temper the abuse, we could limit the access to such a board to TO-only + select-TMD moderators.

Well, I'm an actuary, so I'll raise my hand on a "mathemetical inclination."  Here's a proposal on a point system.  The theory behind this is to give points comparable to the number of matches you win. 

                                                    POINTS AWARDED               
# pl    Rounds    Top  #wins-1st  top1  top2  top4  top8  top16  top32
13-16        4         4          5           3         1            
17-32       5         8          6           5         3        2        1      
33-64       6         8          7           6         4        3        2      
65-128     7         8          8           7         5        4        3         2   
129+        8         8          9           8         6        5        4         3         2
                              
More sophisticated point system would be to award points as:
* Points = # match wins - 3.                              
* Bonus point for making single elimination rounds.                              
* Bonus point to 1st Place (only if match is played.)                              
* For Splits, players are awarded points as if they both lost                           
                              
Rating is computed four times a year, 3/31, 6/30, 9/30, 12/31 based on:                              
Greater of:                              
   Points from prior 24 months                           
   Average of 12/31 ratings from prior three years                           
                              
Comments:               
* If you want to simplify more, you could just cut off the points at the top 8, ignore top 1, 2, and 4 results.               
* The more sophisticated point system gives points for barely missing top 8.                  
* Of course, the system can be made more complicated, but I wanted to keep it somewhat simple so it wouldn't be too much a burden to compute.
* We can simplify this to ratings computation to two times a year.                           
* Can add exception to recompute on the 1st of a month prior to a Major Event (TMD-Open, Vintage Champs)               
* Wasn't sure how to let ratings slow decrease if you didn't play, but three years seemed liked a good horizon.                              
EDIT: I added a minimum 13 players.

Mox Pearls first system (the one in the chart) seems the best and easiest to work with.  The one issue I see with it is the matter of splits.  If two players split in the finals, my inclination would be that they split the points.  For example, if the top 2 split in a 70 person event, each would receive 6 points.  Where this gets hairy, however, is when the top 8 of a 31 person event split and each get .125 points.   The solution is a simple one: multiply all point values in the chart by 8.  This will allow all splits to award points still of whole numbers.  The scale will be proportionally larger, but all events of different sizes will still have the same signifcance with regard to one another as in the originally proposed chart.

Additionally, if we keep track of number of points in 3 month intervals, and have a players rating be based on the last year, wouldn't it be easy as quarters "rotate out" just to subtract the points from the rotating out quarter and add in the points for the quarter rotating in?

[Dante]

Not sure any points for anything beyond 16th is worth calculating, even for a 129+ event.

Similarly, I think any # of people less than 16 shouldn't get more than a couple of points and only for top 2 - otherwise you're giving points to 25% or greater of the field. 

I agree on splitting = points for the split places/# players - in a 31-person top 8 split, you have 5+3+2+2+1+1+1+1 = 16 points/8 players = 2 pts each.  Similar to what happens when poker players split (e.g. if the last 2 split a $10,000 first prize and $7000 second prize, they'd each get 8,500).

[Myriad Games]

So how about this system?
       


Eliminating events involving 16 players or fewer avoids the issue of making points much easier to come by via running 3-4 round events. It also keeps the system consistent in that every event with points counts for the entire Top 8. Multiplying the points by 8 allows points to be split evenly among players at either Top 8, Top 4, or Top 2. Plus bigger numbers make people feel better. 

I like the idea of annual ratings with quarterly rotations. If we finalize this system this month, we could begin it in October for Q3 2007. I also think any event that is included in the ratings should be summarized (with a link to the tournament report). Event results would need to be reported in a timely fashion (say one week) and would count from the date of the event in each quarter.

Here's a sample of how this would work for our most recent Myriad Games Vintage Tournament from Saturday, September 1st with 26 players.

