On behalf of Canada I would like to say
https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/500x/63288063/today-we-celebrate-our-independence-day.jpg
I will now be soliciting opinions on a new broken record complaint I can post to every thread Josh posts.
“Best 20 results within a State/Province/District will count for each player (similar to the way the World Rankings are calculated).
“Super States” expansion of the qualifying field will be in play. Any States that have a minimum of 400 unique players and 100 events held within that state during the calendar year will be eligible for that expanded 24 player final.”
mmmmm
I’m sure a certain person on Pinside who resides in Wisconsin can provide you all you need.
I can look at the current state standings, and jump to the last page to see how many unique participants in the state this year.
Anywhere we can see how many events were run by state?
Go to the “TOURNAMENTS” tab on the standings page.
Control-Find “2017” and it’ll let you know how many 2017’s are on the page. Back out the header and you’ll have your total . . . which for Colorado is . . .93 
Very high tech! I’d actually never seen that tab before. Welp, it will be an exciting 2018 for those in the 17-24th range!
Truth be told I used to copy and paste the entire tournament tab to Excel and count the rows . . . @heyrocker gave me the Control-F shortcut.
“In addition, tournament directors are welcome to allow players in their event to opt-out of being included in the results submitted to the IFPA. In that case the fee for those players will not need to be paid.”
I think this needs an example in the announcement to clarify what will happen. Like say, if 30 out of 40 people at a casual weekly decide to not pay the $1, then the event is now a gutted 10-person weekly 
Really trying to sell it!
Well, my feeling is that we’re going to see a fair amount of people that just stop caring about WPPRs under this system, which will drag down tournament WPPR values for everyone else.
It was a nice perk when it was free (or for everyone else that it’s still free for, grrrr) lots of people like to look it up and see how they rank. But outside of specific situations, WPPR rank is largely meaningless. A lot of people won’t care and will happily pay the dollar, but some will also start thinking “what is this doing for me, exactly?” and won’t bother. Re: the weeklies, I’m thinking specifically about some local groups that have a large number of players who are part of that group and really nothing else. They aren’t playing in large tournaments, they probably are never going to rank higher than somewhere in the thousands, and they won’t have enough points to qualify for States. Having a rank doesn’t really provide a benefit to these people unless they really just like having one.
Plus, there’s an abuse case here for people who depend on quantity over quality for qualifying for States, if the player option is allowed. Say I’m already comfortably qualified, or I’m playing out of state and don’t care. I could collude with some others to intentionally not pay the dollar and lower the tournament value to prevent someone on the bubble from qualifying. I hope that never happens, but it’s possible.
It’s all just theorycrafting though. I don’t think anyone really knows what the effects will be, positive or negative, until we get a few months into 2018. I’m quite curious to see how it all plays out.
That can only happen if the TD even gives the option in the first place to opt-out.
From the interactions I’ve had with countless TD’s on implementation, there’s a very small percentage that are even making this option available to their players for their events.
In your specific situation, I guess that’s the question that needs to be asked. You played in 16 different events last year:
Mi casa, Su casa Parte : Dos
4th Annual Fulton Maryland Pinball Tournament
Cathode Rays Eldersburg Spring Open
Cathode Rays Eldersburg Summer Open
Crabtowne Backfin Bonus Battle
Crabtowne Open: Summer Slam 2017!
CrabTowne Tuesday Weekly
CTPC - Snow Brawl
FSPA Volleyball House League
IFPA Virginia State Pinball Championship
Pinball for Penny Charity Tournament
Pinburgh Match-Play Championship
Pinholics Anonymous
Pinholics Anonymous Pinabler Tour
Pintervention Circuit Championship
VUK July Knockout Extravaganza, Now With Extra Toppings!
I don’t know who the TD’s are . . . but the State Championship itself is not offering opt-in, and neither is Pinburgh. Any idea in your situation what the TD’s of these other events plan on doing?
That’s good to hear, I personally don’t like the player option at all.
None at all. Again, I was just theorycrafting about possibilities. A lifetime in software development has trained my brain to look for any and every way a user can break a system. To me, exercising an idea is always a good thing. In all likelihood nothing bad will happen, but if even one bad thing is caught ahead of time by a “what if” then it’s time well spent to me.
Actually, something I just thought of - the point of the fee for North American players is to build pots for the various Championship Series, right? If so, why not just have the fee be for inclusion into that? Why does non-participation also block global WPPRs?
I think the worry would be that you’d only end up with people in the top 50-100 or so in each state ‘participating’ as the others won’t see any possible return on their money.
I don’t know why so many people keep looking at it this way. I know for events I run, I will be taking the endorsement fee out of the prize pool. That only takes a small amount away from the players who win at those events, who are more likely to be players who have a shot at qualifying in the SCS.
If it’s an event where individual players don’t have a choice, then @unsmith’s comment about what you’re being included in isn’t applicable.
I agree that taking a bit out of the prize pool for ‘IFPA fees’ seems like the best way to go about this; it avoids the whole issue of even mentioning it to the players.
I was looking at it more from the perspective of NA players who have no interest in the various Championship Series. Those players are forced to pay for something that everyone else gets for free, or have less than 100% prize pool.
Not entirely, if the mandate is “extra dollar on top of entry fee” then players are paying more for something they may not want.
The issue mentioned rears its head when you’re hosting free events. But I’m my experience the players don’t care to throw in a buck to play, even if they will probably never see it again.