Policy Review Retention Issues

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Stratos

Banned deucer.
i agree with jas basically. Like i said earlier, I don't mind the outcome of the polls much and they have little relevance to how much I enjoy the CAP. The quality of discussion is what truly matters to me. As long as the mods can make sure they only delete posts that are competitively retarded, and not just written not according to normal cap standards (for example if this post were to be deleted then i would have a serious problem with how you interpreted moderating).

That being said, the other option is to nullify the votes of people who post badly so we can talk around them knowing they'll safely be ignored but i'd rather not have to talk around them if the mods are willing to step up. Though this raises the question of what is the threshold for deletion.
 

nyttyn

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I think that the threshold for deletion should be "basic competence." We shouldn't place it at a high level, that would be too much of a barrier to entry, but I think that, say, requiring that posts correlate with actual metagame knowledge, at least somewhat add to the discussion, and showcase at least an understanding of competitive play would be fine.

For example:
I think Huge Power would be a great ability because more attack is always good!
One of our checks is Focus Sash Beedrill, as we're threatened by both bug and poison STABs, and cannot garuntee the OHKO due to the sash
Well, Spite might be a cool move?
Well, it's a snake, so of course we should give it Glare
All of these hypothetical posts (which, unfortunately, aren't far off from the reasoning we've seen in the past four CAPs) show a clear lack of understanding or thought, and would be deleted. The third is also a example of something that doesn't add to the conversation, as spite is completely irrelevant, and the post itself lacks any reasoning.

Even quality control at this basic level would dramatically reduce the number of bad posts we've been getting in the competitive stage.
 

Ununhexium

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This is also a poor quality post that actually happened

I like the ability Swift Swim because if this CAP were to have Thunder in its moveset (I'm pretty sure it will), not only is it guaranteed to hit, it might even get the move off faster than the main threats. Our CAP is already pretty fast, so why not make it faster? And more threatening? This ability has no chance at all to outclass Storm Drain, and provides options to the user/battler.
This shows not only poor reasoning behind the proposed ability, but also zero knowledge of the CAP up to this point. He had very little knowledge of why we actually chose Storm Drain as an ability, and instead of reading up on why it was chosen, he decided to post a completely anti-concept ability that A) has poor reasoning and B) has a VERY good chance to outshine the primary ability (which is primary for a reason). Also, it shows that he would like to make this choice based on the prospect of something that may happen in the future, but also may not.

Again, not to trouble you mods, but these are the kinds of posts that need to be deleted, as they add nothing to the process, distract people from making good posts as they are saying why this person is wrong, and generally lower the quality of the current discussion, as we can all tell that this post is a poorly written one.
 

Deck Knight

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I'll start by saying that the very fact CAP is a democracy and we moderate leniently - often too leniently - means we could scour the last three years of projects and come up with endless examples of "If I were a mod this would have been deleted." That isn't productive, nor serving the interest of this thread.

To answer Birkal's question, I do think everyone should have the opportunity to vote - and any mechanism we might put in place *must* be friendly to people joining in during the middle of the project. Forum Openness is not a negotiable aspect of the culture.

I also think it would help a great deal to point out actual resources for competitive knowledge and create a guide for it. Per the (often too acrimonious) IRC chats, the analyses on site are not up to date with the current metagame because it moves too fast. Presently the best way to get usage statistics is to use the bot on IRC for specific instances of Pokemon/Item/Ability combinations.

As such, the only mechanism I can think of that is flexible enough to accommodate continual registration is a randomly generated "open-book test." Basically, there would be random questions that require use of the bot to generate the correct answer. This encourages using actual statistics and competitive information and builds a habit of doing so for making arguments. It's a barrier to entry against pure laziness, and the fact it is ongoing allows people willing to participate to be added to a whitelist for voting and discussing threads.

It avoids the problems with requiring a laddering score of some kind, since laddering is a factor of both time to ladder and teambuilding skill - which are great, but give no indication you'd be good at formulating arguments in a CAP Discussion. It also makes it *relatively* easy on the moderators because we have a whitelist to utilize for unqualified posters that is objective, open, and current. Remember, our goal is not to reduce input of people just learning the game or taking an interest in a metagame concept, it's to eliminate entirely illiterate input.

Naturally I would like to see more ideas in how to approach balancing accessibility with competitive literacy. The point of a PRC thread is to address a policy concern, once a grievance has been stated further dwelling on it does not advance the thread.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
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As such, the only mechanism I can think of that is flexible enough to accommodate continual registration is a randomly generated "open-book test."
Naturally I would like to see more ideas in how to approach balancing accessibility with competitive literacy.
I find it curious you used the term literacy in reference to a test for voting...
But no. We are not having a voting test. This is not Mississippi in the 1950s.

The correct response imo to limit bad users' influence is deleting bad posts and infracting when appropriate (which is not even close to all the time). I'm not overly concerned with voting results, especially given the fact that voting still goes well on all or almost all of the steps in every CAP, mostly because many good users do vote, even if they don't post.

Cleaning up discussions is a much more important goal and that just takes actual moderation.
 

jas61292

used substitute
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Hey, so bugmaniacbob PMed me and asked me to post this in the thread for him. While I would have liked to wait for him to be given PR posting ability and have him post it himself, I didn't want the thread to move on too far from when he wrote this post, so I am posting it here on his behalf:

bugmaniacbob said:
To start off with, I should mention that I subscribe, as far as CAP is concerned, to the principle of the wisdom of the crowd in terms of decision making. To summarise briefly, if asked to estimate the weight of a pig at a fair, it has been found that the average of a vast number of ill-informed casual passers-by will generally be more accurate than any individual expert's opinion. Naturally, the studies on the subject have little application to CAP, as the slates represent discrete and unequal options rather than a continuous range, and the votes are applied to what "experts" have slated, but the principle is a good one - taking into account a wide range of opinions and paring them down to the average.

That's an aside, though. As far as the question of "should every Smogon user have equal say in CAP?", I would remind everybody that any change from the current status quo represents the establishment of a very dangerous precedent. The questions that this precedent raises are worrying indeed. How do you establish an objective measure to say who can and cannot vote, or even discuss something? If this is impossible, then a subjective measure? Who is going to be responsible for taking the time out of their day to vet every post for quality content? And, perhaps the most important question of all, how exactly do we appeal to new users when there is now a barrier to entry, on top of our existing problems with falling participation?

The current suggestions for fixing discussion and voting by reducing the opportunities for newbies to whet their teeth are at present unhelpfully vague at best and laughably bad ideas at worst. A whitelist for posters? Posting a list of people who can contribute in a discussion to the exclusion of everybody else is a certain way to make sure the participation numbers drop to their bare minimum, and if you want CAP to turn into a clique for a dozen or so above-average battlers and twenty artists, well, this is ideal, but it's not what CAP ever was in the past or anything I'd like to be a part of in the future. Most people come here to have fun and discussion, and the moment the project appears to be something akin to an elitist circlejerk, people are going to be turned off. Weight votes depending on the poster? Why not just get this council to pick the option they want and be done with it, and for that matter, where are we getting this magical council from anyway? Requirements to vote? I'm reminded of one of the late DPP Latios suspect tests where paragraphs of reasoning were required, with the result that one Legacy Raider's immaculate essay on the subject was copied and used by all the pro-ban voters, with the result that Latios was handily banned. Paragraphs, in addition to being a participation killer, are easy to work around when discussion threads are at hand. Similarly, simply being allowed to vote if you posted in the discussion thread and our "aggressive mods" didn't delete it doesn't work if people are savvy enough to copy an opinion and post it in any given thread without actually reading the thread content.

I'll concede that such a measure would filter out floating voters, though. That would be something.

I would like to echo Bull Of Heaven's point in this regard. Part of CAP's charm is that it allows for people to participate in a project on an even footing. Everyone from moderators to newbies to the random top-ladder battler who pops in to have a look is under the same level of basic scrutiny - the content of their posts is what is important, not who they are or how much time a day they spend laddering. Obviously this is only as true as far as basic human psychology permits, and I'll freely admit that being able to write good English or having a coloured badge set puts you just that little bit higher up in the casual viewer's estimation. Furthermore, any argument that suspect tests are the example to follow in this case seems to me to be completely missing the point. Apart from anything else, we simply do not have the userbase to begin filtering votes by ability. I would also like to put forward that, contrary to what may have been suggested, the purpose of CAP is not and has never been to create an enjoyable metagame, and I don't know how anybody could have got that idea from any of the previous CAPs or policy discussions. The end goal is, as the mission statement makes very clear, the process itself - the discussions and the votes and the anger and the heartbreak and the tears and the blood and the sweat and the traces of semen on Pwnemon's chair.

To that end, if there is dissatisfaction with the journey, we should address our choice of transportation, certainly. So let's review. I think we can all agree that the non-competitive steps should be open to everybody, unless somebody would like to vet the twelve score votes we get in every single art poll.

On votes being weighted - there is no objective way to weight votes to being greater or lesser in importance relative to a supposed "average" and there is no time management system in existence that could make it work for the humans behind the keyboards. On a subjective level, there is no way to remove bias and time management issues are even larger owing to the cognitive effort required. Consequently, unless somebody cares to propose an idea along these lines that could actually work in real life, all votes that are accepted should be given the same weight.

