After 4 rounds, many of the regular ABC competitors are running out of entries especially for difficult letters like "Q", "X" and "Z".  Round 4 is nearing completion of its cycle. A concensus is to replace it with what may be called the DOAC.  Dusty Old Archives Comp.  See thread on this page.  Options are:  Option 1 - keep it going.  Option 2 - retire it and after a few years when new blood comes to the site and the regulars have had time to replenish parodies with all letters of the alphabet decide to resurrect it.  OR NOT.  Poll will run for one week starting on 22 Aug 08.

It appears, with a 7-2 vote thus far--There is actually a lot of interest in both the new COMP and the ABC. . .Stu has said he wishes to retire at the end of this cycle as host, though I hope that does not mean he's leaving contests all together. . .

There are questions that must be answered to keep ABC running. . .

Who wants to step up and take over ABC.  If I am hosting Artistry/SOTM/POTQ and helping Guy with DOA until someone takes it over, we really need a new host to step up for Stu, maybe he has someone in mind--I don't know.

More pressing to me is the rounds

I think that for the next cycle, the following should be done, looking for conversation. . .

A) Turn ABC into an annual competition that combines letters into 13 rounds.
    A/B, C/D, E/F, G/H, I/J, K/L, M/N, O/P, Q/R, S/T, U/V, W/X, Y/Z

    Count all 13 Rounds towards Author of the Tournament since the reason it was being counted that way initially was it was unreasonable
      to expect anyone to have an entry into all 26 letters and the numbers round.

    I think the Numbers/Symbol round should be eliminated.  We ignore "A" and "The" right now in a title for alphabetization, I don't see why
      we can't do the same with symbols (Though in honesty I've never seen an entry into that round that wasn't a number anyway)  If a
      song was named after a symbol, symbols have spellings anyway (IE $=Dollar Sign, thus it could be a "D" round entry just as the word 
      "The" as a parody title would qualify for the T round)

    Numbers have spellings too.  0=Zero, thus it's a "Z" round entry, 4 is "F", 22 is "T", 100 is "O", there is no need to have that round when
      we can have those parodies qualify for any given round that spells it
 
  **For the record this is all my opinion, feel free to comment, I realize they are alphabetized differently but I really feel strongly that they
      should not have their own round, it would help some of the tough letters out too. . .as you see above "F", "O" and "Z" are all weak

    Because the comp would be shortened to 13 rounds, I think we could have the parody of the tournament expanded to be the top 2 songs
      from each round as often (as we've seen in SOTY) a parody that placed 2nd (or even 3rd) can beat the song that placed ahead of it
      with the additional voters who may not have been around that month.

B) Combine tough letters only, leave strong ones by themselves
    A, B, C, D, each get their own round
    E and F get combined as neither letter are all the strong
    G and H get combined for the same reason
    I gets it's own round
    J and K get combined as neither are terribly strong
    L, M, N each get their own round
    O and P get combined, P is probably strong enough, but it's not terribly strong--and O being a weak one could help out P
    Q and R get combined, similar to above, R can stand on it's own, but it's not the strongest letter, and Q is a weak letter
    S and T each get their own round
    U, V, and W get combined as one round. . .W is the strongest late letter in the alphabet and could carry U and V--both of which struggle
    X, Y and Z get combined as one round. . .Y is strong enough because of "You" variations, X and Z don't hurt it.

*****************************************************
I may be the only one who thinks this way, I don't know. . .I know Red Ant liked the idea of combining certain letters too, it may be tougher on whoever hosts it to do option "B" but ultimately combining letters is the only way we can keep ABC strong.

If people are absolutely against ending the #s/Symbols round, it can be added to the Y/Z round in option A or the X/Y/Z round in option B--though as I stated above--it's really not a necessary round, and I do think not having it could actually help the other letters (IE the first two entries into set 4 are "404" parodies, that'd help "F", one of the weaker letters as noted above)

Who are these 7 yay-sayers?...we don't even have 7 regular contributors.  ???

After reading Dave's post, I like the idea of bracketing the letters in twos - very simple
(and I would be able to find parodies myself to enter with that large a net to cast ::))

so I would be prepared to host ABC5 under the following arrangement...

***  13 rounds, letters bracketed in twos (with symbols being added to the YZ round)
***  best 7 scores wins (so even if you miss the first half, you can still come from behind and win)
***  3 weeks between comps (2 weeks was killing me!)

I don't want to put it to a vote, because I might end up back where we started

Is everyone okay with that?

I'm happy for it to not be run that way, as long as somebody else hosts it! ;)

After reading Dave's post, I like the idea of bracketing the letters in twos - very simple
(and I would be able to find parodies myself to enter with that large a net to cast ::))

so I would be prepared to host ABC5 under the following arrangement...

