Policy Review CAP 5 PRC Reflection

Birkal

We have the technology.
is a Top Artistis a Top CAP Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Good day to you all. I first want to apologize for my extreme lateness in posting this thread; a few situations arose in real life that prevented me from sitting down to get this started. Moving onward, the purpose of this thread is as a reflection on the massive amounts of changes we enacted as a PRC during the previous CAP. We've now successfully completed a project with all of these new changes in policy (CAP 5), but how well did they work? Use this thread to discuss your opinions and provide alternatives to aspects that need adjustments. Let's review what all we enacted as a CAP 5 Policy Review Committee:

Topic Leadership, in which we finalized the TLT model.

Recruiting, in which we discussed CAP Optics and implemented a Playtesting Judging Panel.

Abilities, in which we banned custom abilities, changed the timing of ability discussion, limited ourselves via a banned abilities list, and decided to keep flavor abilities.

Flavor Steps, in which we agreed to slate all legal final submissions.

Ability Banlist, in which we created a primary banlist, a secondary banlist, and a flavor banlist.​


It would probably be ideal to go through this list point by point and describe your opinions on the subject. I'd encourage all of you to post sparsely on the implemented changes that went well. We do not need this thread to be a circlejerk; it's primary purpose is to serve as a "tweak and adjust" review to improve and cement the changes we made as a CAP 5 PRC. Furthermore, please do not bring up any changes in policy that are off topic from the threads listed above. This is not a general "complain about CAP" thread, but rather a time to hone in specifically on the changes we made for CAP 5.

There may be some formal implementation at the end of this thread; it all depends on if the community consensus here cries out for a change in process. Thanks for reading; I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Topic Leadership - A resounding success. This may be in part due to having excellent people fill the roles of TL and the TLTs, but I also didn't notice any glaring structural deficits.

Recruiting - My only question is where was that playtesting panel? I still think it was a good idea, and I know we did attract several new OU-focused, highly skilled competitive battlers to CAP. But did that panel ever actually happen?

Abilities - Banning custom abilities was long overdue. Keeping flavor abilities was also essential. The two key aspects of timing and what was banned may merit re-discussion, though I'm not sure just yet what tweaks could be proposed.

Flavor Steps - Slating all legal submissions definitely feels the right thing to do. Unless anyone has serious objections, I think this should be CAP's continued path.

Ability Banlist - As I said above, this may need tweaking. But I do think the idea of having banlists is great.



In sum, I think that our implemented changes were largely successful and directly led to CAP5's overall success.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
Glad this thread got made. There are some things I liked about the process, but there were also a few qualms.

Topic Leadership - Flawless

Recruiting - Our ideas were good, but they never happened...? Anyway, I really think this needs a second look. On the latest Smogcast, if anyone listened, the guys on the show basically said "CAP is cool, but the main participants there usually don't play any OU"—basically exactly what we said in our PRC thread. The question is, how do we get the guys who say that to go 'hey, I play ou, why don't i help out?' Clearly, the CAP thread birkal tried to start in OU was a giant failure; i feel like a lot of would-be participants were turned off by our failure to pick a weather-related concept and thus stopped paying attention to the Project. Not that I'm sure they would have anyway but.

Abilities - This discussion turned out a lot better than previous ability cancers, so props for that, it worked. However, I am nervous over the notion that an ability that has been tabled will get you infracted if you bring it back up: Korski didn't abuse this power to shape the slate, but who's to say a worse TL won't?

Ability Banlist - yeah sure whatever

Flavor Steps - I still think that all options should be slated, even though this basically just caused me to consider a few options from each slate instead of all of them. I'm not entirely sure that the really harsh rules on flavor subs are a good thing, as they kept me from contributing to flavor steps entirely this CAP for fear of missing something and being infracted. Also fuck IPA.

So, most important i think to review would be the Recruiting PR thread
 

jas61292

used substitute
is a Community Contributoris a Top CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Well, I certainly have things to say about each of the different PR topics, but as you might expect, Topic Leadership is probably where I have the most to say. Having been TL for this project, a probably had a very different perspective on most things than the rest of the community. However, with that said, I do think most things went well, and as such, I will not spend time doing a massive analysis of the project like deck did for CAP3 here (though if anyone would like me to, I would be happy to do it at some point). Really though, there are very few things I think actually need to be addressed.

Few, of course, does not mean none, and as many of you know, one thing I have definitely been wanting to address is the powers of the Topic Leader in non-slating stages. During CAP5, we had no rules whatsoever as to what the TL was or was not allowed to do. While, thanks to the great group of people that made up the TLT, this never translated into a real problem, I definitely got the feeling that if we weren't always on the same page, this could cause severe complications, especially within the project leadership. So, as such, I would like to see if we can formalize what exact powers the TL should have during these steps.

