A. No characters are permitted to advance directly to the Regular Season tournament.

B. Pending eligibility as defined in Article III of the ISML Constitution, the following characters (no maximum limit) will become Candidates and will be awarded automatic entry into the Preliminary Period:

C. Characters who qualify in more than one instance do not receive any greater advantage than another qualifying character.

A. IP addresses of voters will be logged to determine authenticity and uniqueness.

B. A voter may not circumvent the Policies stated in Article IV of the ISML Constitution by using multiple IP addresses to cast votes in the same round.

C. Voters found in violation of these procedures may have their IP addresses or subnets banned from voting in future ISML-hosted events for the remainder of the year. The length of ban is at the discretion of the Staff.

D. Voters may change their vote (if cast in error) by contacting the Staff by email at [email protected]. Vote change requests must include the IP address from which the vote was cast, the original incorrect vote, and the requested new vote.

A. The Nomination Period will last seven (7) days.

B. Character eligibility will be checked according to Article III of the Constitution with one additional condition: Character data occurring after the start of the Nomination Period will not be considered.

C. Voters may nominate up to twelve (12) characters.

D. Voters must nominate at least four (4) characters.

E. Voters must nominate from at least three (3) anime series.

F. Nominated characters must be unique.

G. Invalid nominations will be discarded individually and will not void the entire ballot unless the discards result in a violation of rules C, D, or E.

H. At the end of the Nomination Period, eligible characters with the most points will become Candidates and advance to the Preliminary Period until the allotted slots are filled.

A. The one hundred forty-four (144) Candidates will be divided into sixteen (16) groups of nine (9).

B. A 3-member round-robin tournament will take place in each group. The rounds are seeded as follows:

C. The four rounds will be scheduled over eight (8) match days to ease the congestion.

D. Candidates will receive the following points based on their performance in each match:

E. At the end of Phase I, the Candidate with the most points in each group will become Contestants and advance to the Regular Season tournament.

F. Ties in each group will be broken in the following order:

G. The remaining Candidates will be ranked collectively by points and tiebreakers to determine seeding for Phase II.

A. The one hundred twenty-eight (128) Candidates will be divided into sixteen (16) groups of eight (8).

B. A single-elimination tournament will take place in each group. The three (3) rounds in each bracket will be scheduled over four (4) match days.

C. The winning Candidates of each match will advance to the next round. The winning Candidates of each bracket (after three rounds) will become Contestants and advance to the Regular Season.

D. The remaining Candidates will be regrouped for Phase III.

A. Phase III will consist of three (3) voting Rounds scheduled over three (3) match days.

B. In Round 1, the one hundred twelve (112) Candidates will be divided into fourteen (14) groups of eight (8).

C. Voters may select up to three (3) Candidates per group.

D. The five (5) Candidates who received the most votes in each group will advance to Round 2. Two (2) more Candidates who received the highest voting percentage (regardless of group) will also advance to Round 2. The remaining Candidates are eliminated from the tournament.

E. In Round 2, the seventy-two (72) remaining Candidates will be divided in to nine (9) groups of eight (8).

F. Voters may select up to three (3) Candidates per group.

G. The five (5) Candidates who received the most votes in each group will advance to Round 3. Three (3) more Candidates who received the highest voting percentage (regardless of group) will also advance to Round 3. The remaining Candidates are eliminated from the tournament.

H. In Round 3, the forty-eight (48) remaining Candidates will be divided in to six (6) groups of eight (8).

I. Voters may select up to three (3) Candidates per group.

J. The three (3) Candidates who received the most votes in each group will become Contestants and advance to the Regular Season. All other Candidates are eliminated from the tournament.

K. In the event of any ties in Rounds 1, 2, or 3, the Candidate with the greatest "Votes For" average prior to Phase III will advance.

A. Fifty (50) Contestants will participate in the round-robin tournament of the Regular Season.

B. The Regular Season will be divided into seven (7) Periods: Aquamarine, Topaz, Amethyst, Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby, and Diamond. Each Period will consist of seven (7) Rounds.

C. At the end of each Round, the Contestant who receives the greater number of valid votes in her Match will be declared the winner; the opponent will be declared the loser. If the Contestants have an equal number of valid votes, the match will be declared a draw; both Contestants will record a tie in their statistics, and no overtime match will occur.

D. A ranking system will be utilized to track the Contestants’ progress throughout the Regular Season and in each of the seven Periods.

E. Contestants may not have the same rank at any point in the tournament. If Contestants have the same amount of League Points after a given Round, tiebreaker procedures will be applied in the following order:

F. At the end of the seventh Round in each Period, the seven (7) highest ranked and eligible Contestants will participate in the Necklace Showdown, a free-for-all voting round to determine the winner of the Necklace representing that period.

G. At the end of the Regular Season after all tiebreakers have been applied, the top sixteen (16) ranked Contestants will advance to the Postseason.