Top 2   Eric Kerwin -- Ichorid (32 Points)
Top 2   Ray Robillard -- Staxless Stax (32 Points)
3rd   Dan Cunningham -- Bomberman (16 Points)
4th   Sara Yarrington -- Blood Belcher (16 Points)
5th   Nick Rodrigues -- Stax (8 Points)
6th   Demonic Attorney -- GroATog (8 Points)
7th   Ryan Marek -- Flash (8 Points)
8th   Eric Dupuis -- GroATog (8 Points)

Seems very straightforward to me and a cinch to calculate. Whoever is maintaining these player ratings can simply maintain a spreadsheet drawn from the results posted in the Tournament Report forum. Could we add a board to the Tournament forums entitled Player Ratings? I'll volunteer to consolidate tournament data and maintain the Vintage Player Ratings. A parallel Player Ratings could be created in the Legacy tournament forums as well.

[Methuselahn]

quoting Dan Yarrington

Player Ratings
This is a great idea, whether based simply on Top 8 information or including other tournament breakdowns where available. I prefer to have at least a list of the players who participated in an event and the deck type each was playing. That type of list doesn't take long to create after any given event that uses decklists, and the information could go a long way toward providing relevant metagame data on a broad scale. This type of list or database could be implemented in a variety of ways, but we definitely have the means to put this into effect promptly.

I immediately see flags raising when claiming that this information could provide relevant metagame data on a broad scale.  Let's be honest, Vintage is small potatoes.  I would argue that there just isn't enough tournament samples, frequently enough, to provide any type of metagame pattern.  And even if there was, the metagame is different in every region.   Let's look at one of Myriad's latest tournaments.  It had one Flash deck.  I certainly wouldn't want that tournament rundown to reflect how the DCI goes about deciding the Restricted list as it doesn't represent my own backyard at all.

It doesn't take much to see all the tournament announcements on this website and then look at the tournament results/reports forum and notice that people, in general, don't do followup reports.  This probably isn't even out of laziness, but from the desire to keep lists/tech hidden.  Right now, I'm looking at you Ohio.  So, I fear that the people who would willingly post results will face dissappointment because of the TOs that don't have the same zeal and interest in this project.

Quoting Lotushead

Unfortunately, some TO's have nothing to do with TMD.

QFT.  Vintage is bigger than TMD.  Because of this, the DCI cannot base decisions on what it gathers from TMD.  Perhaps it could use the information gathered to help garner some insight, but it seems dangerous to me.


Moving on,

What exactly does this Player Rating get me?  Having a high DCI rating actually nets a reward.  Other than pride, what does a TMD Vintage rating do for me?  I mention this because without reward or purpose, it will likely lose it's appeal and fall to the wayside.  Especially if you don't live in New England.

Not trying to piss in anyone's campfire here, but that's how it looks to me.

[RaleighNCTourneys]

I have to agree. When I first read about this rating system the first thing that came to mind is "I live in NC and don't play in as many type 1 events than a lot of places in the country. Therefore, my rating is not going to be based on many tournaments and not be very high, and a mid-level player from Boston who plays every other weekend is going to have a way higher rating than me even though I'm a better player. This doesn't sound like something I'm interested in."

[Zherbus]

I think a ratings system is best back-burner'd for now in light of tackling low-hanging fruit first. The ratings system is:

1) Prone to a thousand variants.
2) Going to take quite a while to assemble and organize.
3) If the DCI listened to some of these points while architecting their system, it'd never have launced.

I propose we put that on hold for now and look towards the other points.