For reference, the steps to which I am referring are Stat Limits, Movepool Discussions (as far as allowed moves), and Movepool Limits. Now, while we never really formalized anything, I do remember having a discussion with DougJustDoug, Korski, and a few others early on in the CAP process about Movepool Discussions:
[02/15/13 | 15:19] <DougJustDoug> Well, all CAPs get Quiver Dance. It's in the rules somewhere.
[02/15/13 | 15:20] <jas61292> No. Never again. Not on my watch.
[02/15/13 | 15:23] <DougJustDoug> jas has a "-1" TL usage earmarked for QD!
[02/15/13 | 15:24] <jas61292> Well, actually, how will that work with movepools? What ability does the TL actually have to influence allowed and disallowed moves?
[02/15/13 | 15:24] <jas61292> I know we have the +1/-1 for slates, but allowed moves is not a slate
[02/15/13 | 15:25] <PureQuestion> You can ban specific moves, can't you?
[02/15/13 | 15:25] <DougJustDoug> I don't know. But surely the TL needs to be able to do the equivalent of "+1/-1" for those steps.
[02/15/13 | 15:25] <DougJustDoug> It only makes sense.
[02/15/13 | 15:25] <DougJustDoug> Just not sure what the mechanics should be.
[02/15/13 | 15:26] <jas61292> I agree. Its the extent that I am not really sure of. We don't want the TL to just have unlimited +1/-1 power, but you need more that a single move to have any actual effect.
[02/15/13 | 15:27] <DougJustDoug> I agree Jas. we should probably start talking about now, well in advance of the step.
[02/15/13 | 15:27] <DougJustDoug> Who is the Movepool leader?
[02/15/13 | 15:27] <Korski> cape
[02/15/13 | 15:27] <jas61292> ^^
[02/15/13 | 15:30] <DougJustDoug> I'm thinking the +1/-1 could apply to a "category" of moves, with the stipulation that the category can't be too broad (and the mods could be the arbiters of what is considered "too broad" or not.
[02/15/13 | 15:31] <jas61292> That might work. Like that could apply to a certain type of coverage move, or a certain group of boosters or something.
[02/15/13 | 15:32] <DougJustDoug> So "all physical moves" is obviously too broad. But "offensive Fighting moves" wouldn't be to broad, ofr example. "Reliable recovery moves" is another example of reasonable category.
[02/15/13 | 15:32] <Korski> actually you know what
[02/15/13 | 15:33] <Korski> ASB has a pretty decent list of move categories
[02/15/13 | 15:33] <jas61292> Yeah, that seems reasonable. It could get a bit tricky in non damaging stuff where a lot of moves seem to stand on their own.
[02/15/13 | 15:33] <jas61292> But I'm not sure if there is a more reasonable way to do it
[02/15/13 | 15:34] <Korski> the ASB attack substitution groupings might work for this
[02/15/13 | 15:35] <jas61292> lol, maybe
[02/15/13 | 15:35] <Korski> "paralysis-inducing moves"
[02/15/13 | 15:35] <Korski> "damaging ground-type moves"
[02/15/13 | 15:35] <Korski> "sleep-inducing moves"
[02/15/13 | 15:35] <Korski> stuff like that
[02/15/13 | 15:35] <jas61292> The tricky stuff is with things like Taunt or Encore which are not really similar enough to other things to fit in a group
[02/15/13 | 15:36] <Dracoyoshi8> Move Selection Disruption
[02/15/13 | 15:36] <reachzero> yeah
[02/15/13 | 15:36] <Dracoyoshi8> includes taunt, encore, disable, heal block
[02/15/13 | 15:36] <reachzero> Taunt/Encore/Torment
[02/15/13 | 15:36] <Dracoyoshi8> etc
[02/15/13 | 15:36] <Dracoyoshi8> imprison
[02/15/13 | 15:36] <Korski> eh
[02/15/13 | 15:37] <Korski> those are all pretty different moves
[02/15/13 | 15:37] <Dracoyoshi8> but the same concept
[02/15/13 | 15:37] <Dracoyoshi8> limit what attacks your opponent can use
[02/15/13 | 15:37] <Korski> i could see a scenario where the TL would have to outlaw taunt on his own but not torment
[02/15/13 | 15:38] <Dracoyoshi8> that is also true
[02/15/13 | 15:38] <Korski> *his/her own
[02/15/13 | 15:38] <DougJustDoug> yeah, I'd think if you said "No Taunt/Encore/similar" then that would be fine. We know that is a general category. And if someone asks "what about Torment?" or whatever, then the TL can give their interpretation. If the section leader contests it, go to the mods for a ruling.
[02/15/13 | 15:38] <jas61292> Well, I was less talking about that specific group of things, and more the general case of individual moves that are unique enough to merite individual attention, but as such, constitute such a small portion of the movepool that a decision on the individual move may be inconsequential if that is the only thing allowed.


While I think we might want to codify this a bit more, I definitely believe this could be a good basis for a system that would allow the TL some control over what moves are allowed without allowing the power to stretch any farther than in any of the actual slating stages.

The other two steps might be more tricky to decide on, but I think it will be a more simply solution once we do. Really, what it comes down to for the limits stage is that the section leader is choosing a number (or set of numbers), so I would personally think it would make sense to allow the TL to modify the numbers, within a certain range. What exactly this range is, I am not really sure, but something like the ability to add or subtract up to 3 from the VGM limit, or 20 from any of the stat limits or something would probably be good to have (and, just to clarify again, I don't mean those exact numbers, just the general system).

Other than those stages though, I felt like the leadership structure worked pretty well. My one other minor concern is about the recognizability of the TL. What I mean by this is that, while the TL is not making the decisions at every stage any more, they are still supposed to be a guiding force for the concept throughout the project, and that occasionally I felt that there were a bunch of people flat out ignoring what I would say because I wasn't the stage leader. Now I am not complaining here that I wasn't seen as as important as I think I should have been. What I am trying to say is that I got the feeling that people didn't always understand that the TL was still part of the leadership even in stages he wasn't leading. I don't think it was a huge problem in general, but I think we might just want to make it more clear in the future to the general public what the TL's job is and that the TL is indeed one of the people leading the project even in stages where someone else takes charge.

Moving along, I don't think we really did much regarding the whole recruiting PR, so I don't really have much to say. Can't judge what you haven't seen.

Abilities I think worked very well for the most part. I do have one concern here though. Going into last PR cycle, one of the things that I feel had gotten a lot of negative feedback was what had become the policy of making "provisional slates." In fact, one of the reasons we went with the category system of simply discussed vs not yet discussed was because the original proposed category system was pretty much "provisional slate" by another name. Yet, with that said, when we actually put it in practice, a "provisional slate" was created anyways, going very much against what I thought was the point of the system. While I don't think it worked out badly this time, it simply seemed wrong to me to do one of the very things that we had wanted to eliminate with some of these changes. I don't think this is a problem with the system itself, but rather just that we kinda failed to apply the system exactly as we wrote it up. So, while I don't feel any policy changes need to be made, I'd just like to see us try and follow the system exactly as it was written, since adding that extra category defeats the purpose of the other categories we had decided to have.
One last note on competitive abilities; I personally believe that the ability ban list worked well. It got us what we needed and stopped the secondary discussion from being a rehash of the first.

Speaking of abilities, think the flavor ability process worked out very well. Not a wondrous discussion by any means, but not utter garbage. Additionally, the decision to push it and other flavor steps back to during the playtest was a great move, imo, and I would like to propose that we just make that officially our process going forward.

Finally, on the topic of flavor stages, I think the stricter rules, slate all, policy worked well for the most part. People are still getting used to the rules, so I will bet that it won't cut down as much on the submissions in the future as it did this time, but I do think that overall it worked well. However, with that said, since I know someone likely will eventually, I would like to briefly comment on use of IPA for names. Honestly, just as I thought it would be, IPA really did nothing. I don't think it narrowed down that much (most people who didn't do IPA likely missed other rules too, so it didn't matter), and it wasn't useful. Not me the submitters, and not the the voters. Personally, I don't care too much, but, as many people may remember, an IRC discussion between myself, Birkal, Pwnemon, paintseagull and many others that we had only a week or two after the PR implementing it made it clear that most people realized it was a mistake to ever call implementing it a "community consensus" to begin with. So, while I won't make a fuss about it, if it is on the table, I'd like to see it gone.

