yoshi

Karibu Kenya! The most famous Swahili song ever written welcomes us all to the heart of the mighty jung...wait, what?! Yes, that is snow, and that is a mountain. Begone with your lazy stereotypes It's Mount Kenya, the thing the country's named after, and it's where we decide the shortlist. Just like in Reykjavik, we have a field of 8, so just like in Reykjavik, we begin by chucking about half of them into Lake Victoria. This next bit is, of course, to be read carefully - it's THE RULES: This voting round will be open for (approximately) 72 hours - it will close at 10pm UK time, Thursday January 12. Voting will now be conducted in rounds until one entry has an absolute majority and is declared the winner. IMPORTANT - As I say, this is a cut round - so the (around) FOUR logos that receive the fewest votes will be eliminated. The four remaining will go to the exhaustive ballot. All logos that get 0 votes will be eliminated, even if there are more than four. What exactly happens will depend on the exact numbers that we get, it might not be exactly four that go out. Vote in the poll for your favourite logos. You will notice this is a multiple-choice poll - you may give up to FOUR votes, so make them count. More than FOUR votes will invalidate all your votes. Sir Rols and I will monitor votes cast, but feel free to alert us if you notice anyone voting more than thrice. Your vote is public and can be seen by all. Entrants MAY NOT vote for their own logo. For transparency, I will not vote unless required to break a tie. Votes are valid if cast by members of GamesBids as of January 1 2023 with a bona fide posting record. I will rule on the validity of any suspicious or disputed votes, or who constitutes a bona fide voting member. I will not vote in this, or any subsequent rounds. However, if a tie-breaker vote is needed, I will reserve my right to vote in order to break it. Be fair and sportsmanlike, this is meant to be fun and the entrants all deserve RESPECT. Thanks again to Rols for assisting with the rules for the multiple voting section. That is all - time to get voting again. Unless one logo here gets a majority - unlikely in a field of 8 but you never know - we will move to somewhere a bit more...wet for Round 2 on Thursday. Until then, thank you to all, good luck to all, and may the best logo win!

I am quoting myself! To tell you that we will be starting the Nairobi comp tonight - thank you for your submissions

Would anyone have a big problem with starting the Nairobi vote tonight?

We couldn't have a logo comp in Iceland wihout hearing from this lot at some point: My favourite Icelandic musical export getting us going at the biggest (only) notable structure on Reykjavik's skyline, the Hallgrímskirkja! We were going to get Bjork on this until a little sailboat arrived at the docks earlier today...stopping off in the Icelandic capital on her way from Canada back to Sweden, please welcome Greta Thunberg! Greta: Greetings small dicks. I hope you are all suitably ashamed of flying here to Iceland on jets for nothing more than another blah blah blah - how dare you! Have you not seen how little ice there is?! In Iceland?! How Greenland is living up to its name? This is climate change. It's real, and it's happening. As you have asked me so nicely, and I have a short time before setting sail again, I might as well do this. The winner of the 16th getalife.com...I mean gamesbids.com Winter Olympic logo comp is... ...really? This one? Whaling is a stain on all who do it & is part of the destruction of our planet...still... BEAR! Yoshi: Thank you Greta. Your next job is to tell FIFA & their sponsors that climate change is very much real. Yes after just 2 rounds, we have our champion, the final result being A: 6. B: 0. C: 4. It's a small, but clearly evident majority, which of course means that @Bear will leave Iceland with their first ever logo comp title - congratulations! Thank you to all voters and those who submitted logos, especially beaten finalists @Scotguy II and @fatixxx. It's been great to see such interest, hopefully it stays high for the Nairobi comp! And of course, biggest thanks to @Sir Rols for the Greta pic, the grids, advising and generally being invaluable We will give a day for any stragglers to submit any very last-minute logos for Nairobi before the shortlist round begins on Tuesday. Until then, the Romanian ambassador has sent as much pizza as we want, and I've got one little thing to do... ...

BONG It is 10pm, voting is CLOSED. The announcement ceremony is imminent, in central Reykjavik.

