CAP 2 - Topic Leader Poll

[Theorymon]

Only CAP 2 Policy Review Committee members can vote in this thread. Posts by anyone else will be deleted.

The Topic Leader is the most important leadership position in the project during the creation process. So, it is important that we pick someone that will do a good job. For this reason, we do not choose a TL by popular community vote. Instead we choose the TL by a committee of trusted expert project members.

Here is the list of self-nominated candidates (in the order they submitted their candidacy):

Zarator
Darkslay
Wyverii
Rising_Dusk

The candidacy announcements and support posts from members of the community are in this thread:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3457129

Please review all the information in that thread in order to inform your decision.

For reference, here is all of the PRC for CAP 2 that didn't nominate themselves for TL.

Vader
macle
bugmaniacbob
Aerodactyl Legend
jas61292
Paradox
HD
capefeather
Deck Knight
DougJustDoug
reachzero
tennisace
Nails
ssbbm
smallvizier
Theorymon

Here's how to vote:

• Only current Policy Review Committee members who are not running for Topic Leader are eligible to vote.
  
  
• Please post ALL candidate names ranked in order of preference. Also, please include a brief summary of your reasons for the ranking on your ballot. Do not adjust your rankings to attempt to "game the poll results". As expert project members, I hope we can expect everyone to vote fairly, and with integrity.
  
  
• If you do not complete a full ranked ballot with reasoning, as prescribed here, your ballot will be deleted. So, please take the time to evaluate all the candidates and compose a proper ranked ballot.
  
  
• Please post your ballots as soon as possible. This poll should close 24 hours from now. If any committee member needs more time to compose a ballot, please PM me and ask for an extension.

[Deck Knight]

I'll lead this off for people unfamiliar with it.

Darkslay
Zarator
Rising_Dusk
Wyverii

Deciding the top slot for this was excruciating. Darkslay and Zarator have both put an immense amount of work into the project and proven themselves to be effective in discussions and contributions to the threads. Ultimately I think DarkSlay has shown he can come in as a new presence and establish himself as a leader, and that quality makes him perfect for leading the next CAP Project. Zarator has also been an excellent influence on the forum, and either of them would do an exemplary job. I know both of them and have worked with both of them, and they show great dedication and thoroughness to the work they do.

I have also worked with Rising_Dusk and Wyverii as mods of the CAP Forum. Both of them have been invaluable in keeping CAP running and in serving as a moderating influence on the project. Rising_Dusk has excellent battling ability and Wyverii is incredibly creative. Ultimately though I think at this point we should let some of our rank and file contributors head up a project and show us what they can do.

[capefeather]

Rising_Dusk
Wyverii
DarkSlay
Zarator

Man, this is a pretty tough slate. My ranking comes down to my impression of the enthusiasm that each candidate has had for the goings-on of CAP. Rising_Dusk takes the cake in that aspect imo (though barely); I'll always remember lurking through the threads for CAP 10, wondering who this newb was who seemed really excited about everything in CAP and was posting furiously everywhere. Rising_Dusk takes leadership positions so quickly it's bewildering, out of sheer passion... and the trust that others put on him is well-deserved. He's part of the reason I decided to participate in things beyond suspect testing, as previously I saw various places as snooty and elitist.

Wyverii is second due to the wildcard factor that she presents. (This is just how I vote, guys...) People often say that active battling is very important to having leadership in anything geared in competitive Pokémon. However, as of my experiences with many reputable battlers, I make the case that a lack of this can actually be an advantage. It's not easy for someone who's dedicated to being good at the game to admit that our collective theory is lacking and that there are X-factors that can easily have unexpected results. I think that the fanboy aspect of the CAP community can really benefit from someone who has such a connection to it.

DarkSlay and Zarator are by no means bad for the job or even significantly inferior. In fact, I considered both of them at the top at various times. I'm not saying that they weren't very active in CAP discussion, either (they definitely, definitely were). It's just how things have happened.