[moxpearl]

I like the proposed system.  Some comments.  
*  I was against splitting points for a top two split, because I wanted there to be incentive to have a Winner.  That's why I additionally suggested an additional point (or 8) for getting a sole 1st place.  At the Grand Prix's and Pro Tours, you never see a split.  If you want to split the spoils go ahead, but play it out for a winner.  In any case, I didn't have a strong opinion on it and the revised table by Dan looks great.
*  I suggested points to < 17 players, because many tournaments (particularly our local ones in Minnesota) aren't getting 17 regularly.  I think just having a vintage tournament is great for a community and even just giving 16 points to 1st and 8 points to 2nd would be great to support the smaller venues.
*  I see no reason why we couldn't retroactively create the points.  Go back to 1/1/2007.
*  I don't think legacy needs this system, because they have the Eternal Rating via DCI since all tournaments are sanctioned.  I know it includes Vintage results, but that has very little impact.

Statistically speaking, it's true that our format is in some ways too small to provide meaningful statistics.  However, we're always quoting "trends" based on our limited data anyway, such as pointing to major tournaments such as SCG, Champs, and TMD Opens.  Why not establish a quantitative method to backup the claims.   I can't think of any major vintage tournaments that don't somehow make it onto these boards.  It would be neat to state, in the past twelve months: Flash has 355 points, GAT has 682, Ichorid has 49 points.   Yes, the data could be misused, but used properly, it would be very useful.  

And, I agree the player point system might not provide any material gain (other than maybe a bye at TMD Open or maybe we could give out prizes), the sense of pride is something we shouldn't discount.   We vintage players place more value in accomplishment vs monetary prizes that other formats.  We're playing with decks worth 10 x's the value of the typical first place prize that usually gets split anyway!  So, seeing the top rated players at each year end would be fun.

Maybe as a test, Dan would you be willing to run the point system on the 2007 tournament results, and we can see what the system might look like?

...as I posted, I just read Zherbus and RaleighNCTourneys posts.    Yes, consensus is difficult to achieve on a system like this.  And yes, it's biased to heavy Vintage areas, but that's not a big deal to me.  I leave my comments as is, but I understand if this doesn't go anywhere.  I'm not sure what the "low-hanging fruit" are. 

[Godder]

I agree with Zherbus - sort out the easy stuff first, and if ratings are something that a local "body" wants to look into, do it later. Guaranteed minimum standards for the venue, prizes and tournament structure should be the starting point, in my opinion.

[Myriad Games]

I'll be drafting a basic Tournament Organizer Primer and a set of optional Tournament Guidelines to encourage events to adhere to a professional standard. I'll be including sections on all the straightforward (not easy) parts of running successful events (tournament preparation, tournament administration, and tournament reporting). Any suggestions for what to include are appreciated.

Concerning Player Ratings, they would certainly give some relevant information regarding the metagame, which is better than the scattered information we have now. Players should appreciate the compilation of results and ratings on a regular basis. Organizers would have another incentive to completing a simple tournament report. Naturally events that did not submit results to TMD would not be included in the ratings system, but I would think that players would want to have their results reported and would request posted tournament reports from the organizers.

The fact that Legacy has a more meaningful representation in an Eternal Rating is a good point. I think we could roll out the Vintage Player Ratings and have the option to do so for Legacy in the future if someone wants to take the initiative to maintain them.

[RaleighNCTourneys]

How will European / Non-proxy / Budget metagames be handled? Will these results be reported the same way as US tourney?

Also, I think major events like SCG and TMD should carry more weight than other tournaments. I say this because if there are 40 people who go to a mox tourney somewhere, most of them are coming from that area and no one is traveling too far. For SCGs and TMDs (and vintage champs), all of the best players are coming from all over, so it makes it a lot more competetive. Maybe TMDs and SCGs can be considered "majors" and count as 1.5x or 2x or something.

[Myriad Games]

We could have an indicator of region and also of number of proxies, in case people wanted to filter based on those. For example, the following might be a listing from a recent event:

Date: 9/1/2007
Location: Myriad Games, Salem, NH, USA
Number of Players: 26
Number of Proxies: 15

The list of players and points would follow. If we wanted to make larger events worth more, we could simply increase the scale on the higher end, saying that something like 65-128 would be 384 points total rather than 256 (1.5x). This would ensure that all larger events has more sway, similar to the way that the K level of sanctioned events increases potential points gained.

