Resource NU Community

[LeoLancaster]

mdchan about your clock being adjusted to 30 seconds. That's a built in function that happens to everybody. The timer starts at 150, and each successive turn you get 30 more seconds than you had at the end of last turn, max 150. So, if you took 70 seconds the first turn the timer was on, you'd get 110 seconds next turn (150-70=80, 80+30=110.) I have noticed it to be inconsistent at times (it'll often give me a full 150 no matter how long I took the turn before), but I can guarantee you a mod wasn't involved in adjusting your timer because they don't have that power. Sorry you felt unfairly punished because of that, the timer function could stand to be better explained.

(note: my numbers might be a bit off, they're what I've gathered from my own experience)

 

[TSM ryan]

I've been playing competitive (and NU) for about two and a half weeks, but already, there was one minor problem and one huge problem I encountered a couple days ago which has written me off of ever participating in another NU tournament (and nearly chased me out of NU, completely).

The first is that there's no way to deal with extremely rude people (even if they're winning, some people will say rude things; it goes beyond being a "sore winner" and more of mocking the person they're against) except to mute them.

A way to report a player for being a jerk (and have the incident looked into instead of a blind decision based on someone's word, such as the replay link as proof or even a screenshot of the behavior) would be nice.

The second is running the clock.

I'm actually not talking about people who purposely run the clock...I'm talking about people who report others.
For example, someone I faced either thought I was running the clock (or was just being obnoxious, as they were certainly rude in what they said during the match) and obviously PMed a mod about it because my clock was adjusted to a mere 30 seconds on my next turn without so much as a warning (while I was both trying to decide my next move because I was in a tight spot, and asking them to stop being rude since I didn't know at the time about that "ignore opponent" option).

My issue here are two things:

1. That the mod took what this person said at face-value.
--Is there any consideration that someone might be lying about their opponent running the clock when a mod is PMed? Just because someone takes more than 10 seconds to make a decision, or even more than 30 seconds, doesn't mean that they're running the clock. Someone could be looking things up (such as base speeds/stats and common sets), particularly if they don't have every stat memorized.
During a tournament, they can even be running a calc.
These things take time to do, and should be considered when someone accuses another use of running the clock.

A warning about running the clock before it suddenly is adjusted would be nice, as well as a mod considering/seeing if there's a reason why it's taking someone so long to make a play before coming in and adjusting the clock on someone.


2. The person being accused might not "think on their feet" and need that extra time.
--I'm sure I'm not the only person who has an actual disability who plays pokemon. While I can write this up nice and neat (though even that takes time), it might take me a few moments to actually make a decision in the game/real time.
When I first started competitive, I was nervous because I'm not very good when on a time limit. However, I found that even I can manage the 120 second limit, and usually make a decision within half that time (possibly more if I need to look something up).
When my timer was adjusted to 30 seconds that one time, I couldn't make a decision fast enough and timed out.

To me, it felt like discrimination (even though I know the mods had no way of knowing), and I was hesitant to continue to play in the NU tier again (I even switched tiers for a little while; nobody in UU ever complained about how long it takes me to make a play, and there also weren't as many rude/alienating people; not even in their tournaments did anyone ever complain. But in NU, if one takes longer than 30 seconds to make a decision, they're either told to hurry up or have their clock adjusted).


I still play in the NU tier because it's usually fun, but I almost always play on an alt now, and I don't sign up for tournaments because I don't want to feel pressured/worry that my opponent might PM a mod to shorten my clock since I sometimes take a little longer to make a play.



To sum it up/TL;DR:
It'd be nice if:
-There was a way to report (with proof, please) a player being rude/obnoxious/cruel (I've also been a victim of someone screaming obscenities and ill intent in all caps about being haxed, or laughed at when I got haxed), and

-That the mods don't "jump the gun" on adjusting someone's timer when they're taking longer than 10-30 seconds to make a play if their opponent complains.
--Perhaps give a warning before the clock is adjusted, and-or consider that maybe there's a reason it's taking someone so long to make a play.

If someone waits until the very last second every turn (or every other turn) to make their play, a penalty is understandable. Otherwise, it'd be nice to see some consideration.

What even is this "running the clock" thing? I've never ran into that even once. If it takes a player that damn long, then that's how long it takes them. If you actually got your timer cut down because of that, that's fucked up man.

edit: LeoLancaster is also right, if that's what you were referring to, lol. the timer adjusts on its own. there most likely wasn't a mod.

 

[Ares]

I've been playing competitive (and NU) for about two and a half weeks, but already, there was one minor problem and one huge problem I encountered a couple days ago which has written me off of ever participating in another NU tournament (and nearly chased me out of NU, completely).

The first is that there's no way to deal with extremely rude people (even if they're winning, some people will say rude things; it goes beyond being a "sore winner" and more of mocking the person they're against) except to mute them.

A way to report a player for being a jerk (and have the incident looked into instead of a blind decision based on someone's word, such as the replay link as proof or even a screenshot of the behavior) would be nice.

The second is running the clock.

I'm actually not talking about people who purposely run the clock...I'm talking about people who report others.
For example, someone I faced either thought I was running the clock (or was just being obnoxious, as they were certainly rude in what they said during the match) and obviously PMed a mod about it because my clock was adjusted to a mere 30 seconds on my next turn without so much as a warning (while I was both trying to decide my next move because I was in a tight spot, and asking them to stop being rude since I didn't know at the time about that "ignore opponent" option).

My issue here are two things:

1. That the mod took what this person said at face-value.
--Is there any consideration that someone might be lying about their opponent running the clock when a mod is PMed? Just because someone takes more than 10 seconds to make a decision, or even more than 30 seconds, doesn't mean that they're running the clock. Someone could be looking things up (such as base speeds/stats and common sets), particularly if they don't have every stat memorized.
During a tournament, they can even be running a calc.
These things take time to do, and should be considered when someone accuses another use of running the clock.