On votes being discounted - when I was TL, I estimate about an hour of my life was spent per poll in reading through every page and correcting the ballots of those who couldn't be bothered to type out the options correctly. I am not sure how the individuals involved in the last CAP felt on this point, but I would not personally miss "floating voters". What is important -- and I cannot stress this enough -- is that every individual should have the right to try for voting rights, under whatever system is adopted. If a person understands the argument and simply has no more to add to the discussion, that should not discount them from being able to express their opinion with a vote. However, a necessary test - be it paragraphs or otherwise - I could see myself supporting in order to filter out the floating voters, and those who simply do not understand the point of the exercise. If this is adopted, however, I urge those in charge to promote leniency, as such filtering is very susceptible to the bias of the filter in question, if done subjectively. That, or simply put "add the word lemon to your post in order for it to count" at the bottom. That would work too.

On moderation of discussions - I had very little part in discussions in CAP19. I missed concept submissions as I was on holiday, and when I returned was confronted with a concept that seemed to make no sense and could not be fulfilled without some sort of game mechanic tweaking. I left again before the first concept submissions could close, and ended up returning during, I think, stats, and completely unaware of how we'd got to where we were and with little time to read through the threads I had missed. So, I speak here in relative ignorance of how those threads were handled. What I felt from my short bit of discussion, though, was what has in recent CAPs been a common occurrence - everybody shouts their ideas into the aether and nobody engages with the ideas of others. I was as guilty of this as anyone, though I had the dubious excuse of coming into the thread late. Moderators not only need to be "aggressive" in weeding out objectively bad posts, they also have to be proactive in reviewing the thread at large. Moderator posts and especially Topic Leader posts should be like review articles - replying to the main parties forming, attacking the general points, and providing a summary of the best arguments put forward and comparing them to one another. The example must be set - people in discussion threads have to engage with other opinions and generate lines of dialogue.

As far as the deletion of posts in discussion threads is concerned, the most pressing issue concerning this is the ability of the mods to make these subjective judgements. That, and having the time to properly consider whether or not to delete... but with most of the posts brought up in this thread, I don't think that should be an issue.

- Oglemi mate even I can't write 3-paragraph vote posts.

Anyway, since I've been called out I might as well respond seeing as how this ties into what I said above. Simply put, CAP discussions at present... really aren't very well led. Not for any fault on the part of the leaders, but more because of how they are set up in general. In a suspect test thread, the only topic of conversation is the suspect and occasionally how the metagame has reacted. Consequently, there are only a few available lines of dialogue and we get people scrutinising others' ideas immediately. However, in most CAP discussion threads, starting with a "go bananas" OP means that everybody zooms off on their own tangent and it is very difficult to address all other ideas, especially when who knows how many other posts show up before you can say anything. So, most people seem to talk up their own ideas or favourites to the exclusion of what others think. This wasn't always the case in the past, and seems to be more common now. How does this relate to tl;dr? Simply put, it's impossible to cover most points made in a thread without running into high word counts. I honestly think that any problem with post length, if it does exist, is through the fact that discussions are simply not kept on any kind of straight or narrow, or compartmentalised as Birkal has done to this thread. As such, I'm responding to your complaints about word count when that was neither the focus of the thread nor the focus that was just outlined by a moderator.


To echo some other individuals - I have my own thoughts on some of the other tangents brought up in this thread, to be addressed at a later date.

tl;dr - Nearly every "solution" suggested thus far is impractical or unworkable, with the possible exception of a simple shrimping net to get rid of floating voters, as far as "equal say in CAP" is concerned. Also, content > poster.[/hide]
 

ginganinja

It's all coming back to me now
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Due to the fact that BMBs post pretty much makes Oglemi's point all on its own, I don't really think anything further needs to be said about tl;dr posts, BMB is pretty much all the evidence we need. If we ever need more evidence, I have a claydol thread I could link.

That said, I want to respond to three points, because only someone with no social life would bother responding to all of it.

Who is going to be responsible for taking the time out of their day to vet every post for quality content?
I would. Heck, thats what I DO as an OU mod. The OU moderators spend an entire month moderating a single suspect thread that gets 4 posts about every 5 minutes and have to control the discussion, so that one single unintelligent post doesn't spark about 20 replies and derails the thread. I sympathise with the CAP staff, I really do, because this kind of active moderation is tiring as hell, and I certainly don't blame anyone for wanting to just let bad posts lie...you guys get a new discussion thread roughly every week for what...3 months? That said, it has been pointed out that active moderation might be something discussion threads need. Back to your original point though, don't pretend that this is some impossibility, other moderators can do it, and I have every faith in the ability of current cap mods to regulate a CAP discussion thread.

On a subjective level, there is no way to remove bias and time management issues are even larger owing to the cognitive effort required.
I don't see a single problem with post weighting. There will always be personal bias in a project. Pocket and I had our own personal bias when moderating suspect threads (where we disagreed with what was relevant/irrelevant , and if you want a CAP example, I can kindly point you to the entire Aurumoth process, where the TL in question allowed his own personal bias to affect the project. The point being that no matter the process, moderation or merely heading the project, personal bias will always exist, it makes us wonderfully human. That said, that doesn't mean personal bias is a bad thing, it just means individuals with a certain degree of power need to manage it, be it moderators or TLs. Obviously, some people have better success managing it than others.

I would also like to put forward that, contrary to what may have been suggested, the purpose of CAP is not and has never been to create an enjoyable metagame, and I don't know how anybody could have got that idea from any of the previous CAPs or policy discussions. The end goal is, as the mission statement makes very clear, the process itself - the discussions and the votes and the anger and the heartbreak and the tears and the blood and the sweat and the traces of semen on Pwnemon's chair.
I'm so glad you brought up the mission statement of CAP, birkal knows I just sent him a tl;dr essay on it so I'll just quote relevant parts of the mission statement.

The Pokémon created by the CAP project are intended to be used in competitive metagame play. That is the primary factor driving the design and construction process. Each Pokémon should add something new or necessary to the metagame, hopefully making the metagame more balanced, and increasing the number of viable Pokémon available for competitive play.
Yes so obviously, you missed this line, especially the balanced bit, but I digress. The bolded bit? Thats almost the definition of an enjoyable metagame. Yes, CAP is all about the process, but its also about the OU metagame. If you want more evidence on the subject, you can look at Malaconda, which was an attempt to balance the unhealthy effects of rain on the metagame and to promote a wider range of playstyles in the OU tier (sun). The wonderful irony is that many CAP veterans actually consider Malaconda one of their personal favourites / successes, so maybe now you can see how someone might have "gotten the idea"?

CAP absolutely is about creating an enjoyable metagame. Unfortunately, some CAPs were toxic to play within their metagame (read: Playtest), like Aurumoth but that just serves us as an added incentive to balance our creations better. You want a better example? How about Pwnemon banning Aegislash in this current playtest. Isn't our playtest an (imperfect lets be frank but I digress) example as to what we expect the metagame to look like? Aegislash was banned from our playtest because it was not enjoyable to play against. Now lets be clear, I accept that CAP is not "Mr Fixit". Its job is not to address the various problems of the OU metagame. That said, claiming that CAP isn't about creating an enjoyable metagame is a load of BS.
 
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DougJustDoug

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I have a lot to say on the topics in this thread, so I'll just post on one aspect to start, and cover other aspects in later posts. But before I address the exact proposals and content of the debate, I'd like to address an underlying issue that I think is driving much of this policy:

Senior CAP participants need to maintain a proper attitude and perspective.

I think this has been lost a bit over the last year or more, and I probably need to be hyping it more. But you guys need to realize that being an influential participant in CAP is HARD. Not "hard" in terms of workload really, although CAP is a huge time suck for most of us in this thread. But "hard" in the sense that people have to resist natural tendencies to be SELF-CENTERED. You have to focus on the community at large, and this is a very tough thing to do, even for the most altruistic, giving individuals among us.

I think I am typically better than many Smogoners in this area, probably because I am much older than most of you, and I am a parent with young children. Parenting is a job that tends to force people, whether they like it or not, to sacrifice their selfish interests and look out for the interests of others that are not capable of fully looking out for themselves (ie. their children). Senior CAP participation (moderating, leading topics, affecting policy, making winning submissions, or simply making influential posts) is kinda like parenting, in that you cannot expect others to be as skilled and capable as the senior participants. Senior members have to fight their natural tendency to be ANNOYED by everyone else's incompetence.

And that's really what this comes down to -- senior CAP participants (ie. good battlers) are annoyed by those that are less skilled or even completely unskilled.

Let's face it, it really is a pain in the ass to deal with idiots. But what senior people tend to forget, and this is where the "perspective" thing comes into play, is that all of us, senior participants and newcomers alike, are ALL idiots in one way or another. And when our idiocy becomes apparent in one aspect of the project or another -- we are almost certainly annoying to someone more senior than ourselves.

For example, I tend to get very fucking annoyed at almost every single person in the CAP project at their total incompetence with anything that requires even the barest modicum of technical or programming skill. And I'm not just talking about people that can't do advanced programming like I can. I'm talking about veteran posters with THOUSANDS of posts to their credit that can't understand why the post editor and BBCode parser sometimes fucks up bolding tags in posts and how this causes problems for our voting scripts. And when people complain like:

"This is bullshit! The poll is fucked up, goddamnit! I just hand-counted the poll and it doesn't match the posted results. I'm sick of this!"

