World League: Request

Submitted by Lizard87 on Tue, 08/04/2009 at 11:57am.

Hi all,

I've received the request to send out this news message, asking for your opinion on it, so here it is.

-Anton/Lizard87

 

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Recently, it has been brought to the attention of the World League Headquarters that there are players playing in multiple country teams, and are playing for more than one country in the World League. It is clear that this is against the rules.

“Members may only represent one country in the World League. It is up to them which one they represent.”

However, England recently had a match against The Philippines. In it, England discovered multiple members of the Filipino team were members of other teams. Indeed, two of the players had already played for Australia v England in Round One of the World League. However, this took several hours of searching through all 500+ members of the Filipino team. Then I had to check whether or not each offending player had played for their other team in a World League match. This again took several hours of trawling fixtures.

As a result, a rule change is proposed. Here are the following options that it seems reasonable to choose in a vote.

1. All players must be part of only one country team.
As a result of this, any player discovered in other teams would be in breach of the rules. This draws a parallel with “real-life”, in that you can only be part of one country in sport in real-life.
2. All players can only represent the country that their flag is set to.
As a result of this, players can only play for the country whose flag is shown. However, this isn’t necessarily a way to check whether they are part of more than one team or not. This is a problem for countries like England, many of whom set their flag to United Kingdom. The situation is difficult to explain, and I won’t go into it. Do some research on it if you’re interested. *Lizard87: Also, quite some people live abroad but carry their native flag. Some prefer to play for their country of residency, not their nationality. Thus, this makes it hard*
3. Both option 1 and option 2.
As a result of this, any player discovered in other teams would be in breach of the rules. The player could only play for the country that their flag is set to. This also has the problems of UK and England.
4. Keep the rules regarding this issue as they are at the moment.
The problems with this have been outlined above. *Lizard87: The reason the rule was implemented as it is was because World League teams are not exclusively for the World League. They also play friendly's and other competitions. Therefore we can't restrict players to join only 1 team. Creating 2 teams, one for the World League and one for friendlies is simply impossible, also because several rankings are used for other competitions. This should shed some light on the decision about this rule. There has been extensive discussion on this during the set-up of the World League*

If a player is found to be playing for other teams, then that player will automatically lose both games of any match they play in. If rule 1 is adopted, players in other countries must be removed by the Super Admins.

The vote will take the following format. Each country will have a vote worth one. It is up to each country which of the four options they vote. It is up to each country how they go about conducting their vote. They may choose to vote within their administrators, or they may open it up to the masses. That’s up to you. Each country can only vote for one option. If you don’t wish to vote, it will not be count as a vote for option 4. All votes must be cast by Saturday, August 15th at 12:00pm BST (British Summer Time). Results will be posted the following day. All countries in the World League are entitled to vote. To vote, send alexholowczak a message, saying which country you are voting on behalf of, and which option you are voting for.

 

Comments:

by pdmura - 2 months ago
Glendale, AZ United States
Member Since: Jun 2008
Member Points: 355

I amend my suggestion by instead asking for a query that can be run by a team admin to see if a player on a roster is currently playing a match or on a roster for an official World League match.  Ideally, I could run a report just prior to closing the roster that would identify problems.  Asking for more, I'd also like to be able to run the tool on my opponent's team. A similar suggestion was dismissed by a WL admin because the checking is not a big deal, but I find it tedious, error prone and thankless.  Why discourage people from being admins?

It has been pointed out that the World League is a very cool feature available on Chess.com.  It seems like chess.com could provide some tools to make it easier on admins and help the site promote the league as another reason to join.

by Solochess997 - 4 months ago
Singapore Singapore
Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 83

I shall represent Singapore which is only my resident. I can also do it for USA (passport country) or the Republic of Korea which is where my blood belongs to.

by alexholowczak - 4 months ago
Oldbury, Worcestershire England
Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 2835

PhilipN: Then go and pass the above note on to your Super Admin, Yoshua.

by PhilipN - 4 months ago
Oregon United States
Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 869

I don't see the need to keep people off multiple country teams if they play for the same country (sometimes there is a national team for a country and also a World League team for that same country).  My understanding of the original rules (and what I believe to be the appropriate rules) is that a player is not allowed to be a member of more than one World League team at the same time.

by alexholowczak - 4 months ago
Oldbury, Worcestershire England
Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 2835

UweS, the problem is that there is both the rule you quote there, and the rule I quote, all in the same ruleset. They can't co-exist.

by UweS - 4 months ago
Germany
Member Since: Dec 2007
Member Points: 2032

I dont understand the confusion - When the World League started the WL Teams received a text for their public profile.

