[Note : Apologies for the repost, but the mailing list and e-groups are unavailable for me to post to, and since these messages get buried quickly, I must repost the poll announcement frequently.] I am accepting proposed ballots to be used for a Top 25 poll - ballots will be accepted from the present until May 18, 2001. E-mail your proposed ballots to the following address : actop25_at_... All members of the academic competition are welcome to submit their ballots. The purpose of this open ballot request is to create a stable panel of knowledgeable voters that will vote in possible future closed polls. (Yeah, I know I said that last time - this is very much a work in progress.) There will be substantial changes to next year's poll - the first being we will have a web page script that will allow the poll to be conducted and tabulated more conveniently. Voters are allowed to consider a variety of factors when choosing a Top 25. Ideally they should pertain to _this year_, i.e. the 2000-2001 academic competition season, rather than focusing on predictions on how programs will fare in subsequent years. Schools located outside the United States are allowed to be considered, but for practical reasons, listing of schools that have not played any games against United States teams (whether inside or outside the US) is discouraged. Voters can and should weigh currently available tournament results (of whatever form) as they see fit. This poll is not rooted in any particular format of academic competition, but is intended to emphasize players currently playing for a given program in an actual rather than in a "masters" capacity, an important thing to keep in mind if one wishes to consider "masters" and/or "trash" tournaments. (In fact, since this poll is intended primarily for academic-oriented formats, the use of "trash" tournaments to determine ranking is discouraged.) Voters are asked to submit a ranked list of schools from #1 to #25, without ties. List each school with corresponding rankings, and list them only once. A vote for "Michigan A" at #3 and for "Michigan B" at #14 will be counted as a vote for Michigan at #3, with teams 15-25 being moved up. Make sure you specify which program you are voting for with sufficient specificity (some abbreviations, like "UIUC"or "MIT" will be sufficient, while "U of M" will not be ; certain abridged names like "Missouri" and "Washington" are best avoided since they are somewhat ambiguous.) Your ballot must contain at least 20 valid entries or it will be returned to you. Each #1 vote a school receives is worth 25 points, each #2 vote worth 24, and so on until 1 point is received for a #25 vote. Extreme outlier ballots will be excluded if they significantly skew the poll results in any way ; in addition, individuals submitting such ballots will not be invited to any future panels. In case of voting ambiguities, the tarot card reader "Miss Cleo" will not be consulted. -Tim Young Poll Administrator
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