This is the case of a person that THINKS they are senior and knowledgeable enough to make an open credible statement and to have others be influenced by it -- when in reality, they are INCOMPETENT and just don't know it, and they are making an INCORRECT statement that is INCREDIBLY ANNOYING to legitimately competent people like me. And on top of that, if the incompetent statement actually causes other incompetent people to rally behind them and bandwagon the complaint, I tend to have a very strong urge to call people out:

"You are a fucking idiot that does not understand BBCode parsing, and have zero appreciation for what it takes to write a voting script that automatically counts polls for us. And if all you dumbfucks would simply follow the instructions in the OP, which have been plainly posted for a bazillion years and are written so simply that a 5-year-old could follow them, then these mishaps would not occur in the first place. And despite the fact that you have been participating in CAP for YEARS, and seem to think you are a so-called "veteran", it has somehow missed you that this sort of dumb shit happens ALL THE FUCKING TIME and is no cause for you to be signalling a red alert and rallying the masses. So not only are you unintelligent, you twit, but you are also incredibly inattentive. Shut. The. Fuck. Up."

Do I do this? No, I don't. Well, maybe on my bad days I do. But I try really hard to not lose it like that on the CAP project when dealing with the vast majority of people here that are NOWHERE NEAR my level of knowledge and skill when it comes to programming.

If I REALLY HATE being around people that don't know about programming, then I shouldn't be hanging around here. Or, if I don't really want to deal with people fucking up BBCodes in their posts and it messing up my programs -- then I should write better voting scripts, or force the community to go back to simple click polls like we used to have. But whatever I do, I think you understand that it is not reasonable for me, the highly skilled minority, to consider it a fault of the community that everyone else is less skilled than me.

Listen guys, I get it. Dealing with stupid people is annoying. But you have to catch yourself when you find that you are "getting fed up with all the idiots". You have to shift your thinking.

You are not "dealing with idiots" -- you are being asked to "help others" or "lead by example". At the end of the day, this is a COMMUNITY PROJECT, which necessarily means that people of varying levels of skill in different areas are going to be involved. And yes, the majority of people are not going to be highly-skilled. Some will be completely unskilled, and will make their lack of skill annoyingly apparent to everyone else. That is the nature of large communities.

If we don't want this to be a large open project -- then we shouldn't be doing a large project out in the open! And the more we strive to increase our personal enjoyment by trying to reduce or restrict those that are unskilled -- the more we are negatively impacting the enjoyment of the majority of the community.

Let me give you a final parenting story from personal experience, and I'll end this long post (sorry Oglemi):

A family of five (two parents and three small children) went to a restaurant for dinner so they could have "some quality family time and a nice meal".

As soon as the meal started, one of the kids spilled a drink, and one parent yelled at the kid for not paying attention and being clumsy. Then another kid complained that the cook put tomatoes on their hamburger, despite explicitly ordering it with no tomatoes. A parent hastily took the tomatoes off the burger and told the child to eat. The child refused to eat the burger and wanted a new one. The parent yelled at the child for being picky, which prompted the child to cry loudly. Then the youngest child, still in diapers, having drank too much lemonade at the start of the meal, complained that they wet their diaper and urine had somehow leaked out and was running down their leg. The parents, at wits end, were attempting to clean up the mess while scolding the youngest child for drinking too much lemonade and brought up the fact that the child was too old to be in diapers anyway -- and embarrassed the youngest child, in front of their siblings, for not being potty trained. This prompted the siblings to join in and tease the youngest child. One child hit another child, spilling another drink, causing the parents to go absolutely berzerk, and all five people at the table were loudly crying or yelling or both.

My wife and I were sitting at the table next to that family. Although we never personally had a public dining meltdown that bad with our kids, we certainly had our share of public family spectacles, so we could only shake our heads and sympathize with the family next to us.

Sure, we could criticize the kids for not behaving properly in public. Or we could criticize the parents for how they were handling the situation. It did not have to be the disaster it turned out to be. But it was interesting that the parents were repeatedly shouting things like, "You need to be quiet so we can have a nice family meal!" or "Stop doing that, you are bothering everyone else in the restaurant!"

All the escalated yelling and frustration to have a nice meal and not bother others -- was actually a BIGGER public annoyance to everyone else than the original issues (kids spilling drinks, complaining about food, or wetting a diaper) that led up to all the yelling and chaos.


Recently on the CAP project, I kinda feel like I'm in that restaurant again, next to that family supposedly trying to have "a nice family dinner"...
 
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nyttyn

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Sorry Doug, but I have to totally disagree with you.
You are not "dealing with idiots" -- you are being asked to "help others" or "lead by example". And if you simply can't do that, then this just isn't the right project for you. At the end of the day, this is a COMMUNITY PROJECT, which necessarily means that people of varying levels of skill in different areas are going to be involved. And yes, the majority of people are not going to be highly-skilled. Some will be completely unskilled, and will make their lack of skill annoyingly apparent to everyone else. That is the nature of large communities.
The problem is that the entire project is getting bogged down by both a complete lack of skill, and quite frankly a lack of effort. I'm not going to pretend that I speak for everyone, but i'm not asking that the project become some sort of elitist club, I'm not even asking for it to get too restricted. All I'm asking is that some quality control be implemented so we can actually have discussions that aren't totally bogged down by crappy posts.

aftermath is a nice ability as it breaks excadrill, gengar, and brelooms sash so it could open up opportunity for gyarados to gain a moxie boost from the weakened pokemon then mega evolve and have a free +1 boost to it's attack. It could also add even more recoil to talonflame's brave bird. (assuming that talon would kill Cap 19 in a weakened state.

regenerater could also work as this thing isn't SR weak and could switch into the thunderbolts and grass knots aimed at mega gyarados. Not much to expland upon here just a good way to keep Cap 19 aliv.
Okay, now that both my posts were deleted, (Whoever deleted it, please check that I had already deleted the other one!) here it is again, DO NOT DELETE. Changed Poison Point to Static. And Aftermath. Duh, fits the concept perfectly. EDIT: I thought about Serene Grace, as a 60% poisoning chance would take down many threats.
I just want posts like this gone. Gengar can't even be hit by Aftermath! I literally can go on all day about this but there should be a certain amount of quality expected from the competitive stages of CAP, and right now, there isn't.

This might be a community project, but it's not a babysitter project. I don't want to have to spend time wading through crap to find the posts worth replying to or having to explain why incredibly bad ideas are incredibly bad ideas. If people make mistaken points that are grounded in actual, at least decent reasoning, sure, fine, that's what discussion is for. But when people are posting totally pointless and useless crap like
I'm also for Allowing Memento as the CAP would benefit the team further
, all we're doing is wasting people's time scrolling past it (or, god forbid, having to attempt to stop bandwagons like Quick Tempered and Parting Shot).

I'm sorry if this post sounds harsh, but I'm just frustrated with having to deal with people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about (and to make matters worse, a majority of them post a grand total of three times then never post in CAP again). It's obnoxious, it's distracting from actual discussion, and if I have to read one more post about "but it's a universal TM!" I am going to flip a table.
 

Oglemi

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bmb said:
However, in most CAP discussion threads, starting with a "go bananas" OP means that everybody zooms off on their own tangent and it is very difficult to address all other ideas, especially when who knows how many other posts show up before you can say anything. So, most people seem to talk up their own ideas or favourites to the exclusion of what others think. This wasn't always the case in the past, and seems to be more common now. How does this relate to tl;dr? Simply put, it's impossible to cover most points made in a thread without running into high word counts. I honestly think that any problem with post length, if it does exist, is through the fact that discussions are simply not kept on any kind of straight or narrow, or compartmentalised as Birkal has done to this thread. As such, I'm responding to your complaints about word count when that was neither the focus of the thread nor the focus that was just outlined by a moderator.
fwiw I think bmb makes a really good point here about the general tl;dr issue and I think it points back to my point of CAP needing more a drive in the process which can help narrow discussions and create more of a focus in the processes.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
All right we (mostly srk, dlc, djd, and i) talked on irc and basically came to a consensus--i'm on my phone at the moment so no logs and i won't be long with this post. If a good battler comes on irc and says, "mod, please nuke this post, i don't feel like explaining their catastrophic wrongness in a post," that's a good reason for the post to be nuked. Basically we should no longer rely on the few good battlers to respond to each and every stupid post. That one change on its own would be a huge fix to CAP

Oglemi a large part of that is people not listening to section leaders when they say they want to discuss a specific issue—speaking of which, we're discussing a different issue right now :p. But yea maybe thats due to decentralizing the authority; people dont respect decentralized authority as much as centralized authority.
 

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
I thought it was pretty obvious, but based on some feedback I guess several people misunderstood my analogy of the family at the restaurant. Let me make a few things clear:
  • I am not saying the people in this thread are children. Actually, I am implying that you are the frustrated parents trying to deal with the children. And just like the restaurant situation, I sympathize with your frustration.
  • I am not suggesting that we should just kick back and ignore shitty participation. Just like in restaurants with kids, if the kids are acting up, the parents should deal with it. While I think the parents in my story were making a bigger problem in HOW they were dealing with the kids, I certainly do not think parents should let their kids run rampant and pass it off with a smile, "Oh well, kids will be kids!". I'm sure you hate parents that do that IRL and so do I.
  • I am not telling people in this thread to quit the project. I am reminding you of some inherent issues with CAP that require a more tolerant attitude. Just like IRL, when I see parents that seem to genuinely despise dealing with the drudgery of having children. Spilled drinks at dinner and changing dirty diapers is never fun, and I'm not suggesting parents should enjoy it. But it is a pretty obvious part of the parenting gig, and you are doing no good to yourself or anyone around you, if you keep hate-grinding over it.
  • I am suggesting that many people in this thread simply need to pull back a little bit and regain perspective. Just like IRL, sometimes one parent tells another, "Take a deep breath, and remember that kids make mistakes."
 