One passage reads as follows:

"This is the group representing XXX (for example Germany) in the Chess.com World League. It is for all those who would like to participate in League match play. Members already in another World League team will be removed!"

What is unclear? I think we didnt need new rules but we have to follow the exisiting ones.

Or did I missunderstand something?

Uwe

by alexholowczak - 4 months ago
Oldbury, Worcestershire England
Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 2835

Just like to remind previous commenters that your country has one vote only. Please take this note to your country admin, and see what they say. I will only accept votes sent to me from a country's Super Admin. So far:

Australia has voted.

No one else.

by NiceNix - 4 months ago
Ottawa Canada
Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 188

Using flags to identify membership doesn't resolve the issue.  It wouldn't prevent people from joining all of the various U.S. divisions, for example.  Rule 1 should be sufficient.  

This issue cannot be resolved without the intervention of the chess.com site developers.  It could be fairly easily implemented by simply adding a personal info dropdown list identifying which World League team you would like to be associated with.  Give super admins the ability tweak the list of available world teams to choose from and you're set.

by kokino - 4 months ago
Valencia Spain
Member Since: Feb 2009
Member Points: 12424

@PhilipN, there are some differences:

1. means a player cannot join any other Country Teams at all (even if they are not playing the League)

4. Current rules are allowing to join several Country Teams but playing with just one.

by kokino - 4 months ago
Valencia Spain
Member Since: Feb 2009
Member Points: 12424


1. All players must be part of only one country team.
As a result of this, any player discovered in other teams would be in breach of the rules. This draws a parallel with “real-life”, in that you can only be part of one country in sport in real-life

 

What about if the second country team is not participating on the WL??

And how admins can ensure that??

by mike456784 - 4 months ago
new jersey United States
Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 2339

i agree with pdmura and i'm offering to help i think chess.com should have at least 15 people helping out with the world league because playing for your country is very very important to people feel free to make me super admin and then i'll make a forum post adminstrative help and then i will make about six of them super admin and i will make about  6 admin and i will stay at super admin and you guys may think i'm an adult i'm not i'm a 16 year old boy

by UweS - 4 months ago
Germany
Member Since: Dec 2007
Member Points: 2032

I agree: "The rule that a player may only be on one World League Team at a time is sound.  Option 1 should be enough."


If someone want to join our team I look at the profile and if he / she is a member in another official WL Team I say sorry, you cant join our team cause its against the rules.


by PhilipN - 4 months ago
Oregon United States
Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 869

What exactly is the difference between options 1 and 4?

by kawazaki - 4 months ago
Egypt
Member Since: Dec 2007
Member Points: 2595

Thanks a lot for those rules which solving the Contries representations & regulations all over the W.L. Cool

by mike456784 - 4 months ago
new jersey United States
Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 2339

that is what it's like at my school there are people in my school that can see what every student is doing on the computer or a laptop the reason i know this is because i asked a teacher what is computer abuse and i also asked how can they tell what your doing because i read the rulebook when i got it and one of the rules was computer abuse

by mike456784 - 4 months ago
new jersey United States
Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 2339

i'd suggest making a all countries list on the groups and teams coulunm and i aslso suggest that maybe someone that is staff could see what everyone is dong that is in the country teams you know like i mean have a monitor in all the country groups something that if you type in a name you will find that player or like a list that the staff could use and see what the members that are involved with the world league are doing

by pdmura - 4 months ago
Glendale, AZ United States
Member Since: Jun 2008
Member Points: 355

In my opinion the rule that a player may only be on one World League Team at a time is sound.  Option 1 should be enough.  The difficulty has been in enforcing it.

To me it sounds that using flags to identify membership is trying to make it easier to see violations, but it does nothing to address the real problem which is preventing people from joining more than one team (or giving the admins the tools to check).

The fact that it took Lizard87 hours to find the data suggests to me that the we needs help from Chess.com to administer the league.  World League teams could be "special and different" from other groups so they can be searched on separately.  Chess.com can provide queries to check that an application for membership is valid because the player is not ALREADY a member of another team.  When the queries are ready, we could find the people on multiple teams and ask them to choose their World League allegence.

It may not be possible to fully resolve this for this World League season, but we can take what we learn and apply it to the next one and getting tools to help administer it properly will help a great deal.

 

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