Hi All,
In order to have a common platform for the entire memory community to interact with the IAM board and share potential ideas for the IAM to work on, we had started an Ideas page (Tricider Board) in October. From now on, the board will regularly share monthly updates on all pending ideas to let the community know what we think of them and what are we doing about them. :
1. Continental Statistics [Andrea Muzii, 5 votes]
Idea: It would be cool to have also continental statistics in addition to national and world. For example European, Asian, etc. records and rankings and so on. A nice middle if the difference between a NR and a WR is too big.
Board Response: We have discussed this in November and think this is a great idea. It will definitely be good to have. Our software team will aim to implement it in December.
2. Competition Starter Kit [Sylvain Arvidieu, 3 votes]
Idea: Create a competition “starter kit” to help people hold a competition in countries which haven’t hosted one before.
Board Response: This is a very good idea. The board will work on it soon. We have already started to compile an organizer checklist for paper-based and digital events and hope to get this kit done in early 2020.
3. Transparency (publicly communicate decisions by the board) [Florian Minges, 2 votes]
Idea: There have only been very few (and short) updates this year from the Board. For most of the time, us outsiders don’t know much at all about what’s being discussed, what decisions have been taken and why. I believe that when the Board makes a decision, whether it’s a big or small one, there should exist a way for me as an IAM member to get to know about it, without having to ask the Board explicitly (since it’s not possible for me to know in advance which topics they even discussed). If possible, it would also be nice if there would be a short description of why a certain decision was taken (instead of another one). This could for example be posted on a page on the website.
Example decisions: –
1. Changing of rules
2. Host decisions for WMC
3. Acception/rejection of a request made by someone
4. Anything related to Projects the IAM is working on
Board Response: The board has resolved to be more active lately and we believe that with our regular monthly updates, our newsletter, as well as regular updates from now on about open issues on our Tricider Ideas page, we are doing all we can to offer maximum transparency to all our members. We still welcome ideas on what can be made better. Coming to example decisions:
- The Rules Summary was extended to a full-fledged Rulebook last month which was shared with the community.
- Host applications for WMC are open now. We additionally encourage all applicants to make their applications public if they like. We will keep the community updated on this.
- We believe Tricider is the ideal platform for making requests, and posts such as the one you are reading right now are our attempt at ensuring our decision on every request is made public.
- We will try our best to include what we are working in our monthly updates.
4. Create a standard beginners format [Sylvain Arvidieu, 2 votes]
Idea: A standard beginner format can be an alternative to the current decathlon, which would maybe be less likely to scare off new mnemonists who are “eager to compete, but just not right now, you know, there are just sooo many events”. I believe that Francis had drafted something along these lines, that the German Kids and Junior championships have fewer and different events, etc. So it’s more like trying to define a strategy to make the first step into competing easier.
Board Response: We had already in 2018 discussed and shared with the community ideas about experimenting with formats that have much fewer penalties for mistakes also for the longer events with a memo time of more than 1 minute, for example counting every correct word in 5 min and 15 min Words like at ML and having only minimal penalties like -1 for a wrong digit and -2 for a wrong binary. This would not be intended right away as a “new format” but just as an idea to let people experiment with: While the sport has a long tradition, we feel that the freedom to create can and should mean to openly discuss new venues of thought. We also feel the most important thing is that memory sports should be fun and maybe this could be an even more fun way to conduct our sport, and be it just as a sideline next to the traditional mainline events which we feel are still important and great.
Regarding making event more accessible to beginners in the way of changing the rules for beginners: That might get into problems with comparability and rankability as long as we are moving within the current framework and we are not sure a beginner would be happy about having an easier entry while their results could not be ranked. We think bringing any framework which makes it difficult for Kids and Juniors to be ranked with our other competitors can be complicated. With the addition of special titles for Kids and Juniors for each level from 1 to 10, we hope to encourage more Kids and Juniors into competing. That way, they can experience progress early on and get some positive feedback. We will continue to discuss this topic within our team, thank you for bringing it up.
5. History of records [Preeda Hongpimolmas, 2 votes]
Idea: Having a history of records at each athlete’s profile, so people can easily track what was going on in the past. Like Johannes, Simon, Ben, Alex, Munkhshur, Lance, and so many fellow that have done their decent records, but now it can be a bit challenging to find out. For instance, what WRs/CRs/NRs has Johannes achieved in the past? Only appear to currently have his best pointed out at his profile.
Board Response: We have discussed this and agree that having such a page on each athlete’s profile will be a nice addition. Our software team will work on it when they are free, mostly in the beginning of 2020.
6. Incentives to IAM levels [Sylvain Arvidieu, 1 vote]
Idea: Now that the levels have been deployed, they need to be sold to the community. What could make one yearn to reach a particular level? With the old GM levels it was rather straightforward : you could call yourself Grandmaster, it was reminiscent of the more well-known chess equivalent and very easy to explain, but as we’ve seen, perhaps not future – proofed as the criteria were static. Could the levels get you some “merch”? Access to some future pro competitions? Should some levels be grouped to create GM/IGM equivalents?
Board Response: IAM Titles have already been implemented along with certificates, which we inaugurated and handed out with very positive athlete feedback at the WMC 2019. These title certificates can be won at any IAM competition, and not only at a WMC. That addresses a big part of this. Merchandise etc. are also good ideas (like badges with your “title stars”, for example) but it would require more concrete steps on how they can work if we are to implement those. We have to admit we currently have no in-depth experience yet with shipping merchandise and we would be happy for some knowledge about how to do this in a streamlined and easy way (i.e. athletes order at an external source which only gets our motifs for shirts or badges and which then does all the production and shipping while getting a share of the price). We will keep working on that idea in the background. We would definitely urge the community as well to share more concrete ideas on how they would like to see this implemented.
7. History of world ranking [Preeda Hongpimolmas, 0 votes]
Idea: It would be nice to have history of the world ranking, something like World Ranking recorded at each year end e.g. World Ranking in 2017 will show how the World Ranking looks like at the end of 2017.
Board Response: We think this can be a great way for anybody to get into the historical developments of the sport and we would be eager to check and see how it can be implemented. It might take some time in any case because a few other things, not the least proposals made here, might enjoy preference in terms of completion, so late spring of 2020 would be an early guess. We would keep you updated about the progress on that interesting idea.
8. National/world record statistics based on age category [Florian Minges, 0 votes]
Idea: There is supposed to be 4 different competition age categories (Senior (56+?), Adult (18-55?), Junior (13-17), Kids (0-12)), but there is currently no way of seeing the records for the various categories. For example, I want to be able to see the national kids memory records for Sweden, or the junior world records.
Board Response: This is definitely something high on our priority list. There is no age data recorded right now at any competition and the closest proxy we have is the age category someone competed in at their last competition which is not explicitly stored in our database at the moment. This will be an involved exercise, taking a few iterations to finish. The board also intends to address the more general issue of structurally collecting exact age data in upcoming competitions. We would definitely work on this in December.
We look forward to hearing more from you on these ideas as well as to receiving new ideas from you.
Your IAM Team