End of the Year Information and Procedures

[FltCapt. Sidney Riley]

Hello Everyone! Round 18 was the LAST SUBMISSION PERIOD of the year! Here's some information about how the end of year stuff is going to work.

Run Off Round 1 Voting Sun 10-31 Through Sun 11-14

Run Off Round 2 Voting Sun 11-14 Through Sun 11-28

FINAL ROUND Voting Mon 11-29 Through Fri 12-31

Last submission round

To give us enough time to really focus on culling down our current primary round winners, we're going to wrap up the last two months of the year with just voting. So, round 18 was the end of this years submissions. Round 18 Voting will last two weeks until November 14, 2010.

What about submissions through the end of the year?

Submissions may be submitted through the end of the year, but they will not be voted on until the first two weeks of next year. The sims will remain in the Tops Sims Forum until January 1. Ratings will be allowed. Somehow, we'll cull down the list to 10 sims, and then vote on them in the first two weeks of the year. If you have other ideas, or comments on how this can be done fairly, post here.

How will run-offs work?

As there were only 10 sims from the rounds this year, there will be two run off rounds of five sims each. As such, final runoff round 1 will begin voting 10-31.

What I will do is list all the sims that have moved into the runoff phase. I will give each of them a number, with the first sim to win this year being #1, and the last sim to win being #20. I will then use the Random.org tool to choose a number between 1 and 20. This sim will be the first option in the first runoff round poll. I'll continue this way until we have ten sims in runoff round 1. If a number is selected twice by the random number generator, I'll simply request another number until a new number is chosen.

These five sims will be posted in a poll similar to what we've done for each round. Links will be provided to each sim. Everyone will then vote on the best sim. The winning sim then advances to the final round.

For runoff round 2, I will re-number the remaining sims as #1 through #5. I will again use the Random.org tool to choose a number between 1 and 5. This sim will be the first sim in the second runoff round. I will continue this way until the order of the remaining five sims have been chosen. (Doing this to ensure there is no bias in the way the sims are placed in the poll.)

Again, these five sims will be posted in a poll. Everyone will vote, and the winning sim then advances to the final round.

How will the final round work?

In the final round, there will simply be two sims posted in a poll. I will use the Random.org tool to flip a virtual coin. The winning sim from runoff round 1 will be "Heads" and the winning sim from runoff round 2 will be "Tails". The winner will be the first option in the poll.

Voters will have the whole month of December to vote on the final two sims.