Taking teams off of the waitlist

[Kilroy Was Here]

What is considered general procedure for taking teams off of a tournament's waitlist as the field opens up? Say a field cap of 20 teams was hit.

In sequential order of when they registered:

Team A has two teams in the tournament, and two on the waitlist.
Team B is in the same situation as Team A, but registered after.
Team C has 0 teams in the tournament, and one on the waitlist.
Team D is in the same situation as Team C, but registered after.

If three spots were to open up, what teams get those spots first? Does Team A get both its teams, then Team B gets one? Does Team A, B, and C each get a team in the tournament? Or, do Team C and D get priority and then the one remaining spot goes to Team A?

I'd love to hear what people think about this.

[jonah]

You stick to whatever policy you announced when waitlist registration (or tournament registration as a whole) opened :-)

NAQT maintains a waitlist strictly in order of signup, and I'm pretty sure I've seen other tournaments do the same thing. There are other reasonable solutions, e.g. preferring to get schools' first teams in the field before second/subsequent teams, or preferring teams who can also provide staff, but in my opinion "strictly in order of signup" is a good default.

[The Ununtiable Twine]

I tend to invite new schools to the tournament first, then new teams from already registered schools.

note: In the case of last-minute cancellations, there's a higher probability of getting a school that's already coming to bring another team than there is of getting a school to register a team from what I gather. At the very least, the school that has already registered teams for your tournament is generally aware that another spot in the field could potentially open up. Bus rides are probably easier, for instance. In the case of the school that hasn't signed up for your tournament getting a last-minute invitation, transportation could end up being a major problem. So I think it's better practice to have more schools registered for your tournament and I've never come across someone who has petitioned this with me.