Due to the Mikuru vs. Rika overtime match, Emerald 9 is now postponed to 0130 GMT.
I have some good news, and a heap of bad news.
The good news is that ISML is still running (barely), and I will ensure that we will stick around for quite a while. Now the heap of bad news.
Here's the first. Do you remember the Aquamarine 4 Arena mixup? Well, it happened again, and this time, the problem affects the overtime match. In creating the voting page for the overtime match, I forgot to change some "ARENA_03" values to "ARENA_01", and therefore, while voting seemed to go smoothly, no results were recorded... unfortunately. Therefore we will have to reschedule the overtime match to Tuesday @ 0130 GMT.
Secondly, as the Overtime Match needs to take as a whole of 24 hours, Emerald 8 has also been pushed back to 0130 GMT.
Thirdly, and here's the big one - as you noticed, the ISML site hasn't been updated as quickly as it has been. Also, for the past three weeks, we have had a huge growing number of problems, most of them going unnoticed as I haven't been on 24/7 (or even less, having to leave after the voting page is swapped). This has caused a lot of credibility issues concerning the stability of ISML. And even worse, I am now in a critical position in which if I don't take the time to sort out my real life and it's growing number of annoyances, I may have to shut down ISML, something that I will never want to do in my lifetime. In order to ensure that ISML keeps running at a smooth pace, I'm going to have to make a huge handful of sacrifices. While this will not change the way the voting process will go and anything else that goes along with it, some other things will need to be cut.
The first of things that will need to be removed until further notice is the small descriptions that I seem to write every now and then on the main page. While it is a good way to get ourselves pumped up for the event as we see these girls take the stage, it is time consuming, and as of right now, the only thing I seem to do have time for is the reporting of results. It does take me a full two hours to come up with those, and those hours need to be spent on what I haven't been able to save up time for, most notably the contestant profiles, which have been stalled as of lately. There will most likely still be a main description right above the Arena 1 image, but for now, play-by-play commentary will be on hold.
Secondly, the contestants page will no longer be ordered by current rank. I will place them in alphabetical order by surname for the time being. This will make it easier for me to update the rankings and records, which will cut time by about 1.5 hours. This will save up time for me to be able to upload a handful of profiles, and we should have all 64 (or at least the top 32) by the time double-elimination rolls around.
Thirdly, I will no longer monitor the schedule pages full time. I will only use the remaining schedule pages to announce the schedules of each period, and I will not be updating the pages themselves with the results as they come. Right now, Crisu has been doing a very good job of doing so on Photobucket, so a link will be provided to the ISML photobucket archive where you will be able to find the results.
I will also hold off on reporting on J Saimoe and K Saimoe as well. The original plan was to provide links to each tournament page, and we will still do so. However, we will not report the results full time as I would normally have done.
I hope that this could free up the time I need to keep ISML alive. If all the updates work out the way they do, we can keep this league running, and hopefully everything should be sorted out in time that we return to our original plans by the end of Ruby.
I personally apologize for having the results up much later than usual, but I am having a groggy day today. On top of having image problems, accessibility, wireless issues, and my mother, the results ended up being mostly the same as last time, with only three overturned matches. And after all of that, Kyou "defended" her Sapphire Necklace with ease.
Anyway, as you all know, ISML has had its own flaws. Let me remind you that this is the first year for the International Saimoe League, and as the name in itself sounds prestigious, it is still a work in progress. While I have been getting feedback on how to run this league from time to time, there is a slight problem - I haven't gotten ANY feedback over the last two weeks outside of a handful of those who are more or less helping out.
This is a good time to remind you that the form is there for you to provide any feedback you wish to give at all. If there are any problems (and believe me, there are a lot of execution problems), let us know and we will do our best to resolve it as much as possible.
Apologies for this particular match set to go through this again, but due to a few inconveniences, there may be a slight delay in results tonight.
I apologize for being so late. However, I live in the United States, and as it is Independence Day, it is rather a big deal, and I've been caught up in the festivities, therefore slowing myself down. No worries though. At least I'm still here, and this league will still be running.