And that's about it for me. While there were a few issues, I think for the most part this past project went very well.
 

Qwilphish

when everything you touch turns to gold
Topic Leadership

I, as well as I'm sure most everyone else will say, believe that the TLT format was highly successful. Each member of the TLT handled their respective discussions greatly and the TL was equally as great at keeping the discussions ad the project on track. Of course, this may just be because our leadership team were dedicated to the project, however I felt like this project was more focused and went a lot smoother than many of the projects previous. Overall, the way that we handled leadership during CAP 5 went extremely well and I foresee this success to continue on with this system.

Recruiting

I honestly have no idea what happened here, but so far none of the ideas that we have come up with in this area have come into fruition. Due to this, it is impossible to truly gauge how successful this policy is at its purpose. However, with the idea behind the proposals in mind, I don't believe that the proposals are the best way at handling the issue (However, this train of thought is for another discussion). Thus, I think we should go back to that discussion and rework the idea altogether to discuss the logistics of the proposal if we wish to continue on with the topic.

Abilities

The proposals that were implemented during CAP 5 worked exactly as we wished for them too as everything was much more structured and less ambiguous than what was stated before. The placement, banlist, and number of abilities I feel are good how they are don't necessarily need to be re-discussed.

Flavor Steps

This was somewhat discussed during in #cap but I think that the flavor steps that were implemented during the last Policy Review worked extremely well. I felt that the way the flavor was handled last CAP was much more controlled than they were previously handled. The only part that I think should be reviewed is the requirement of the IPA pronunciation during the Name Submissions. The only real reason for requiring it, from what I have gathered, is to weed out "joke submissions" as we already require the English pronunciation. There were problems with people not knowing whether or not their IPA translation was correct which doesn't seem necessary for something like the Name Submissions. If anything I just said is wrong, please feel free to correct me.

Ability Banlist

I find the abilities to be perfect the way they are. Unless later on we must have a certain banned ability, this is an area where I feel there isn't really any better way to handle the situation.

(My first Policy Review post :) Can't wait to get involved in this process!)
 

DetroitLolcat

Maize and Blue Badge Set 2014-2017
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Topic Leadership- The Topic Leadership overhaul worked well in my opinion. There are no major structural deficiencies, and there were no significant problems stemming from the TL/TLT system. However, I would like to echo what jas61292 said earlier, specifically that the +1/-1/veto system has not been properly defined and publicized for stat and movepool limits as it has been for slating and submissions. Although there were no problems with those stages as a result of this ambiguity, there is definitely potential for power struggles and unnecessary drama if this ambiguity is not further codified. During the upcoming PR stage, it would behoove us greatly if we further define what exactly the TL can do for stat limits, movepool limits, and allowed/disallowed moves.

The system mentioned in the log in jas61292's post seems to be a step in the right direction; grouping moves in specific categories such as "damaging Physical Ground-type moves", "Moves that disrupt the foe's move selection", "Moves that restrict the foe's ability to switch", etc. would give the TL significant but not overpowering influence over the project. Essentially, this would extend the +1/-1/veto system to categories of moves. Although this will most likely be further expanded in a subsequent PR thread, the solution discussed between jas61292, DougJustDoug, and Korski in jas61292's post is worth looking into.

Other than that, the TL/TLT system is working well. We can only hope that the system works in the future as well as it did for CAP5.

Recruiting- It's too bad that we didn't implement many of the recruiting ideas that we discussed prior to CAP5. The "Playtesting Review Panel" will theoretically provide expert opinions on how future CAPs failed or succeeded. However, in the meantime, we can all better assess our creations by, well, playing OU ourselves. As Pwnemon mentioned,

Pwnemon said:
On the latest Smogcast, if anyone listened, the guys on the show basically said "CAP is cool, but the main participants there usually don't play any OU"—basically exactly what we said in our PRC thread. The question is, how do we get the guys who say that to go 'hey, I play ou, why don't i help out?'
Prior to CAP5, we decided to fix this problem by inviting OU experts to contribute to the creation of future CAPs and eventually set up a "Playtesting Review Panel". This is theoretically a good idea; inviting experts to compare the metagame with the CAP and without the CAP will most likely provide a wealth of information about whether the CAP has failed or succeeded. However, in the event that we do not get the expert opinions we desire, we still bear the burden of comparing those metagames ourselves. The members of the most recent Smogcast have brought up the issue that prominent CAPpers do not play much OU. Although I am not qualified to comment on that statement's validity, if that problem does exist, it should be fixed. In addition to inviting experts to aid in creating and judging our creations, it would be beneficial if we...played more OU! This problem, if it does indeed exist, can be fixed if more of us became more knowledgeable about the OU metagame. I know I could have played more OU in the months preceding and Malaconda's creation, and I'm sure others could definitely have played more OU during that period as well. Instead of recruiting those who say "'hey, I play ou, why don't i help out?'", it would be great if we were to become the people who say that.

Bringing this issue full-circle, this improves optics greatly. If there is a prevailing attitude (and I do not know if there is!) that CAP members are not involved in OU, then it would be optics-friendly if we eliminate that stereotype.

Abilities- The ability PR has changed a lot about CAP. For starters, the banning of custom abilities is a good idea in my opinion. The tools GameFreak has given us are more than enough to accomplish any specific concept, and custom abilities are an optics nightmare. Moving flavor abilities from the abilities period to the flavor period has saved us time and shortened the overall creation process, which is obviously a benefit. Changing and making permanent the steps has brought more clarity to the process, which is another benefit. I do not believe that this issue needs serious review, as it was successful for Malaconda and I do not see any theoretical flaws with the system.

Flavor Steps IPA is annoying. Other than that, no problems here! We don't really need a "flavor police" and slating all legal submissions lets the cream rise to the top. No problems here.

