Okay, people complaining about reqs and levels and Smogon Council and all that stuff...
Thank God you're pushing the req limit back to 1450, but I fear that Smogon is actually becoming too lenient with giving out voting requirements. 1400 is obscenely low, it allows anyone who's remotely good at Pokemon to vote on Suspects. However, I think Smogon is making one big error in deciding requirements: We're correlating skill at Pokemon with actual ability to vote.
Tell me, why should hitting an arbitrary rating on a flawed ranking system against random opponents in a metagame where the RNG is king qualify you to make the most important decision on Smogon? One could hit those reqs in a night with a little, and I mean a little effort and not nearly be qualified to make decisions on the metagame. I was testing out a Drizzle team and it didn't get me far, but I really wanted to vote in the Suspect test so I looked in the RMT Forum, found a guy with some badges, and carbon copied his team. After a few hours of laddering, I shot up to a lofty 1456 and called it quits, and now I have a fancy little check mark by my name.
Am I knowledgeable about the metagame? Maybe. I played a lot of battles, read a lot of RMTs, and delved through the forums numerous times. I at least attempted to arm myself with knowledge so I could at least try to make my vote count. However, I bet a ton of voters stripped something from RMT, pasted it onto PO, and got reqs. They know nothing about the metagame, and their vote counts as much as the best damn battler on the site.
Secondly, look at how many idiotic voters say "I don't like having this pokemon" or "this pokemon is unhealthy for the metagame" and then click the Ban box for them. Those people should be getting infractions, not check marks! Dammit, half the voters only pick what makes the metagame easier for them! And there are a lot more people who have no idea what they're talking about then people who can make an informed decision.
So, Mr. Lolcat, you seem to be whining about the process. How do you go about fixing it? I know my opinion matters nada around here, but I still want to continue my rant/present an opinion about this/increase my post count, so I'll tell you!
Some people want to bring back the Smogon Council because it ensures that only qualified voters will vote and it's probably the quickest and easiest method next to our early ADV "Suspect Test". However, the Smogon Council is ten times worse then what we're doing now. Honestly, I would consider leaving Smogon if we brought that method back, as it completely undermines what makes Smogon University the competitive Pokemon community.
What makes the Smogon Suspect Test procedure great is that it uses a large, but not insanely large, pool of voters to make a democratic decision. At the risk of contradicting my last few paragraphs, Smogon should not be abandoning a democratic process anytime soon. I think it could use a little reformation, though. There are two kinds of voters in Smogon, "good voters" and "bad voters" (there are probably "okay voters" too but just go with it)
"Good voters" are those that make a decision based on: 1. if the Pokemon breaks the metagame and 2. are knowledgeable about the metagame to truly decide on a Pokemon's tiering.
"Ban voters" are those that do not vote based on the two aforementioned characteristics. Basically, if you vote Garchomp Uber because you like Flygon or you have no idea what you're voting about (I would guess Smogon's elite are more angry about the second), then you're a "bad voter". Otherwise, you're probably "good".
Rating on PO doesn't really correlate to whether you're a good voter or not. If you're at 1600 but only because you abuse broken shit and vote the broken shit OU to stay at 1600, you're a bad voter because of you're bias. If you're at 1300 but only can't succeed because of hax, RL interfering, etc. but have read a lot and put some thought into voting, then you would be a "good voter" regardless.
However, the first case isn't common. Smogon is a large community, but not insanely large. Most people who can consistently get above 1500 are pretty well known around here, and anyone who can get to 1600 is probably a multi-badged "famous" battler, so we don't need to worry about crazy-high ranked bad voters. However, quite a few good players didn't feel like laddering or didn't have PO access and didn't vote because of it while some noob who lucked out to 1450 will be getting their spot. That's the big problem with everything.
So we get to the meat and potatoes of all this tl;dr I'm posting at 3:00 in the morning. I've been implying throughout this post that we need upper and lower reqs, and we do. I've implied that too much objectivity is bad, and it is. I think what could be good for Smogon is very high upper reqs, pretty low lower reqs, and a paragraph system.
Upper reqs are to distinguish players who are exceptionally skilled at Pokemon and could make an informed decision with little effort. These people wouldn't need to worry about personal bias because they kick ass at Pokemon and would do fine whether the Suspects got banned or not. I would think a number like 1525 could suffice here.
Lower reqs, which most people would be voting with, would distinguish players that might have the ability to make an informed decision and are at least somewhat skilled at the current metagame. Basically, it promotes democracy in Smogon and makes sure only the "good voters" vote. These members would submit paragraphs (paragraphs, not sentences) detailing why each Suspect is or is not broken. Whoever reviews the paragraphs would look for if the person is voting for the good of the OU tier or for the good of their own team and would get or be denied rights depending. A number like 1375 or something could suffice as lower reqs, as only a small degree of competency at pokemon is needed to be good at Pokemon decision making.
tl;dr version
Well, there's my rant. This system seems to be unfavorable, Smogon Council is a giant load of horse shit, upper reqs should be really high, lower reqs should be low and need paragraphs.
I will now pause for user: Aeroblacktyl to vent the rage I assume he has towards me...
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P.S. Use Landorus w/HP Ice. Drizzle isn't broken and Flygon still sux.
P.P.S. ~80 voters is fine as long as they know what they're talking about. ~20-30 voters is fine as long as they know what they're talking about. We need to fix quality of voters, not quantity of voters.
@ below post. It's called reasoning. It's good for you.