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
Here's an excerpt log of a convo we had on IRC earlier, that Pwnemon mentioned above. I tried to remove the extraneous stuff, but it's still kinda long. If you choose to read through all of it, I think people made some good points and those of us on IRC were in general agreement by the end of it, I think.

[2014-11-08 13:24:22] <srk1214> oh boy
[2014-11-08 13:24:34] <DetroitLolcat> there's the dougpost
[2014-11-08 13:24:43] <srk1214> I'm sure aggravated users will love being called children
[2014-11-08 13:24:44] * DetroitLolcat blocks out the next hour of his day :P
[2014-11-08 13:25:03] <srk1214> that will definitely not anger them more
[2014-11-08 13:25:14] <DougJustDoug> Actually, the aggravated users are the parents.
[2014-11-08 13:25:30] <srk1214> I got that
[2014-11-08 13:25:42] <srk1214> my point is you're calling out a lack of maturity
[2014-11-08 13:26:32] <imanalt> oh jesus christ doug
[2014-11-08 13:27:19] <imanalt> did DougJustDoug really just say that "yes it sucks for anyone competent but they shoudl just suck it up"
[2014-11-08 13:27:22] <imanalt> or am i misreading this
[2014-11-08 13:30:23] <DougJustDoug> CAP is a project that openly invites everyone to participate. It always has been. People seem to be suggesting that we don't remain open to everyone OR somehow try to ensure that everyone has a certain level of skill.
[2014-11-08 13:30:57] <imanalt> cap is also a project that says in its goddamn mission statement that "The CAP project inspires various interesting discussions about Pokémon, the spirit and mechanics of the game, and most importantly, in-depth analysis of the current competitive metagame."
[2014-11-08 13:31:19] <imanalt> there is 0 indepth analysis of the current competitive metagame inc ap now, and there hasnt been for a while now
[2014-11-08 13:31:43] <imanalt> and sure you can blame that on not enough people "sucking it up" and being willing to do something that isnt fun
[2014-11-08 13:32:22] <DougJustDoug> I agree our discussions need to be better. I do plan to post later that I think we need to try and make discussions better.
[2014-11-08 13:32:45] <RODAN> cap has no incentive to join
[2014-11-08 13:32:52] <RODAN> the negative far outweighs the positive atm
[2014-11-08 13:33:06] <imanalt> yeah RODAN, and yet djd just made a long post saying people need to deal with it and contribute anyways
[2014-11-08 13:33:07] <imanalt> lmao
[2014-11-08 13:33:13] <imanalt> i cant fucking deal with this
[2014-11-08 13:33:16] <srk1214> well, he's right in spirit
[2014-11-08 13:33:22] <srk1214> we do need to deal with it in general
[2014-11-08 13:33:33] <imanalt> no srk1214, any project that is reliant on people just dealing with something not being fun
[2014-11-08 13:33:33] <srk1214> CAP will always have better users and worse users, as does any community
[2014-11-08 13:33:36] <imanalt> is a project doomed to fail
[2014-11-08 13:33:47] <DougJustDoug> The post I just made was to point out that the people that are so busy flogging all the supposedly "incompetent" CAP participants, which apparently includes the majority of the moderation staff -- is actually quite an annoying spectacle unto itself.
[2014-11-08 13:34:06] <srk1214> eh, which moderators again DJD?
[2014-11-08 13:34:18] <imanalt> theres no supposedly involved DougJustDoug
[2014-11-08 13:34:27] <DetroitLolcat> I believe he means that people are flogging the mods, not that mods are actually doing the flogging.
[2014-11-08 13:34:40] <srk1214> oh
[2014-11-08 13:34:43] <DetroitLolcat> I haven't heard -any- mods complain about the dearth of competitive skill amongst CAP users.
[2014-11-08 13:35:04] <DetroitLolcat> While I have certainly heard plenty of regulars call out the mods for not having enough competitive skill.
[2014-11-08 13:35:13] <DougJustDoug> DLC, you have it right.
[2014-11-08 13:37:20] <DetroitLolcat> We do need to take into account that although we have a faction of users who are fed up with the lack of competitive knowledge, we also have a faction of users who are fed up with all the hostility.
[2014-11-08 13:38:31] <DetroitLolcat> I can think of at least two users who are, from my perception, close to saying "fuck this I quit"
[2014-11-08 13:38:44] <DetroitLolcat> (two good users of course lol)
[2014-11-08 13:38:54] <DougJustDoug> I definitely agree that CAP discussions are not very good these days.
[2014-11-08 13:39:07] <imanalt> and more who are closer or already have to saying theyre gone because of the complete lack of competitive discussion
[2014-11-08 13:40:14] <DougJustDoug> I personally like to use CAP discussions as a way to help educate myself about the OU meta and competitive battling. Lately, I haven't gotten much valuable learning at all out of CAP.
[2014-11-08 13:40:36] <DougJustDoug> This last CAP was a total non-event for me from a learning perspective.
[2014-11-08 13:40:46] <DetroitLolcat> If this PR thread is really about "retention issues", then both groups of users need to be discussed at some point.
[2014-11-08 13:41:01] <DougJustDoug> Probably the first CAP in history where I can't really say I learned anything new about the meta.
[2014-11-08 13:41:04] <imanalt> retention issues was as much that i coudlnt come up with a better name LOL
[2014-11-08 13:41:24] <srk1214> retention of everyone matters for sure, seeing as CAP participation is already down from previous years
[2014-11-08 13:41:34] <imanalt> is it?
[2014-11-08 13:41:44] <srk1214> but if you don't honestly think retention of the leading users is more important, then I don't know what to say
[2014-11-08 13:42:02] <srk1214> you don't teach to the bottom of the class and slow down everyone else
[2014-11-08 13:42:11] <DetroitLolcat> It's difficult to measure. I'm sure doug's graphs could shed light on that if we took a look through the timeboxing thread.
[2014-11-08 13:42:17] <srk1214> it absolutely is
[2014-11-08 13:43:10] <imanalt> Pwnemon did you see dougs post
[2014-11-08 13:43:18] <Pwnemon> not yet
[2014-11-08 13:43:20] <Pwnemon> reading now
[2014-11-08 13:43:23] <DougJustDoug> So yes, I am absolutely down with trying to improve our discussions. Because I don't want to see another CAP like this last one.
[2014-11-08 13:43:49] <imanalt> you dont want to read it Pwnemon
[2014-11-08 13:44:34] <DougJustDoug> And just because I am adamant that we should be as tolerant as possible of the incompetent participants on the project -- that DOES NOT mean that I advocate letting people be total idiots and let them run rampant however they please.
[2014-11-08 13:46:39] <DetroitLolcat> When it comes to the PRC thread, the goal is to reconcile the "CAP competitive knowledge sucks" and "Everyone's too much of a dick" crowds
[2014-11-08 13:47:03] <DetroitLolcat> I would guess "more aggressive moderation" and "cut the public callouts" might come out of this :/
[2014-11-08 13:47:22] <Pwnemon> aight
[2014-11-08 13:47:25] <Pwnemon> read dougs post
[2014-11-08 13:47:33] <Pwnemon> guess cap isnt the project for me thenlol
[2014-11-08 13:47:39] <imanalt> lol
[2014-11-08 13:48:00] <srk1214> hey pwne
[2014-11-08 13:48:08] <srk1214> can you stop being an idiot in public
[2014-11-08 13:48:36] <srk1214> there is nothing "lol" about another TL quitting right after their project
[2014-11-08 13:48:56] <Pwnemon> ok, remove the lol
[2014-11-08 13:49:08] <nyttyn> Doug's post is...
[2014-11-08 13:49:21] <DetroitLolcat> to be fair we've had 3 straight CAPs with actual TL retention
[2014-11-08 13:49:28] <nyttyn> Kind of missing the point in many ways.
[2014-11-08 13:49:30] <imanalt> ddestructive for cap nyttyn ?
[2014-11-08 13:49:33] <imanalt> oh that too
[2014-11-08 13:49:34] <DetroitLolcat> (konda, kaw, and kraken)
[2014-11-08 13:49:55] <imanalt> welp we always knew actually fixing problems was gonna be reliant on doug, and i guess if he isnt willing to rip in peace
[2014-11-08 13:50:05] <srk1214> well DLC
[2014-11-08 13:50:50] <DetroitLolcat> If the PRC opposes doug's post, which I'm really not sure they will, the majority will probably win out.
[2014-11-08 13:51:12] <srk1214> the TLs for those 3 were jas, cape, and you
[2014-11-08 13:51:17] <DetroitLolcat> If Doug just did whatever he wanted without consulting the PRC we'd have timeboxed the last CAP. Have faith.
[2014-11-08 13:51:22] <srk1214> so no shit the mods are still here (and I'm aware you weren't a mod yet)
[2014-11-08 13:51:26] <DougJustDoug> I want to fix the problems with CAP. I want to fix the issue of declining discussion quality. I want to make CAP more interesting to skilled battlers.
[2014-11-08 13:51:45] <DetroitLolcat> I don't believe jas was a mod for conda.
[2014-11-08 13:51:48] <DetroitLolcat> I forget though.
[2014-11-08 13:51:59] <srk1214> saying Doug isn't open for change is an overreading of his post
[2014-11-08 13:52:23] <nyttyn> He's made an argument, that's all.
[2014-11-08 13:52:55] =-= Pwnemon is now known as Pwnegone
[2014-11-08 13:53:19] <DetroitLolcat> He's not saying to cater to bad users. He's saying to accept bad users because that's how they become good users.