Ability Banlist- I don't see any problems with this PR conclusion. If there are significant complaints about the makeup of the ability banlist, then those should be revisited during the PR stage. I have no specific complaints about what is allowed and what is not, and relegating useless abilities to the flavor stage saves time. This has been an efficiency-boosting step and really only needs to be revisited if there are problems with specific abilities being on specific lists. However, we have not really experimented with extreme abilities (i.e., Illusion) since the implementation of the banlist, so I'm not really sure if there is much new to add to the discussion. That PR seems to be working fine. I support the conclusions drawn in that PR and oppose revisiting it.
 

paintseagull

pink wingull
is a Top Artistis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Topic Leadership - This seemed to work very well. I'd like to hear more from the TLTs on how they felt throughout the process. My impressions are all positive ones so far.
My one other minor concern is about the recognizability of the TL. What I mean by this is that, while the TL is not making the decisions at every stage any more, they are still supposed to be a guiding force for the concept throughout the project, and that occasionally I felt that there were a bunch of people flat out ignoring what I would say because I wasn't the stage leader. Now I am not complaining here that I wasn't seen as as important as I think I should have been. What I am trying to say is that I got the feeling that people didn't always understand that the TL was still part of the leadership even in stages he wasn't leading.
I noticed this too. Not sure that any changes are required at this point, as it might take a few projects for the community to adjust to the new leadership model.

Recruiting -
I know I could have played more OU in the months preceding and Malaconda's creation, and I'm sure others could definitely have played more OU during that period as well. Instead of recruiting those who say "'hey, I play ou, why don't i help out?'", it would be great if we were to become the people who say that. Bringing this issue full-circle, this improves optics greatly. If there is a prevailing attitude (and I do not know if there is!) that CAP members are not involved in OU, then it would be optics-friendly if we eliminate that stereotype.
Agreed. We can't let this be what people think of the folks that discuss competitive steps. It seems obvious that you should know about OU and play it in order to participate in most competitive discussions. CAP regulars who currently have fallen behind on OU play should step up and play more. Otherwise, the mission statement of CAP (to learn about the current OU metagame via pokemon creation) doesn't really make any sense. I know there are definitely a lot of CAP members who do play OU though so perhaps this perception is just a case of non-OU players talking more loudly about not playing OU (providing disclaimers and such in their posts) than regular OU players (who would not feel the need to state that they do in fact play).

Abilities/Ability banlists - Seemed to work fine to me - I don't have a whole lot of insight for abilities so I'll defer to others on this.

Flavor stages - I like the changes overall but I'd like to hear from slaters (Doug and Birkal) on how much extra work it was to slate everything, and if they felt it was worth it. I agree with most people that IPA doesn't seem to add a whole lot. I don't think that means we should ditch it yet, though. It didn't do any harm and I think we should give it another shot before deciding to scrap it or not. The plain-english pronunciation guideline was good. One potential problem is the decision to only allow final submission posts after a mod posts that final submissions are open. Firstly, there were definitely some complaints about the final sub window being too short - 24 hours in both cases. The new rules do not make it clear on how long final subs will be open:
Name Final Submissions can only be posted after a CAP Moderator posts in the thread that final submissions are open. Any final submission posted prior to the Moderator notification post, will disqualify the submitter from the poll entirely. Even if the offending post is edited later or deleted, the submitter will still be disqualified for the remainder of the thread. This ensures that all submitters have equal opportunity to post final submissions without anyone unfairly "jumping the gun".
Some people were not able to be online from the time final subs were open to the time they were closed and therefore could not make a legal final submission. Secondly, this policy is fairly difficult to moderate. It requires the mod who posts that Final Submissions are open go back and delete or mark any post that has been called a Final Submission. If people are not kept in check before this, one person posting Final Sub has a tendency to cause others to do the same (still their fault for not reading but it's sad to watch it happen). I can think of many situations where anything less than extremely consistent moderating will result in this rule being applied unfairly, and I strongly question its utility.
 

Bull of Heaven

Guest
This is just going to be a quick post, since I don't have much to add.

While I'm definitely a fan of the new TLT leadership model, I kind of think it's too early to review it. I think the memory of our last project helped to keep us focused for this one, and I'm more interested in how well this works, say, two or three projects from now. Still, I don't see any need to make any changes now aside from dealing with the problem that jas discussed.

In terms of optics, I find it hard to believe that CAP's best participants don't play OU. Playing more of it might help, but remember that the Smogcast is hosted by well-known top players, and just as we have a "bubble" that makes it hard to judge things objectively, they probably have their own bubble in terms of what they recognize as an active OU player. That's basically just speculation though; while I do play OU, I've never been particularly good at it. While we should all make an effort to play the game we want to modify, getting top players involved is probably not that simple. Still, the Smogcast hosts also have a lot more influence in the OU community than we do, so we can't exactly just ignore their comments if we want to improve our optics. This is why I was excited about the playtesting panel that doesn't seem to have happened.

Finally, a quick note on IPA: I was surprised when I noticed that it was required in the name stage, because I didn't remember any such consensus in PR. Sure enough, there it was in the PR thread's conclusion, but I'm still not sure how that happened. Of course I'd be happy to scrap it, since I was never in favour of it in the first place.
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
This post is going to be brief because I want to reserve judgement on most of this until after CAP6.

Recruiting:
I legitimately don't have the time to ladder on OU. I barely manage to ladder during the CAP Playtest. Recruiting works both ways, while its good to have more OU playing contributors, we also need to ensure CAP isn't getting knocked around in OU and preventing them from joining us.

Flavor Steps:

Really hate the "don't post final submission before a mod allows it" rule. I will tell you this after the fact, but if I wanted to be a complete hardass mod about it I would have had to disqualify myself and 5 other long time contributors from name submissions because there's absolutely no attention called to that rule at all. It's not bolded, it's not italicized, and truly I didn't know we passed it because I thought making people just through hoops for the IPA pronunciation was sufficient to keep drive-by posting minimized.

What that rule does is basically make a 24 hour window to make your submission legal and god help you if you're in a different time zone then the mod who posted the final submission notification. Essentially if you have a single night where you can't get on Smogon for an irl reason, you lose your chance to final sub because you're disqualified if you FS before the mod allows it, and you've got 8 total reasonable waking hours to monitor the thread and finalize. Terrible, terrible rule that does nothing but make more work for mods and less access for contributors.
 

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Aaagh, I've had this typed up for a while. :P

The TLT works quite well. Power is not distributed to the extent that opinions, whether that is a single one or are disagreeing ones, will cause a CAP to lose direction. The one concern that came up with a TL's +1/-1 veto is its power in selecting allowed/disallowed moves in the movepool stage, and that is a small issue compared to the rest of the TLT model, which has otherwise shown worth.

