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. Female and male characters will compete in separate tournaments. They may face each other in exhibition arenas only.

B. Beginning with the Preliminary Period, female Candidates and Contestants are further separated into the Nova Division and the Stella Division.

C. All female characters begin in the Nova Division and automatically transfer to the Stella Division upon achievement of any of the following:

A. All winners of the ISML Championship will participate in a single-elimination tournament during the 2015 Postseason. This includes the 2015 Tiara winner along with previous winners.

B. Other than the eventual 2015 Tiara winner, characters in the Tournament of Champions will not participate in the Regular Season, except for the previous year’s Champion if she won from Nova Division (thus, had never been in Stella division).

C. If such an exception exists, that character is eligible to participate in the Regular Season (by way of Nominations and Preliminaries) and face other Contestants; however, she will not be eligible for Postseason Phase I or Postseason Phase II.

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

B. The top two (2) Contestants from each of the ISML 2014 Seasonal Tournaments who have not advanced to ISML 2015 Stella Division are permitted automatic entry into ISML 2015 Preliminary Period, Nova Division. This is a total of eight (8) entries.

A. The Nomination Period lasts fourteen (14) days.

B. Character eligibility will be checked according to Article III of the ISML Constitution with the following additional conditions:

C. The nomination form has separate sections for female characters and male characters.

D. Nominated characters must be unique.

E. Invalid nominations will be discarded individually and will not void the entire ballot unless the discards result in a violation of any of the subsections of Rule C.

F. At the end of the Nomination Period, characters with the most nominations in each Division will advance to the Preliminary Period until the allotted slots are filled.

G. An additional form for the Winter Seasonal Tournament, an exhibition tournament, will be available during the Nomination Period. This form accepts female characters (per rule V.B.2) with appearances on and after 1 January 2015 and who have not appeared in the 2014 Preliminary Period or any seasonal tournament in 2014.

A. Characters participating in the Preliminary Period are referred to as Candidates.

B. The Preliminary Period features eighty (80) Candidates per Division.

C. The Preliminary Period consists of five (5) voting rounds, defined below.

D. Remaining Candidates after Rounds 1 through 4 are divided into new groups based on their performance in the previous round.

E. Ties in any group after each voting round will be broken in the following order:

F. Seeding matches will begin in Round 4 and continue after Round 5 has concluded.

G. The Winter Seasonal Tournament will begin at the same time as Round 2.

A. Special matchups will occur during the Preliminary Period that will determine seeding in the Regular Season.

B. These arenas will appear after Candidates have begun to advance to the Regular Season following Preliminary Period Round 3. They continue after Round 5 until the seeding process is complete.

C. All seeding arenas will have six (6) Contestants. Voters may select up to two (2) Contestants per group.

A. Characters participating in the Regular Season are referred to as Contestants.

B. Each Division consists of thirty-six (36) Contestants, who will participate in a round-robin tournament.

C. The Regular Season consists of five (5) Periods in the following order: Aquamarine, Amethyst, Ruby, Emerald, and Topaz. Each Period consists of seven (7) Rounds.

D. 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.

E. A ranking system for each Division will be utilized to track the Contestants' progress throughout the Regular Season and in each of the five Periods.

F. Contestants in the same Division 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:

G. At the end of the Regular Season after all tiebreakers have been applied, the sixteen (16) Contestants in each Division with the most League Points will advance to the Postseason.

H. Contestants will accumulate a Seeding Score throughout the season. This value is used primarily for initial seeding in the Postseason.

I. Other statistical values may be posted and kept for study and analysis.

J. Special awards will be given to two male Contestants at the end of the Regular Season.

K. 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.

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

A. After the end of the seventh Round in each Period, a free-for-all voting round called Necklace Showdown will occur to determine the winner of the Necklace representing that period. This round is known as the Pendant Showdown for the male division.

B. There will be only one Necklace/Pendant awarded per Period. Nova and Stella Divisions will compete together for the same Necklace.

C. Only Contestants who have not already won a Necklace/Pendant this year are eligible to participate.

D. A total of seven (7) Contestants will participate in the Necklace Showdown based on their Rank for the Period.

E. A total of seven (7) Contestants from the Male Division will participate in the Pendant Showdown based on their Rank for the Period.

F. The voting round will last twenty-four (24) hours.

G. Voters may select up to two (2) Contestants among the finalists on their ballots.

H. At the end of the round, each Contestant receives a Necklace/Pendant Score, calculated as such:
N/P Score = (voting percentage in Round) + [(PSAO in Period) / 3]
...where voting percentage means 100 * (votes received / sum of all votes in arena)

I. The Contestant with the highest Necklace/Pendant Score is awarded the Necklace/Pendant. Ties are resolved using the same procedure in Regular Season rounds.

J. Winners of any Necklace, Pendant, or Crown in 2015 before the start of Postseason are guaranteed a slot in their Division's Postseason tournament.

K. Exhibition matches will be scheduled alongside the Necklace and Pendant Showdown.

A. Sixteen (16) Contestants from Nova and Stella Divisions will participate in a single-elimination tournament. The Male Division does not have this phase.

B. Contestants advance through the bracket according to traditional single-elimination rules.

C. At the end of Phase I, Contestants in each Division will be ranked from 1st to 16th by the following procedures:

D. The top eight (8) ranked Contestants in each Division will advance to Postseason Phase II. The remaining Contestants are eliminated from the tournament.

A. Eligible Contestants from Nova and Stella Divisions combine into one single-elimination tournament. Sixteen (16) Contestants from the Male Division will participate in a single-elimination tournament.

B. Contestants advance through the bracket according to traditional single-elimination rules.

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. At least 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 the Postseason voting rounds.

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

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, 1 March 2015, to 2359 GMT, 14 March 2015.

E. The Preliminary Period is scheduled from 19 April 2015 to 14 May 2015.

F. The Regular Season is scheduled from 7 June 2015 to 15 October 2015.

G. Postseason, Phase I is scheduled from 01 November 2015 to 08 November 2015.

H. Postseason, Phase II is scheduled from 15 November 2015 to 29 November 2015.

A. The information presented on the website, 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 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. Images are used for identification purposes only.

C. During vote-checking, Staff shall 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. 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 five 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. [18 February 2015] Rule III.D has been removed, which had allowed previous Lapis Scepter winners to participate in Regular Season. The wording of Rule VIII.H has been updated, because the Seeding Score is now used for a second purpose. Rule VIII.J has been inserted (shifting subsequent rules down one letter), describing the process to award the Sapphire Crown and Diamond Crown.

E. [22 February 2015] Rule V.G was appended with an extra condition ("...and who have not appeared in the 2014 Preliminary Period or any seasonal tournament in 2014") to clarify eligibility for the winter seasonal tournament.

F. [1 March 2015] Rule V.C.1 was updated to allow 14 nominations in the Nova and Stella divisions, increased from 12. Rule V.C.4 was updated to remove the restriction that 3 franchises must be represented per gender; instead it is a total of 3 franchises on the entire ballot.

G. [8 June 2015] Rule VIII.E.3 was added to explain PSAO, an adjustment on SAO from previous tournaments. PSAO is SAO weighted by the percentage of maximum possible League Points earned. Rule VIII.E.3 and Rule IX.H were updated to replace SAO with PSAO.

H. [15 September 2015] Rule IX.J was updated to grant Pendant and Crown winners a guaranteed slot in Postseason. It previously said only Necklace winners, but the intent was for all Divisions.