Campaign Introduction, "Next Round" & "Next Tournament" Announcements

[panther3485]

Round 3 from the look of things covers the Napoleonic wars to WW1 will round 4 cover WW2?

Hi Merkava188,

This particular tournament we are voting in right now - T3 - covers the period from the 1850's up to 1906.

Our next tournament - T4 - will cover 1906 to 1946 (that is, from the advent of the Dreadnought to just after the end of WW2). This obviously will include both World Wars; so, for many of us perhaps, a rather more interesting period - in terms of naval engagements - than the one we are in right now.
I did have ambitions to get T4 up and running this year also; but considerable delays have occurred already, due to my unexpectedly extra busy real-life commitments. It is therefore more realistic to expect T4 during the first quarter of 2020.
However, I intend to start research and background work during the closing months of this year, so as to be ready as soon as I can.

Thanks for your interest and participation so far.
I hope you enjoy seeing the current T3 thru to its conclusion.

[Merkava188]

Round 3 from the look of things covers the Napoleonic wars to WW1 will round 4 cover WW2?

[panther3485]

Warships Campaign, T3: Round 1 closed.
Round 2 now open.


Enjoy!


The intention is for this round to run for 2 weeks, so everyone who wants to participate has a reasonable chance to do so.
Successive rounds CAN run for 2 weeks also, or be reduced to 1 week each.
At this stage, T4 (from Dreadnought to the end of WW2) may not
kick off until early 2020; so we DO have plenty of time available to run T3 at a nice relaxed pace.
Comments/opinions are invited.

As usual, best to everyone.

Paul

[Persephone]

Paul,

We appreciate the personal time you've invested in this.
No need to apologize if RL cause any delays.

[panther3485]

<snip> ....
I'll see how it's all going by the up-coming weekend, and make a decision at that time.

First up, thanks to everyone who has participated in Round 1 of T3!



Right now where I am, it's 8:15pm, Sunday evening (6 Oct). I know it's a lot earlier than that elsewhere; especially in the US and Canada.
Anyway, I've decided that this is to be the final weekend for Round 1 and will begin preparing Round 2 some time during the coming week.
The aim is to have it ready for next weekend (12-13 Oct).
It's my intention that Round 2, with its 16 pairings, will be open for a maximum of 2 weeks.
For subsequent rounds, I think one week each should be enough?

Best regards,
Paul

[panther3485]

I'm now very close to having the final group of 8 Round 1 poll threads finished:

• The last 8 Round 1 polls are already set up in ACG.
• I've completed write-ups for 12 out of the final 16 warship types, and uploaded them.
• All images are ready and on standby to be uploaded.
• Only 4 write-ups (4 ship types for the last two pairings) left to do.

OK, they're all up and running now. All 32 polls of Round 1, that is.
The final 8 are now available for you guys to peruse, vote and comment.
If anyone was holding out, waiting for this last group, you need hold out no more!


Once again, my apologies for the extra delays.
I do have one or two small tweaks to make, such as titles for the images to be added, but these are non-essential details. I may even swap a few images out after a second look at all the threads.

I'll add the captions to the pics in these last 8 polls, tomorrow, when I'm fresh.
Right here, right now, it's heading towards 1:00am and I really need to hit the sack or I won't be fit for work in the morning!


Once again, best to everyone and thanks for your patience.
I'll reset the due date for going to Round 2 but I won't put it back too far now.
I'll see how it's all going by the up-coming weekend, and make a decision at that time.

All the best,
Paul

[panther3485]

OK, I'm still in the early stages of the final group (the last 8 polls) for Round 1 of T3. .... <snip>

I'm now very close to having the final group of 8 Round 1 poll threads finished:

• The last 8 Round 1 polls are already set up in ACG.
• I've completed write-ups for 12 out of the final 16 warship types, and uploaded them.
• All images are ready and on standby to be uploaded.
• Only 4 write-ups (4 ship types for the last two pairings) left to do.

The write-ups are the most time-consuming aspect; partly because I'm fussy and nit-picky; also partly because, well, they are what they are. However, I should still be completely done and ready within the next 24 hours.
Once again - and now, hopefully, for the last time - my sincere apologies for further delay.
I won't go too much into my reasons (excuses?) for this; but suffice to say that among the many real-life issues I've recently had to juggle is the fact that there's a very good chance I may, within the next week or two, no longer have a job.

Anyway, I'm within a blowfly's dick width of being ready to have Round 1 PROPERLY AND FULLY completed. Fortunately, tomorrow (Monday) is a public holiday here, so I should be able to finalize things by tomorrow afternoon/evening. I'm staying home to get it done.

In the meantime, gotta hit the sack for some beauty sleep.
It's just after midnight Sunday/Monday here now.


Best regards to all,
Paul

[panther3485]

OK, I'm still in the early stages of the final group (the last 8 polls) for Round 1 of T3.
I finished the last details and final adjustments for the "third group of 8" today; so rather than hang on to them for several more days and post them along with the final 8, I've released them now.
For those who are keen to come to grips, so to speak, this gives you a little more to play with in the meantime.
I can't say exactly when I'll have all 32 up but at this point, we have 24 polls in place.
I anticipate it should be about 4-5 days (based on recent progress); give or take a day or so.
Once they are all up, a decision can be made as to how long we run from there, before opening Round 2.