The restraint on what abilities are suggested works very well for optics; staying with those that are competitive and real allows those unfamiliar with CAP to quickly understand what it is about and not dismiss it as, in Doug's terms, a fanboy-ish project. I'd extend the restriction on custom moves as well, since that's a black sheep.

Flavor steps, hmm. It went mostly well within CAP; the absence of subjectivity is nice. The competitive steps after art has been chosen, however, causes flavor to get mingled with them. Malaconda's movepool stage quashed pure flavoring reasoning--there was a distinct absence of Coil comments, I've noticed. Glare was controversial, though there was competitive reasoning behind the move's tantalizing flavor. I am concerned about an imbalance of flavor-to-competitiveness ratio in that portion, though. The tertiary ability poll had what appeared to be a similar "slate everything" approach to it, even though there were many arguments against and few for certain items on the slate. I suppose that poll is purely flavor, now that it is after the start of the playtest.
 

paintseagull

pink wingull
is a Top Artistis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Additionally, the decision to push it and other flavor steps back to during the playtest was a great move, imo, and I would like to propose that we just make that officially our process going forward.
Oh, I meant to bring this up in my post as well. I don't think this is a good idea. It has the potential to let us cheat a little bit. Suppose we decide to choose another ability with downsides, like we did in Aurumoth. The choice of a flavour ability then becomes crucial if we want to those downsides to be a part of our concept. In order to properly gauge our success, players must be able to use any ability that we choose, including flavour abilities that may provide a work around to the downsides if not chosen carefully. Furthermore, the inability to choose a legal ability during playtest, no matter how useless or bad it may be, feels very incomplete to me. For this reason I do not think we should permanently move the flavour ability discussion to after or during the playtest.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Alternatively, paint, we can make a list of abilities that have clear +/- to them and if one of those abilities is chosen as the primary, we could mandate a second ability, perhaps, by just not slating No Ability. If Ineffective Ability wins the secondary poll, we move right into picking the flavor ability after Art or something like that, so that the playtest has a tradeoff-less option.

I think we should do our best to maintain a constant structure within the framework we already have and not panic about exceptions. If Weak Armor were to win again and we wanted to simply examine that tradeoff, we can make it work with the simple modification of moving Flavor Ability to before the playtest IF AND ONLY IF an ability off of a predetermined list is chosen as the only competitive ability.
 

Nyktos

Custom Loser Title
Topic Leadership - This went well. As jas pointed out, there are certain details that were missed the first time and need to be hammered out, but overall the TLT system was definitely a success.

Recruiting - Yeah, as others have said, we don't really have any more data now than we did at the beginning of the CAP, since the panel didn't actually happen. I'd be interested to know what actually happened that caused it to fall through. If it was because nobody on the OU side volunteered for it, that could be seen as a strike against the idea and a sign that CAP still needs to work on its public relations. Since I wasn't around last PR session, I suppose I should mention that I do think the idea is a good one, in theory.

Abilities - Proposals 1 and 2 were good changes and I think they positively impacted Malaconda. Proposal 2 in particular definitely felt like a good compromise between choosing abilities based on stats and the reverse. Proposal 3 didn't significantly impact Malaconda, or any other recent CAP for that matter since as far as I know serious consideration hasn't been given to a custom ability in a long time. Of course, it was simply codifying an existing unwritten rule so I don't think there was any feeling that it needed to be "put to the test" anyway.

Proposal 4, I'm not as sure about. While I'm not calling for the banlist to be scrapped, it didn't really feel like it was incredibly helpful. For one thing, a lot of people didn't seem to read it and proposed abilities from it anyway, which is to be expected I suppose but limits its usefulness. However, what makes me think it's not really necessary is the fact that Korski "banned" a number of abilities which aren't on the list from the secondary ability discussion (namely the losing abilities from the primary ability discussion). This makes me wonder if simply relying on the Abilities Leader to steer discussion away from abilities which are blatantly not reasonable choices isn't enough on its own without really needing a banlist. That said, I certainly don't think it harmed the process, so I don't see any particular reason to dispense with it after only one CAP of having it around.

Finally, Proposal 5 was good: it made competitive and flavour abilities feel as separate as they really should be. I agree with paintseagull, however, that doing the flavour ability discussion and poll during the playtest felt odd. I know people want to get to the playtest as fast as possible once all competitive stages are done, but I feel like things which are meant to be implemented on the simulator, even if they're largely irrelevant, should be decided on before the Pokémon is actually put on the simulator. All in all it's not a major concern; certainly if the competitive ability has a downside we need to decide on whether or not to have a flavour ability before we can put it on the sim (and if we do decide it has one, we need to actually pick one to properly implement it) but otherwise it's just a minor aesthetic thing that bothers me. I have no problem with doing Pokédex entries during the playtest, anyway.

Flavour Steps - Slating everything made for a lot less sadness in flavour threads than in previous CAPs...except when it came from accidentally breaking the rule on final submissions. That rule, if it's not removed entirely, needs to be made more prominent in the OPs (like, 72-point font prominent). It might still be okay to disallow early final subs, but disqualifying the people who did so in error seemed unnecessarily draconian. Overall I think the stricter guidelines for submissions were not really problematic, but I'm not sure if they really served their purpose of weeding out "lazy" subs: for the most part it seemed that people were willing to put in the effort. The one exception is IPA, which just ended up being really awkward. I know that I personally did the IPA for five or six of the submissions that made the poll because the people who came up with them just couldn't figure it out. (Though I do think that requiring an "informal" pronunciation key is good simply because it's kinda important to be able to pronounce the name.)

Ability Banlist - As I said above, I have a bit of doubt about whether having a banlist at all is really necessary, but certainly taking it as a given that we have one, I don't think the one we picked is bad at all. It may be worth making a few modifications assuming we do keep it: in particular, Flower Gift should probably be secondary-banned because it has massive effects on the significance of stats. (Just compare the Attack stats people were proposing for use with it to the ones that were actually slated.) The same may also apply to Chlorophyll (and by extension the other speed-boosting weather abilities).
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Flavor Steps:

Really hate the "don't post final submission before a mod allows it" rule. I will tell you this after the fact, but if I wanted to be a complete hardass mod about it I would have had to disqualify myself and 5 other long time contributors from name submissions because there's absolutely no attention called to that rule at all. It's not bolded, it's not italicized, and truly I didn't know we passed it because I thought making people just through hoops for the IPA pronunciation was sufficient to keep drive-by posting minimized.