[2014-11-08 13:53:25] <DougJustDoug> But I do ask that anyone else who wants to fix CAP, needs to have a positive attitude and somewhat paternalistic perspective in dealing with lesser-skilled or unskilled participants.
[2014-11-08 13:54:04] <srk1214> paternalistic doesn't mean accepting every flaw in the userbase blindly
[2014-11-08 13:54:12] <DougJustDoug> Agreed
[2014-11-08 13:56:21] <DougJustDoug> I plan to post later that I agree we need to change our moderation standards in CAP threads. I agree we are allowing a lot of really shitty posts simply because they are "not against the rules".
[2014-11-08 13:58:26] <srk1214> Doug, the problem you're going to run into is that the current moderation team has shown absolutely no indication that you can actually handle that.
[2014-11-08 13:59:52] <srk1214> I certainly don't expect a top competitive player to be involved in CAP to do that job. clearly they don't like CAP since all of them left. But when jas or DLC is your best judge of whether a post knows what it's talking about, that's a problem.
[2014-11-08 14:00:25] <DougJustDoug> You seem to be saying that the moderation team cannot recognize bad posts because they lack the requisite skill. Amirite?
[2014-11-08 14:01:35] <srk1214> yes Doug. I'm looking for a good example right now. be back in a sec.
[2014-11-08 14:01:39] <Phwnemon> detroitlolcat is our only mod who has ever had the requisite skill to sit on a council
[2014-11-08 14:01:39] <nyttyn> Doug, it's been a common complaint that the mod team, as a whole, does lack skill in competitive battling.
[2014-11-08 14:01:50] <DetroitLolcat> Also, the moderation culture in the CAP forum has usually been to only delete rule-breaking posts, not necessarily stupid posts. If we agree that more aggressive moderation is the solution, I would at least give the current staff a chance.
[2014-11-08 14:01:54] <Phwnemon> which honestly isnt that high
[2014-11-08 14:03:00] <DHR> Yeah, lets actually be fair here Pwnegone, you're calling for our heads before we've even stepped up
[2014-11-08 14:11:32] <DougJustDoug> What makes you think the mods have to exclusively carry the workload of reading and interpreting every post for quality?
[2014-11-08 14:11:32] <DougJustDoug> If we tell the community at large that we are going to be deleting poor competitive posts, and begin having open discussions in #cap about the quality of posts in CAP -- I have no doubt there will be plenty of knowledgeable eyeballs on posts. And, as you surely know, there are plenty of people that are not shy about pointing out stuff that mods should do.
[2014-11-08 14:11:32] <DougJustDoug> If someone says in #cap, "Hey Doug check out this post [link]. That dumbfuck just claimed that Static would be a deterrent for Gengar to attack."
[2014-11-08 14:11:32] <DougJustDoug> I think almost every CAP mod is capable of understanding why that is retarded.
[2014-11-08 14:11:32] <DougJustDoug> And BTW, even if the mod doesn't get it, and asks "So what is the problem with that statement"
[2014-11-08 14:11:32] <DougJustDoug> You simply answer, "Static = Physical contact moves = not Gengar. Duh."
[2014-11-08 14:11:32] <DougJustDoug> Maybe a little rude or disrespectful, but still, there's nothing that says mods can't use their mod powers backed by the community's collective knowledge and critical eyes.
[2014-11-08 14:12:13] <Phwnemon> all right i can get behind that
[2014-11-08 14:12:21] <Piex> that sounds good o_o
[2014-11-08 14:12:22] <srk1214> I'm ok with that
[2014-11-08 14:12:26] <Phwnemon> the current method was -i log onto irc to laugh at a shitty post
[2014-11-08 14:12:34] <srk1214> but paint can't kick pwnemon when he says it
[2014-11-08 14:12:35] <Phwnemon> -paint tells me to stop mocking users
[2014-11-08 14:12:38] <srk1214> bc that's what currently happens
[2014-11-08 14:12:40] <Piex> I'm not even involved I just keep a watchful eye
[2014-11-08 14:12:52] <Phwnemon> this happened so many times
[2014-11-08 14:12:55] <Piex> and it's interesting talking to you guys and understanding your policy lol
[2014-11-08 14:12:57] <Phwnemon> during typing
[2014-11-08 14:13:03] <nyttyn> yeah doug
[2014-11-08 14:13:05] <Phwnemon> and then i just stopped reading the threads
[2014-11-08 14:13:06] <nyttyn> that sounds pretty good.
[2014-11-08 14:13:07] <DHR> Phwnemon -> Thats exactly the shitty attitude we don't want
[2014-11-08 14:13:16] <DetroitLolcat> Also obv. no objection to Doug's comment.
[2014-11-08 14:13:19] <DHR> Just say why its bad, don't "lol at it"
[2014-11-08 14:13:23] <Phwnemon> i did
[2014-11-08 14:13:24] <Phwnemon> lol
[2014-11-08 14:13:46] <srk1214> am I allowed to retroactively get half of the typing thread deleted?
[2014-11-08 14:13:48] <Phwnemon> but paint responded "post about it."
[2014-11-08 14:13:56] <Phwnemon> my fuckin god girl id have every other post
[2014-11-08 14:14:01] <Phwnemon> i have a life paint
[2014-11-08 14:14:04] <DHR> >_>
[2014-11-08 14:14:05] <DetroitLolcat> yfw when Pwne and DHR are essentially saying the same thing and it's just about the tone of people's IRC voice.
[2014-11-08 14:14:10] <srk1214> It's true
[2014-11-08 14:14:21] <DHR> Can you simply STOP ribbing on paint please?
[2014-11-08 14:14:25] <Phwnemon> >yfw yfw when
[2014-11-08 14:14:33] <DetroitLolcat> dammit
[2014-11-08 14:14:39] <srk1214> The TL or TLT member is not responsible for telling every wrong post why it's wrong
[2014-11-08 14:14:41] <Phwnemon> well paint is the mod that kept doing it so
[2014-11-08 14:14:48] <srk1214> that's the whole point of having moderators
[2014-11-08 14:14:54] <srk1214> so that you don't have to respond to bad posts
[2014-11-08 14:14:59] <srk1214> you can get rid of them
[2014-11-08 14:15:36] <srk1214> but if you're ok with them telling mods that a post is uneducated and it is taken seriously, that's probably ok
[2014-11-08 14:16:16] <DetroitLolcat> I don't think anyone would be opposed to users telling mods if they think a post should be deleted. Obviously not in the forum, but on IRC or even through PM that's fine.
[2014-11-08 14:16:57] <DetroitLolcat> I mean clearly that shouldn't be the - only - way posts get deleted (the mods should be identifying most delete-worthy posts on their own)
[2014-11-08 14:17:37] <srk1214> yeah that's the other thing in general
[2014-11-08 14:17:41] <DetroitLolcat> (Which isn't unprecedented. I believe there was a pretty railroady post Deck made during Stats?)
[2014-11-08 14:17:45] <srk1214> that mods should be really judicious in what they post
[2014-11-08 14:17:58] <srk1214> when a moderator in CAP posts, it is taken much more seriously than when any other user does so
[2014-11-08 14:18:11] <srk1214> probably even more so than the current project leadership team
[2014-11-08 14:18:28] <srk1214> and there are mods who know to stay out of discussions that they can't contribute to well
[2014-11-08 14:18:29] <DougJustDoug> What I just suggested is definitely a change to existing moderation philosophy. We have not had a standard of removing "stupid posts" in the past.
[2014-11-08 14:18:43] <srk1214> and there are mods like Doug who post infrequently but well and mostly focus on asking quetsions
[2014-11-08 14:18:48] <srk1214> but there are also mods like Deck
[2014-11-08 14:18:51] <srk1214> who post everywhere
[2014-11-08 14:18:58] <DougJustDoug> I would have opposed such a philosophy in the past.
[2014-11-08 14:19:03] <srk1214> and often are only marginally better than the posts that should be insta deleted
[2014-11-08 14:19:47] <Phwnemon> can we all get behind that then? like in the thread
[2014-11-08 14:19:52] <DougJustDoug> But the lack of quality discussion this last CAP, and the opinions of people complaining about poor competitive posts has changed my opinion on this subject.
[2014-11-08 14:20:08] <DetroitLolcat> Fine by me. If someone posts something like that I would agree with it.
[2014-11-08 14:20:12] <nyttyn> Don't forget cap 18 Doug
[2014-11-08 14:20:18] <srk1214> I just want to make sure you understand Doug that the two go hand in hand
[2014-11-08 14:20:19] <DetroitLolcat> It won't be me making the post most likely, as I need to head out in about 3 minutes.
[2014-11-08 14:20:22] <nyttyn> where we had glorious reasoning like numerous posters saying "BUT IT'S A UNIVERSAL TM"
[2014-11-08 14:20:23] <srk1214> bad posts actively crowd out good ones
[2014-11-08 14:20:41] <DougJustDoug> I have no problems openly saying I used to feel one way, but recent debates have changed my opinion.
[2014-11-08 14:20:47] <DougJustDoug> More people should try it.
[2014-11-08 14:20:52] <srk1214> I don't want to post in a thread where someone responds to me, completely misses the point, makes several factual inaccuracies, and then gets likes
[2014-11-08 14:21:41] <srk1214> (likes should probably go away anyway, but that's another story)
[2014-11-08 14:22:01] <DougJustDoug> I don't like the hostility that some arguments carry with them -- but I have been swayed by the content of the arguments themselves.
[2014-11-08 14:25:49] <srk1214> this was a productive talk though!
[2014-11-08 14:27:24] <DougJustDoug> I agree. Some good points have been made here.