A warning about running the clock before it suddenly is adjusted would be nice, as well as a mod considering/seeing if there's a reason why it's taking someone so long to make a play before coming in and adjusting the clock on someone.


2. The person being accused might not "think on their feet" and need that extra time.
--I'm sure I'm not the only person who has an actual disability who plays pokemon. While I can write this up nice and neat (though even that takes time), it might take me a few moments to actually make a decision in the game/real time.
When I first started competitive, I was nervous because I'm not very good when on a time limit. However, I found that even I can manage the 120 second limit, and usually make a decision within half that time (possibly more if I need to look something up).
When my timer was adjusted to 30 seconds that one time, I couldn't make a decision fast enough and timed out.

To me, it felt like discrimination (even though I know the mods had no way of knowing), and I was hesitant to continue to play in the NU tier again (I even switched tiers for a little while; nobody in UU ever complained about how long it takes me to make a play, and there also weren't as many rude/alienating people; not even in their tournaments did anyone ever complain. But in NU, if one takes longer than 30 seconds to make a decision, they're either told to hurry up or have their clock adjusted).


I still play in the NU tier because it's usually fun, but I almost always play on an alt now, and I don't sign up for tournaments because I don't want to feel pressured/worry that my opponent might PM a mod to shorten my clock since I sometimes take a little longer to make a play.



To sum it up/TL;DR:
It'd be nice if:
-There was a way to report (with proof, please) a player being rude/obnoxious/cruel (I've also been a victim of someone screaming obscenities and ill intent in all caps about being haxed, or laughed at when I got haxed), and

-That the mods don't "jump the gun" on adjusting someone's timer when they're taking longer than 10-30 seconds to make a play if their opponent complains.
--Perhaps give a warning before the clock is adjusted, and-or consider that maybe there's a reason it's taking someone so long to make a play.

If someone waits until the very last second every turn (or every other turn) to make their play, a penalty is understandable. Otherwise, it'd be nice to see some consideration.

Like LeoLancaser said thats a built in function of the timer. Nothing you can do except ask nicely for them to turn the timer off.

As far as in the room tournaments go if your opponent is being rude and calling you names please PM a mod and they will be dq'd from the tournament. If it continues on into the room they will be muted. If the person starts PM spamming you then PM a global mod. As far as ladder games go PM a global mod and they will sort out the situation.

 

[Kiyo]

k, so here's the deal with this thread imo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. new users expect to be integrated into our community right away, this isn't how things have always worked in the past, and its definitely not how some of our more 'respected' members became 'respected'. The standard process (at least in my opinion and experience) has been:
a. lurk
b. get good
c. post on subjects you're knowledgeable about
d. get recognized for good posts
e. get badged / gain recognition from community members

I'm not really sure where along the line we stopped telling users to 'lurk more' and it became our duty to go out of our way to explain to them the errors in their thinking/posting/metagame knowledge/etc. And help them to become the better user, rather than having them come to us. I mean shit, when I started you couldn't even get into B101 without 25 posts or a solid explanation as to why you didn't. We used to encourage users at the very least attempt to get good on their own before we helped them out, and even then they had to come to us. This is the process I went through and as far as I could tell at the time its the same as every other new user: lurk on forums → ask a question is SQ/SA → post an RMT and get feedback → ladder to gain experience → gain 25 posts and sign up for b101 → typically you now had the knowledge and skill to make educated posts and have your opinion repsected.


For whatever reason, nowadays the process looks a lot more like this: start a discussion about a really shitty mon that has no use in competitive play in the viability rankings thread → have users who know wtf their talking about tell you your wrong → shit talk them cuz salty → bitch about community being bad or about community members in ps room


^so maybe I exaggerated a bit here, but in general people are posting much sooner than they used to, and with much less experience / skill. I'm all for smogon growing as a community guys, just not if it turns into a giant shit post forum where the badged users are expected to wear a smile and mop up all the shit day after day without any (or little) effort from the newer users. This is a hobby, not a fucking 9-5 where I get paid for smiling at retarded kids and cleaning bathrooms.
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2. I'm a dick, I'm sorry.

I work with kids that range from 4 years old to 18 years old on a daily basis, I have to be nice to them no matter how much they piss me off. Their parents are annoying as shit, etc. these are excuses, truth be told I'm a dick when I get online and a lot of the time I take it too far. Sometimes I forget there's another person behind that computer screen, I may use words like retarded, aids, cancer, etc and phrases like go die, kys, etc. far too often than they should be used. To the community as a whole I'd like to personally apologize for this behavior and publicly state that I will be going to make an effort to improve this.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not gonna make a post calling out users in this thread who I think are blatantly fucking lying to themselves, or in general way off base. But I think it would be great if moving forward we could all make a pact to moderate more effectively, and in general hold back on posting unless we feel we're educated on the subject. I would honestly be refreshed if I got muted for calling someone a retarded aids sack today, and I'd love to see more people handing out lurk mores to people on forums who post with clearly no metagame knowledge or battling skill (sorry johnny 4 post).


Thanks for taking the time to read if you did, hopefully we can get past this.

 

[HJAD]

oki, after taking a 2 week "hiatus" from mons, I've had a lot of time to reflect and look at why I'm actually here right now. Why am I still playing Pokémon, why am I still playing NU and why do I not "disappear" more.

Quite frankly, the fun I've had in these past 2 weeks have really kinda of changed my perspective on mons. I've realised that, its only a past time for me, not the be all end all thing I thought it was. Mons is a game with faults, but our community is the main one.

I don't think the "problem" with this community is the new players. New players are everywhere, in every tier, in every competitive scene, everywhere. Now, let's say NewNUPlayer1234 comes into the NU Room for the first time. What does he see? He sees several moderators, probably a room owner, several voices and constantly talking chat that will literally chat about anything. NewNUPlayer1234 decides to go and make his first ever NU team. He spends a good few hours perfecting it to his likeing, adding a personal touch to each of his sets as he goes, becoming ever attached to each Mon he uses. He decides to ladder for the first time, and does well. He is unbeaten in 3 games. NewNUPlayer1234 then decides he is gonna talk in the NU chat about his favourite Mon, Spinda, which has put in work for several games previous. He talks, wow, this Spinda is a God, you all should try it.