What that rule does is basically make a 24 hour window to make your submission legal and god help you if you're in a different time zone then the mod who posted the final submission notification. Essentially if you have a single night where you can't get on Smogon for an irl reason, you lose your chance to final sub because you're disqualified if you FS before the mod allows it, and you've got 8 total reasonable waking hours to monitor the thread and finalize. Terrible, terrible rule that does nothing but make more work for mods and less access for contributors.
Seconding this. I might be biased here as I got disqualified for it, but I didn't even realize that we were passing this at any point in time.

I would like to question why this was even made a thing though. Reading over the majority of the posts that were made in flavor steps, it seems mostly everyone was on board for Birkal's proposal and usage of punctuation guides - DougJustDoug's proposal got some support, but no real discussion, with Birkal's proposal dominating discussion. Birkal's discussion also saw more support. While I understand that ultimately this is far from a democracy, it seems questionable to force it through when no real discussion was made upon it. In fact, by and far, Birkal's proposal had more support, yet for some reason instead DougJustDoug's conclusion combined the two.

Support for Doug's porposal:
Bull of Heaven, although can't find his post


I am in full agreement with DougJustDoug's most recent proposal. Furthermore, I agree with Doug's "name rules" listed in this post. I think that by having very specific rules and the added obstacle of pronunciation, we'll be addressing our desire to both improve the quality and diminish the size of Name Submissions.
While I understand that is the goal, I think that if we went with the other rules for name submissions that Doug suggested earlier in this thread that we will already achieve this goal. Pronunciations are a much more controversial requirement to include and in my mind will likely be unnecessary to achive the desired result with other rules in place. Personally, I would suggest not including it and going with the other rules. If the number of submissions still proves to be a problem, then we can always revisit this issue after CAP5. However, unless it is proven that it is really necessary, I would much rather prefer to stay away from requiring something like this.
I'm in favour of the ruleset Doug posted regarding Names. He thought of so many contigency cases and made it so awesomely long, I've nothing to add but my humble support.

As regards the Flavor Panel, it sounds like a good idea to me. As regards counting the proposed slates - what if the topic is locked after Final Submissions are completed and Panelists just PM their chosen slates picked as best as they can make them, all slates going to one moderator who posts the poll as soon as these are tallied up? It might be a hidden exchange yes, but we're already trying to keep out the masses from this one so why not go all the way? And without seeing the PMs of other members as to what they're voting on, it's harder to game the slate at all, isn't it (assuming the panelists keep a lid on their choices across all other channels, of course).




Support for IPA/Birkal's proposal:

I agree with Birkal's proposal and all the rules therein.

I agree that we should require pronunciation guidelines, because even though we don't get them in the game, the game developers must have them behind the scenes, so why shouldn't we? I'm sure many name submitters throw words together without putting thought into how it sounds, and this would force them to consider that.

I don't think we need to include height/weight in either names or dex entries. If it had to go into any flavour step, it should be art. I am fine with the TL continuing to decide these.
I totally support the inclusion of pronunciation either IPA or recorded.
I don't see any reason not to include pronunciations in the first place. I mean if you don't even know how a name's said why are you submitting it? That's like me submitting a custom-made gun to a guns show without even knowing how to say its name. Or a custom-made car to a car show. It's just one of those things that will not only cut down on submissions but also has no real reason not to be a requirement.
Birkal's proposal is justified, it makes all sorts of sense to help with cutting down on people lashing out (poor bmb).

I don't agree on the idea of having specific pronunciations for Pokémon on CAP. Part of the joy of Pokémon is its uniqueness, which I think is important even to those just messing around on CAP, whether they know it or not. Different pronunciations are similar to different dialects, which I believe is another level of individuality.

The art step definitely needs to be the one deciding upon the weight/height. Without it, spriters may have to deal with a Pokémon an artist intended to be as big as Wailord becoming Joltik sized, or vice versa.

If I sorted someone into the wrong category, let me know, but I'm failing to see how the conclusion can claim that a 'community' consensus was reached about combining the two proposals when birkal's proposal had far more support. At the very least, can we get a heads up in the future when the conclusion includes things that didn't have a majority backing them?



Edit: Upon reflection, it occurs to me I may have said a lot of this irrationally. As I'm pretty sure I have bias on this issue, consider this post null and void due to personal bias (Not going to delete it because otherwise bull's post will look strange, and I don't believe in deleting posts on PRC threads).
 

Bull of Heaven

Guest
nyttyn: I did actually make a later post to support Doug's proposed rules. For what it's worth, I also changed my mind about requiring a simple pronunciation guide, though I was (and am) consistently against requiring IPA. That said, I don't particularly care one way or the other about the time restrictions on final submissions, so I won't object to whatever you guys decide to do with that.

I also want to second paintseagull about the flavour ability, though I'll admit up front that it's largely a matter of personal taste. If it were up to me, Pokedex entries would be done before the playtest as well, because it rubs me the wrong way to put a "final product" thread up before everything has actually been done. Of course I know I won't get my way on that. I think it's fair to say, though, that there's a difference between steps that will or won't appear on the server, and anything that goes on the server should be done before the playtest begins. I know a flavour ability is basically irrelevant to the goals of the project, but it looks weird to put an incomplete creation on the server. Maybe it's the smallest of possible optics problems, but I don't see any harm in eliminating it.
 
Topic Leadership: I concur with the rest of the TLT that there was some amount of awkwardness in the Stat Limit and Movepool Limit stages. I like the idea of move categories because I've felt for a while that move categories relative to the Pokemon we're making should be completely straightforward for the vast majority of moves, especially attacking moves. For stat limits, perhaps the most straightforward power is for the TL to be able to change one Stat Rating category.

Recruiting: I'm going to be the cynical guy here. I believe that the CAP community is suffering from a Tinkerbell effect. There's a lack of prominent OU players in CAP precisely because of the belief that there's a lack of prominent OU players in CAP. There's another side to this, though. A lot of hardcore OU players will insist on tournament experience. So some people will never really "count", even though they clearly know their stuff through stuff like laddering and C&C participation. So I think that we should focus more on the smaller optics issues.

Abilities: The ability stages went really smoothly. As Korski said, it seemed almost as though the discussions didn't even need a leader. I get jas61292's complaint about the provisional slate, though.

Flavor Steps: The IPA requirement was too strong. We still should require an unambiguous pronunciation on each submission, but anything should suffice here as long as it really is unambiguous. The restriction of final subs to the last 24 hours was awkward, but I'm not sure of what could be done as an alternative.

