Details from the 2017 Combat Robot Hall of Fame balloting

Clearly, India did not stop to read the criteria for induction of a robot into the Combat Robot Hall of Fame. A quick refresher: a robot must appear on 50% of the ballots submitted to be inducted into The Hall. By flooding the ballot box with single-robot ballots spread remarkably evenly between seven different robots, the Indian vote not only guaranteed that none of their robots could appear on 50% of the ballots cast, but also insured that no robot from anywhere would be able to meet that criterion. Great work, guys.

Balloting for the Combat Robot Hall of Fame is not a popularity contest; it is a poll of the combat robot community to determine which robots are deserving of recognition. Soliciting votes for your robot from friends, familly, classmates, co-workers, and readers of your FaceBook page turns it into an egotistical mockery. Everybody understands this, except India. Fortunately, protocols are in place to prevent this from happening.

In order to salvage the Combat Robot Hall of Fame vote I invoked a contingency rule developed in 2005 when an American team attempted to stuff the ballot box with single-robot ballots from friends and family. The rule reduces the weight and count for blocks of identical ballots. The bigger the block, the greater the reduction. With this rule in place the disproportionate and ruinous impact of the Indian vote was balanced out.

The large voting turnout combined with the great number of robots mentioned in ballots did dilute the voting pool a bit, making it difficult to crack the 50% threshold. Fortunately the UK builders must have had a thoughtful discussion of their voting options and their relative unity combined with support from US YouTube hipsters and a BattleBots tie-in pushed two distinguished robots to well deserved victory.

'Eruption' also appeared on a large enough percentage of ballots to qualify for Honorable Mention, but already appears in the Honorable Mention roll.

 
North America

First ballot New Barnet, England

Last Ballot Jasper, Alabama

Total number of robots mentioned on at least one ballot 192

Percentage of robots mentioned on ONLY one ballot 50%

Biggest Bunghole In spite of the clearly stated 'One Ballot per Person' rule, more than 200 ballots came in for one obscure and particularly undistinguished robot from a single proxy IP address outside the actual country of origin. They arrived in large groups, often several per minute. The ballots were rejected and the IP has been blocked from future voting.

1. Robots appearing on at least 50% of the submitted ballots will attain full membership in the Combat Robot Hall of Fame. This method of voting is common to established 'Hall of Fame' voting practices. See Baseball Hall of Fame Voting for an example.
2. Robots appearing on at least 25% of the submitted ballots will gain Honorable Mention status and will remain eligible for promotion to full membership on future ballots.
3. You are strongly encouraged to vote for ALL the robots YOU believe to be worthy of membership in the Combat Robot Hall of Fame. A typical ballot will have about seven robots listed. Large blocks of identical ballots are considered suspicious and are subject to being 'trimmed'.
4. Ballots with a very small number of robots listed carry less weight than do ballots with a larger number of robots. These ballots are also aggregated into a smaller number of combined ballots to prevent 'dilution' of the percentage votes caused by such small ballots.
5. Due to regional voters being more familiar with and favoring their local robots, a small scoring weight is added to robots highly popular in their home voting continent. The exact details of this and other scoring adjustments are kept confidential to prevent the system from being 'gamed'.
6. Rumor has it that ballots with their entries in alphabetical order are given extra weight. Mark may have started this rumor simply to make it easier for him to enter ballots into the tally sheet.
7. There are four key considerations for membership in the Combat Robot Hall of Fame, as published at the top of the Combat Robot Hall of Fame page:
   • Dominating success in combat;
   • Pioneering or perfecting influential designs;
   • Having great fan or entertainment appeal; or
   • Otherwise making a lasting impact on the sport.

   Note that 'being really cool' is not on the list, and neither is 'beautiful machine porn'. Note also that winning ANY single tournament does not, by itself, qualify as 'dominating success in combat'. A robot that has no discernible standing in any of these categories will not be allowed full membership in the Combat Robot Hall of Fame regardless of the voting outcome. The Combat Robot Hall of Fame membership committee has not yet found it necessary to enforce this rule.