I said I probably wasn’t going to do another one of these until next year, and certainly not so soon, so what’s changed? Events, dear boy, events. I think we all need a distraction from the end of the world, and if we’re lucky and things do get back to normal soon, I’m hoping I might be able to travel next year. So I’m bringing forward my plans for the biggest, most inclusive and hopefully best ZooChat Cup yet. Soon. This isn’t that version. There’s a couple of things I want to test first, and I can think of no greater nation to serve as lab rats than the British (and the Irish. I am certainly not stepping into *that* debate). So I’m going to run a relatively small, quick tournament featuring 12 British Isles zoos. Note that I will probably lapse into calling this a ‘British’ tournament from here on, but again, I acknowledge Dublin is not in Britain. The large number of members here who are based in Britain makes it one of the very few countries where a dedicated Cup can work. I realise though that this leaves out a big part of our community that haven’t been to any of the zoos in question, and I apologise for that. I have a plan that will make it easier to participate from nearly every part of the zoo world that I’ll roll out soon. Until then, remember that you don’t need to have visited a zoo to vote. If you’re not sure you know enough to vote, ask! If you know you like chimps but aren’t sure what to make of Edinburgh’s exhibit, post in the thread asking for information that can help you make up your mind. Sharing knowledge is the point of this game. So how will it work? The format will be as follows: two divisions of six zoos each, where each zoo will play each other once. After that, the top three zoos from each conference will progress to a finals round, where they will play only the three qualifiers from the other half of the draw. They will not play twice against the other qualifiers from their own division. Instead, they will carry the results from their matches against the other qualifiers forward. For instance, take the following scenario of results from a division: Cotswold 4-1, 60% Twycross 3-2, 55% London 3-2, 52% Jersey 2-3, 48% Paignton 2-3 45% Chester 1-4, 40% I know, I know. The bottom place finish isn’t *quite* realistic. I’ll come to that. The three qualifying zoos are Cotswold, Twycross and London. Cotswold has topped the group, which is great. Well done Cotswold. But when we look at the results between those three zoos, we see that they didn’t quite dominate against the other qualifiers. The three matches between them were as follows: Twycross 60 d. London 40 Cotswold 55 d London 45 Twycross 70 d Cotswold 30 While Cotswold topped the group, it’s actually now behind Twycross as it enters the second round, because Twycross performed best against the other qualifiers. The standings that the three zoos take with them are as follows: Twycross 2-0, 65% Cotswold 1-1, 44.5% London 0-2, 42.5% Once each of these zoos has played against the three qualifiers from the other division (let’s say Paignton, Edinburgh and Bristol. It doesn’t matter), the leading zoo wins the Cup. This is a fair system, because it ensures that in the second and final round, the six zoos each play each other once, but it avoids running additional matches between zoos that have already faced each other. The other really big and important change concerns how we vote. I am trialling a new idea here that I *hope* will work well enough to roll it out into the bigger tournament I have planned to follow this one. Rather than the existing four options (3-0 or 2-1 for each competing zoo), there will be six, and you will need to select two of them. You will still need to vote 2-1, or 3-0 for one of the zoos. But you will have two additional options, to give a bonus vote to one zoo or the other. The list of options for a Twycross-Bristol match would look like this: Bristol 3-0 Twycross Bristol 2-1 Twycross Twycross 2-1 Bristol Twycross 3-0 Bristol Bonus - Bristol Bonus - Twycross For a vote to be valid you *must* choose one and only one of the first four options. Casting a bonus vote is optional, but you must choose either neither, or one option. What are the bonus votes? They are an incentive to dive into the discussion. Your bonus vote is triggered only when you post explaining why you have voted the way you have. That explanation must be substantial: I reserve the right to change the threshold based on seeing what works, but for now I am setting it at a minimum of 25 words. Bonus votes can be applied to make a 2-1 vote either a 3-1 split or a 2-2 one (you’re welcome, @TeaLovingDave). They can also turn a 3-0 decision into a 3-1 vote. They *cannot*, however, be used to turn a 3-0 vote into a 4-0 one. That is too powerful and will distort the results too much if people don’t play within the spirit of the rules. This system will mean a little bit of extra work for me: I will need to post at the conclusion of each match identifying which bonus votes cast are valid, and confirming the overall result. I’m not 100% sure this will work the way I hope, but bear with me as we work it out together. Finally, there’s one more important difference to previous tournaments. In this one, contestants will be defined as the zoo organisations as a whole: ZSL will be represented by London and Whipsnade together. The same applies to the following entities: Aspinall Foundation Bristol Zoo Society Royal Zoo Society of Scotland Zoo Society of East Anglia Wild Planet Trust (I just learned this is Whitley’s new name. Urgh.) This is a one-time deal and does not set a precedent for future competitions. I’m doing it differently here because I think it makes for a better, more interesting competition, but that doesn’t apply on a global level. These six entities will be joined by Colchester, Cotswold, Dublin, Jersey, Marwell and Twycross. I haven’t drawn the divisions yet but each will have three combined entities and three standalone zoos. But wait. What about Chester? I’m leaving Chester out, for two reasons. One is that it only recently finished up a finals appearance in the World Cup, and so it’s had a good run already. The other is that it is such a recognised standout in the UK that everybody else would likely be playing for second, and that makes for a dull game. Besides, it did really badly in my made-up scenario earlier, so it deserves to be demoted. We’ll get underway tomorrow.