Final bump with 10 hours left to have your say

Leave the track up at the Commonwealth Games stadium or will the Gabba be done by then? Well past time for Africa to host these too.

ANNOUNCEMENT Via their intermediary, Bjork, the elves who are responsible for all aspects of government here have advised me that the best way to get voting numbers somewhere near round 1's is to @ everyone who voted in round 1 but haven't voted yet in this round, then extend the voting period by one human-day. And who am to defy the local authorities? Therefore: The new deadline for votes is 10pm UK time, Sunday 8 January. That's tomorrow. Here are the @s: @TorchbearerSydney @JDCLauron @Sir Rols @Anthony @ulu @krow @AliciasBlade @Guilga @Scotguy II

Activity around the board, except here ... another bump. Apparently we had 14 voters in round 1, and only 6 so far for round 2 - where are you? Have your say

Bumping this up to be visible, and it can serve as our 24 (plus a little bit) hour warning

Iceland...Iceland...Ice...cold...brr...wait, what? It might be named after ice, but Iceland actually has more claim than Azerbaijan to be the land of fire! This unpronounceable volcano sneezed in 2010, briefly becoming Europe's least popular thing. Luckily it's much calmer now... ...which means we can hold a vote here! It's Round 2, but not before we see what you said in Round 1: A: 9. B: 5. C: 2. D: 7. E: 3. F: 4. G: 4. H: 4. We therefore can't eliminate exactly four, totes awks. That 3-way tie means we can either eliminate 2, leaving 6, or eliminate 5 to leave 3. After consultation, it's clear the latter is closer to the intended 4/4 split, so that is what we will do to avoid a tiebreak or runoff. Which means we sadly say goodbye to @Victorian @Sir Rols @PikyoK @JDCLauron & @Glacib. Thank you, and better luck in Africa For the other 3, welcome to Round 2! We are now in the exhaustive ballot stage, which means the rules are slightly different: This voting round will be open for (approximately) 48 hours - it will close at 10pm UK time, Saturday 7 January. Voting will now be conducted in rounds until one entry has an absolute majority and is declared the winner. In this and following rounds, the logo with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated at the close of the poll. Vote in the poll for your favourite logo. You have ONE vote, so make it count. Your vote is public and can be seen by all. Entrants MAY vote for their own logo. For transparency, I will not vote unless required to break a tie. Votes are valid if cast by members of GamesBids as of January 1 2023 with a bona fide posting record. I will rule on the validity of any suspicious or disputed votes, or who constitutes a bona fide voting member. I will not vote in this, or any subsequent rounds. However, if a tie-breaker vote is needed, I will reserve my right to vote in order to break it. Be fair and sportsmanlike, this is meant to be fun and the entrants all deserve RESPECT. We will see each other again on Saturday, either for Round 3 or a winner. Until then, good luck, and may the best logo win!

10pm, and that means voting is CLOSED. Stand by for round 2.

We've dropped off again! One last bumpy bump.

24 hours, or a day, left to vote to send your favourites to the next stage

Lots of activity on the board today, this needs another bump

48 hours remaining to vote

Bumping the thread - remember to vote to keep your favourites in!

You stole a round opening...