With ISML having to deal with issues from Sapphire 8, the last thing I need is for Weebly to have a hardcore breakdown, but at approximately 0700 GMT, one of the hardware storage systems broke down. Then another. Then another. Then, well, you get the idea. Is it a conspiracy to shut down ISML (and take down about 200 sites in the process)? You can decide that.
More information about the breakdown can be found here.
This is a reminder that should the main site be down, ISML will not be responsible for any votes lost during that period. It is mentioned explicitly on the rules page that it is the voter's responsibility to save the main voting page in the case that this happens. (This is exactly the reason I elected to place the voting page in a separate server where I can control.)
Unless something happens in the polls where we will be forced to restart, we will NOT restart Emerald 5.
In case you haven't noticed, Japan is running nominations as we speak. Some crazy nominations there, but it is in progress, so we don't know who will be in until the first round begins.
Korea, on the other hand, takes all the characters that are even remotely eligible and gives all possibilities an entry, so we know the full entry list of Korea Best Moe 2008. They have just released the first round schedule. I'd figure it would be best to clue you in on who will be making their 2008 debuts in Korea or whatnot.
Because there are a whopping 96 arenas in the first round preliminaries this year, there is no way that I am covering all of them. Instead, for the preliminaries, I will cover matches that include respective ISML candidates, and I will continue to do so until Korea is down to the final 64. I'll give a reminder on the front page (when I can) whenever one of the ISML 2008 candidates are up for their match.
NOTE: Sakura Kinomoto qualified in part to a cameo in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. The Princess Sakura is not eligible for Korea this year.
NOTE: Haruhi Suzumiya qualified in part to a cameo in Lucky Star. Konata Izumi, Kagami Hiiragi, and Tsukasa Hiiragi are not eligible for Korea this year. KOREA 1st Round Schedule
Friday July 11 - 0900-3230 GMT
#46 Mion Sonozaki (12-27) @ Arena 8
Saturday, July 12 - 0900-3230 GMT
#11 C.C (30-9) @ Arena 9
#10 Hinagiku Katsura (32-7) @ Arena 11
#47 Chiaki Minami (12-27) @ Arena 11
#21 Nagi Sanzen'in (26-13) @ Arena 15
Sunday, July 13 - 0900-3230 GMT
#3 Tomoyo Sakagami (37-2) @ Arena 24
#13 Nagisa Furukawa (29-10) @ Arena 24
Monday, July 14 - 0900-3230 GMT
#44 Ayumu Nishizawa (13-26) @ Arena 30
Tuesday, July 15 - 0900-3230 GMT
#33 Ryou Fujibayashi (19-20) @ Arena 33
#55 Alice Carroll (6-33) @ Arena 36
Wednesday, July 16 - 0900-3230 GMT
#35 Louise Francoise (18-21) @ Arena 41
#1 Shana (37-2) @ Arena 43
#52 Tamaki Kawazoe (9-30) @ Arena 44
Thursday, July 17 - 0900-3230 GMT
#63 Konomi Yuzuhara (1-38) @ Arena 52
#19 Rika Furude (27-12) @ Arena 54
#2 Kyou Fujibayashi (37-2) @ Arena 54
#26 Maria (25-14) @ Arena 55
Friday, July 18 - 0900-3230 GMT
#27 Rena Ryuguu (24-15) @ Arena 58
#9 Kotomi Ichinose (33-6) @ Arena 58
#34 Hanyuu Furude (19-20) @ Arena 63
#56 Kiri Komori (4-35) @ Arena 64
Saturday, July 19 - 0900-3230 GMT
#59 Yuno (3-36) @ Arena 71
Sunday, July 20 - 0900-3230 GMT
#23 Sakura Kinomoto (26-13) @ Arena 74
#6 Haruhi Suzumiya (36-3) @ Arena 75
#28 Fuko Ibuki (23-16) @ Arena 76
#61 Tamaki Kousaka (2-37) @ Arena 79
Monday, July 21 - 0900-3230 GMT
#18 Horo (27-12) @ Arena 86
Tuesday, July 22 - 0900-3230 GMT
No ISML candidates
Sorry for not being around for a while - I had another exhaustion period. You know how that goes.
