ESB Official Rankings Constitution: First Draft

ESB RANKINGS: THE CONSTITUTION


PURPOSE

The ESB Official Rankings are designed to reflect the expert opinions of international boxing fans who participate in the ESB virtual community. Given the lack of credibility of the various sanctioning bodies and media publications, along with the inherent limitation of having any one person attempt to rank the world's best fighters, boxing needs a set of more accurate, representative rankings.

This Constitution was crafted to assist with this process, clarifying the rules and guidelines by which the rankings will be compiled and maintained.


RANKINGS FORMAT

The ESB Official Rankings will include Champion and Top 10 Contender rankings for the following divisions: Heavyweight (201+ pounds), Cruiserweight (200 pounds maximum), Light Heavyweight (175), Super Middleweight (168., Middleweight (160), Junior Middleweight (154), Welterweight (147), Junior Welterweight (140), Lightweight (135), Junior Lightweight (130), Featherweight (126), Junior Featherweight (122) and Bantamweight (118.

The Rankings will include Champion and Top 5 Contender Rankings for Junior Bantamweight (115), Flyweight (112), Junior Flyweight (108. and Strawweight (105).

Another constant element of ESB Official Rankings will be Pound for Pound
rankings. These Top 10 rankings will include fighters from all weight divisions based on overall merit.


VOTING SCHEDULE

Voting will take place once a month, on the first Sunday of the month. Voting will close at 12:00am at time zone UTC-12, effectively keeping voting open until 8:00am EST on Monday morning. After that time, voting is closed for the month. Voters also may submit their votes early, although obviously they set themselves up for reprimand or even expulsion if they fail to incorporate the latest results.


VOTING PROCESS

Each voter will have the opportunity to vote on any Champion contingencies (explained later), top 10 Contender rankings for all divisions, and top 10 Pound of Pound Rankings.

However, they are not required to vote on a complete list of fighters, deferring to others in the divisions in which they feel less familiar.

Each voter will post his votes publicly to the ESB Official Rankings Voting thread, which will be posted during the week prior to the first Sunday of the month. There, the ESB community will have access to his picks. Once submitted, the votes CANNOT be changed, barring a redundancy or some other clerical error.

The posts will appear as follows, with Pound for Pound listed first and then proceeding by division in descending order, with that voter's best fighter listed No. 1:

Pound for Pound

Fighter X
Fighter Y
Fighter Z. …


Heavyweight

Fighter A
Fighter B
Fighter C. …




Again, voters are not required to fill all slots on either the Pound for Pound or Divisional Rankings.
Additionally, in divisions where there is a Champion, voters will not rank the Champion and simply will list him at the top of their Divisional vote.

Example:

Super Middleweight

Champion: Fighter D

Fighter E
Fighter F
Fighter G. …

There is no Champion of the Pound of Pound rankings, only a top 10 list of fighters.


SCORING

Scoring will be based on a 100-point system. Each voter's No. 1 fighter -- for both Divisional and Pound for Pound rankings -- will receive 100 points; No. 2 will receive 90 points; No. 3 will receive 80 points; and so on, through the 10th position. Again, a Champion of a division is not included in the voting or the scoring, so the 100 points in a division ruled by a Champion goes to the No. 1 Contender.

After the voting period closes for the month, each voter's ballot will be tallied. The point totals will added for each fighter across all of the voters' ballots, and the rankings will be compiled based on which fighters have the highest point totals. This will apply for Division rankings and Pound for Pound rankings.

In cases where a voter doesn't completely fill out a division, the unfilled positions in that voter's rankings obviously will be ignored. Also, voters may not designate that a fighters get alternate numbers of points. If a voter lists four fighters in a division, the points awarded will be 100, 90, 80 and 70, respectively. A voter cannot, for example, rank four fighters in a division and then number them as 1), 2), 4) and 7) in an attempt to create separation among the four in terms of points.


ADDITIONAL BALLOT MEASURES

On the ESB Official Rankings Voting Thread, each voter will type or post his rankings onto the thread, as mentioned above.