This is where it all goes wrong.

Instead of being ushered into a sense where he is given direct proof that Spinda is an outclassed pokemon, he is instead shouted out, made fun of, and laughed at in the full presence of the NU Room, which often has more than 100 users, which can be intimidating for somebody new. In an ideal world, we could all follow Kiyo 's idea, where a new user would lurk around more before he either begins to post in the NU Room or the Forums if he is more serious. He would gain experience by entering b101, looking at badged users posts and learning the meta. But in reality, this is impossible. Not everyone who plays NU lurks on the Forums, and in the NU Room people expect a place where they can bounce ideas with one another the general topic discussion of the NU tier.

The problem lies here, in the fundamentals of the tier. NewNUPlayer1234 now doesn't like the NU tier because of how a moderator or driver abused him for his lack of knowledge. People don't know better. I'm sure if people knew that what they were using is wrong and outclassed, they would stop using it. But, instead, what happens is that they are attacked by other people who think they know better than him, which they probably do. It's human nature to defend his corner, and as a result gets muted. Never plays NU again. New players are kinda like children. You nurture them, guide them, in the hope that one day they turn into a responsible adult someday and make a living for themselves. A bad parent would be one that abuses their children, doesn't develop them, and the child doesn't turn into this ideal responsible person. This exact same analogy could be used when describing new NU players and the moderators of the NU Room / Tier. If you imagine the new players as the children and the moderators of the NU Room as the parents, and the development process as the nurturing. If, as a community, we decide that we want to nurture these new players in the hope that they will develop into good players who are respected amongst the community, a fee things have to change.

1.) Our Attitude towards new players
- I for one don't like it when a person of higher authority calls out a user who is in the NU Room for the first time. It kinda just seems you are abusing your superior mental power to help you in that scenario to just grill the living daylights out of said new users. Have a little empathy, have a little hindsight. These people might not be well educated in the tier, and it is your job as authority or regular users (doesn't really matter ngl) to make new users feel like they are welcome. This is the first step to achieving the ideal goal of them lurking more and contributing high quality posts.

2.) Our Attitude towards each other
- This part honestly gets me. Every. Single. Time. And it usually happens after one user haxes another. If guy wins via hax and has a little gloat, it seems in recent times the fashion is to just kick this person to the sideline. Pay no attention to him, and sever all ties. It's fucking Pokémon. This spawns from natural human hatred of bullshit events, but quite frankly, Pokémon would be nowhere nearly as fun without the hax. Hax is the part of Pokémon that means it isn't a chess game, where every second is a predictable one. In mons, one crit changes it all if your lucky. But, for some reason. People take being haxed as some sort of offense towards them(?). I, for one, have haxed players to no end. Good and Bad. But there are two ways people often react to being haxed. One is the ideal way, "daww that was unfortuante", " mons is mons", "ahh mons strikes again xd". Or the other way. "I hope you die", " kys", "cancer comment". Simply put, if we just took less offense from getting haxed, it would be so much easier to get along with 99.9% of the community.

3.) Our Morals.
- This is quite a touchy topic so I won't spend too long explaining myself and ask for whoever is still reading to ask themselves, am I really a percieved good user? Do I ever alieniate people after an "event" has happened? Do I laugh and troll new users? We need to ALL take a serious look at ourselves in the mirror and think, what could we, what could I, do better to better contribute to this community. Just asking yourself this question every day after you've finished will help solve so many problems in the community.

--
I also want to talk about this "clique" that goes on in the NU community. It is quite frankly, disgusting. The fact you would segment yourselves from the community and act all "I know everything hurrdurr" at anyone that crosses your path is what annoys me. I honestly don't think the "clique" should exist. Having a group between friends on Skype is one thing, having about half the community in a group and saying that anyone else outside of it is essentially ass isnt what the tier wants nor needs. We need to take a more "just" approach about how we handle power, where is it deserved as apposed to who's been my best friend the past couple weeks. At times, I honestly think this is how some people got promotions. Not through talent, or activity, or contributions.
I'll finish up my point on the clique; it shouldnt exist. Dont EVER let the community get segmented, since people who THINK they know better, don't often know what's ACTUALLY best for this tier.

If we are real, let's be honest. We will never ever get the 'perfect' tier. There will always be something wrong, something to work on, something to change. But if we look at the NU tier rn, I feel like the meta is at a point where it is enjoyable to play. What's letting it down is the "community" aspect. We are hardly cohesive, responsible or even fun to play with at this point. Myself included. If we all work together, we can achieve some kind of success, as frens, and as a community.

tl;dr, don't blame the new players, they don't know any better.
try to act kinder to a new user who doesn't know better
try to act kinder to each other, despite "mons being mons"
make moral decisions, be a more moral person, for the sake of making the community more welcoming and less toxic.
fuck the clique
we are all frens at heart, let's make it so that people know this.

come on guys, let's do this. For NU.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

I'm barely involved in the chatroom and don't really talk to a lot of people outside of battles in general but one thing I'd like to point out is just how a few people can react in battles.

If your opponent is polite, stay polite, in fact stay polite all the time. If I hax you, I didn't choose to do so, there's no point bashing in my face for it.

Saying gg 3 turns before the end of the game is not being rude, if the outcome is obvious why deny it? Don't take too much pride in a game and don't imagine I'm fucking proud of winning. I'm just saying good game man and I'd see myself doing it if I was in the loosing position too.

If your opponent really is a cocky bastard, just ignore him. A wise man once told me most of the times you're angry, you decided to be. There's 0 fucking point in being pissed over some random dude on the internet, so decide not to be.