Velkomin til Íslands! And welcome to the world-famous Blue Lagoon outdoor spa, the obvious place to spend January: After a month (and only a month!) of submissions, we have a remarkable field of 8 logos - so now it is time to head to Reykjavik to find out what you think about things! As that field is so big, having 7 exhaustive rounds would exhaust your patience and my supply of Eurovision songs, so we begin with a shortlist round to put half of the field in the nearest volcano before we properly start. Please read this next bit carefully, it's time for THE RULES: This voting round will be open for (approximately) 72 hours - it will close at 10pm UK time, Thursday January 5. Voting will now be conducted in rounds until one entry has an absolute majority and is declared the winner. IMPORTANT - As I say, this is a cut round - so the (around) FOUR logos that receive the fewest votes will be eliminated. The four remaining will go to the exhaustive ballot. All logos that get 0 votes will be eliminated, even if there are more than four. What exactly happens will depend on the exact numbers that we get, it might not be exactly four that go out. Vote in the poll for your favourite logos. You will notice this is a multiple-choice poll - you may give up to FOUR votes, so make them count. More than FOUR votes will invalidate all your votes. Sir Rols and I will monitor votes cast, but feel free to alert us if you notice anyone voting more than thrice. Your vote is public and can be seen by all. Entrants MAY NOT vote for their own logo. For transparency, I will not vote unless required to break a tie. Votes are valid if cast by members of GamesBids as of January 1 2023 with a bona fide posting record. I will rule on the validity of any suspicious or disputed votes, or who constitutes a bona fide voting member. I will not vote in this, or any subsequent rounds. However, if a tie-breaker vote is needed, I will reserve my right to vote in order to break it. Be fair and sportsmanlike, this is meant to be fun and the entrants all deserve RESPECT. Thanks to Rols for assisting with some of the rules for the multiple voting section. That is all - time to finally get voting. Unless one logo here gets a majority - unlikely in a field of 8 but you never know - we will move to somewhere a bit more...warm for Round 2 on Thursday. Until then, thank you to all, good luck to all, and may the best logo win!

BONG! Happy New Year to everyone - it is now 1pm on NYE here in the UK, which means that it is now 2023 in Sydney! As our local wombat says, we have an amazing 8 entries, which is more than enough for a proper comp! So, in a tradition that I don't think I've actually been able to uphold since taking the comp over, that means that the comp is now CLOSED for new submissions. The voting will begin, as always, with the winter comp in Iceland - and will start with a shortlist round that will open for votes on Monday evening UK time. As I said above, I'm not a monster, so anything submitted during tomorrow for Reykjavik will also be ok. Until we begin the vote, a Happy New Year once again (Rols, what conditions did you set on shortlist polls?)

Thank you for doing my counting for me, I was going to go through the thread tomorrow to count them all I guess that does mean I can make one announcement now, and that is that whether or not we get more logos in the final day (days technically if you count Sunday), the first round will be a shortlist round, since I don't think anyone wants to go through 7 exhaustive rounds to find a winner!

A competition that's nearly over for submissions... this is to say that the deadline is only just over 36 hours away, at 1PM LONDON TIME ON SATURDAY. I will start the vote on the evening of Monday 2 January so we can all recover from the New Year weekend. I won't refuse any entries that come on the Sunday because I'm not a monster.

The original greatest of all time, I can't imagine what it would've been like to see him play at the time - especially when he emerged in 1958. Been expecting it for a while, but at least he got through the World Cup and got to see that final. RIP

Ok everyone, a quick pre-Christmas stocktake. @fatixxx @Sir Rols @Scotguy II @Victorian have all entered both their logos, thank you! @Bear has entered a logo for Reykjavik, so Nairobi is still waiting for you. @Aussie bum (Davey) & @JDCLauron have both entered just for Nairobi so far, so Reykjavik waits for you. I will @ everyone in my list again: @paul @Glacib @Lord David @R__ @thatsnotmypuppy @mr.bernham @woohooitsme83 @VIK @baron-pierreIV @JMarkSnow2012 @nzl @Utkarsh Verma @Athensfan @Citius Altius Fortius @Olympian1010 @TorchbearerSydney @JO2024 @Nacholympic @aismanggo @Anthony @Jon Will Chambers @DannyelBrazil @ScoBit @Palette86 @Fiorenzo @pcutone @Olympic Fan Darcy @Athens 2004 forever @ulu @Qss212 @PikyoK This is the final @ I will do. As we have a field of 5/6 logos already, I will warn everyone that this year, I will NOT be extending the comp beyond my usual accepting of anything that comes in before the vote starts. So the deadline, the hard deadline, is 1pm London time on SATURDAY 31 DECEMBER. I intend to start the winter vote on 2 January, so that little extra period will only apply to New Year's Day. Thank you

Guess it's Salt Lake or bust now then...