Ability Banlist: The ability banlists were helpful mostly for existing. Their mandated existence may not matter much to Ability Leaders who would make banlists on their own accord, but we should remember that banlists were made in the past and then the practice just dropped off. Although I contested some of the inclusions last time, I don't particularly care about changing the banlists now. I think we can all agree that the banlists improved the quality of the discussions.
 

DougJustDoug

Knows the great enthusiasms
is a Site Content Manageris a Top Artistis a Programmeris a Forum Moderatoris a Top CAP Contributoris a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
Moderator
Topic Leadership
Overall this was a smashing success, IMO. I really liked how each TLT member brought their own personality to each step. I thought each member of the TLT acted responsibly and understood the importance of this first run with the TLT model. I am a little concerned about how this model will work in the future, and I think we need to consider how to ensure the process is repeatable.

Right now, we rely on each member of the TLT to walk a thin line in terms of the energy and personality they bring to their part of the project.
If a section leader goes overboard in terms of energy and personality, the project could suffer if the leader tries to make their step the most amazing, distinctive, exciting, and memorable step of the project. They might try to one-up the other steps or leaders, or possibly try to introduce quirky nuances and process alterations simply to get attention or to be different.

If a section leader is undermotivated and feels like a small unimportant cog in a big TLT machine, the project could suffer if the TLT just "phones it in" when leading their step.​

Neither of these two extremes occurred on any steps of CAP 5, and I think our TLT was outstanding. I do not think we should put any more formal rules or policy in place to attempt to guarantee successful TLT leadership. I think we (the PRC and CAP veterans in general) just need to be cognizant of the issue and we should work "socially" to establish traditions and culture around the TLT where we encourage and celebrate TLT members that successfully navigate the "thin line" I mention above. If we emphasize good teamwork with the TLT and follow the great example set by the CAP 5 TLT, I think we'll be fine.

We definitely should establish clearer standards for how the Topic Leader can exercise +1/-1 power in each competitive step. The general concept is sound, but almost every competitive step has special circumstances that makes it unclear how to effectively implement +1/-1 within the spirit of the policy. I think we should make a separate PR thread and hammer this out. In the PR OP, just list every competitive step, and propose how +1/-1 will work for that step. Then we can discuss the merits of each and refine a specific set of guidelines.


Recruiting
This never got off the ground, mostly because no one took the reins of making it happen. I still think it is a good idea, but like all things in CAP, it needs a motivated organizer/leader if it is going to work. We didn't really put anyone specific in charge of this at the conclusion of the PR thread, and we just kinda tossed it on "the mods" to figure it all out. We have made some recent changes to the mod team, so perhaps this is something that may get traction on the next CAP.

Abilities
CAP 5 ability threads were much improved over previous projects. The First Ability process worked great, IMO. The ban lists were a big help, mainly because of the tone they set, and less about the actual abilities listed as banned. I think having a overt list that signaled to everyone that "We are not going to talk about every ability in the game" was a huge focusing influence on the discussion. The CAP 5 concept and concept interpretation considerably narrowed the field of legit abilities to sun-boosted abilities and a few others. So we'll see on the next project if the threads remained focused on a concept with a broader set of viable abilities.

I still think the Second Ability discussion needs further policy improvement, but I'm not sure what to suggest. The second ability thread just doesn't have enough substance to be a significant engaging discussion. All the important ideas and impacts related to abilities are introduced and dissected in the first ability thread. When the second ability rolls around, the field of abilities is very narrow and the energy level of discussion participants wanes considerably compared to the first thread. There ARE new things to discuss, so I'm not saying the thread is inherently worthless. But I wish there was some way to streamline the step and acknowledge the smaller scope of that part of the process.


Flavor Steps
I think the changes to the flavor steps were successful overall. Removing subjective slating was a very good thing.

I don't understand the PRC fuss over IPA requirements. There were almost no submissions disqualified due to IPA requirements, and the community at large didn't say much at all about it in general. Perhaps there was a bigger furor than I noticed. I thought the IPA requirement added a nice bit of formality to the name submissions, and didn't require too much additional work by the submitters.

As for mods explicitly posting when final submissions are allowed, I can understand criticism that it forced people to be available to post during a fairly small time window if they wanted to make a submission. If the time window was too small last time, then we can easily just extend how long we leave the thread open for final subs.

The point of explicitly opening the thread for submissions was to encourage name submitters to actively read and monitor the thread, and not just post a final submission without seeing what else has been submitted, commenting on other names, or even reading the rules. Obviously the explicit submission rule does not ensure every submitter is an active participant in the thread. If a person wants to throw a single post out there and simply "get their name in the poll", with as little time and effort as possible on their part -- I'm not terribly interested in catering to those people. Yes, perhaps there are some amazing name submissions that we are missing out on with these kinds of rules. But the point of the name thread and every other thread in CAP is not about ensuring we get the best submissions -- it's about getting active community participation. I personally would rather have a few diehard naming geeks actively collaborating in the name thread, instead of getting a bunch of drive-by submissions from people with little time or desire to actually participate in that part of the process.

If we didn't allow enough time for name submissions in CAP 5, then we can extend the time. But from what I saw, we got a fuckton of legal submissions, so I'm not seeing why it was a big problem.

In general, I think the new naming rules were successful. They imposed some hurdles that forced name submitters to put a little work into their submissions, and hopefully pay attention to the thread. I was the mod who put together the name poll, and I was ASTOUNDED by how FEW submissions were actually disqualified. So I'm a little confused by complaints that the rules were overly burdensome.
 

paintseagull

pink wingull
is a Top Artistis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Leadership -- Having a PR thread for deciding on TL +1/-1 powers more explicitly is a good idea. It is a bit overcomplicated for this thread.

Recruiting -- I don't feel I'm a good mod for recruiting, so I won't volunteer myself for that duty.

Abilities -- I'd like to hear more opinions on whether or not should put the flavour ability back to before the playtest. Generally I think we should let new rules have some breathing room before we attack them with changes but I am pretty weary of this one and it is a minor change, really. srk, I agree that the situation I'm talking about is fairly exceptional but I think adding more rules just overcomplicates things. I don't think having flavour ability before the playtest delays the playtest significantly, especially with our lengthy ability banlist by the time we get to that stage. Like Nyktos, I think having an incomplete server implementation of our CAP for the playtest feels a bit wrong and could be potentially bad for optics.