Beneath the rankings, any other issue for vote (e.g., whether a bout is for a title, vacancy issues, expulsion of a member, changes to the Constitution) will appear on this post as well.

Note that the voting on new candidates for membership will not appear on this thread.


SPECIAL VOTES

For issues that arise with immediate importance, a Special Vote may be called by any member of the committee. A Special Vote may deal with a variety of topics, than cannot be delayed until the next month's vote.

The procedure for a Special Vote is as follows: A member calls for a Special Vote and creates a thread with a poll on ESB. The poll is to be left open for FIVE days exactly. The function for making each vote public also is to be turned on. Each voter will choose one of the options and, by majority rule, a new action is thus initiated. These threads obviously will be open to the entire ESB community, but with the exception of cases that are very close, it should be clear which side has won. In extreme cases, the thread starter is responsible to tallying votes based on the eligible voters who participated.

Note 1: For a Special Vote to take effect, at least 50% of the committee must vote. If the thread fails to garner sufficient participation, the measure in question cannot be implemented.

Note 2: A thread and its poll may not overlap with any fights or events that are pertinent to the issue at hand. The poll must end before or begin after any such events.



THE CHAMPION


REVOLUTIONARIES

In the initial round of voting, voters will decide which fighters are grandfathered into Champion positions. For this first round only, all voters must list a Champion for the divisions in which they believe one exists. Otherwise, 10 Contenders will form the rankings and the Championship will remain vacant.

To become an Official ESB Champion in the initial voting, a fighter must garner a vote of Champion from the majority (anything over 50%) of voters. If for some reason a voter chooses not to vote on a division at all, that vote will not count toward that fighter's Champion status either way. (This is highly unlikely to happen.)

If a fighter is listed as Champion by the majority of voters, he becomes the ESB Champion going forward and is subject to the ongoing rules established in the Constitution.

WINNING A BELT

A fighter, ranked or unranked, automatically becomes a Champion if he defeats the current Champion in the ring.

In cases of a vacancy, if the No. 1 Contender faces the No. 2 Contender, the winner of that contest becomes the new Champion.

If the No. 1 Contender faces the No. 3 Contender, voters will decide in the voting period immediately prior to the fight whether that fight will be waged for the championship. Note that this issue will be decided -- and settled by a majority vote -- before the fight in question takes place, not after.

For example, if No. 1 Contender Fighter A is scheduled to face No. 3 Contender Fighter B on October 17, voting on whether the bout is a Championship contest will occur on the first Sunday of October -- not before, and not after.

In special circumstances and held under the rules of a Special Vote or during a regular monthly Vote, a fighter can be named Champion based on the majority vote of the committee. This would include situations in which a No. 1 Contender has beaten a No. 2 or a No. 3 Contender, and the previous Champion either vacated the division or exited the sport.


LOSING A BELT

A Champion can lose his belt for one of three reasons: 1) Losing in the ring, 2) Vacating the division (moving in weight class, retiring, etc.), or 3) Not fighting for more than 365 days. Both No. 1 and No. 2 result in certain loss of the belt. Additionally for No. 2, if a fighter vacates a division and returns later, he does not regain Championship status and must fight for it along with the other Contenders.

No. 3 is a special case. A fighter who is inactive in his division for more than 365 days does not automatically lose his belt, but voters will have the option of stripping that fighter. This will be put to a separate vote for the voters, who will determine by majority vote whether that fighter retains his belt. If the voters elect to strip a Champion for inactivity, he becomes officially Inactive. A Champion who has been deemed Inactive cannot be a Contender, and thus he will be excluded from that division's rankings. An inactive fighter also may not be considered for Pound of Pound rankings.

When that fighter then takes another bout within the division, he then becomes eligible for Division rankings from that moment forward. However, he cannot be voted the belt once he's been stripped, as he must triumph for it in the ring.

 

DIVISION IDENTITY


Because fighters change divisions, return, and hover above with so much regularity and under a wide variety of circumstances, common logic should dictate to which division a fighter belongs.

In case of ambiguity or in situations where there is a dispute, the matter should be taken to vote, either during a monthly vote or as a Special Vote.

