Old rule:
- The tournament must operate on a Round of 16 double-elimination format at a minimum.
- The tournament must operate on a Round of 16 double-elimination or a Round of 32 single-elimination format at a minimum.
- LAN tournaments must operate on a Round of 8 double-elimination or a Round of 16 single-elimination format at a minimum.
Though the minimum double-elimination format has been defined for a while, we now also define Round of 32 single-elimination format as a valid minimum. Furthermore, this change adds the minimum format requirements for LAN tournaments. LAN tournaments have already been receiving approval for these reduced requirements upon request but by having it defined, it should save LAN tournaments some back and forth with support!
Old rule:
- A dedicated referee must be present during every match, or be available to be summoned with minimal delay (2–5 minutes) if appropriate permission for automated software has been granted and is being used for assistance. Players cannot "self-ref".
- The use of bots is allowed on qualifier stage matches, provided that it is supervised by a staff member.
- A dedicated referee must be present during every match, or be available to be summoned with minimal delay (2–5 minutes) if appropriate permission for automated software has been granted and is being used for assistance. Players may not "self-ref".
When the new automated refereeing rules were added in PR 11465 this line was missed. It contradicts the requirement that approval must be given beforehand. This conflicting information may lead to confusion or unauthorised use of automation, resulting in bots or tools being used that do not meet basic requirements that users should be able to expect. To clarify, bots or tools to automate the process of refereeing must be approved before we can support their use in tournaments.
Old rule:
- A link to the publicly viewable catalogue of your tournament's match history.
- Links to the tournament's wiki page, website and/or publicly viewable spreadsheet(s) with:
- The tournament's match history with links to all matches, including qualifiers where applicable.
- The tournament's mappools.
- The tournament's qualifier results, where applicable.
Since mappools need to adhere to the content usage rules in order for a tournament to be eligible for support, they need to be publicly available. There have been many instances where a channel on a Discord server was thought to be sufficient for the purposes of having these publicly viewable catalogues. Furthermore, with qualifiers not explicitly mentioned, they were frequently left out, causing delays in the review process. All of these are now required to be available either on the tournament's spreadsheet, a wiki page or a website and need to be included in the tournament's conclusion email.
Old rule:
- At the support team's discretion, staff members whose conduct directly results in a tournament losing its official support may not fulfil the same roles in, nor be the host or admin of, another badged tournament for at least 4 months. In the event this cooldown is applied to a user, they will be informed directly through the tournament team.
- At the support team's discretion, staff members whose conduct directly results in a tournament losing its official support may not fulfil the same roles in, nor be the host or admin of, another officially-supported tournament for at least 4 months. In the event a staffing ban is applied to a user, they will be informed directly through the tournament team.
The use of the term 'cooldown' led some users to be confused, due to cooldown being interpretable in multiple ways. By removing this term from the official tournament support page completely, we hope to reduce and eliminate any further confusion.
Old rule:
- A list of all tournament staff must be publicly visible in an easily accessible location. This list may be contained within the tournament's forum post, wiki page, website, or spreadsheet.
- A list of all tournament staff must be publicly visible in an easily accessible location. This list may be contained within the tournament's forum post, wiki page, website, or spreadsheet. If there are multiple lists of staff, they must all be up to date and in sync with one another.
As mentioned on the How to: Staff Lists forum post, "Each location featuring a staff list must be up to date, as discrepancies between staff lists make it unclear which list is correct." This is now added as a requirement on the Official Support page.
NOTE: We will start enforcing this in tournaments with forum posts posted on January 1st, 2025 or later!
New rule:
- The tournament organisers do not collect, allow the submission of, or utilise any personal information from any registrants for any reason outside of these defined exceptions.
- Email addresses may be collected and used by tournament organisers for any reason so long as it is necessary for the tournament to function.
- Personal information may be collected as needed to fulfill legal, financial, or tax obligations and to fulfill the distribution of monetary or physical prizes.
- Other exceptions to this rule may be granted by the osu! team, provided the tournament organiser provides a thorough justification to them via tournaments@ppy.sh well before any such information is collected.
- In cases where any personal information is collected from registrants for any reason, tournament organisers must include a privacy policy on the tournament's forum post and/or wiki page detailing the following:
- Any users, organisations, or other entities who can view this information.
- How the information will be stored and processed.
- What the information will be used for.
Lots of regional tournaments allow users to submit personal documentation, such as ID cards, passports, etc. to prove they are of a certain nationality. Tournament organisers should never be collecting such information and players should never be sending personal information to strangers on the internet. Please use profile flags as a means for determining nationality in these tournaments.
#tournaments channel in the osu! Discord server. Good luck with your tournaments!