We should incentivize forum participation.

[MikeDawg]

idk where to put this since I don't have a badge anymore, but this seems fine.

People don't like putting effort into things unrewarded. Lots of the more interesting threads that require more than 3 minutes of typing get 0 participation. Many other ones end up with only new & inexperienced users contributing, which is better than nothing, but often not particularly informative.

if I remember correctly, some part of smogon (uu?) did this to good effect a few years ago, so it's not unprecedented. Was something like "winning the creative set thread one week gets u 10 points, research thread gets u 20 points, etc", then you could redeem those points for cute shit like gif avatars, custom titles, ladybug badge, etc.

 

[HailFall]

Agreed. I should be able to get badged for making my unfunny shitposts on firebot

 

[OLD GREGG (im back baby)]

The best forum mods are always doing the work out of love for their craft and not for accolades. Don't ask what Smogon can do for you ask what you can do for Smogon. These people who set time aside to truly pursue their favorite hobbies out of love for the game are worthy of praise for sure. I've grown less and less fond of the game of pokemon over the years but I respect those who have the determination to master a game that requires, let's be honest, a good deal of luck at certain times. Now, I am aware that there are people who will abuse whatever bit of power they can achieve but those people shouldn't cancel out all the ones who actually do want to run a decent forum, here.

 

[kilometerman]

Did anyone else wish blunder would've teared more into the "does it for free" tryhard smogonauth™ in his video

 

[Rugi]

 

[AM]

This happened at the start of the generation and never really fixed itself together and more than likely won't. Part of it is the emphasis on Smogon Tour Culture for the past years swallowing the focus away from anything not related to that (other factors to like unbalanced tiers but that's a bit more subjective). More rewards there now that people feel like mean something these days than badges where the reward is the E-Version of a pat on the back. The growth in SM is borderline absent in terms of forum participation and that was when it was the next hot thing.

Once you've come to the actual realization, not the one people throw casually as a joke, that Pokemon isn't an actually enjoyable game but you might stick around to converse with some people in discord, there ends up being no point in contributing. You can go on a big tour forum now and see the people who are just hanging on by a thread to get a trophy or some sort of allegiance to pals over the years.

Edit: Oh and about the UU point you mentioned, that was in part with UU having a tight knit community and good leadership that was engaged with said community and tier on a consistent basis, and mostly importantly good tier balancing. That was before the big tour transistion and Gen 7 that Smogon emphasizes now, so yeah.

 

[dice]

wow ppl dont wanna do unpaid labor im shocked

 

[Ninahaza]

I agree old greg, and i also agree nixhex, and i am also banned in places for reasons never given to me.
This is why i troll and just have fun here despite once being a serious contributer. I have a real job, but i also love this place enough to return once or (rarely) twice a year
lets all just be chill. Now excuse me while i go check out the photo album.

smogon university with more wemens problems lol (ps someone should really teach a course here about women since everyone seems to be an expert on womenology)

 

[OLD GREGG (im back baby)]

I'm not trying to be mean. I really think people are confusing a hobby with a career. People who turn their hobbies into their careers do it 9/10 times out of a love for the hobby. If you think this is a career choice then you better be ready to be a starving artist.

 

[Ninahaza]

oh smogon was never a career, it has always been a passion of love and fun

its just that now i have a different kind of fun

 

[Nix_Hex]

OLD GREGG (im back baby)

A) let's not get into semantics. My current job is not "labor" in the lumberjack way, but it sure as hell is mentally taxing which translates to physical exhaustion.
B) My smogon contributions weren't comparable to either, hence why I said I didn't expect a check from it. If I had received one though, I probably would have stayed with it for a while due to flexibility and working from home just to write stupid articles for a pocket monster site. That was my point.
C) You said to get a real job. I do now and it pays well and is fulfilling blah blah. I don't think dice would disagree with that notion either. Participation on a Pokemon site is not lumberjack labor, but getting noticed for anything on this site outside of shitposting in Firebot is harder than you might realize. I spent months researching info that ultimately became outdated when people with more knowledge of the inner workings of the Gamecube cracked it open. I GP'd several full length analyses and articles before ss considered so much as a ladybug. Getting past driver level on PS took several months of policing the Lobby which is thankless work. However, Pokemon articles don't pay the bills (at least not my bills), so even though I loved doing it, I eventually put it aside. No matter what incentives Smogon could ever offer me to post on the forums, my IRL work is far more important.