[Liam-K]

I understand a hesitance to establish a formal committee to oversee a list of penalties and manage a supplemental list of suspended players to complement the existing DCI list. This is the stickiest point of these improvements, and also one of the most important, as it cuts to the core of what needs to happen in order to maintain responsibility and integrity in unsanctioned events. Without consistent and clear ramifications to penalize unscrupulous players, those penalties lose potency and relevance.

Please reply with your thoughts on how we might address this key issue successfully.

I think without a PROPER oversight body (and I do feel that no informal [e.g. not professional] group of players/TO's can provide proper oversight), that trying to maintain a "penalty" list or have penalties cut across multiple TO venues has the potential to do far more harm to the community than good - Vintage already has a "TMD elite" stigma to get over without some sort of TMD-based system trying to enforce people getting banned with nothing more than a kangaroo court and court of public opinion (again, unless you're the DCI and paid/trained to do the investigation, I truly believe it can't be fair or impartial). 

I really think this item cannot be done fairly and thus I feel it CANNOT be done successfully at this point in time.

Yes.  The vintage community is so small that we'd very quickly have popularity-contest suspension decisions.  Terrible.

[Myriad Games]

As promised - The Tournament Organizer Primer and the Universal Tournament Organizer Guidelines

Tournament Organizer Primer

This advice is designed to complement the DCI's Tournament Organizer Handbook and Tournament Organizer Essential Guidelines.

When planning for your event, you'll need to decide where you'll be hosting the event, when the event will take place (date, registration time, start time), cost of entry, and prizes that will be awarded. The location should be clean, easy to access, and able to comfortably accommodate the number of players that will be attending. Encouraging preregistration will help you estimate attendance. Have decklists, pens, tournament software, access to Oracle, Penalty Guidelines, and all other tournament materials ready ahead of time. Make sure that there are food and beverages available for purchase for longer events.

The date and time should take into consideration other major Magic events taking place in your area, especially other Eternal events. You can locate the dates of most events online or by contacting other local tournament organizers directly. You should arrange for an impartial head judge for your event. You may wish to have additional floor judges. Competent judges will help your event run smoothly. Your tournament announcements should include all pertinent details in a clear, concise manner. Work with other tournament organizers in your area to cross-promote each others events. Post your tournament announcement online. Distribute fliers at your local stores. Contact your local players regularly to make sure they know about your upcoming events. Announce upcoming local events at the beginning of each event.

Prizes should ideally scale based on attendance. Scaling prize structures encourage players to actively recruit additional players and allows for organizers to provide a consistent schedule of events. Prize structures should be diversified so that there are prizes for more than just the top one or two players. The deeper the prizes go, the more likely you are to attract consistent attendance, especially from new players. Continually welcoming and encouraging new players is essential to the successful development and support of your local player base. If you guarantee any prizes, be sure you award them as announced. You'll also need to decide if you're going to have any side events and what the entry fee and associated prizes will be for those.

Make sure your event starts on time. Collecting decklists at the beginning of Round 1 will ensure a smoother registration process with fewer delays. At the beginning of the event, be sure to welcome all your players and thank them for attending. Announce how many rounds you'll be playing and be sure to address any questions players may have before the event begins. Encourage players to call on the judge(s) if they have any questions. Make it very clear to your players that you expect them to behave in a sporting manner throughout the event. Emphasize that you're dedicated to ensuring that they have a fair and fun event. Make sure there is as little downtime between rounds as possible and address any issues as they develop. Throughout your event, thank your players for attending and do what you can to help them enjoy the event.

Complete a tournament report including the final standings and deck archetypes for each player. Posting decklists for the Top 8 is highly recommended. You may wish you take pictures throughout the event to post along with your report.