Anyway, for those who are interested, please enjoy.


I think I'm more or less happy with the way things are going; but very frustrated at how little spare time I've been getting for this in recent weeks. As you may have guessed by now, this campaign is becoming quite "close to my heart", so to speak.

Best to everyone,

Paul

[panther3485]

OK guys, first up, my apologies for not having the second 16 polls ready by this weekend.

As anyone might guess, a number of real life factors, not always predictable, are impacting my time more than I would usually expect.
However, another thing I'm discovering - and did not allow for - is that as I progress, and as the period I'm working in steadily becomes more recent, the sheer volume of information and text in the sources I'm consulting is becoming significantly greater as well.
I'm even finding that he average length of wiki articles on each warship type now, is much longer than most of the earlier types in this very same tournament.

This means that in many cases, I'm sifting through 2, 3 or 4 times as much textual information on each warship type, to distill down to roughly the same manageable sized brief narratives for each pair of ships.
I could be slipping on that a tad, because I've noticed that even after much culling and distilling, my narratives still seem to be a bit longer. I am now taking a much more sober view of what T4 is likely to be like to prepare, if I want to maintain a similar standard. I'm definitely going to get started on it BEFORE T3 is finished!
Yes, I could butcher down to the bare bones or less, just to keep the last deadline and I know some members probably wouldn't mind ... but I would mind; and I need to feel good about this myself; it's not just about the membership.

Anyway, things are not all that bad. 8 of my second 16 for Round 1 are just about finished (perhaps one more day's worth of tweaking) and I've already just started on the next 8. Overall, I reckon the delay for having all 32 Round 1 polls up is very unlikely to exceed a week and could easily be less. (I'm even tempted to post the next 8 ASAP and the final 8 later in the week.)

Regardless, thanks to all members who have engaged thus far and double thanks for your patience. Not far to go now.


Best regards to all,
P

[panther3485]

C'mon Panther, cut the Regimental Sergeant Major some slack, he says nice things about you.

... which was greatly appreciated.
However, if I leave the T2 threads open there's the potential for things to become rather disorganized from here on.

[Marmat]

Thanks.

Guys, my apologies but this last weekend contained a substantial number of diversions, including helping my wife with an important and time-restricted work assignment she needed to study for. This is completed now.
As a result, I've only managed to finish the write-ups for 3 of the second 16 Round 1 polls. I'm going to need a few more days to get the second half of Round 1 finished. I don't anticipate further diversions.

Also, I've had to close the T2 polls because they are getting mixed in with T3 when folks post comments. I wanted to create a separate folder for T3 but was unable to do so.

Anyway, thanks to all who have participated so far. You should be able to get into the second 16 before, or at the beginning of, the coming weekend.



Best regards,
P

C'mon Panther, cut the Regimental Sergeant Major some slack, he says nice things about you.

[panther3485]

Thanks.

Guys, my apologies but this last weekend contained a substantial number of diversions, including helping my wife with an important and time-restricted work assignment she needed to study for. This is completed now.
As a result, I've only managed to finish the write-ups for 3 of the second 16 Round 1 polls. I'm going to need a few more days to get the second half of Round 1 finished. I don't anticipate further diversions.

Also, I've had to close the T2 polls because they are getting mixed in with T3 when folks post comments. I wanted to create a separate folder for T3 but was unable to do so.

Anyway, thanks to all who have participated so far. You should be able to get into the second 16 before, or at the beginning of, the coming weekend.



Best regards,
P

[BELGRAVE]

Excellent stuff; Panther, really good. !!!!

[panther3485]

OK guys, the first half of T3 Round 1 is up and ready.
If you've already voted in four of the polls over the last couple of days, there are another 12 to enjoy.


Further work on the second half begins tomorrow.


Best regards,
Paul

[panther3485]

T3 Update:

OK guys .....

It's very late in the evening and time for me to hit the sack. Got an extremely full day at work tomorrow and I start early.
Anyway, I'm fairly satisfied with my progress for the first 16 pairings of Round 1.
4 of them are completely finished and ready to go, with the other 12 nearly done.

I notice a couple of you guys have voted in one or two of them already. I was hoping everyone could hold off until I've moved them to Armchair Attacks. However, it's been a long wait since T2 and I can understand totally.
Therefore, I took the decision to move the 4 polls that are properly ready right now, to Armchair Attacks immediately. They are there now already, in Warships Campaign 2017-2018. (BTW, I'd like to change that to "2017-2019" but haven't worked out how yet.)

Not a lot at this point; but something to get your teeth into. (Call it the entree?) Please feel free to engage with those 4 as soon as you like. The rest are following very soon. (I'm reasonably confident of having the other 12 finalized by tomorrow evening.)


After that, I'm hoping to have the "second half" of Round 1 ready by Sunday of this coming weekend, if all goes to plan. So, that will be all 32 polls active. The rest of T3 should follow smoothly, as there is next to no additional material needed from that point on.


Best to all,
Paul