One last note: my ability to proofread kept me busy during a lull on my main project at work that was completely out of my control. It turns out that technical writing isn't all that different than Pokemon articles, just requires a different knowledge base.

 

[OLD GREGG (im back baby)]

OLD GREGG (im back baby)

A) let's not get into semantics. My current job is not "labor" in the lumberjack way, but it sure as hell is mentally taxing which translates to physical exhaustion.
B) My smogon contributions weren't comparable to either, hence why I said I didn't expect a check from it. If I had received one though, I probably would have stayed with it for a while due to flexibility and working from home just to write stupid articles for a pocket monster site. That was my point.
C) You said to get a real job. I do now and it pays well and is fulfilling blah blah. I don't think dice would disagree with that notion either. Participation on a Pokemon site is not lumberjack labor, but getting noticed for anything on this site outside of shitposting in Firebot is harder than you might realize. I spent months researching info that ultimately became outdated when people with more knowledge of the inner workings of the Gamecube cracked it open. I GP'd several full length analyses and articles before ss considered so much as a ladybug. Getting past driver level on PS took several months of policing the Lobby which is thankless work. However, Pokemon articles don't pay the bills (at least not my bills), so even though I loved doing it, I eventually put it aside. No matter what incentives Smogon could ever offer me to post on the forums, my IRL work is far more important.

One last note: my ability to proofread kept me busy during a lull on my main project at work that was completely out of my control. It turns out that technical writing isn't all that different than Pokemon articles, just requires a different knowledge base.

Hey Nixhex. I'm not trying to belittle you, I'm not trying to discredit any hard work you did either. You don't have to be a lumberjack to have a taxing job but comparing mental to physical labor is apples to oranges. One is without a doubt not like the other. I said for people who want real money to get a real job because that is the move, not waiting around hoping for things to get better. By getting a job you took the situation into your own hands and thats good shit buddy! Everyone on this thread should do that was all I was saying. And that maybe it's a little silly to compare what anyone does here to actual manual labor.

I'd imagine there are peoples here who do a lot more than just writing articles and have much more responsibility but at the same time I'd imagine nobody made them take any sort of position they didn't really want to begin with. I'm sorry if I offended anyones work ethic becuase that isn't my intention.

 

[Soul Fly]

 

[BKC]

tc is something you get for playing/helping shape the game we're here for so it's not quite the same

 

[Bedschibaer]

Then maybe let's just look at his postcount which includes many posts that have big amounts of time and effort behind them and that often seem like an excerpt of a humanities bachelor thesis with poor orthography. Dice's initial post is hypocritical at best when it comes from a person that actually devotes time into posts because of personal interest and passion for a topic. That is also why I think this whole debate about calling it labor and work and talking about a potential compensation for posts is nonsensical. This is an interest forum and posts are primarily made due to interest in the topic of choice which is competitive pokemon - something that we all have devoted depressing amounts of hours of our life to, let's be real here.

I feel like the "issue", if it even is one, is that a lot of the in-crowds shifted their interest to other platforms like smogtours, discord or into their private jerks. That just means that a lot of quality contributions by knowledgeable people do not get the exposure a forum post would get. A new and learning user won't be able to see potentially valuable input if it is buried in a private discord channel unlike a forum post with exposure and value for the entire community. I feel like the sentiment that we should encourage quality forum posts more is a very fair one because of long-term visibility. Doesn't mean we should encourage badgehunting, we should just encourage fruitful discussion on the forum rather than in private places.

 

[dice]

i don't think there's anything 'hypocritical' about a personal shift in consciousness. naturally i will have growth as a user & person over the course of my 7+ year pokemon tenure. i started on this website when i was a kid. to reach & suggest that all my positions must be congruent and harmonious within my entire time here is just a character assassination at best meant to derail the conversation. the majority of my posts for the last couple years have & always will be to tournament related things. that's cool & that's fine; i don't really need anyone to police my forum usage for an ad hominem.

more importantly, though, my comment was directed at the commodification of labor that in present in the current badge system. lots of people have gained critical awareness of how their efforts shouldn't line others' pockets. this is evident when more and more you see top players only participating in their certain sect of the website. the expansion of the forum has led to an increase in subcommunities and niche places; this is only natural, but it's not the only reason people have veered away from participating--badges have lost their luster.

i was leading my comment not to 'for fun' centers of discussion like cong or firebot, but how smogon's badge system fails to compensate anyone for their labor in curating quality discussion, creating analyses, and doing tedious GPing work. the website gains views/ads/$$$ from some people's work and words, and i believe they deserve to be given some kind of money for it-- even if it is just chump change. it would incentivize more quality content, and give users some kind of medal for participating that isn't a 12x12 pixel.

analyses, curating good discussion and threads, etc. are all key parts of 'forum participation' that will continue to deprecate if something isn't done. this is hardly egregious to suggest; le false outrage ecks dee

 

[HailFall]

PS and Smogon have their own expenses to pay for the domain, server, forum software, etc. I doubt the admins are getting much if any profit off of Smogon, and it's certainly not as much as they would have gotten by devoting the time they have put into the website into a real job.
Paying people for writing analyses would not be realistic.