 

[Pokedots]

I'm barely involved in the chatroom and don't really talk to a lot of people outside of battles in general but one thing I'd like to point out is just how a few people can react in battles.

If your opponent is polite, stay polite, in fact stay polite all the time. If I hax you, I didn't choose to do so, there's no point bashing in my face for it.

Saying gg 3 turns before the end of the game is not being rude, if the outcome is obvious why deny it? Don't take too much pride in a game and don't imagine I'm fucking proud of winning. I'm just saying good game man and I'd see myself doing it if I was in the loosing poosition too.

If your opponent really is a cocky bastard, just ignore him. A wise man once told me most of the times you're angry, you decided to be. There's 0 fucking point in being pissed over some random dude on the internet, so decide not to be.

I agree with this post. I want to note, however, that when the "random dude on the internet" is a known user, which is not at all common on this site, not only does it make you feel excluded from the community, it also makes you not want to be a part of the community.

Just in general don't throw tantrums at people

 

[Cheryl.]

Guys, just be nice to people. Like, jesus christ, do we need to post an entire thread based on being nice and no bullying? People should know that already, don't alienate people just because they're new, its just like don't alienate people because of race or religion in real life. Like, WTF. I know some people have fiery personalities and all that, but shouldn't we have learned all of this in real life?

 

[xzern]

Guys, just be nice to people. Like, jesus christ, do we need to post an entire thread based on being nice and no bullying? People should know that already, don't alienate people just because they're new, its just like don't alienate people because of race or religion in real life. Like, WTF. I know some people have fiery personalities and all that, but shouldn't we have learned all of this in real life? Really,

Dude, the last four pages of this thread is people making coherent arguments with the use of paragraph after paragraph of logic. What you're saying in 2 sentences, everyone else is saying with depth and meaning. I don't really see why you feel inclined to make posts like this with family guy memes, especially in a thread like this. I dont mean to be rude, and I'm not trying to calling you out, since that would defeat the purpose of this thread. While what you're saying is true, I honestly think that you could strive to be a better poster if you elaborated a bit more rather than just posting one/two liners all the time.

As for my thoughts on this: I had stopped playing NU for a while ago, mostly because of the community. I felt like a lot of posters were being excluded because of the single clique who had most of the power and influence over the community. I won't lie when I say that I was not the best poster when I started posting here, or when I say that I wasn't the most mature person either. However, because of some of the community's members, I was somewhat driven out of NU, because I got the sense that a good majority of the community didn't want me here. I still posted here at that time, but I started gradually posting more in Doubles than in NU. So why am I playing NU and lurking in this forum again? It's because I see that this topic is being brought up and that the community is trying to improve itself. I refer to Kiyo's post earlier in this thread: it exhibits mainly what I'm talking about. Not only does he say "hey lets start doing this", "lets add something to the mix," but instead of blaming the other side, he criticizes himself in order to fix a problem. When you take this practice and apply it on a bigger scale, its that kind of self-awareness that makes the tier itself more welcoming, more friendly, and less intimidating for newer users.

 

[Steakburgers]

Can the definition of a bad user be explained as well? Here's my thing. I come into Nu room to chat, chill out, and play a few games and be myself. But sometimes I get regarded as a bad member of chat when
1. I'm not breaking any rules
2. I don't troll, spam, say venom over and over in chat, I try and help people who need it, and I joke around
It makes no sense to be called a bad user when i've seen higher auth do worse and still be praised as though they've achieved the holy grail of comedy
And thats the little clique thing i'm sure people have been talking about
It's like a constant circlejerk of users who seemingly turn their noses up at most everything else in the room
I mean you want someone to be comfortable in a chatroom, then you turn around and say naw man, THIS IS HOW YOU ACT OKAY
I'm not trying to point any fingers or anything but it'd be cool to get some sort of explanation

 

[pokemonisfun]

k, so here's the deal with this thread imo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. new users expect to be integrated into our community right away, this isn't how things have always worked in the past, and its definitely not how some of our more 'respected' members became 'respected'. The standard process (at least in my opinion and experience) has been:
a. lurk
b. get good
c. post on subjects you're knowledgeable about
d. get recognized for good posts
e. get badged / gain recognition from community members

I'm not really sure where along the line we stopped telling users to 'lurk more' and it became our duty to go out of our way to explain to them the errors in their thinking/posting/metagame knowledge/etc. And help them to become the better user, rather than having them come to us. I mean shit, when I started you couldn't even get into B101 without 25 posts or a solid explanation as to why you didn't. We used to encourage users at the very least attempt to get good on their own before we helped them out, and even then they had to come to us. This is the process I went through and as far as I could tell at the time its the same as every other new user: lurk on forums → ask a question is SQ/SA → post an RMT and get feedback → ladder to gain experience → gain 25 posts and sign up for b101 → typically you now had the knowledge and skill to make educated posts and have your opinion repsected.


For whatever reason, nowadays the process looks a lot more like this: start a discussion about a really shitty mon that has no use in competitive play in the viability rankings thread → have users who know wtf their talking about tell you your wrong → shit talk them cuz salty → bitch about community being bad or about community members in ps room


^so maybe I exaggerated a bit here, but in general people are posting much sooner than they used to, and with much less experience / skill. I'm all for smogon growing as a community guys, just not if it turns into a giant shit post forum where the badged users are expected to wear a smile and mop up all the shit day after day without any (or little) effort from the newer users. This is a hobby, not a fucking 9-5 where I get paid for smiling at retarded kids and cleaning bathrooms.
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2. I'm a dick, I'm sorry.