[HD]

Rising_Dusk
Zarator
Wyverii
DarkSlay

As cape said, this is a pretty tough slate. All of the users are qualified to become tl and have contributed a lot to cap. However, my first vote goes to Rising_Duck. I personally saw his journey from a bright-eyed little noob to CaP, pointing at things going, "Mommy!? What's that?" Now, he's just a regular sized noob. But he contributed a lot (almost compulsively) ever since he was a new user, and has risen in other parts of Smogon as well. I'm confident in his urge to get the most out of a CaP.

Now the rest of my choices was really a toss up. I ended up picking Zarator first because he: is a good battler, is a good person, contributed a lot, and is possibly part of the Italian Mafia. Lil' z is a good person, but he (as well as the other candidates) just don't have the same OCD drive to make the most of something as rd. Wyverii is chosen second because SHE MAKES PERTY PICTURES she as a mod has proven her ability to lead and contribute to CaP for a long time. She's a great user and arguably manlier than the rest of the candidates. DrkSlay is chosen last because every other place was taken by someone else.

[tennisace]

Wyverii
Zarator
Darkslay
Rising_Dusk

All of them are great candidates, yadda yadda yadda. However, it is a plain fact that Wyverii has the most experience in CAP out of any of them. All of them would do a very good job running a CAP, but that's how I'm voting.

[Vader*]

Wyverii
Rising_Dusk
DarkSlay
Zarator

Wyverii's been here a long time and would make a great TL. Dusk is still a bit wet behind the ears, but he's generally a good joe and would do a good job too, I think. He can be a bit hardheaded sometimes when it comes to argument, but I am sure he would make a fine TL. It's rough for Kevin and Zarator being up against such qualified candidates, as I am sure they'd both also do a good job, but I have to give the nod to the others as having already demonstrated considerable leadership ability in the past.

[bugmaniacbob]

Why can't we have an easy decision for a change (or at least a straight decision between two people...)

Rising_Dusk
zarator
Wyverii
DarkSlay

Ranking this lot is honestly like trying to rank brands of Marmite. They're all fantastic and any reasons for choosing one over the other are flimsy at best. But oh well, here goes. Rising_Dusk gets the nod here because lord knows he deserves it - he's only been around a short time (relatively) but the amount of energy he puts into the project and just about everything is pretty phenomenal. My hope is that he will be able to use this energy to push into every discussion about the CAP and keep it going - the worst thing to happen to a discussion is when it goes circular. As to the others, I'm sure I said at one point that I'd never apply to be TL until zarator had been one; I trust him entirely to be an excellent Topic Leader, as I would the others, but ultimately I've seen enough of RD's abilities to know how well he can perform.

Good luck to whoever wins.

[smallvizier]

Rising_Dusk
DarkSlay
Wyverii
zarator

It's great to see four such strong candidates putting themselves forward. It's also notable that they've all been active recently - Dusk leading the Pre-evo project, Wyverii organising the sprite revamps, Darkslay in ASB, and zarator writing articles.

I have chosen Dusk first for two reasons. Firstly, he is excellent at communicating his arguments and winning people's respect through his posting. Secondly, I think this is the right time for him to step up - having been ATL and run Scratchet last time around, TL seems a natural progression.

[jas61292]

Never realized how difficult this would be. But here we go:

zarator
Rising_Dusk
Wvyerii
DarkSlay

Like so many people have said, all the candidates are great and I would be happy with any one of them. I put Zarator first due to his competitive experience. I'm certainly not one to say that CAP is solely about competitiveness, but when all the candidiates are so good, I had to choose something to go on. In addition, Zarator, in my opinion, has done a great job explaining his reasons and opinions (and a great nomination post certainly didn't hurt). While everyone has so much going for them, I think Zarator has the widest ranges of experience, and would love to have him as TL.