Anyway, I've been getting reports that the site went down, approximately right after I went to sleep. While I do apologize for not being available immediately, do notice that if the main site goes down, the voting site should still be up, so matches will continue to be conducted. Therefore, there shouldn't be any problem as far as this league will progress.
For those of you who are indeed very devoted to this league, I think that it is best that you save my e-mail. My e-mail is hendrickfan66@yahoo.com. Should the site go down, if you save the e-mail, you should be able to contact me. Some of the staff members already do have it, so it is best that you should hold on to it as well.
Let's get to the important business.
As some of you have already noticed with the breaking news on the site, ISML received a request from a devoted voter from this contest. If you recall, we had some major problems with Sapphire 8, and as a result, we only had 19 hours of the 24 accepted, and some who did vote during times in which the voting script went "down" did not receive a warning for that. While in normal conditions I would have restarted the match pronto, in this certain situation, I decided that we need to move on, as we already had one postponement for Sapphire 8. We did indeed do that, and eventually declared Kyou Fujibayashi as the final Sapphire winner, but once I received the recant message, pointing out valid arguments that I just couldn't argue against, we decided to consider it.
While I can't argue that the recant shouldn't be considered at all, the ISML staff have been mulling over this for quite a while, deciding what we would indeed do with this option. So, I've decided that you guys should have a say in this as well. For this next match set, an Arena 0 will be added right above the Haruhi vs. Fate match, in which you answer the question provided above. Take time to think about all the possibilities that could happen and try to answer honestly. The majority vote may or may not sway my decision, but I will take the final vote of Arena 0 into consideration.
Keep in mind that this is a Yes or No question. The No will be that we keep things the way they are and move on. The Yes will have the following conditions.
A) Emerald 6 will be moved to Thursday, July 3.
B) Sapphire 8 will be redone on Saturday, July 5.
C) Kyou will keep her Sapphire necklace. She will also be eligible for the necklace qualification for next year.
D) If there would have been a different winner for Sapphire (I'm looking at you, Haruhi), that winner will also receive a Sapphire necklace and will also be eligible for the necklace qualification for next year.
Therefore, keep all of that in mind when voting in Arena 0.
Also, some of you may be wondering whether the whole world will have a say in this. While I can't speak every single language, I'll try to get at least a text image of a translation of "Restart Sapphire 8?" and go from there.
In other news regarding ISML, you may have noticed that development on this league has slowed down rather considerably. In addition to the Sapphire 8 possible recant, this is also the last week of my June college course, and work includes a research paper and then some, so I have been working very hard on that. The good news is that I am off for one-week before returning to take my next college course in July, so hopefully whatever should be needed to get done will indeed be done.
Also, I promised that I will cover both J Saimoe and K Saimoe. The report on J Saimoe as of right now is thus: in addition to our candidates who are expected to compete in J Saimoe, Haruhi, Yuki, and Mikuru are crashing the party this year as candidates representing Lucky Star. Nominations are still continuing at this moment, and we usually wouldn't need to worry about them. Links will be provided once the preliminaries begin.
Finally, advertise, advertise, advertise. As I said, J Saimoe has begun, and this is a great opportunity to grab voters to come to this upstart league. Many of us are calling for diversity among voters, and while I congratulate the KyoAni crowd for dominating Amethyst and Sapphire, it's no fun when we don't have a humongous upset after a while. I'm looking at the Rozen Maiden, Higurashi, and Hayate no Gotoku crowd who doesn't know that we even exist, who can certainly pull a turn around and make this league much more exciting. Don't be afraid to give Haruhi some competition every once in a while, and let's make this much more fun.
Apologies for being very very late, but I was at least able to begin the match at the schedule time. It will end at the scheduled time of 2530 GMT.
As for the rest of the Emerald matches, they are posted on the Emerald page, which is found here.
Because of the problems we have experienced in Sapphire 8, our transition weekend has been cut short, so we're trying to speed things up this time around.
This is a reminder that Emerald 1 will begin at 0130 GMT tomorrow. The full Emerald schedule will be posted tomorrow evening at the latest.
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