I highlighted the "proposal" I made in the conversation that most of us seemed to agree with, in case you missed that part of the conversation amongst the other stuff we were chatting about earlier and after it.
 

Imanalt

I'm the coolest girl you'll ever meet
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
This proposal definitely helps, although I am a bit concerned about how much it will actually change anything. Anything thats not absolutely cut and dry not understanding mechanics, even if it shows no clue of the mechanics i suspect will be pretty hard to convince people to delete (or at least to convince some people to delete, as I'm imagine all mods will have very different baselines for this). And quite frankly just getting rid of the posts that misunderstand mechanics is maybe not enough. To me one of the big goals of cap is competitive discussions about ou. Unless the overall level of the discussions (even after pruning posts wrong about the mechanics) go up a good bit we still have the same baseline problem. We aren't discussing ou, we're discussing some random things that are what people who some combination of don't play or play at a very low level think ou is.

I think to me the most damning example of how little our conversations mirrored ou at a reasonable was a couple projects ago when we picked latias and lucario as underused mons in our core with volkraken. This was decided in early march, which helpfully is the same time as smogon tour. In week 1 of smogon tour(across an ok sample size of roughly 1000 games), latias saw 13.5% usage, which is roughly what talonflame got. Lucario at the same time saw 0.31% usage. Lucario was basically unviable, and latias was a very good, very commonly used pokemon. And even worse, almost any competent player could have told you there was a massive issue with the synergy of these two pokemon, namely that they were both thoroughly beaten by a pokemon that was shortly thereafter deemed broken (aegislash). This burden on the remainder of the core really haunted us for most of the remainder of the process, dominating almost every discussion. This was a poor choice, and the fact it was a poor choice just wasn't a significant part of the discussion on this core. Let's look at what people did say about this option in that thread:
Latias + Lucario would also be interesting, with their flexibility and such, and would be my third choice.
Cap Badge Holder said:
My favorite proposed core so far is Lucario + Latias. These are two very unique Pokemon that are hindered by very specific threats, compliment each other naturally and provide an interesting combination of offense and support. You can go quite a few different directions with a third pairing, whether you want an offensive connection with Latias support, a second supporter to help out Lucario, or a defensive switch-in to give both Pokemon opportunities to work. Furthermore, both Pokemon are fairly customizable, meaning that we won't be limited to just one specific set for each Pokemon (and the bigger point, forced to run one set for the core to work). This is the ideal pairing so far in the thread.
LaLu is cool because they really have clear weaknesses that we can fit CAP 18 into, and those weaknesses are actually something CAP 18 can do something about. We have to be wary of being outclassed by Latios, though-what does Latias bring to the table that Latios doesn't?
Latias + Lucario might also work out very well. With the banishment of Lucarionite from OU, we can actually look into how Lucario fares in OU, packing Steel STAB to hit all of the fairies wanting to wall his fighting STAB. On the matter of fairies, that might be the one thing this core needs; a fairy-killer to stop the core from getting run over and walled by fat water rabbits or moon fairies.
As far as my ctrl+f found, this is all but 2 total posts discussing the core after its initial post nominating it in the thread (which I would also say means it probably wasn't discussed enough, but thats another issue). Two posts mentioned aegislash at all, the nomination post and one dlc post discussing it. No posts mentioned latias's high usage or lucario's marginal viability (with the only one mentioning viability questioning whether latias was even viable). There's also a common theme of versatility throughout. At this point, lucario had one set: swords dance/close combat/priority move/coverage move. Yes, lucario can tailor its set slightly to choose its checks and counters some, but it can't do much about it, and to me this is not versatility. And then there's latias, which had one set, dmeteor/coverage/defog/recover with a life orb. This is not exactly versatility. If we want to really nitpick, I believe healing wish latias was just starting to see some use at this point in high level play, but I'm dubious anyone was really referring to that.

Basically my point is, which of these posts woudl have been deleted? The one that asks if latias is outclassed probably could have been, but I'm not sure any of the others are wrong enough that we would delete. And so the more I think about it, our problem isn't just that we have a lot of bad posts. Its that we have almost no good posts. Frankly, I think almost any post talking about this core without mentioning aegislash could be called bad, but its at best mediocre. Yes, cleaning out the outright bad posts helps make the environment more friendly to people who can make good posts, but I don't think it fixes our problem. I'm running out of ideas, I'd love to hear people's solutions, but I just want to say its very hard for us to go overboard on this. Reading back through that thread was honestly pretty depressing as to the level of difficulty of the task of trying to bring it back to a point where we're discussing the actual metagame.
 

ginganinja

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As far as my ctrl+f found, this is all but 2 total posts discussing the core after its initial post nominating it in the thread (which I would also say means it probably wasn't discussed enough, but thats another issue). Two posts mentioned aegislash at all, the nomination post and one dlc post discussing it. No posts mentioned latias's high usage or lucario's marginal viability (with the only one mentioning viability questioning whether latias was even viable).
I just want to point out that I remember this example exceptionally well, and remember spending countless hours on IRC with said TL and anyone else on IRC at the time mentioning Aegislash and how ludicrus that the TL refused nominations that contained "commonly used pokemon"...and then allowed Latias. Sometimes, its not that there isn't competitive reasoning being thrown around, sometimes, its just CAP members ignoring the advice of competent players.
 

Imanalt

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So ginga and i had a big discussion on why he didnt post in that thread i was referencing earlier, and i think it probably offers a lot of good thoughts:
[16:33] <imanalt> ginganinja
[16:34] <imanalt> why the hell didnt you post in the thread abotu latias + luc
[16:34] <imanalt> 9.9
[16:34] <%ginganinja> because all I needed to convince
[16:34] <%ginganinja> was DLC
[16:34] <%ginganinja> the TL
[16:34] <%ginganinja> also because
[16:34] <imanalt> then post that. THATS something we need to address
[16:34] <%ginganinja> I currently
[16:34] <%ginganinja> cannot be fucked
[16:34] <%ginganinja> posting in a cap discussion thread
[16:34] <%ginganinja> there is no incentive to do so
[16:34] <%ginganinja> utterly none
[16:35] <imanalt> ok this log will eventually go in the thread btw
[16:35] <%ginganinja> O.k
[16:35] <%ginganinja> I'll rattle off the reasons then
[16:35] <%ginganinja> just quickly
[16:35] <%ginganinja> firstly
[16:35] <%ginganinja> #1 The discussion threads are cancer to read in the first place
[16:36] <%ginganinja> 2# If you bother posting, no-one listens to you anyway
[16:36] <Pwnegone> i didnt fully read the discussion threads after typing
[16:36] <Pwnegone> and i was the tl
[16:36] <Pwnegone> because i knew they wouldnt teach me DICK
[16:36] <Pwnegone> i just talked to the couple decent players on irc
[16:36] <Pwnegone> to help me decide things
[16:36] <%ginganinja> #3 Even if someone does listen to you, it doesn't matter at all, because it comes down to winning polls, which goes back to point #1 because no-one reads discussion threads because they are toxic
[16:36] <imanalt> so: if we cleaned the threads up to say, delete the worst third of the posts
[16:37] <imanalt> woudl you all object to starting to hold the discussions in threads not itc
[16:37] <Pwnegone> probably not
[16:37] <%ginganinja> doesn't solve the problem
[16:37] <%ginganinja> people don't listen
[16:37] <Pwnegone> i used to think threads helped people decide things
[16:37] <Pwnegone> if we fix them
[16:37] <Pwnegone> it could go back to that
[16:37] <%ginganinja> I feel like I'm talking to a wall
[16:37] <imanalt> what /would/ it take to post in the thread
[16:37] <%ginganinja> post weighting
[16:38] <%srk1214> threads were more useful in the past than now
[16:38] <%ginganinja> or some connection to ---> Better post ---> better outcome
[16:38] <%srk1214> irc has always been the best way to talk through an argument with someone though
[16:38] <%srk1214> ims > forums for things like that
[16:38] <imanalt> well yeah srk, but id argue any debate on here should be posted about at the conclusion of it to the thread
[16:38] <%ginganinja> MAIN ISSUE: CAP doesn't reward good discussion posts
[16:38] <imanalt> ideally at least
[16:38] <%ginganinja> period
[16:39] <%ginganinja> so why bother in the first place
[16:39] <%ginganinja> etc etc
[16:40] <%ginganinja> I remember posting on Volt Absorb
[16:40] <%ginganinja> look how well that went down
[16:40] <Pwnegone> tru
[16:40] <%ginganinja> did people listen
[16:40] <%ginganinja> nop
[16:40] <imanalt> so ginganinja
[16:40] <imanalt> if we said only people who helped in the discussion thread
[16:40] <imanalt> could vote
[16:40] <imanalt> woudl tht be enough for you?
[16:40] <%ginganinja> ye
[16:40] <%srk1214> oh please god no imanalt
[16:41] <imanalt> because itd say you got a vote and most people didnt
[16:41] <%ginganinja> although then its elitist
[16:41] <%ginganinja> again
[16:41] <%ginganinja> so its not rly a solution
[16:41] <%srk1214> every poll would go wrong
[16:41] <%srk1214> without good outside users voting
[16:41] <imanalt> srk1214 let badged users or something vote as well
[16:41] <%ginganinja> just introduce post weighting
[16:41] <%srk1214> or at least a lot more than usual
[16:41] <%ginganinja> if you want your opinion to have better weight in the polls
[16:41] <%ginganinja> you post
[16:41] <%ginganinja> and you make it good
[16:41] <%ginganinja> if you don't care, then don't post