I work with kids that range from 4 years old to 18 years old on a daily basis, I have to be nice to them no matter how much they piss me off. Their parents are annoying as shit, etc. these are excuses, truth be told I'm a dick when I get online and a lot of the time I take it too far. Sometimes I forget there's another person behind that computer screen, I may use words like retarded, aids, cancer, etc and phrases like go die, kys, etc. far too often than they should be used. To the community as a whole I'd like to personally apologize for this behavior and publicly state that I will be going to make an effort to improve this.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not gonna make a post calling out users in this thread who I think are blatantly fucking lying to themselves, or in general way off base. But I think it would be great if moving forward we could all make a pact to moderate more effectively, and in general hold back on posting unless we feel we're educated on the subject. I would honestly be refreshed if I got muted for calling someone a retarded aids sack today, and I'd love to see more people handing out lurk mores to people on forums who post with clearly no metagame knowledge or battling skill (sorry johnny 4 post).


Thanks for taking the time to read if you did, hopefully we can get past this.

Do you have any evidence to support your first claim, apart from your mention of the somewhat unrelated / very inconclusive battling 101 subforum. I have been around the lower tier subforums for a few years and although I agree that there are terrible posters and players I don't really notice an increase in them percentage wise and I certainly don't notice them asking for recognition.

Also I would be careful when you talk about "wearing a smile" and "mopping up shit". It's clear some of this so called clique has bullied people online. As an outsider, to me it sounds as if you're making a bit of a strawman argument or at least an extreme exaggeration: decent players are asking to be respected more in this thread, with a sidenote of asking your NU community to be more tolerant of what we can call bad players I guess for lack of a better word. Certainly nobody is asking you to be all smiley to everyone but it's a very basic request to be polite.

 

[xzern]

Can the definition of a bad user be explained as well? Here's my thing. I come into Nu room to chat, chill out, and play a few games and be myself. But sometimes I get regarded as a bad member of chat when
1. I'm not breaking any rules
2. I don't troll, spam, say venom over and over in chat, I try and help people who need it, and I joke around
It makes no sense to be called a bad user when i've seen higher auth do worse and still be praised as though they've achieved the holy grail of comedy
And thats the little clique thing i'm sure people have been talking about
It's like a constant circlejerk of users who seemingly turn their noses up at most everything else in the room
I mean you want someone to be comfortable in a chatroom, then you turn around and say naw man, THIS IS HOW YOU ACT OKAY
I'm not trying to point any fingers or anything but it'd be cool to get some sort of explanation

Well, to answer your question, a bad user is one who consistently breaks rules and common etiquette even when being told to stop, in my opinion. However, I dont think that bad users are very common, since everyone has room for improvement and the only users that are "bad" in particular are the ones that absolutely refuse to improve in any way whatsoever. These kinds of people are typically run-of-the-mill trolls that get banned pretty quickly. As for the rest of your post, it should be noted that this thread isn't for venting, but is instead for trying to help improve the community in a positive manner. That's the vibe I've been getting, at least. If someone is calling you a bad user, you should talk to a higher-up about that and not complain in this thread. We're well aware of the issues we're facing, so instead of beating a dead horse, I believe that your point would be better conveyed in a post that helps the community solve those problems rather than highlight how bad they are.

 

[Orphic]

Okay so I think this thread has derailed quite a lot from the original premise to now talking about battle etiquette. Yes, we should not flame and abuse each other in battles etc but there's too much focus on this, this is a general rule for all of PS! and not just the NU community and is NOT the reason this thread was created and is NOT even close to the reason why people are angry about the state of the NU community. Let's not shy away from the main reason this thread was created and change the subject, as xzern said, people that are decent posters are made to feel unwanted, and the same with new users as a result, since if decent posters aren't wanted, who else will be?

Yes, new users won't be perfect, I wasn't, neither were any of you. But lets not pretend the issue is simply the treatment of new users, it was the overall treatment of even experienced users with authority as well, people with badges, everyone that wasn't a friend of someone in the so called 'clique'.

I'm not disagreeing with any of the above posts, but a lot of the stuff seems to be waffle about "stop having a go at people blah blah" to get likes. This isn't the thread to be like-whoring, I'm sorry. It's true you shouldn't do that, but it's not relevant to why this thread was created.

However, I have already seen major improvements in the users in question and huge strides taken towards fixing our community, I'm starting to enjoy NU again! As mentioned, NU is a fun metagame right now and many have come out and apologised for behavior and said it will change and I personally have seen a new side to many people I was quick to despise because of their treatment of me, and feel much more comfortable that we can all get along better, it won't be easy, but we're already seeing improvements as people are held accountable.

Regardless of whether these people actually believe they've done something wrong, or whether they intentionally made the community toxic, they're owning up to it now because they care for the community and I think in order to move forward we have to respect them for that. Users who feel like you're being unfairly 'shit on' by the community, I encourage you to speak to those you think are responsible, have a mature conversation and sort things out, not everyone will be friends all the time but at least you can find a way to live among each other with mutual respect. This is, of course, in reference to my conversation with hollywood where we solved some personal issues between us, we aren't suddenly going to be best friends, but there's a level of respect that is borne out of a mature conversation that means we can co-exist at least in a healthy community together.

Finally, my point is that the reaction from the 'clique' that prompted the creation of this thread has been unprecedented and a brilliant one of no arguing, but simply accepting that the majority of the community believes their actions were terrible and unnecessary. Therefore, I personally believe we're at a stage we can look to the future, a new Viab Rankings thread is on the way, where we can start to display a level of maturity unseen in the past 6 months and everyone can hopefully attempt to return to how NU supposedly used to be, I'd certainly like that, wouldn't you?

EDIT: Wow the abuse I got in this replay for one bit of hax: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nu-252898900

 

[mdchan]

I did want to thank the people who responded to my post and let me know that the timer adjusts itself (nicely, without making me feel like an idiot. I think that's a great example of a good community).
I don't know why it would do that, and frankly I don't think it should (but that's a Showdown-wide thing, so I won't say any more about it except that I wish that was changed so it didn't happen. I mostly just wanted to thank the people who let me know that, especially because when I mentioned it in the chat after I timed out, nobody even responded to me).


My first week (well, after my account was a week old so I could chat...so, my second week, really), I suppose I was lucky enough to come in during a point when everyone was being accepting and helpful. I felt instantly included in the NU tier even though I was a total noob. Ironically, most of the people chatting didn't have a symbol next to their name. I still don't know what all the symbols mean, but I didn't think anything of it at the time.