 

[Arcticblast]

Once you've come to the actual realization, not the one people throw casually as a joke, that Pokemon isn't an actually enjoyable game but you might stick around to converse with some people in discord, there ends up being no point in contributing. You can go on a big tour forum now and see the people who are just hanging on by a thread to get a trophy or some sort of allegiance to pals over the years.

Speak for yourself, I’ve been here for the better part of ten years and I still enjoy playing Pokémon. I’m not good at it like I was in 2015, but damn if it isn’t a good time. I don’t really ladder any more, but that’s just because laddering itself is tedious and I don’t have quite the same drive that I used to - yet I still join a bunch of tours in Doubles. Compare this to my more recent hobby of TCG - I love going to league and playing cards with my friends, and I want to be good and do well, but you’d have to pay me to get me to spend an afternoon on TCGO.

Play Pokémon the way you can enjoy Pokémon. Don’t let someone else tell you what you have to do to have fun.

 

[MikeDawg]

Can I have a ladybug for kickstarting this stimulating discussion

 

[dice]

PS and Smogon have their own expenses to pay for the domain, server, forum software, etc. I doubt the admins are getting much if any profit off of Smogon, and it's certainly not as much as they would have gotten by devoting the time they have put into the website into a real job.
Paying people for writing analyses would not be realistic.

chaos and zarel make 6 digits, almost 7. let's not kid ourselves here lolllllllllllllllllllll this is certainly not the issue : )

 

[sandshrewz]

Hello friends. No idea what directon this thread is heading since there's like multiple topics being discussed but don't mind if I just share my own experience :)

Don't want to delve too much on the topic of incentivising participation, but I will say that all depends on the situation it's being used for. I also don't think monetary incentives should ever be a thing. For me and many, doing Smogon things is just a hobby. Sure there's contributions being made with rewards in badges but I think that is suffice imo.

Personally I gained a lot, like honestly, during my active time here. Plenty of self taught hard skills throughout the time have come in handy for me in both academic and work pursuits lol, which was rather unexpected too. Seriously I never thought all the random skills I picked up would be that live savingly useful. And on the softer sides, getting to interact and learn from members here was also an important experience that shaped me.

I've now moved on an occasionally still contribute to another different scene. But I will always be thankful for the experience I've had, made possible by the site and its members because it has moulded me in ways I never imagined. So while I think I've contributed to the site in some ways, I've also taken back in many others.

Find your own incentive and whatever is worth your time here. What I mentioned might not be applicable for everyone, but I hope it provides some perspective.

So yea the experience itself was the best incentive ever had.

 

[Soul Fly]

tc is something you get for playing/helping shape the game we're here for so it's not quite the same

well it's still contributing time and effort to shape the metagame which fundamentally serves as fuel for this entire enterprise. that's the definition of labour. and it's unpaid. it might be more glamorous and "relevant" than analysis writing, but it's of the same order, if not more important. let's not kid ourselves with idle distinctions.

 

[Rewer]

but tc is very different from other badges in the sense that your motivation in getting it isnt ' to contribute to smogon' but 'to play the game the way i want to'. it doesnt make sense to call someone a hypocrite for criticizing the badge system (and not even criticizing the people that want to do such labor so wheres any hypocrisy in the first place) just because at some point he wanted to shape the game he plays.

 

[Soul Fly]

That's understandable. But it's not a question of motivation but adhering to it a superior moral position than other kinds of contributions. You might like doing it for your own reasons, but that doesn't change the face that the website profits off of your effort. Somogon's community run tiering system gives it its wide credibility and is the reason why all of you are here, and not nugget bridge or serebii. I'm not complaining against it. Ideally everything should be as popular and desirable as winning trophies and doing tc work. But for this conversation to happen apples need to be called apples otherwise we go round in circles.

 

[dice]

lots of us are implicated, including myself!!! this has been established and is not fruitful to pursue.