So basically the major takeaways to me at least is that
a) threads are bad so people dont read, and because people don't read they dont post making them bad, so i think cleaning up bad posts and trying to emphasize that good irc discussions should have their results posted in the thread to help contribute to that. I think this is a case where the disagreement on how we should deal with this is only a question of degree of strictness.

b) There's a feeling of helplessness that posts in the thread don't actually matter, because of people not reading threads from a, and because there are so many bad votes. I think i agree with ginganinja that some sort of weighting system based on quality of posts in the thread would be ideal, but i also don't think its at all practical. It takes too big of a workforce to make it happen, when we already are sorely lacking for leadership who is strong competitively. The middle ground I propose is that there is some permanent whitelist of voters who by some criteria are allowed to vote in any poll, and then any user who makes a reasonable quality post and no bad posts in the discussion thread can also vote. This shouldn't be hard, as all it takes is one or two people reading the thread and just identifying the reasonable posts.

Basically while i agree with doug to some degree that we can't just cater to whatever anybody wants, I think everything discussed is a pretty prevalent concern for a high percentage of our userbase. Even if they do soldier through it, it makes the project less fun for them, so I think even if restricting voting in some degree sucks, its something that is enough of a concern that we need to look into how to do it.
 

jas61292

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Here is another post on behalf of bugmaniacbob. While I'd still prefer for him to be able to post for himself, the speed that this discussion has been going makes it inconvenient to wait until that happens for him to make his posts:

bugmaniacbob said:
ginganinja said:
I would. Heck, thats what I DO as an OU mod. The OU moderators spend an entire month moderating a single suspect thread that gets 4 posts about every 5 minutes and have to control the discussion, so that one single unintelligent post doesn't spark about 20 replies and derails the thread. I sympathise with the CAP staff, I really do, because this kind of active moderation is tiring as hell, and I certainly don't blame anyone for wanting to just let bad posts lie...you guys get a new discussion thread roughly every week for what...3 months? That said, it has been pointed out that active moderation might be something discussion threads need. Back to your original point though, don't pretend that this is some impossibility, other moderators can do it, and I have every faith in the ability of current cap mods to regulate a CAP discussion thread.
Don't pretend that I ever said it was an impossibility. It was one question in a list of questions that has yet to be answered or addressed. As you succinctly alluded to, someone with no social life could very easily do it all by themselves. If you read my post, I certainly agree that active moderation would be a good step forward.

I don't see a single problem with post weighting. There will always be personal bias in a project. Pocket and I had our own personal bias when moderating suspect threads (where we disagreed with what was relevant/irrelevant , and if you want a CAP example, I can kindly point you to the entire Aurumoth process, where the TL in question allowed his own personal bias to affect the project. The point being that no matter the process, moderation or merely heading the project, personal bias will always exist, it makes us wonderfully human. That said, that doesn't mean personal bias is a bad thing, it just means individuals with a certain degree of power need to manage it, be it moderators or TLs. Obviously, some people have better success managing it than others.
"Vote weighting" is not the same as deleting random posts in a discussion thread that add nothing to the topic at hand. If you honestly cannot see how giving the power to subjectively weight votes to a select group of individuals is defeating the point of having a vote in the first place, well, I think this isn't an issue that can be resolved with a paragraph of text. I was talking very specifically here about "the amount of weight your vote carries depends on how good your reasoning is" and other similarly idiotic ideas, not discussion moderation or paragraphs in voting threads.

Yes so obviously, you missed this line, especially the balanced bit, but I digress. The bolded bit? Thats almost the definition of an enjoyable metagame. Yes, CAP is all about the process, but its also about the OU metagame. If you want more evidence on the subject, you can look at Malaconda, which was an attempt to balance the unhealthy effects of rain on the metagame and to promote a wider range of playstyles in the OU tier (sun). The wonderful irony is that many CAP veterans actually consider Malaconda one of their personal favourites / successes, so maybe now you can see how someone might have "gotten the idea"?

CAP absolutely is about creating an enjoyable metagame. Unfortunately, some CAPs were toxic to play within their metagame (read: Playtest), like Aurumoth but that just serves us as an added incentive to balance our creations better. You want a better example? How about Pwnemon banning Aegislash in this current playtest. Isn't our playtest an (imperfect lets be frank but I digress) example as to what we expect the metagame to look like? Aegislash was banned from our playtest because it was not enjoyable to play against. Now lets be clear, I accept that CAP is not "Mr Fixit". Its job is not to address the various problems of the OU metagame. That said, claiming that CAP isn't about creating an enjoyable metagame is a load of BS.
Perhaps you misunderstood my meaning, or else the mission statement's. "Hopefully make the metagame more balanced" is typically translated to "don't make broken stuff on purpose". "Increasing the number of viable Pokemon", likewise, is "try things we haven't tried before". It is not some hidden command for a balancing act. Have we had concepts that specifically refer to reducing the viability of other Pokemon? Sure. Arghonaut and Malaconda are good examples. That does not mean they were designed with the explicit purpose of making the metagame more enjoyable in the slightest. It goes without saying in any CAP that the metagame has to remain balanced, or we've failed to make an OU Pokemon. If the metagame becomes more balanced as a result? That's what we /expect/ to happen, as a result of making a CAP that beats commonly used threats. All I'm getting from your argument is your own spin on a vague bullet point wish list.

The process is the goal — with all the discussions and discoveries that go along with it. Like they say, "Life is about the journey, not the destination."
Disagree with this? That's fine. But this is most certainly the purpose of the CAP Project as it stands.

A balanced and enjoyable metagame is something that a CAP should strive for. This is not under dispute. However, this is not equivalent to the suggestion that the purpose behind the process is metagame manipulation or design.

-------

Deck Knight: How would this open-book test work, when people could just copy whatever the person above them wrote? Or, if I've misunderstood the mechanism you're suggesting, what would happen to those who didn't have access to IRC, and who would be responsible for getting the answers and building up this prospective whitelist? It seems a very labour-intensive way of approaching what seems a relatively simple proposal.
n



EDIT: There was a day's delay between my making this post and jas being able to post it, so a bit of new stuff has turned up in that time. I'll just say quickly that I agree with Doug's sentiment that it's the prerogative of veteran users to be willing to help those who are willing to learn and interested, or even would be interested with a little encouragement. Clearly this doesn't mean deleting ill-informed posts is an impossibility, and certainly we're all here to make mistakes. Omelettes and eggs, and all that. At least in theory, the point of CAP is to live and learn from mistakes, and not to bemoan the fact that people clearly don't know what they're talking about... or more often, don't agree with your line of reasoning. Blatant factual inaccuracies should be corrected, naturally.

As far as Lucario and Latias were concerned... I am positive that there was a vocal opposition to it, at least on IRC. I was absent, if I recall correctly, when the pair was decided upon, but even so, I can remember arguing the point on IRC that the current usage statistics for Lucario were inflated given that its Mega had been banned halfway through that month, and the suspect ladder statistics were more pertinent, and showed that Lucario was hardly used at all. Others were, I'm given to believe, arguing the same point and others from before the decision was made - as ginga pointed out. Regardless, this is the same thing that happened to Togekiss for Voodoom, and I'm pretty sure it's less the fact that we weren't taking the metagame into account so much as, as was the case in the past, a desire to see if it were possible for one Pokemon to make another competitively usable - which didn't work then, and didn't work before that. I disagree with the decisions that were made, but to argue that they were purely the result of ignorance of how OU worked isn't quite correct. If I've misunderstood what any of the people remarking on this point were talking about, do feel free to ignore, as the position seemed to keep shifting between that which I agreed with and that which I did not.

If you want to encourage people to post well in the discussion threads, there has to be an acknowledgement of their thoughts. Particularly the Topic and Section Leaders, but equally any moderators or veterans should make a point of acting as review posters, quoting and highlighting the best sections of posts and querying any questionable logic, as well as providing a general summary of discussion and directing the flow of dialogue from that point onwards to ensure that the discussion is not sidetracked. Honestly, I consider this a more important exercise than just cleaning the bottom of the barrel.
 