However, I do understand what people are saying about cliques and alienation, as I felt that yesterday when I asked a question on teambuilding and got no answer (in fact, my question was ignored). Yes, I know there's a thread, but I've observed and seen that people ask questions in the chat (I sometimes do, as well) because we want an immediate answer when we're teambuilding (particularly if the answer isn't in one of the threads).

What happened was that nobody answered my question. It wasn't just me; when another user asked a question about good partners for a particular pokemon, those in the room (who had symbols next to their names) just continued on with their conversation. I attempted to help since I was actually familiar with that particular pokemon despite being a newbie, but the lack of help/responses to someone asking for teambuilding help surprised me.

I saw another person who had to ask their question twice before someone finally answered them. Now, I have seen the NU chat talk about a variety of things (I did lurk for the week I couldn't talk in it, and sometimes, I just lurk rather than talk), but I don't think it's right to ignore someone asking a question about the NU tier.

I know there's the Lab thread, the compendium, viability thread, etc...some people just want an immediate answer, particularly if they can't find the answer to their question in one of those threads (or don't know about the threads). It appalled me that everyone continued to talk about the current non-pokemon related topic rather than pause that conversation to help the people who were (politely) asking NU questions on partners for pokemon (teambuilding).


Suggestion:
I know it's a chat, but it would make people feel less alienated if they received the help they ask for instead of having to ask their question two or more times because nobody answered them the first time. Not getting an answer from an active chat makes people feel like either they're not in that "clique", or that they're either purposely being ignored/alienated.

As a newbie, I don't expect to be recognized straight away...but I'd at least like to be acknowledged/helped out as long as I ask nicely.

 

[marilli]

stuff

Just like you need time to think about your next move, sometimes people will need time to formulate a proper answer. Especially when questions start off with wrong assumptions, it takes a lot more effort for people to point out where everything went wrong.

In fact, when I ask questions sometimes they sometimes go ignored too, and there's nothing wrong; such is the nature of a real-time chat like ps. You will be interrupted. You will be drowned out when there's 100 other people asking their questions, saying something they have to say. Stop having unrealistic expectations on how a live chat would work: there's no way a 100+ persons chat room will immediately acknowledge what you'll have to say and stop saying anything else the moment you ask a question. Rest of the chat room is just as important as you are. Have you noticed that in real life, if you interrupt other people talking, they'll get annoyed at you, for no reason at all? Well, that's in fact because interrupting others is just as rude as ignoring them.

Stop having unrealistic expectations on how a live chat would work. Generally, if you want to ask questions that won't get drowned out, try posting on the forums which leaves your question more permanently.

If you have a question that really want to be answered, try the SQSA thread.

If you cannot figure out where a thread is, try The NU Info thread.

If you can't figure out how a thread works, read its first post, how other people are posting, and act accordingly.

If you cannot figure out how anything works in NU, try just reading through things thoroughly.

If you still don't get it, try PMing a moderator. The way you do it is going to top right of the website, inbox -> start new conversation.

Thanks,

 

[badabing]

Is pokemonisfun in ract too cool for the never used community

Only time will

 

[flowre]

Okay so I think this thread has derailed quite a lot from the original premise to now talking about battle etiquette. Yes, we should not flame and abuse each other in battles etc but there's too much focus on this, this is a general rule for all of PS! and not just the NU community and is NOT the reason this thread was created and is NOT even close to the reason why people are angry about the state of the NU community. Let's not shy away from the main reason this thread was created and change the subject, as xzern said, people that are decent posters are made to feel unwanted, and the same with new users as a result, since if decent posters aren't wanted, who else will be?

Yes, new users won't be perfect, I wasn't, neither were any of you. But lets not pretend the issue is simply the treatment of new users, it was the overall treatment of even experienced users with authority as well, people with badges, everyone that wasn't a friend of someone in the so called 'clique'.

I'm not disagreeing with any of the above posts, but a lot of the stuff seems to be waffle about "stop having a go at people blah blah" to get likes. This isn't the thread to be like-whoring, I'm sorry. It's true you shouldn't do that, but it's not relevant to why this thread was created.

However, I have already seen major improvements in the users in question and huge strides taken towards fixing our community, I'm starting to enjoy NU again! As mentioned, NU is a fun metagame right now and many have come out and apologised for behavior and said it will change and I personally have seen a new side to many people I was quick to despise because of their treatment of me, and feel much more comfortable that we can all get along better, it won't be easy, but we're already seeing improvements as people are held accountable.

Regardless of whether these people actually believe they've done something wrong, or whether they intentionally made the community toxic, they're owning up to it now because they care for the community and I think in order to move forward we have to respect them for that. Users who feel like you're being unfairly 'shit on' by the community, I encourage you to speak to those you think are responsible, have a mature conversation and sort things out, not everyone will be friends all the time but at least you can find a way to live among each other with mutual respect. This is, of course, in reference to my conversation with hollywood where we solved some personal issues between us, we aren't suddenly going to be best friends, but there's a level of respect that is borne out of a mature conversation that means we can co-exist at least in a healthy community together.

Finally, my point is that the reaction from the 'clique' that prompted the creation of this thread has been unprecedented and a brilliant one of no arguing, but simply accepting that the majority of the community believes their actions were terrible and unnecessary. Therefore, I personally believe we're at a stage we can look to the future, a new Viab Rankings thread is on the way, where we can start to display a level of maturity unseen in the past 6 months and everyone can hopefully attempt to return to how NU supposedly used to be, I'd certainly like that, wouldn't you?

