I haven't used the workshop so my expectations of what it should do or how it should work are null when pondering ideas of how to fix it. I'd like to think that works as 'a pair of fresh eyes'. I've skimmed through it few times and have a vague internal understanding of how it worked but nothing too concrete when initially discussing how to possibly salvage the 'concept workshop' model. Cretacerus brought the topic up in a casual discussion on PS and from that discussion I feel he explained it to me well. Unfortunately, in his explanation as a casual user I could see some glaring problems with the process that would discourage people from wanting to put the effort into a concept that would even be considered as a worthwhile idea for the concept workshop. A lot of my realizations are going to sound oddly familiar as coincidentally, Doug has come to a similar conclusion to myself. I agree with everything Doug had to say with the exception of dismantling the workshop concept subforum. And I have other, further expanding ideas as well.
Cretacerus said:
[09:12:34] Cretacerus: The idea of increasing the quality of the concepts may sounds great in theory, but just doesn't work if we don't get any submissions :/
[09:13:37] Cretacerus: In the past, people would prepare their concepts for months, even before the project began
[09:13:52] Cretacerus: because they were excited about the concept submission stage
[09:25:41] Cretacerus: Our expectations were that we retain the same number of submissions, but can sort the bad ones out and improve on the good ones
[09:26:49] Cretacerus: Many of the submissions in the respective threads are doubles from previous concepts
[09:27:06] Cretacerus: as you may know, there aren't that many new ones to begin with
Is less more?
My thing is from the basic premise is I ask myself this: Is less less or is less more? Are we looking at it from the perspective of sheer volume? Then the concept of a concept workshop probably isn't going to work considering the resources it requires. Are we looking at it in terms of quality control? If so, the concept workshop is essential. The fact is that having less concepts means we're going to be more focused when it comes time to discuss concepts than if we have double or triple the minimal amount. That isn't even getting to the issue of TLs and the concept workshop which I will address later on. If enthusiasm is waning, that's not inherently a bad thing. Quality control means there are going to be less submissions; Not only less submissions, but less approved submissions. And if the premise of the concept workshop is to have quality concepts, then you are going to have fewer concepts. But by the same token, they're going to be of a much more consistent level of quality.
Unrealistic Expectations
What are we really expecting of newcomers and the concepts we're looking to use for future CAP projects? Creatacerus noted that expectations may have been getting the same number of submissions as the traditional concept submission phase of CAP project, but then being able to sort the 'bad' and 'good' ones. This is UNREALISTIC. How can you honestly expect to get the same number of submissions in what is a free-for-all with minimal rules when you shift that model to one more inclined to a bunch of red tape and rules? It's flat out unrealistic, and with those kind of expectations I can see how many would consider the concept workshop past its due date. We need to reign in our expectations with what should be expected so we're not stymieing the flow of potential concepts from coming in.
Reducing Stigma for Better Concepts
There are two more issues Creatacerus brought up that I think are truly valid points: the aforementioned duplicate concepts that are posted ad nauseum because they never get picked, leaving the idea well dry after they're proposed; and the fact that putting in all your effort into creating a great concept isn't necessarily rewarded with it being slated for a future CAP project.
So let's start with duplicate concepts. There are two big points here that I think can really help us understand how to correct the workshop model to a manner that more effectively welcomes people to propose concepts. One: There is only a finite number of concepts to work with while people still have a sitgma with repeating an idea. Two: People want to create the most original idea which often leads them astray.
QueenOfLuvdiscs said:
One of the reasons I think we're getting less optimal submissions is because there's only so much you can do before you start repeating old concepts or end up with something incredibly niche. We're at 21 now, eventually we're gonna have to bring up something, not exactly the same as a previous concept, but make take some submissions that have similarities to older ones.
This is a quote from 'part 1' of this discussion which sort of went under the radar but I feel really hits the head on the nail in its brevity. The world of competitive Pokemon is vast and yet by the same token it's very shallow. When you boil down Pokemon to their essentials you're left with only a handful of archetypes that every idea stems from, often duplicating a process with a few tweaks that end up creating a vastly different Pokemon in comparison. For some reason however, there is a stigma around the notion that if we've done a concept it would be bad to do it again; that it would just be a carbon copy and we wouldn't learn anything from it - that it would have less or no value. And so we shy away from doing something that worked because we assume doing it again is bad.
This leads us to the second point, where we believe doing things over and over again automatically lead to the same conclusion/won't be fun and we need to come up with this great new idea. This logic leads us to the fringes of Pokemon obscurity picking out niche moves or concepts that don't see much debate and it gets proclaimed a great new concept. Except it isn't. The concept is in reality often subpar because in trying so hard to find something new it ends up being bad. Or worse yet, people are left scratching their head. They can't think of anything new and we're left with nothing. Sound familiar? It's the situation we're in now. We need to correct this stigma just as we need to correct the stigma in the CAP project. It leaves me wondering if these issues correlate and maybe there's a deeper systemic problem with the people instead of the institutions, as seemingly we're dealing with two related issues that have the same core problem.