For Champions, the 365-day rule applies.

In situations where a fighter gains enough votes to be ranked for two different divisions, he will be ranked in the division where he ranks highest -- and in the even t of a tie, his most recent division will count -- and not listed in the other division. In that other division, the next-highest vote getter will move into the rankings and the rankings themselves will adjust accordingly.

Naturally, the idea is to prevent such a phenomenon from occurring by virtue either of discussion among voters about a fighter's division, or settled by a vote.


THE VOTERS


COMPOSITION

The ESB divisional and pound for pound rankings will be voted upon by a select group of posters from the ESB online community. Those who have been voted onto the committee each will have one vote, equal to the vote of every other committee member.

There will be no fixed number of committee members, and membership presumably will grow over time. Voters will vote each period on the fate of board applicants, and they also will have the option of barring any members who fail to participate or who display unethical behavior.


INITIAL SELECTION

Initially, all ESB posters will be eligible to nominate 24 committee members, spread between the General Forum and Classic Forum. Posters can nominate just one poster, just one time, during this initial nomination period. An Official Nomination Thread will be posted on the General Forum and on the Classic Forum. At the end of the initial voting period, nominations will be tallied.

On the General Forum thread, the top 18 nomination-receivers will be selected for the board. On the Classic Forum thread, the top 6 nomination-receivers will be selected for the board.

Those who win the nominations must accept their bid within a reasonable timeframe, or else they forfeit their spot.


ADDING A VOTER

After the initial period, voters can be added only by other voters. All posters at ESB who have contributed at least 1,000 posts at the time of their self-nomination are eligible, and they may announced their candidacy in the Official ESB Rankings Applicant Thread that will be started at the beginning of each month. Candidates have through Friday night -- for our purposes, that's 8:00am Saturday morning EST -- to make themselves eligible for vote by the committee members.

On that same thread, posters may argue their cases, and all ESB posters are welcome to either endorse or reject that nominee's candidacy.

Further, a poster must nominate himself for inclusion. No one may nominate that poster in his stead.

On the first Sunday of the month, committee members then will vote whether to accept each candidate. In order to be added to the committee, a nominee must achieve 66.67% affirmative votes from the committee. If accepted, that candidate becomes eligible to vote the following month.

If a candidate is rejected, the poster may not reapply to the committee for six months. This will cut down on nomination spamming, and hopefully will encourage candidates to consider thoughtfully whether they've contributed enough to the ESB community to warrant inclusion on the board.

The process for voting on the fate of members is one of anonymous vote. Voters select 'Yes' or 'No' and send their selections to TWO pre-assigned people -- voters or non-voters -- who agree to total confidentiality.

One of those posters then posts the results to the board, and the other is assumed to agree with the tally unless he speaks to the contrary.


EXPELLING A VOTER

At its discretion, the voters may bar one of their peers. If any two members of the group formally ask that a member be expelled, a vote will take place on voting Sunday. If the board votes to dismiss the member at a 66.67% rate, that member immediately and permanently is removed from the board and the poster's rankings will not count for that month.

However, if an expelled member would like to reapply, he may wait six months and then do so. The expelled member then will be subject to the same 66.67% rule that applies to the general population.


ROLL CALL

Because certain activities of the Committee -- including Special Votes -- include minimum levels of voter participation, it may be necessary at some point to de-list inactive members. If voters feel this is necessary, they may post a Roll Call to the board.

If a Roll Call has been announced, the thread must stay open for at least one month, and it's the initiator's responsibility to make sure the thread remains active and visible.

After that time, members who do not respond may be removed from the Committee.


THE CONSTITUTION


CHANGES

The Constitution may be altered on voting Sunday by special vote, included on each poster's Rankings ballot. To bring a proposed amendment to vote, a member of the committee may post a Special Vote.

To pass, a proposed amendment must receive an 80% approval from members, with at least 50% participation.

 

You'll post them on a thread I set up tomorrow evening, and you'll have all weekend to do it. They'll be public, which seems like the fair way to do it.

You'll also send me an email with your votes on those who have applied for the committee. That part should be private, I think.