The Universal Tournament Organizer Guidelines (UTOG) are intended to help ensure consistent professional unsanctioned events. By adhering to these guidelines, tournament organizers agree to follow all DCI guidelines for running tournaments along with the additional guidelines presented herein, which address unique needs of unsanctioned Eternal tournaments.

[ELD]

This all looks great.  One of the biggest issues I've had with non-sanctioned events is the proxies.  Now with these universal guidelines, everyone will know what to expect for proxy requirements.  I plan to work with Myriad so we can both phase in these rules at the same pace, which will prevent confusion for the players.  I'll start by screening proxies at my next event, and explaining what will be required in the future.  These rules could not have come too soon.  At one of the events I attended recently, there was a huge amount of confusion over a rarely used card that was proxied.  Since the card did not have all the relevant text, there were some ugly issues that ended up effecting the game. 

[Anusien]

Who determines suspensions?  Who makes the decisions which players get suspended and for how long?  Who handles investigations?

Who determines what K-Level an event has?  Under your system, what chances are there for appeals and to air grievances?  What body can revoke a tournament's sanctioning if something shady is going on?

These sorts of issues are all handled arbitrarily by Wizards.  They hire people to do this.  But for the most we trust them to do their job fairly.  What makes you think that because any particular set of TOs can run a good tournament that they have the administrative skills/know-how to organize a sanctioning body?

It's like we joke about Banned and Restricted Lists.  I don't trust any Vintage player to set a fair BR, so I just let Wizards do it...

Edit: for that matter, does that mean that you can't sanction any alternate BR tournaments?

Double Edit: It seems like these rules would go against what ELD does.  His proxies would be illegal, and it seems like those tournaments wouldn't count for this.


Anyway, what incentive is there for a TO to go along with this.

[T00L]

How do ratings work? Also as Anusien said how do the suspensions work exactly?

[ELD]

Double Edit: It seems like these rules would go against what ELD does.  His proxies would be illegal, and it seems like those tournaments wouldn't count for this.

I'm not sure why you are confused on this.  As quoted here:

The second method is to take a card that shares some of the characteristics with the card that is being proxied and erase any characteristics that do not match, replacing them with the correct characteristics.

Clearly, my proxies are completely legal. 

Who determines what K-Level an event has?  What body can revoke a tournament's sanctioning if something shady is going on?

Where is this coming from?  UTOG makes no reference to K-values or sanctioning. 

Who determines suspensions?  Who makes the decisions which players get suspended and for how long?  Who handles investigations?

These sorts of issues are all handled arbitrarily by Wizards.  They hire people to do this.  But for the most we trust them to do their job fairly.  What makes you think that because any particular set of TOs can run a good tournament that they have the administrative skills/know-how to organize a sanctioning body?

As far as the suspensions go, there are 107 players suspended in the entire world.  The simple fact that a player can now be excluded from UTOG events will be further deterrent from committing the flagrant acts that could lead to a suspension.  Even without UTOG, I can assure you that if a player assaulted a judge, or was found guilty of any DCI suspendable offense, he would not be welcome at my events.  These occurrences are so rare (107 players out of around 180,000 right now) and so heinous that it is unlikely that we will see a need to suspend anyone.  The list of suspendable offenses is a short one, and there should be no tolerance for those kinds of actions. 

I am not sure where all your consternation is coming from about these guidelines.  This is not an issue of making a sanctioning body.  This is simply setting forth guidelines that will allow players to know what to expect when they play at a UTOG tournament.  The proxy issue is the greatest benefit, as the rules have been inconsistent from place to place.  Now we will be able to make sure that all proxies in our events are up to a minimum standard, without players being blindsided by differences between venues.  The prize guidelines should be followed by any TO regardless, and The tracking of Top 8's for rankings has no down side at all.  I really am at a loss as to what your post is about.  Please re-read the guidelines and see if you still have concerns. 