Flavour -- My concern is not that we are not missing out on submissions but more so that submitters are feeling excluded unfairly. Personally I am fine with a compromise between Doug's concern about drive-by submitters and my concern about unfair exclusion and overcomplicated moderating. Shall we decide on a time frame that would be appropriate for submissions to be open? Somewhere between 36 or 48 hours should cover everyone in terms of availability and time zones.

-- Doug, since you not only didn't complain, but called the flavour changes a success, I assume that slating all legal name submissions was not terribly traumatising and that we don't need to reconsider that rule :)
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
is a Top Artistis a Top CAP Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Hello. I recently posted a Leave of Absence in Inside Scoop; I have an incredibly busy summer coming up and haven't had much time to process this thread. I am terribly sorry for the poor timing on my part. I'd like to wrap up this thread in 72 hours. I'll provide a list of changes that I'd like to push through as a result of this thread and the conversations we've had already.

The next generation of Pokemon is almost upon us. As a result, I am quite antsy to get started on CAP 6 so that we can finish well before XY begins. Remember, the month or so before will likely be filled with lots of hype for the new generation, so the sooner we can get started on our next CAP, the better. As a result, unless there are any major PR issues that are essential to discuss immediately, I'd like to start CAP 6 at the conclusion of this thread. I know that there are art rules we need to talk about. I am aware that many of our flavor steps and ability banlists could use some tweaking. While these things are all important, I feel that our current structure is good enough to support at least one more CAP. At the start of Generation 6, we will have plenty of time to work on policy and updating the CAP website. But what I'm proposing here is that we get started on CAP 6 immediately and delve into PRC afterwards. If there is an issue that you feel is crucial to discuss, send me a private message and the CAP moderation team will consider it.

That being said, here are the tweaks that, if unopposed, will be made to the current process. I've gathered these points from the above conversation. They are:

I will lead the recruiting process for CAP 6. The playtest this time around hit squarely on my finals week; I barely had a chance to get on the ladder myself. I will have more time available to support and handle the recruiting changes we discussed in the past PR thread.

We will not have a provisional slate for Abilities. jas61292 brought up why this hurts us in the long run in his post, and I have the feeling that most of us agree with him. The Ability Leader should direct the conversation, yes, but it seems wise that we lay off on continuously projecting a slate during this stage.

No more IPA. I am of the opinion that it is a good addition to the process (read Doug's post), but I'm not willing to have bad blood among PRC members for something so insignificant. If you guys really want it gone, let's do away with it.

All flavor steps will be pushed until after the inaugural battle. jas is right; this is something that worked extremely well. Let's codify it.​

I'm sure that I've missed other points that were brought up in this thread. Let me know what I've forgotten. If it's a minor tweak that could significantly improve the process, then let's do it. If not, I'd recommend we wait until after CAP 6 to address it fully. Again, if we find that there is more to discuss here, I will push back the deadline that I set above. But if we are all in agreement here, let's move ahead with the above tweaks and get started on CAP 6.
 

Nyktos

Custom Loser Title
The one thing that I think might be pressing enough to try and address now would be the issue of +1/-1 in non-voting stages. That said, a discussion of that could easily drag out for a long time and I do agree that starting CAP 6 as soon as possible would be ideal. I think that if someone can come up with (ideally, already has come up with) a good proposal that we can discuss it would be worth doing that, but if we'd be "starting from scratch" it's probably better to wait until the next PRC session.

As for Birkal's proposed changes, I fully agree with all of them but the last and I don't care enough about that one to object.
 

jas61292

used substitute
is a Community Contributoris a Top CAP Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Yeah, I'm gonna have to say that, as much as I want to get right into the next CAP, starting it without a PR on TL powers would be rushing it. I already talked about it in my first post, but as TL that was the one thing that really was confusing for me. We were lucky that there weren't really differences of opinions in non-slating stages between me and the TLT, but that is not something we should be counting on. Believe me, I certainly thought about all the options I had when we were at those stages, and had there been a case where I had not agreed with the TLT, it could have been disastrous. It is very important to formalize TL abilities before we move forward. What Doug said here I think is how we need to go about things:
DougJustDoug said:
I think we should make a separate PR thread and hammer this out. In the PR OP, just list every competitive step, and propose how +1/-1 will work for that step. Then we can discuss the merits of each and refine a specific set of guidelines.
I don't think anything else really needs to be looked at in its own thread, so I am fine with all of the other conclusions. We just need to hammer this one thing out.
 

paintseagull

pink wingull
is a Top Artistis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
We will be doing an art PR thread. Expect it tomorrow morning! I hope to come to some conclusions on it as promptly as possible, so hopefully this will not delay the start of CAP6 significantly.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
is a Top Artistis a Top CAP Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
I'm fine with jas61292 and Doug's proposal to have another PR on hammering down the role of the TL and TLT during non-slating discussions and events. jas, if you'd like to start that PR thread, please do so whenever you have time. You can likely copy and paste much of what you've written in this thread into that one. If not, I can handle it tomorrow. Either way, it shouldn't be too long of a thread; I think we already have a good solution in the works, but making it final would be ideal.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
is a Top Artistis a Top CAP Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
We now have three new PR threads on Campaigning in Polls (led by paintseagull), Topic Leadership Powers (led by jas61292), and Build Triangle (led by DougJustDoug). The points brought up here will be implemented if there are no objections within 24 hours. Again, if you'd like that deadline extended, send me a message. Otherwise, I believe we've had enough time to process this that we can move along in this PR cycle.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
is a Top Artistis a Top CAP Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
This thread has served its purpose. The following actions will guide us as we move forward in the CAP Process:

I will lead the recruiting process for CAP 6. The playtest this time around hit squarely on my finals week; I barely had a chance to get on the ladder myself. I will have more time available to support and handle the recruiting changes we discussed in the past PR thread.

We will not have a provisional slate for Abilities. jas61292 brought up why this hurts us in the long run in his post, and I have the feeling that most of us agree with him. The Ability Leader should direct the conversation, yes, but it seems wise that we lay off on continuously projecting a slate during this stage.

No more IPA. I am of the opinion that it is a good addition to the process (read Doug's post), but I'm not willing to have bad blood among PRC members for something so insignificant. If you guys really want it gone, let's do away with it.

All flavor steps will be pushed until after the inaugural battle. jas is right; this is something that worked extremely well. Let's codify it.​
Thanks for participating!
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top