I put Rising_Dusk second for many reasons. He has already proven himself to be a good leader with the creation of Scratchet, and also has a lot of all around experience.
Third place goes to Wyverii due to her long experience being a part of, and a leader in the CAP project. While she might not have the competitive experience for the other nominees, she provides an outlook that would be great for the project, if not this time, then some time in the future. And I put DarkSlay fourth because the first three spots were taken. Nothing against him, as I think he would still be a great TL, but when the competition is so good, not everyone can come out on top.

[Aerodactyl Legend]

Won't have access to an actual computer until Monday (doing this on the PS3), so I'll try to make this as quick as possible (otherwise I'd be reposting old quotes for my primary choice.

Wyverii
Rising_Dusk
zarator
DarkSlay

Carrying from the last CAP, I will place my primary choice as Wyverii. If anyone is interested, you can check out the last TL Poll and see what I said then. Same as then, she has experience in leadership and always keeps a calm, open mind. The only thing I will add this time is how impressive it was that she got back into the project after her long absence. After signing back on, she went right back into things with the Sprite thread for example and has already shown she is dedicated to help run things smoothly. If that doesn't show how well she'd be a TL, I don't know what would.

Rising_Dusk is getting better for sure. What I like is how he experiments and asks for what others think of his ideas. He's been busy running a lot of things lately, so this shouldn't be a challenge for him.

zarator has a lot of competitive experience, which is important in the CAP project. He's been around for a while and knows how the game has changed and should provide interesting base points for discussion during each of the steps.

DarkSlay is gaining experience about how the CAP project works. I think he has enough to start leading discussions. I'd like to see more out of him in the future though. I'm set for Wyverii for CAP2, but I have no real reason myself why he can't be a TL however.

Good luck to the candidates.

[reachzero]

DarkSlay
Rising_Dusk
zarator
Wyverii

Before I read the applications, I would not have bet on there being a candidate I would vote for over Rising_Dusk. I know Rising_Dusk well enough to know that he is fantastically intelligent, a very logical thinker, an expert debater, and a level-headed and even-handed leader. He also has a good grasp on the principles of winning competitive Pokemon.
That being said, I have read the applications, and DarkSlay's application blew me away. First there is the content: his review of his post history in the CAP project really highlighted beautifully what a massively underrated poster he has been; the posts to which he linked were consistently excellent. He displayed examples of brilliant competitive reasoning and attention to detail. As important as this is, what really struck me, however, was the sheer quantity of work and thought he obviously put into his application. Being a TL is a LOT of hard work, and I now believe that DarkSlay is seriously up to the challenge. In a pool of seriously heavyweight candidates, I am amazed to be voting for DarkSlay #1. But I honestly believe that he merits it.
Zarator would be a tremendous candidate in his own right, and I have a lot of respect for him as a player and as a poster. This is a slate full of giants, and unfortunately I can't put everyone #1.
I think Wyverii is very good at thinking outside the box and has very strong leadership qualities, but from the standpoint of knowing what wins at Pokemon, I believe she isn't on the level as the other candidates. She belongs as a serious contender, but as I noted above, this is a slate of deserving candidates, and factors like competitive experience makes a difference in such a close race.

CAP2 won't go wrong no matter who wins this poll.

[ssbbm]

Rising_Dusk
zarator
Dark_Slay
Wyverii

For my nominees, the criteria I used to judge their worthiness of being a TL was a) battle experience, b) dedication to CAP, c) leadership ability.

As soon as I saw the nominees, I immediately knew that I would pick Rising_Dusk for the first place. I chose Rising_Dusk for first place because from the start of my time in CAP, up until now, Rising_Dusk has consistently shown commitment to CAP. During Gen IV, he was consistently on the server and he, in my opinion, was a huge factor in the success of CAP and the growth of CAP (in my experience, he helped a lot of newcomers and made CAP seem more approachable; this seems to me to be quite important for CAP at a time when interest is already declining.) He also is quite good at battling (I can attest to this), which I believe is both an important and an attractive quality in a TL, as battle experience is important in order to be able to theorymon.

zarator comes next due to his battling ability, which, as I stated before, is an important quality for a TL to have. Additionally, from the times that I have interacted with him on the server, he seemed quite level-headed. He also has contributed to CAP discussions a lot.

