Asylum_Rhapsody

I don't want to hog the thread, but there were responses made to my posts directly that I would like to respond to.

I don't understand your response. I am aware that #cap is a free environment where people can discuss whatever they want and bounce ideas off of other people. That's exactly what I'm saying is the problem, that it's the only place that can be done. People have various reasons for not being on #cap, whether by choice or not, so it's problematic that some people have no way of having those discussions or bouncing around those ideas, no way of garnering support for their ideas before presenting them. Letting people have those discussions and bounce around those ideas on this forum would be a big step towards fixing that problem and making the forum look more welcoming.

I know that it was the Topic Leader. That doesn't change a thing about my point. I'm not suggesting that a discussion like the Multi-Type one shouldn't have occurred. I'm suggesting that more discussions like that one should have occurred and that they should have occurred right here on this forum as opposed to somewhere else.

And where exactly do you suggest that I express my opinions? How do you think that I should talk to the TL? Because #cap has already been ruled out, and if everybody is sending individual messages to the TL all of the time, then that becomes a big problem for the TL.

How would this be any different from the current Concept Submissions thread? I think that having just a thread isn't going to solve anything, especially not if we're looking at how the CAP forums might look intimidating. It still means that the forum display page is full of formulaic process threads all started by the same few individuals, and it's easy for ideas to get lost in the middle of everything. The benefits of letting people start their own discussion threads for their own specific concepts I think would be outstanding. Then afterward, there could be an official concept nomination thread more similar to the current Concept Submission thread.

There are definitely risks, but that's the price that's going to need to be payed for a more open and welcoming CAP Project. We can't have it both ways, both as welcoming as we want it to be and as orderly as we want it to be. If we're going to keep it so rigid, then it's going to be alienating, and if we make it more fluid, then it's going to be more chaotic. If there were a perfect balance between these things that everybody could be happy with, I think that it would have been talked about by now. I think that the reality is that there is no "right" answer. All that we can do is compromise. But if we're going to have a discussion about making the CAP Project more welcoming, then loosening it up a little needs to be an option on the table.

Let me see if I can come up with a reasonable proposal. What if at the beginning of the CAP process there is a thread explaining all of the rules of concept submission and concept discussion threads. That threads thereafter becomes a place to ask questions about and discuss and ask questions about those rules. When the thread opens, people can start posting their own discussion threads presenting and discussing their concepts. After a certain period, a concept nomination thread can be started, and once nominations are closed, all concept discussion threads that weren't nominated can be locked, and no more concept discussion threads can be started. As the polls go on, each concept that drops out has its thread locked until we have one winner. This keeps the process still orderly, but it also lets people start their own threads and continue with their own discussions and ideas while process threads are going on.

I think that this problem would disappear if people could start their own threads about the flavor without needing a process thread to TL-approval to do it. If people want more flavor discussion, then they'll start it themselves. I, for one, would love to see flavor discussions and explanations like what we might see from Bulbapedia's Origin of Species articles, if you're familiar with those.

And yet it is done frequently. In many ways, it simply can't be stopped, certainly not when you consider that assuming not X can be just as bad as assuming X. I'll give you an example that came up with Necturna: Flash Fire. Early on when typing was decided upon, I already wanted to bring up Flash Fire as an ability because of its conceptual appropriateness and it competitive value to what was supposed to be a bulkier Pokemon. However, it was a really long time before I got to bring it up, and by that time, people had already settled on the idea of Necturna being weak to Fire. Assuming Necturna would be weak to Fire, assuming that Flash Fire would be off of the table, how is that not also Poll Jumping?

Another example are combinations that are contingent on multiple pieces to work. I already mentioned Normalize, right? Well, the Typing discussion came first, and I wanted to propose Normal type because of Normalize, but it's impossible to discuss the typing without discussing the ability, so in that case, poll jumping becomes a necessary part of pitching the concept.

Don't get me wrong, I love the way that Necturna turned out, and I'm not at all bitter about not getting a lot of my ideas though. Necturna was the first project that I was involved with, so I expected as much and just really wanted to be involved. What I didn't expect, though, was that the rigidity of the process would turn out to be my biggest obstacle.