Deck Knight

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Now would be a good time to consolidate these ideas into a few initial policy proposals:

1. More active moderation on competitive post quality. This can be achieved through using IRC as a hotline - with a recommendation that specific issues be handled via an IRC or Forum PM to prompt them to swift action. It will be the standard policy to also delete replies and quotes to any relevant post. A general note in each OP would be to encourage participants who see poor competitive reasoning to contact a moderator via IRC or Forum PM to get the matter resolved swiftly.

2. Alteration of thread OPs to reflect this policy, with more specific explanations in later steps. An example here would be that Thunder Wave is a good move, and Clefable is a good Pokemon, but Clefable doesn't use Thunder Wave in its competitive OU sets. Therefore we include how to verify current competitive sets via !usage, etc.

I think at this time we should hold off on addressing the voter pool through proposals like vote weighting or whitelisting. Based on the arguments in this thread, the common concern is that bad posts are leading to bad votes, not that the voter base itself is the problem. I believe we should discuss how far to go with altering the OPs instead of constructing vote control mechanisms.
 

nyttyn

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2. Alteration of thread OPs to reflect this policy, with more specific explanations in later steps. An example here would be that Thunder Wave is a good move, and Clefable is a good Pokemon, but Clefable doesn't use Thunder Wave in its competitive OU sets. Therefore we include how to verify current competitive sets via !usage, etc.
I think at least one thing we can do is add something like the following to the rules section of all competitive stage OPs

A basic level of competence is expected in this stage. Posts will be heavily moderated, and any that showcase a lack of understanding of either competitive play or the metagame will be removed. (Example: While Thunder Wave is a good move, and Clefable is a good pokemon, Thunder Wave is never seen in competitive Clefable OU sets)
 

Birkal

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I'm fine with Deck and nyttyn's recent proposals. Is there anything else you all would like to come about as the result of this thread?
 

Empress

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Seconding Birkal on this; I think such a proposal would greatly solve the issues brought forth in the OP. As it currently stands, we would be weeding out the bad players with our more aggressive moderation, and if the quality of the discussion improves because of that, the quality of the posters will increase along with it. Despite the concern addressed in the OP that this would go against the CAP mission statement, the fact stands that we would remain open to the public; we would just be keeping a more watchful eye on said public.

I also agree with Deck Knight that a voting whitelist might not actually be necessary, but in a different way. Despite the poor discussion during Plasmanta, we voted very judiciously anyway- a conservative movepool, a 100 Speed stat spread, and a typing that accomplished pretty much everything we envisioned it would. Basically, even if the discussion is bad, the votes aren't always bad with it.

To sum it up, let's start with Deck/nyttyn's proposal and see how it goes from there. Possible voting changes could happen on a later date, but we don't need them just yet.
 

Deck Knight

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One final issue I think would be beneficial in pursuing is Disabling the Likes Feature. This is an administrative control we would need to implement, but I think "likes" have done more harm than good to many of our discussions and polls.

I endorse nyttyn's wording for the OPs. It gets the message across and delivers on an objective standard to guide moderator and posting behavior. I would add another sentence to it, so the full text would read:

  • A basic level of competence is expected in this stage. Posts will be heavily moderated, and any that showcase a lack of understanding of either competitive play or the metagame will be removed. (Example: While Thunder Wave is a good move, and Clefable is a good pokemon, Thunder Wave is never seen in competitive Clefable OU sets).
  • Contributors are encouraged to PM moderators via forum or IRC regarding postings they consider not meeting this standard to ensure competitive competence is maintained within the threads.
 
Last edited:

nyttyn

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Yeah, likes were a good idea, but they've kind of fallen flat on their face. Baptize them in fire please.

Anyways I have one, last, thing. And I swear this is the last thing, I don't want to drag out this thread longer than it has to be. It has to do with #CAP with some degree, but as a whole, it has to deal with the issues of acknowledgement, of community, and of if we're really going about this the right way.

We need to encourage leadership. We need to encourage people not to get pissed, we need to encourage them to take the time to make good posts, and we need to encourage them to foster a sense of community. We need to acknowledge good posters, and we need to show them their contributions matter. That's what we should be doing. But instead, what I've seen in this thread more or less confirms my worst fears, a fear I brought up earlier - CAP is beginning to devolve into a "Us vs Them" mentality. Hell, even I've been guilty of it in this thread, and frankly, now I get Doug's point. We're so caught up in pointing fingers, figuring out how to "cull the bad posters," we forgot that we are a community, not a competition.

Oglemi said:
That, and the current crowd that participates in CAP just aren't fun people. They get vastly too angry over arguments, they make extremely long tl;dr posts that aren't worth reading (like this post 9.9), and the community just seems so uninviting and exclusive.
I don't disagree with the proposals we've brought up thus far, and I do agree that we do need some quality control in the competitive steps. I also believe that only censoring posts is not the solution, and if we leave it at that, it will only add to a more elitist, uninviting, and exclusive atmosphere. I suppose I can't really make this a formal proposal, but rather, consider this a request. We should strive to educate new users, to invite them to #cap, to learn, to grow. We very rarely get "good" users joining out of the gate - numerous people can attest to a rocky start in CAP, and I myself have had perhaps one of the rockiest (to quote Birkal, "Years ago, [nyttyn] was one of our biggest trouble users..."). If we don't take the time to turn these "bad posters" into good posters, to support them, to help them, how can we possibly expect them to want to become good posters?

Now, before this post gets too long, I'm going to establish my proposals.

1. A Zero Tolerance Policy be Implemented For #cap

There is no excuse for #cap's current state of afairs, and frankly I'm even ashamed of myself. Users are attacked, often behind their backs, people casually bash others without a second thought, and worst of all, nothing is done about it. Underneath the new rules, if a user finds a post to be poor to the point of requiring removal, they can contact a mod - there is now no excuse for personal attacks. As such, the moderation team for the channel needs to have zero tolerance for attacks on other users or their posts. There needs to be no ambiguity, no "but I only called it stupid," #CAP should be a community, not a circlejerk. This zero tolerance policy needs to extend to attacks on veteran users and moderators as well - there have been a few incidents in this past week that have been particularly egregious.

2. Better Resources for New Users

As it stands, there is no good way for a new user to learn the ins and outs of the CAP project. We tell them to lurk more, and that's about it. That's completely insufficient, and it's a small wonder we have such a new user retention issue. Granted, we have plenty of fair-weather posters who couldn't care less, but there are also plenty of new users who want to get into CAP, only to hit a brick wall and have no idea what to do. The only resources they have to work on are the rules, a "newcomers guide" that is not only buried underneath a easily missiable hypertext link within the rules OP but is also incredibly useless (not only is it mostly a rehash of the rules, it doesn't even say that #cap is on irc.synirc.net, leaving a new user confused as to how the heck they actually join #cap, and it doesn't even mention the showdown room), and the SQSA thread which, while helpful, is not nearly enough.

The solution to this will likely require its own PRC thread, but some things we could do include adding a sticky about the CAP mentors, updating the newcomer's guide to not be rather useless and giving it its own sticky, so on and so forth. Birkal, if you want me to write a thread about this, just let me know and I'll get something together.

3. Take a Breather

This isn't actually a proposal but moreso just a request to everyone, myself included. Please, take a breather, remember why we're here, what the CAP project is. We're all just here to have a good time, to learn, and to make fakemons. I understand new, as well as bad, users can be frustrating but please, be kind to them anyways, help them along the way. And please, if you get frustrated at a veteran, try to settle it peacefully and don't start bashing them. We need to set a good example.
 

jas61292

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I completely agree with Deck and nyttyn on likes. They are evil and should be destroyed.

Furthermore, I would like to say that I think nyttyn brings up a lot of good points in his post. With regard to #cap policy, I have always tried to be harsh on that kind of stuff. While I would not necessarily call it a "zero tolerance policy," I have absolutely no patience for people who attack individuals rather than ideas. I know that some people have talked about how we need to be more chill, or how we need to focus more on punishing problem users, and I will not disagree with that. However, there is absolutely no excuse for insulting people. Period. I'd like to ask that everyone in with any sort of authority in the channel follow through with what nyttyn is suggesting here.
 

Empress

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Something incredible
Yes, yes, unequivocally yes.

The concern in the OP about helping users more is that it turns the discussion into a tutoring session. While that is true at a certain level, if the communication about posts can be restricted to IRC and private messages, then the discussions will not be derailed. Also, why do we lack new blood? Because we turn them away. Let's face it: though CAP does attract some bad users, our philosophy of dealing with them is to flame them on IRC. If they don't use IRC, they'll keep on posting anyways. If they do use IRC, they'll get driven away because of all the hate, when they could be retained by dealing with them civilly. To brand them as a n00b and call it a day is completely over the line, further distorting our democratic image. Just because you're an influential individual does not give you the right to launch personal attacks.

CAP is a democracy and always will be. To drive away our potential new blood, and to slander them in the process just for the hell of it, completely goes against that. The concern is that CAP could be perceived as elitist if the new proposal were to be implemented, but that's quite the opposite. It's elitist now given the level of hate on IRC, and we can make it democratic. How so? Well, by encouraging the posters to become better instead of attacking them for being bad, they have an incentive to improve and stay active in the project.

The proposals overall look good. Unless there is something more that has not yet been said, I think it may be time to wrap this thread up. Kudos to nyttyn for acknowledging the IRC problems.
 
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