[Myriad Games]

Disqualifications, appeals, and potential suspensions would follow the same protocol that the DCI uses. As underscored by the responses thus far, these guidelines follow all relevant DCI tournament documents and procedures as closely as possible. The primary reason for this is to avoid confusion as to how these instances should be handled. No specific system for calculating ratings is part of UTOG, simply a requirement to post results within a reasonable period from the date of the event. Having this data available will allow it to be processed into ratings in a variety of ways. There is no specific K-rating assigned to events, so generally the events would be 16K under the usual system. Larger events with certified judges and certain minimum numbers of players could be considered 24K or possibly even 32K, as outlined in the DCI's TO documents. Most Vintage events would be run at REL Regular with some larger events being run at REL Competitive. Any events that use alternate rules (e.g. a tournament in which Yawgmoth's Will is banned) would not be considered official UTOG events for the purposes of any ratings system, but would certainly be encouraged to adhere to the UTOG guidelines as much as possible. Consistent rules enforcement and penalties, uniform and understandable proxies, and timely and complete reporting should be elements of any professionally run event, regardless of whether or not it is officially sanctioned by the DCI.

The incentive for Tournament Organizers to support UTOG is clear: it provides more consistent and enjoyable events for the players and improves the stability and growth potential of the entire Eternal community.

[LotusHead]

Who determines suspensions?  Who makes the decisions which players get suspended and for how long?  Who handles investigations?
These sorts of issues are all handled arbitrarily by Wizards.  They hire people to do this.  But for the most we trust them to do their job fairly.  What makes you think that because any particular set of TOs can run a good tournament that they have the administrative skills/know-how to organize a sanctioning body?

As far as the suspensions go, there are 107 players suspended in the entire world.  The simple fact that a player can now be excluded from UTOG events will be further deterrent from committing the flagrant acts that could lead to a suspension.  Even without UTOG, I can assure you that if a player assaulted a judge, or was found guilty of any DCI suspendable offense, he would not be welcome at my events.  These occurrences are so rare (107 players out of around 180,000 right now) and so heinous that it is unlikely that we will see a need to suspend anyone.  The list of suspendable offenses is a short one, and there should be no tolerance for those kinds of actions. 

I am not sure where all your consternation is coming from about these guidelines.  This is not an issue of making a sanctioning body.  This is simply setting forth guidelines that will allow players to know what to expect when they play at a UTOG tournament.  The proxy issue is the greatest benefit, as the rules have been inconsistent from place to place.  Now we will be able to make sure that all proxies in our events are up to a minimum standard, without players being blindsided by differences between venues.  The prize guidelines should be followed by any TO regardless, and The tracking of Top 8's for rankings has no down side at all.  I really am at a loss as to what your post is about.  Please re-read the guidelines and see if you still have concerns. 

In NorCal, we had a situation where we have a perfectly fine non-sanctioned Vintage tourney, but the Judge (DCI certified) bans a player for DCI lengths of time (in this case, like 6 months) for occurences outside the vintage realm, but in line with "Vintage is a legitimate format, even with proxies" ideology.

We grumbled, but ultimately it was the right call (the player in this case was innocent of any wrongdoing, except having a teammate who did said wrongdoings. BanHammer entire team!)

These guidelines are a "community standard" proposal, but for the fringe cases (cheaters, violent aggrivators, rude players), these are rare, and if the player won't play nice, then who care's about him.

[Anusien]

The reason these are coming about is because you're talking about keeping ratings.

All participating tournament organizers agree to publicly post the final standings within a week of each event. This will allow for the calculation of player ratings.

These means that someone has to manage the system, and that someone has to include certain tournaments (and theoretically disqualify ones that don't rate).  What's more, that Dan knows exactly what I'm talking about and Eric, you don't seem to, is telling to me.

There is no specific K-rating assigned to events, so generally the events would be 16K under the usual system. Larger events with certified judges and certain minimum numbers of players could be considered 24K or possibly even 32K, as outlined in the DCI's TO documents. Most Vintage events would be run at REL Regular with some larger events being run at REL Competitive.

