The Meat Bracket - How's this work then?

OVERVIEW

The tournament will be a series of one-on-one (meato-y-meato) match-ups. Each dish has a champion, who will talk about their meat and explain why it deserves to be the Ultimate Meat. The viewing public will then decide which dish is worthier, by means of a vote.

After each match-up, one dish will progress, and one dish will be knocked out. This is a single-elimination tournament, but there will be an opportunity for some popular, one-off, match-ups later on (Bacon vs. Bacon comes to mind).

(See the meats and their champions here)

CHAMPIONING YOUR DISH

The champion's role is to come up with a persuasive argument for his (I'm using the masculine pronoun here, because 'he/she' bugs me) meat. He can do this in a variety of ways - a blog post, a podcast, a picture or even a series of links. Whatever he chooses.

This site (The Carnivore Project) will host anything or everything. If a champion would rather post on their own blog - I'll just put up the appropriate link here, as well as the poll (see below). The main role of this site is to be a staging area - as well as a meeting point for worthy debate (and name-calling)

THE VOTING

The amount of voting time will change with each round - for the first few rounds, it'll be five days. But by the semi-finals, that'll be down to 48 hours. This is the maximum amount of time I can give at each round without extending the Meat Bracket longer than a month.

The voting will be done with Vizu polls (like the one on the right-hand side of the page).

I will make the poll myself and post it on this site. You can, however, easily copy it to your own site (Vizu has an export option) or email it (Vizu has an email option). But this makes sure that all the votes go to a single place.

THE SCHEDULE

January 15 (Monday):
All Red and Blue dishes - please send me anything I'm hosting, or any links if you're hosting.

January 16 - 19 (Tuesday - Friday):
Red and Blue, first round match-ups. (2 matches a day x 4 days)

January 22 (Monday):
All White and Green dishes - please send me anything I'm hosting, or any links if you're hosting.

January 23 - 26 (Tuesday - Friday):
White and Green, first round match-ups. (2 matches a day x 4 days)

January 30 - February 2 (Tuesday - Friday):
All second round match-ups (2 matches a day x 4 days)

February 6 - 9 (Tuesday - Friday):
Quarterfinals (determines who the representative is from each bracket)
(1 match a day x 4 days)

February 13, 14 (Tuesday, Wednesday):
Semifinals (the Final Four) (1 match a day x 2 days)

February 15 (Thursday):
Valentine's Day (make love, not war)

February 16 (Friday):
Finals (1 match x 1 day)

FAQ

Q: My meat won! Do I need to rewrite my post?
A: Only if you want to - possibly you'll want to detail your argument with your next opponent in mind. Or perhaps you've been given useful feedback from readers. Or possibly you've learned even more about your chosen dish, and you're eager to share. Your original post won't be deleted, so this could be a good opportunity to add more to your case.

Q: My meat lost! What do I do now?
A: Although the voting is fun - I think the point of this is the free and open discussion of all the dishes. I, for one, look forward to sharing my opinion on every dish, in every match-up. Pick another horse to back (not literally, we've filled the Wild Card bracket) and start chiming in.

Q: What if I miss the deadline to send you a post/link?
A:  I really don't want to have anything represented by blank space - I'll get some sort of food porn up, and replace it when you send me your work. Please try not to take advantage of this, the whole point of the contest is that it isn't my own opinion on thirty-two dishes.

Q: Can I host my article on my own site?
A: See above. Definitely. Just send me the link, and make sure to use the right Vizu Poll. Don't make up a new one, because the results won't count. If you're having a hard time with their 'export' function, let me know, and I'll make sure you get the right code. Also, please tag the article 'Meat Bracket', so Technorati picks it up.

Q: Why isn't [fill in the blank favorite meat] represented? This is fascism!
A: You missed your chance. (Unless, as of 10th January, 7 pm, you're interested in poultry or fried fish).

Comments

[Jared]

Oh, also, I'll be alerting our champions of their first-round opponents tomorrow by email.

I'll post them here later in the day.

[Heather]

so just to clarify...we'll basically be using the same entry through the entire tournament (which we may or may not tweak along the way). we don't need to come up with a unique entry for each round, correct?

[Jared]

Heather - That's pretty much it. I think it's also a matter of, er, tactics. Some people might be taking a more aggressive approach, e.g. 'my meat is specifically better than your meat'. That strategy would demand more frequent updating.

[Heather]

i'm ready to rumble

[Charles Frith]

This is from Popbitch and is very on topic.

The Jedi cloak Alec Guinness wore in Star Wars was put up for auction this week. Despite his fame, and the extraordinary amount of money he made from Star Wars as he cleverly negotiated a percentage deal from the film, Guinness spent most of his last fifty years living quietly near Petersfield, Hampshire. But his phone number was one digit different to the local butchers, and he received an endless stream of calls from people looking to buy meat. After some years, Guinness tired of explaining that they had the wrong number and instead amused himself by patiently taking their order, then berating them for making bad meat selections.