H. Every ballot submission will be recorded in a database. At the end of each Round, the Staff will validate and verify each submission before calculating totals.

I. All Voter Policies and Procedures stated in Article IV of the Constitution apply with the following additions:

J. Prior to the Regular Season, a seeding tournament will take place to determine the placement of the fifty (50) Contestants on the round-robin schedule.

A. Sixteen (16) Contestants will participate in a single-elimination tournament during the Postseason.

B. Contestants are seeded according to their final ranks at the end of the Regular Season.

C. The same time limits, voting procedures, and voter policies apply to the Postseason rounds as they do the Regular Season Rounds.

D. If Contestants have the same number of votes at the end of a Postseason round, the Contestant who won the head-to-head match during the Regular Season will be declared the winner. If that match was also a draw, the higher-ranked Contestant according to the final Regular Season standings will be declared the winner.

A. Exhibition Matches are official ISML-hosted events designed to raise awareness of anime series and Japanese media characters who are not currently participating in the current year’s contest. The matches may focus on anime series airing after ISML had begun or on other outlets possibly previously unknown to members of the Community.

B. Exhibition Matches have no effect on the Main Tournament.

C. One Exhibition Match will be scheduled during each round of the Regular Season.

D. Exhibition Matches may be scheduled during each Period’s Necklace Showdown.

E. Several Exhibition Matches will be scheduled during each of the Postseason rounds.

F. Voting or abstaining in an Exhibition Match carries no benefit or penalty.

G. Results of Exhibition Matches will be stored in a database for historical and research purposes. They will not be used to determine eligibility or seeding in any future ISML-hosted event.

A. All dates in this section will be published on the Website for easy access by the Community.

B. All dates are subject to change. ISML may change the schedule without updating this section of the document; however, any and all changes must be published on the Website as early as possible.

C. All tournament matches will last for 24 hours. Staff may extend the time period if system errors prevent votes from being submitted during this period. All extensions will be reported on the Website.

D. The Nomination Period is scheduled from 0000 GMT, 6 February 2011, to 0000 GMT, 13 February 2011.

E. The Preliminary Period is scheduled from 27 February 2011 to 7 April 2011.

F. The Regular Season is scheduled from 24 Apr 2011 to 4 October 2011.

G. The Postseason is scheduled from 30 October 2011 to 15 November 2011.

A. The information presented on the site, including but not limited to biography information, statistical history, and copyright information, is not guaranteed to be completely accurate. ISML, including its staff and owners, cannot be held legally liable for any harm caused by the use or misuse of information contained within the pages located on the www.internationalsaimoe.com domain.

B. The names of all characters and Japanese productions featured on the Website do not in any way belong to ISML. All copyrights and intellectual property belong to their respective owners.

C. During vote-checking, the Staff does not show any favoritism to any Contestant during the validation process. Once voting results are released for a match, a member of the Community may appeal the results within 24 hours. Once an appeal is accepted by the ISML Commissioner, the Staff will repeat the validation procedures and make any appropriate adjustments. After 24 hours have passed, the result is final and cannot be changed.

D. While the Staff will attempt to enforce the Voter Policies as strictly as possible, situations may occur where not all votes in violation of the Policies will be detected or where voters banned for Policy violations discover alternate methods to submit votes. The Staff will work to the best of their ability to minimize the occurrence of these situations.

E. All scheduled dates and times are subject to change without prior notice. However once changed, the Community will be notified on the Website.

F. Each year, ISML and the Staff attempt to present a fair system of matches such that Contestants have a chance to compete against all other Contestants. While the fairness and parity of the Regular Season as a whole is guaranteed, the fairness and parity of each of the seven Periods is not. The Staff have assured their best, honest, and virtuous effort to arrange a respectively even Strength of Schedule for all Contestants without bias or favoritism or discrimination.

A. Once approved and published, the contents of this document shall not be altered. It may only be amended, in which amendments may update or supersede the statements in this document.

B. Amendments may be suggested by any member of the Community and are subject to approval by the Staff and Commissioner at any time during the course of the tournament.

C. Approved Amendments must be reported on the Website.

D. On 24 January 2011, a schedule shift occurred to place voting rounds on a Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday schedule. They were originally announced on 1 January to be on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule.

E. On 19 February 2011, the order of the seeds in the four rounds of Preliminary Period, Phase I (Section IV.B) were changed. The original order was that of ISML 2010, but nomination results for 2011 necessitated an update to the seeding.

F. On 20 February 2011, Preliminary Period, Phase I was lengthened by two voting days (from 6 to 8) and will begin on Sunday, 27 February, 2011, instead of 3 March. The extra days allow for the voting rounds to be organized better.

G. On 28 March 2011, clauses VI.B.1, VI.E.1, and VI.H.1 were removed because this was discovered to be very impractical, difficult, and potentially unfair to Candidates. Instead, Staff will do their best to minimize repeat opponents, but group balance takes higher priority.