EDIT: Wow the abuse I got in this replay for one bit of hax: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nu-252898900

Now that you mention the "abuse", it's kind of funny that you complain about it when the favourite hobby of the room is following players with a symbol in their name like you in battles to laugh at the opponent. I really want to think that I'm wrong and this only happens against me for being an already hated user, and you don't do it against other players too, because it's really immature. In my case I don't care, but I don't think the majority of players enjoy having a crowd making fun of their plays. To be honest, this childish behavior doesn't surprise me when there are people like this guy "Dentricos", a voiced user in the room that is supposed to act like a mature person, who every time we battle tells me beautiful things like "lol ur shit, get rekt" whenever he's winning or "fuck you, omg hax noob..." and other insults whenever he's losing. If you give voice/powers to underage people like this, don't expect a great community, because they set a bad example to new users.
I'm not complaining (it would be pretty hypocritical coming from where I come from) but I think this had to be said.

 

[mdchan]

Just like you need time to think about your next move, sometimes people will need time to formulate a proper answer. Especially when questions start off with wrong assumptions, it takes a lot more effort for people to point out where everything went wrong.

In fact, when I ask questions sometimes they sometimes go ignored too, and there's nothing wrong; such is the nature of a real-time chat like ps. You will be interrupted. You will be drowned out when there's 100 other people asking their questions, saying something they have to say. Stop having unrealistic expectations on how a live chat would work: there's no way a 100+ persons chat room will immediately acknowledge what you'll have to say and stop saying anything else the moment you ask a question. Rest of the chat room is just as important as you are. Have you noticed that in real life, if you interrupt other people talking, they'll get annoyed at you, for no reason at all? Well, that's in fact because interrupting others is just as rude as ignoring them.

Stop having unrealistic expectations on how a live chat would work. Generally, if you want to ask questions that won't get drowned out, try posting on the forums which leaves your question more permanently.

If you have a question that really want to be answered, try the SQSA thread.

If you cannot figure out where a thread is, try The NU Info thread.

If you can't figure out how a thread works, read its first post, how other people are posting, and act accordingly.

If you cannot figure out how anything works in NU, try just reading through things thoroughly.

If you still don't get it, try PMing a moderator. The way you do it is going to top right of the website, inbox -> start new conversation.

Thanks,

If the chat is going quickly and everyone seems to be talking at once, I can understand that.

I have to admit, though, that your response makes me feel like I'm being patronized/talked down to.

However, if only 2-5 people are actively talking, and there's enough time where someone's question remains in the chat screen for well over five minutes and isn't drowned out, then what's the excuse?
If a question is being ignored, why is it being ignored?
Why isn't one of the other 100+ people in the room (whose accounts are old enough to allow them to chat) answering to contribute/help the community?

I believe those are things which need to be looked at and addressed properly to make the community better. I may be new to Showdown, Smogon, and competitive pokemon...but I'm not new to gaming communities. I was even the mod on an old roleplay forum, so it's not like I don't understand some of the frustrations of being a mod.

However, I feel like I'm being told that I shouldn't ask in the NU chat for help with the NU tier; that I should either just stick to posting it on the forums or wait 30+ minutes for everyone to finish their conversations before asking.

That makes me, as a new player, feel alienated. I mean no offense/rudeness, but some of the responses I've seen from the mods/higher-ups in this thread are defensive/scary/elitist in tone, and frankly, quite off-putting to the point where I feel like I don't want to be in the NU community.

Often times, when I don't get an answer in the NU chat, I'll go to Competitive Tutoring or the Help rooms...and get an answer almost immediately even if they're talking about something else (and especially in the CT room, the chat is going a lot faster than in NU).
I never get talked down to, never get ignored, etc.
So, why are they able to stop what they're talking about/doing and help me when the NU chat doesn't?

They have the excuse of a flooded chat, but they don't need to use it because someone will still always answer (often times, two or three people will answer) a question. In fact, if I have a question, I rarely ask it in the NU chat anymore because I often don't expect to get an answer. Rather, I go to one of those places.

It'd be nice if the NU community can become as cohesive as that.

 

[Disjunction]

Now that you mention the "abuse", it's kind of funny that you complain about it when the favourite hobby of the room is following players with a symbol in their name like you in battles to laugh at the opponent. I really want to think that I'm wrong and this only happens against me for being an already hated user, and you don't do it against other players too, because it's really immature. In my case I don't care, but I don't think the majority of players enjoy having a crowd making fun of their plays. To be honest, this childish behavior doesn't surprise me when there are people like this guy "Dentricos", a voiced user in the room that is supposed to act like a mature person, who every time we battle tells me beautiful things like "lol ur shit, get rekt" whenever he's winning or "fuck you, omg hax noob..." and other insults whenever he's losing. If you give voice/powers to underage people like this, don't expect a great community, because they set a bad example to new users.
I'm not complaining (it would be pretty hypocritical coming from where I come from) but I think this had to be said.

Hi, wanna take this as an opportunity to talk about some "Moderation Junk"

Our stance on voicing users is fairly liberal, giving voice to regulars who contribute to chat positively and regularly to show appreciation for their continued work in chat. (We voice for an assortment of other reasons too, but this is how the majority of users have gotten their voice). At least, this is my policy on voices. Regardless, I'm sure most of the mods would agree that if one of our voiced or (god forbid) authed users are out consistently insulting their opponent (community stigma against them or not), then that user would be unfit to hold their rank. We may not see an uglier side of a player before we promote them, or a user will just be hiding that ugly side from us to convince us that s/he is deserving of rank. I implore any of you who see any of our ranked users misbehaving to report that to one of us. I assure you we'll take it very seriously, especially after all the changes this thread has ushered in.

For you users holding a rank of any kind in the PS NU chat- That rank carries with you a bit of responsibility for your actions and words. You are one of the faces of our NU chat and your actions reflect on our room.

Obviously, this isn't to say I'm convinced any of our voices/auth are doing this now/anymore. I trust all of our ranked users to behave themselves. It's just a reminder to us of what we're responsible for and what a regular user can do to speak out if they feel a ranked user is misbehaving.