Effort Should Equal Reward
And last but not least, the effort =/= reward problem. Again there are two points I'd like to bring up: one: The amount of red tape in response to a concept and two: The TL's involvement with slating and how the concept workshop replaces that.
In regards to how the concept workshop currently works, it is obviously too imbalanced and too restricting of concept submissions. This once again harkens back to our expectations and how unrealistic they are. Too much time is spent analyzing, reviewing, and most of all QC'ing them before they even get approved for discussion. It's a mess! If say, a quality concept takes two hours of research and an hour writing it up so that it's persuasive and articulate, it shouldn't take months in response to only have that idea be denied. It's so discouraging. It's ineffective. It needs to be changed. QC'ing a concept should be much simpler and much faster.
But for the sake of argument say you have put in a lot of hard work and after a month your idea finally gets approved, everyone likes it and you did a good job. So what? It's not guaranteed anything. As of CAP20 only, the TL picked the slate. That means if the TL doesn't personally like your idea, tough luck. Your hard work isn't going to get appreciated. That's unfair. Why go through all the effort of crafting a great concept, submitting it through the slog of red tape hoping it gets approved, maybe getting it approved, discussing the concept as if it's going forward and then at the last second you're (un)intentionally snubbed by the TL because they weren't personally a fan of your concept.
Bughouse said:
1) I am not likely to be all that involved moving forward, so take my comments as you will
2) Since basically its creation, I've felt that the implantation of the concept workshop was poor
3) I still don't think it's appropriate for a TL to ask to override the system
In a rare occurrence I'm going to have to agree with Bughouse; it's not appropriate for a TL to override the system. The system should be neutral and it should be absolute: if your concept was good enough to be approved, your hard work should be awarded and your concept should be slated for the next CAP. Period. End of discussion. You can't honestly expect people to want to send in the same amount of concepts if you:
- Create a bunch of rules.
- Take forever to approve it.
- Potentially modify and bastardize it before it even hits the slate.
- And if all else fails, snub them and disregard their concept.
That sends the wrong message 100% of the way and honestly I can see why the concept workshop isn't working right now. It's wound too tight and people aren't interested. We need to incentivize and encourage people to want to participate, not scare them away - we need to build a level of trust and straightforward understanding of how things operate.
How to Fix the Concept Workshop?
With all of that said, let's move on to how we can fix these supposed problems:
1. We need to make things easier and simpler. (As Doug suggested)
There's a lot of unnecessary steps in the approval process that could probably be stripped down to make it easier to determine whether or not it would work. There should still be a stringent process but let's try to make it less convoluted and more straightforward. Let's have more realistic expectations.
2. We need to remove the stigma of repeating a concept design.
Stigmas are bad, no question about it. Given the current model, I don't think you can remove the stigma in question from the concept workshop. If people are left to their own whims to design a concept they're going to hit a brick wall because they're conditioned to think it's bad to repeat themselves and they'll attempt to reinvent the wheel. However it's not bad, furthermore there's only so many raw conceptual ideas before you start repeating yourself and we need to recognize that. We need to change gears from allowing people to freely write up their concepts to a model that uses predesigned archetypical concepts as a mold for people to flesh out (as Doug suggested). This allows people to just select a template and put their unique twist on it. It's easy, efficient, and if done right could be a whole bunch of fun.
3. We need to reward participation.
If an concept is good enough to get approved, it's good enough to get slated. We should leave whether or not it gets selected as thee concept up to the democratic process of the CAP project and not to the TL. In doing so, we would probably need to start numbering our slate as to organize and coordinate when a concept would be up for slating. I would consider 4-8 concepts to be a minimum and maximum number to work with. The process would work as follows:
Four concepts is the minimum, if we don't reach four concepts (we should) then we take a 24 hour day period in traditional fashion and the TL is able to pick up to 5 they like to add to the slate.
Eight concepts is the maximum, if more concepts than eight are approved, there is a cut off and every approved concept from thereon is pre-slated for the next CAP down the road (So if this was for CAP 22 for example and we had eight concepts, every other approved concept would be slated for CAP 23).
Once concepts have been slated, if they aren't selected they need to go back through the approval process and can be slated again in the future if they have been approved, maybe needing a few alterations after feedback from the prior CAP concept discussion.
This model would encourage people to submit their ideas, it would make it easier to do so, and it would reward their hard work in doing so; but it would also encourage people to think smart, not hard. And that's what the concept workshop should be all about. Let's make it work instead of giving up and scrapping it altogether.