***  13 rounds, letters bracketed in twos (with symbols being added to the YZ round)
***  best 7 scores wins (so even if you miss the first half, you can still come from behind and win)
***  3 weeks between comps (2 weeks was killing me!)

I don't want to put it to a vote, because I might end up back where we started

Is everyone okay with that?

I'm happy for it to not be run that way, as long as somebody else hosts it! ;)


Hey--I don't see how we can argue that. . .Stu you are the king of ABC and I would love that it continues under your rule.  My main thing was just combining the letters in some way, so I'm 100% for it!

It appears, with a 7-2 vote thus far--There is actually a lot of interest in both the new COMP and the ABC. . .Stu has said he wishes to retire at the end of this cycle as host, though I hope that does not mean he's leaving contests all together. . .

There are questions that must be answered to keep ABC running. . .

Who wants to step up and take over ABC.  If I am hosting Artistry/SOTM/POTQ and helping Guy with DOA until someone takes it over, we really need a new host to step up for Stu, maybe he has someone in mind--I don't know.

More pressing to me is the rounds

I think that for the next cycle, the following should be done, looking for conversation. . .

A) Turn ABC into an annual competition that combines letters into 13 rounds.
    A/B, C/D, E/F, G/H, I/J, K/L, M/N, O/P, Q/R, S/T, U/V, W/X, Y/Z

    Count all 13 Rounds towards Author of the Tournament since the reason it was being counted that way initially was it was unreasonable
       to expect anyone to have an entry into all 26 letters and the numbers round.

    I think the Numbers/Symbol round should be eliminated.  We ignore "A" and "The" right now in a title for alphabetization, I don't see why
       we can't do the same with symbols (Though in honesty I've never seen an entry into that round that wasn't a number anyway)  If a
       song was named after a symbol, symbols have spellings anyway (IE $=Dollar Sign, thus it could be a "D" round entry just as the word 
       "The" as a parody title would qualify for the T round)

    Numbers have spellings too.  0=Zero, thus it's a "Z" round entry, 4 is "F", 22 is "T", 100 is "O", there is no need to have that round when
       we can have those parodies qualify for any given round that spells it
 
   **For the record this is all my opinion, feel free to comment, I realize they are alphabetized differently but I really feel strongly that they
      should not have their own round, it would help some of the tough letters out too. . .as you see above "F", "O" and "Z" are all weak

    Because the comp would be shortened to 13 rounds, I think we could have the parody of the tournament expanded to be the top 2 songs
      from each round as often (as we've seen in SOTY) a parody that placed 2nd (or even 3rd) can beat the song that placed ahead of it
      with the additional voters who may not have been around that month.

B) Combine tough letters only, leave strong ones by themselves
     A, B, C, D, each get their own round
     E and F get combined as neither letter are all the strong
     G and H get combined for the same reason
     I gets it's own round
     J and K get combined as neither are terribly strong
     L, M, N each get their own round
     O and P get combined, P is probably strong enough, but it's not terribly strong--and O being a weak one could help out P
     Q and R get combined, similar to above, R can stand on it's own, but it's not the strongest letter, and Q is a weak letter
     S and T each get their own round
     U, V, and W get combined as one round. . .W is the strongest late letter in the alphabet and could carry U and V--both of which struggle
     X, Y and Z get combined as one round. . .Y is strong enough because of "You" variations, X and Z don't hurt it.

*****************************************************
I may be the only one who thinks this way, I don't know. . .I know Red Ant liked the idea of combining certain letters too, it may be tougher on whoever hosts it to do option "B" but ultimately combining letters is the only way we can keep ABC strong.

If people are absolutely against ending the #s/Symbols round, it can be added to the Y/Z round in option A or the X/Y/Z round in option B--though as I stated above--it's really not a necessary round, and I do think not having it could actually help the other letters (IE the first two entries into set 4 are "404" parodies, that'd help "F", one of the weaker letters as noted above)



Yes indeed my poll is over and it overwhelmingly stated that ABC should continue.  I made a motion over a week ago that we use the telephone dial which would create a lot less rounds so maybe, you BAD, have the better idea for this.  I'm still in favor of having 2 separate rounds for numbers and symbols.  Heck, we are at that number/symbol part of the comp. now with ABC and it would allow plenty of time for anyone to get something into round 5 for these. Seems like all we now need is a general concensus on the rules of the game and the structure changes proposed.  I'm going to copy and paste this to the DOAC thread as all posting on this should be on one thread not two.

Please post your input on this to the DOAC thread - URL:

http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?action=post;quote=1738833;topic=33918.0;num_replies=5;sesc=3db2d8d8cdd7a8d1421223234290c69d

I was going to vote to retire it temporarily until we got more contributing peope, but I saw that the poll was closed.