 

[SlickHippo99]

As a fairly new smogon user, I would like to start by saying I really appreciate this thread and that so many members of the community have clearly put a lot of time and thought into this topic. These are some ideas that have been brought up that I think could really help make positive changes in the NU community:

New User of the Month (mentioned by Brawlfest)
This would be good for a few reasons:
-Making praise and recognition in the community more easily accessible to new members so they feel less alienated
-Reward new users who are making worthwhile contributions to the community
-Show other new users what they can do to gain recognition in the tier and how to be more productive and knowledgeable members (How did this New User of the Month start on smogon? What kind of posts did they make? What did they do to gain recognition in the tier? etc.)

More opportunities for NU players to learn through experience
One great thing about NU is the amount of resource threads we have to help out users like the Viability Rankings, Speed Tiers, and Teambuilding Lab. However, I think the best way for new users to really integrate and learn is through experience and playing with more knowledgeable players. Since getting into B101 can be difficult, I think that somehow direct learning with more experienced players should be implemented. Another thing that could help is making tournaments feel more accessible. As has been mentioned, tournaments are mostly done by way more experienced players who are all buddy-buddy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I've always felt kind of unwelcome to participate for that reason. Maybe a cool idea would be some kind of tournament with teams of 4 or 5 where each team is comprised of a moderator and some less-experienced players so that the moderator could help them out and they can get experience against people of similar skill levels. These teams could watch up every week or so, with the mod captains of each team playing and then the other members playing each other.

Overall right now I think most players agree the tier is pretty fun to play, but for NU to really be great, there has to be a more cohesive sense of community, and I think the best way to do that is to get newer players to mix and interact with more experienced players so that they can learn from them through experience what it takes to be productive and knowledgeable members of the community.

 

[Raseri]

OK this thread has really gotten off track the last little while, and while I do appreciate what you all have to say, its time we redirect this thread a little bit. Instead of focusing on what the problems are, the new topic of this thread is: What sort of things can we do to make NU a better place? I mean this in a sense of, what sort of projects could we be running to make NU easier to get into, what kind of resources would you like to see? Ways to improve the community can still be posted to, but any posts targeted at an individual will be deleted, I don't just want finger pointing.

One more thing I would like to say, is that ranked users are behaving inappropriately, please reach out to a room owner and we will address it for you. If a room owner is behaving inappropriately, reach out to another room owner.

 

[noobcubed]

The main problem I see is that there are plenty of newcomers who just want to have a bit of fun - they don't want to spend ages memorising speed tiers and all the extraneous guff that the tryhards who consider themselves the "real" community know off by heart. It's not so much that the established members of community look down on newbies for being scrubs; it's more that they look down on them because they don't really care that they are scrubs and aren't particularly fussed about getting better.

As Smogon is an inherently competitive community (for better or for worse), what do we do about these people? Direct them to Orange Islands, maybe?

 

[FireMage]

Hello, I used to be a part of the NU community - ran a lot of projects / tours / things for NU users to enjoy for most of BW(2) NU. the community at tht time was great. People would get involved and there was very little to no drama. I'd regualrly get help and chat with players to further my NU experience.

So bring round first NUPL of XY - Ras put forward a newer contributor with no NU expereince (Sorry QQ but you had like 20 posts in NU at the time) and disregarded ALL arguements for the other two candidates put forward - It was a slot I'd earmarked as solid NU contributor (Ras / Treecko / iirc SG represented PS! players at that time, with FLCL and Tennis/Zeb rounding off NU Great players) and I and QQ have to get put up to manager vote, and I despite getting a 4-2 vote initially had someone last minute U-turn their vote (I'd agreed to majority - if it was a tie I'd step my spot down).
I never got a reason why that one user u-turned on their initial vote as it was made clear to me in #neverused that player didn't care if I was manager or not (despite hosting) and it was a last minute thing.

Since then I don't feel valued at all for the contributions I'd made in BW and have been really reluctant to contribute since. I'm pretty sure this is the reason skylight has also disappeared from NU. There's nothing to encourage me posting - I certainly don't feel at all valued for all thetime I'd spent planning things I'd wanted to host (Ask Cherub he's seen my notebook(s) full of portential fun projects that were set out to draw users to NU). I'm thankful for Zeb affording me the opportunity to do so (regardless of how successful they actually ended up - but it was great to give things a trial run).

I'm also fed up of not getting replies from Tier Leaders. NUPL III got taken off me last minute, despite me sending Ras messages over IRC at least once every 2-3 days. I'd got 0 replies and had everyone asking we 1) when it would start, 2) Who the managers where. I can only assume He'd been planning it in secret away from me - allowing me to waste my time. I did get to host it in the end - but only because of a personal issue of tennisace's. He also added XY and BW1 despite every strawpoll I did getting only 1 or 2 votes for it. (Community based posted sporadically and achieved about 20 votes each time.) I appreciate everyopne uses PS! now and you might not check your IRC messages asa often - but follow up would be nice - especially as you expect it from us if you ask us a question.

Asking for advice and giving my opinion is also another thing I'm now reluctant to do - as has been said in multiple posts - every time I've asked for suggestions for sets on mons I enjoy using - that may not be particualrly good in ORAS NU - but has the niche I want for my team - I'm often met with words of discomtempt. (Assuming I get a reply at all!) fortuantely there are users who are willing to provide a suggestions / ask useful questions without mocking / Using derogrative teams. (read: Cased)

This isn't isolated just to NU but the whole site in general - but a lot stems for the disrespect here.

Also the whole canadian circlejerk thing that seems to be going on. Other people have picked up on that.



Disclaimer: I've been off for about a week - I have't actually read past the first 7-8 posts.

 

[soulgazer]

Also the whole canadian circlejerk thing that seems to be going on. Other people have picked up on that.

could you go more in-depth about that?

 

[Cheryl.]

I think what we could do to make NU a better place is well be nice to each other, and maybe make a NU beginner's guide for beginners so we don't have to get all mad at them when they ask for stuff or do nooby things, they don't know any better.