A division's life

A division moves through three phases:

Setup

Everything is editable — entrants, seeds, format, schedule. Generate fixtures, tear them up, try another format; nothing is precious yet. Scoring is closed on purpose: a result entered into a structure that later changes is a result nobody can trust.

Started

Pressing Start locks entrants; the format locked earlier, the moment fixtures were generated (division settings). From here the results are what change: score, finalize, progress through stages. Schedules stay editable (with undo) — it's the draw that's fixed, not the timetable. Someone dropping out goes through withdrawal, which repairs fixtures honestly instead of pretending they were never there.

Completed

When the last stage completes, the division is done — the champion banner goes up on the public page and standings freeze as the record.

Common questions

I started too early — can I go back? If nothing has been scored, an admin can void the accidental start from the division's Settings tab → Danger zone. Once real results exist, the lock is the point.

What about archiving? Archive hides a division without deleting anything. It hands the slot back to your division limit only if the division never recorded a result — once results exist, the division keeps its place in that limit whether it's archived or not.