What are those cut-offs?  What are the mandates?  What response is available for a TO that doesn't have appropriate judging or they have a botched call?  When you move from "a bunch of TOs" to "a bureaucratic body" this is the shit you have to deal with.  What's more, it's difficult to make these decisions post facto, since the DCI mandates that you announce the K-level before the event starts.

Disqualifications, appeals, and potential suspensions would follow the same protocol that the DCI uses.

Do you know these protocols?  Do you knowhow Andy Heckt conducts investigations and determines what criteria to disqualify someone?  Who is taking that role in the system.  How do you decide if someone accumulates a lot of Warnings (or if you're not tracking Warnings, Game Losses for some offenses) that they deserve a suspension?  See, for example, the case of Katsuhiro Mori.  No offense, but I'm not sure I trust you (or anyone else on these boards) to carry out suspension investigations.

If the only issue is proxies being inconsistent, just everybody come together and adhere to a common set of rules, like SCG's.  I don't see the need for all this other stuff.  Plus I find the fact that you're doing this without having SCG on-board to be somewhat ridiculous.  Personally as a TO I wouldn't want to sign on with this until I know ALL the details, and they're definitely not all here yet.

[Yare]

Is not having a head judge permitted?

As astutely pointed out by Anusien, who will decide, if this rule is ambiguous?  What is the penalty for failing to comply?  As Anusien is getting at, specificity is an absolutely essential requirement.

Also, who wrote this?

[ELD]

If the only issue is proxies being inconsistent, just everybody come together and adhere to a common set of rules, like SCG's.  I don't see the need for all this other stuff.

That is basically what UTOG is.  The other stuff is minimal.  The point system isn't ironed out, and again, it only has an upside.  If anyone doesn't like the ratings, they do not need to pay attention to them.  It's not like they are going to Q you for a pro-tour   I'm not going to get hung up on this suspension issue, as it is not realistically going to impact anything. 

When you move from "a bunch of TOs" to "a bureaucratic body" this is the shit you have to deal with.

There is no bureaucratic body.  All of this other nonsense does not need to be "dealt with."  This is simply a bunch of TO's being on the same page. 

I only chimed in to back Dan on this project.  It is certainly for the good of the community. 

[Myriad Games]

I'll be drafting a basic Tournament Organizer Primer and a set of optional Tournament Guidelines to encourage events to adhere to a professional standard. I'll be including sections on all the straightforward (not easy) parts of running successful events (tournament preparation, tournament administration, and tournament reporting). Any suggestions for what to include are appreciated.

As previously indicated, I drafted these guidelines based on existing DCI guidelines and with feedback from fellow tournament organizers and judges.

Methods for reporting disqualifications are laid out very clearly in the Tournament Organizer Handbook. In such rare occasions as this would be necessary in our admittedly small portion of the Magic playing community, statements would be admitted from the disqualified player, opponents, judges, and observers at the event in question. Further details about how disqualification and suspension are processed are available in that same document.

While there are a variety of options available for calculating casual ratings, none of the methods proposed thus far would involve factoring in K-value of an event. Rules Enforcement Level should certainly be announced before an event begins and in the event that it is not announced it would default to REL Regular, as with sanctioned events. Only events that follow the UTOG would be included in any ratings.

UTOG events, like DCI sanctioned events, must have an impartial head judge, tournament organizer, and scorekeeper. These can all be the same person or they can be separate individuals (usually the case for larger events). In order to insure the integrity of the event, none of these individuals may participate in the event as players.

Use of the UTOG is entirely optional and most professional TOs (including SCG) are already following these guidelines. There is no penalty for not following them, only overall benefits to be gained through their use. As ELD has pointed out, these are all improvements, standards that most of us expect when attending any other sanctioned event. We're simply proposing that unsanctioned events follow the same consistent guidelines as sanctioned events.