Also who do people consider to be the pre tournament favourites. If I were to predict a winner it would be ZSL.
Difficult - I'd go either Aspinall or Colchester, although the latter is a bit of an outsider However, I'd agree that ZSL could be a frontrunner. Is this foundation stuff a prelude to justifying a decision to bundle Jurong together with Singapore (x3) and making it a juggernaut? Anyway, I'd say the system works well for now, although it will take quite a lot of policing to sort out acceptable bonuses from those sneakily slipped in without justification, but I reckon it could well be applied to to the worldwide stage after this tournament
Quite, @Chlidonias . For what it’s worth, I have absolutely no interest in ‘justifying’ creating an advantage for any zoo. I couldn’t care less about which zoo wins - I’ve only ever cared about managing a good game. The bonus point system will be carried into future tournaments *if* it works well in this one.
These two, exactly. Dudley was initially considered but was passed over in favour of Jersey. I had Yorkshire in until right before I posted the list: I changed my mind at the last minute and put Marwell in instead. The reason is that like the Aspinall parks it is almost exclusively mammals, and having two such zoos in a small field felt unbalanced. Once I had to choose between them it wasn’t a hard decision.
Just something I want to say here - I had no intention of voting in this British ZooChat cup at all - but I thought it might be worth checking in on the matches to understand this new voting system. I read the opening post of this thread several times, as well as most of the matches so far - and I have no idea what's going on. I'm sure I'm not the only one, either.
It's pretty much the same as the previous Zoochat World Cup, with the major difference being a bonus point that you can only give when you explain the reasoning for your vote. It's pretty simple imo.
It's more along the lines of WHY you would want to give a bonus point. It seems needlessly complicated. Also, if you use a bonus point to make a vote tied, doesn't that just render you vote useless? You might as well have not voted.
I think it's good in that it can make your vote more accurate, as sometimes in the previous cup I felt that a zoo was clearly better than another, but the other zoo at least deserved some merit; this is where I think a 3-1 vote is useful. This is a good point I didn't really think about.
If you give a 2-2 score it will make a difference to not voting at all because it will dilute the winning zoos margin of victory which could be crucial if zoos are tied on wins later on.
If you think the two zoos tie in the category, the margin of victory will probably already be very close.
Interestingly with Chester not allowed to take part and YWP not included there are no collections from the North of England taking part. This demonstrates how outside Chester the north really lacks any other top quality zoos - excluding YWP. Perhaps this shows how there may be a gap in the market for the proposed Manchester Zoo.
I apologise that my initial attempt to explain was insufficient. Let me try again. The bonus points serve two functions. One is to encourage people to post outlining their rationale for their vote, to provoke debate. Hence why they are ‘bonuses’ - they only take effect if you have made a post that meets the criteria for earning a bonus vote. As it happens, Thylo’s post quoted above is an example of a post that *doesn’t* qualify for his bonus vote to count. It needs to be at least 25 words, and those words need to explain why he is posting the way he is. At present, Thylo’s bonus vote appears in the poll, but I won’t count it: his contribution to the overall score is 2-1 to Edinburgh, and will become 2-2 only if he makes a further reply explaining the rationale for his vote. The other purpose they serve is to make the voting system a little more nuanced. Whereas in the previous tournament you could either give a zoo a net result of 1 or 3 votes (by voting 2-1 or 3-0) respectively, the effect of the bonus vote is that you now have a range running from 0 through to 3 votes. What it means is that you I just noticed I haven’t quoted the post above asking about the merits of a 2-2 vote, but I will reply anyway. In essence, @britishzoofan is correct that a 2-2 vote will have the marginal effect of reducing the margin of victory in percentage terms. The specific reason I’ve made 2-2 votes available, though, is to still draw people into posting and voting even in the rare case where they don’t feel able to make a decision one way or another. A fence-sitting post is still one that might help others to make up their minds. In general I expect that most people will not cast bonus votes and that when they do, it is going to be more common that they cast 3-1 rather than 2-2 votes, but we’ll see how it plays out. I recognise that the bonus system complicates voting a lot, and I’m not *entirely* sure yet what it will do to game mechanics. That’s why I’m running this short tournament as an experiment before attempting to roll it out in something bigger. I’m going to stick with it through this tournament and see how it works, but I will certainly be seeking feedback before using it in any future ones.
I know almost every match has been a complete hammering so far, but I'm sure plenty more equal match ups can provoke debate and occupy us during lock down please?! Just unfortunate so far
Hi, yes, sorry. The Cup will resume, but not for a little while. The world just feels a little too heavy at the moment, and I only want to do it when I have the ability to actually engage and enjoy it. So I’m hitting pause for a bit.