Dark_Slay comes next by a very narrow margin. The reason I placed him behind zarator is that I feel that he has a little less battle experience through battles with him.

Wyverii comes last because all the other spots were taken.

[macle]

Wyverii
Rising_Dusk
zarator
Dark_Slay

I believe wyv will put an interesting spin on the cap due to her creativeness. I don't think her "battling abilities" will limit her ability to lead a cap. We've had some bad caps come from great battlers...

[tennisace]

Guys, please vote if you haven't done so. This thread will close in ~24 hours.

[Paradox]

Rising_Dusk
DarkSlay
Zarator
Wyverii
Obviously every candidate is extremely qualified. Essentially I made my ranks in terms of the amount of quality constructive conversation I've had with each person. The top slot was extremely difficult to decide on, DarkSlay and Dusk are both incredibly hard working and always show great knowledge of what they are talking about, ultimately Dusk got the edge due to overall commitment and good leadership. Zarator's battle know-how and Wyverii's experience and creativity would also both do very well to lead CAP 2 in a positive direction.

[tennisace]

change o'plans here:

The last vote mathematically eliminated anyone not named Rising_Dusk from winning, so the last two votes (Nails and Theorymon, since Doug is a tiebreaker traditionally) are irrelevant. So, congratulations are in order to Rising_Dusk, who is the TL of CAP2! Please post in this thread with your choice of ATL and we'll get this party started!

I'll edit in here the numerical results soon I swear.
Edit: here!

Rising_Dusk: 26
Zarator: 36
Wyverii: 36
DarkSlay: 42

Remember that this is scored like golf, a first place vote is worth 1 point, 2nd place 2, etc. Lowest score wins.

[Nails]

Zarator
Wyveri
Rising_Dusk
Darkslay

I don't know darkslay that well so it's not a snub, but i'm much more familiar with the other three. After that deciding was nearly impossible... I went with Zarator first because I know him better honestly, because I couldn't come up with any better criteria, they're all very qualified for the position. It's really 1A/1B/1C.

[Rising_Dusk]

Wow, this is such an honor!

And no, I'm not being facetious. This is a big deal for me. I remember when I first joined Smogon, it was not because of some other community here, the C&C articles, some bros, tournaments, or anything like that. I joined because I had followed CAP for a goodly while and was genuinely impressed with the amount of creativity that went into every stage. The process, the goals, the learning, and the camaraderie were all something that astonished me. What solidified my partaking of Smogon after that was something I would never forget. I got in a heated debate with an administrator of this website when I was an unknown, and that administrator was the leader of CAP. I'll never forget what he asked the channel after I spoke up against him: "Who is Rising_Dusk?"

Things have changed a lot since then, but some things never change. My love for what CAP is and what CAP does is always the thing that will keep me coming back to Smogon, no matter who or what happens to the rest of the site. You guys are a creative group that I am proud to finally be able to lead through the creation of one of our masterpieces. Thank you so much for all of the support, and thank you to all of the other TL applicants for putting up such a fight. I hope—no, know—that each of you will get your chance to lead a CAP and do great things, and I look forward to each of those. Please never stop applying for TL, any of you.

That said, now is the time of Dusk. Welcome.

After much deliberation, I have chosen DarkSlay to be my ATL (and he has accepted!). The reason I chose him is because I know how stubborn I can be at times, even though I've worked hard to overcome it, and I need someone who is not afraid to discuss things with me harshly, but still friendly enough with me that at the end of the day we can come to a conclusion that benefits all of CAP. DarkSlay is perfect for that. I trust that between the two of us, this CAP will be a hell of a lot of fun and hopefully as much of a success as Tomohawk.

Expect the CAP to officially begin shortly. Thanks again for this opportunity.