Policy Review Policy Review - Project Pace

This is the first in a series of Policy Reviews that I will post over the next day or two. There are several more to follow.

If you are not an experienced member of the CAP community, it is strongly recommended that you do not post in this thread.

This thread is intended to contain intelligent discussion and commentary by experienced members of the CAP project regarding CAP policy, process, and rules. As such, the content of this thread will be moderated more strictly than other threads on the forum. The posting rules for Policy Review threads are contained here.

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CAP projects need to maintain momentum. We should have a high level of energy and enthusiasm throughout every CAP project. When CAP projects are delayed, the community loses interest and participation. While I do not think we need to hurry through the creation process at breakneck speed, we need an efficient process that sustains community involvement from start to finish. I would like to make some process changes to regulate the pace of all future CAP projects.

This last CAP project took almost three months to complete. That is WAY too long for a CAP project. Here's a quick rundown how long each CAP project has taken:
You can see that two CAP projects took significantly longer than the other three. My goal is to implement process changes that ensure that long CAP projects like CAP 2 and 5 do not happen again.

In CAP 2, Hyra was very cautious with the polling, and did multiple rounds of polls for almost every part. IIRC, eric twisted Hyra's arm a few times and caused a few more polls than even Hyra wanted. Regardless of the reason, Revenankh took a long time because there were lots and lots of polls, each one taking multiple days to complete. I haven't gone back through the threads to verify this, but that is my recollection.

For CAP 5, the delays were due to protracted polling and discussion threads. Tennis regularly left threads open long after the meaningful discussion had died. Sometimes this was due to real life complications. Other times... well, I don't know why he let threads stagnate. But, I sent tennis PM's many times during CAP5, urging him to "get on with it". During one poll, I think I actually opened the next thread myself, after trying to reach Tennisace for two days, and getting no response.

Tennis started CAP 5 with some of the fastest, most efficient threads we've ever had. Then, as the project progressed, it slowed down. I don't know if Tennis got burned out, or if real life commitments started piling up. But whatever the reason, CAP 5 dragged slower and slower with almost every step. There at the end, I honestly had no idea if it would finish at all.

So what do we do about this? I have a few ideas, but I am open to other suggestions if you don't agree with mine.

I don't want to set any overall time expectations on a CAP project. I simply want the pace of the project to keep a high level of community interest and involvement. If each step of the process has a lot of activity and interest and it takes 4 months to finish - that's fine with me. If the process only takes 6 weeks, but has times where threads are left "dead" for days on end, and other times where vibrant threads are abruptly closed -- then that project would be unsuccessful IMO. The project should be paced so that the community involvement curve never experiences deep valleys, but also never limits the peaks.

Each thread in the creation process should be open for as long as it needs to be open, but no more. Coming up with a definition for "needs to be open" -- that's the tricky part. I think it is helpful for polls to have clearly defined time limits, so voters know how long they have to get their votes in. Sometimes voters intentionally delay their votes to see how discussion progresses, before settling on a choice. If the poll times are not clear, people could inadvertantly wait too long, and not get their vote in. On the other hand, sometimes polls completely "die" long before their time limit. It is pointless to leave a thread open, without much interest or activity, simply because the time limit has not expired.

My general yardstick for measuring activity on a CAP project is the hourly rate of posting and/or voting in a given thread. When the community is actively involved in a thread, the posts per hour is high. At the beginning of a hot thread, it might have dozens of posts per hour. After the initial posting flurry, it usually settles down to several (5-10) posts per hour. As the thread dies down, it only gets a couple of posts per hour. If a thread gets less than a post per hour, it is effectively dead. If a thread has periods of several hours with no posts, it is completely dead -- and the decomposing carcass is stinking up the forum. Obviously, this measuring system is very subjective and fluctuates based on the time of day and other factors. But, posts per hour is my rule of thumb for activity.

Here's a few other things to remember when discussing project pace:

• A day is a long time on a CAP project.
• Two days is a very long time on a CAP project.
• Three days is an eternity on a CAP project.

As a general rule, we should never have a "dead" thread on a CAP project. I would like to implement the following changes to our process to avoid dead threads and maintain project pace:


In a separate PR thread, I will also make some suggested changes to the Order of Events, that should help prevent certain threads from staying open too long while waiting for other steps to complete.

I look forward to hearing feedback on the issues and proposals mentioned above.

DougJustDoug said:

For CAP 5, the delays were due to protracted polling and discussion threads. Tennis regularly left threads open long after the meaningful discussion had died. Sometimes this was due to real life complications. Other times... well, I don't know why he let threads stagnate. But, I sent tennis PM's many times during CAP5, urging him to "get on with it". During one poll, I think I actually opened the next thread myself, after trying to reach Tennisace for two days, and getting no response.

Tennis started CAP 5 with some of the fastest, most efficient threads we've ever had. Then, as the project progressed, it slowed down. I don't know if Tennis got burned out, or if real life commitments started piling up. But whatever the reason, CAP 5 dragged slower and slower with almost every step. There at the end, I honestly had no idea if it would finish at all.

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Doug, feel free to yell at my school =( It started off easy, but then there were a couple stretches where I had 3-4 projects due the next day.

Each thread in the creation process should be open for as long as it needs to be open, but no more. Coming up with a definition for "needs to be open" -- that's the tricky part. I think it is helpful for polls to have clearly defined time limits, so voters know how long they have to get their votes in. Sometimes voters intentionally delay their votes to see how discussion progresses, before settling on a choice. If the poll times are not clear, people could inadvertantly wait too long, and not get their vote in. On the other hand, sometimes polls completely "die" long before their time limit. It is pointless to leave a thread open, without much interest or activity, simply because the time limit has not expired.

My general yardstick for measuring activity on a CAP project is the hourly rate of posting and/or voting in a given thread. When the community is actively involved in a thread, the posts per hour is high. At the beginning of a hot thread, it might have dozens of posts per hour. After the initial posting flurry, it usually settles down to several (5-10) posts per hour. As the thread dies down, it only gets a couple of posts per hour. If a thread gets less than a post per hour, it is effectively dead. If a thread has periods of several hours with no posts, it is completely dead -- and the decomposing carcass is stinking up the forum. Obviously, this measuring system is very subjective and fluctuates based on the time of day and other factors. But, posts per hour is my rule of thumb for activity.

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That's generally effective, but there are two separate "waves". There's the Oceanic Wave, which are the Americas and the UK. Then there's the Australasian Wave, which is like Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. Usually, they're about 12 hours apart, so one full day usually tells us how "dead" a thread is, because the waves repeat themselves twice a day.

Here's a few other things to remember when discussing project pace:

• A day is a long time on a CAP project.
• Two days is a very long time on a CAP project.
• Three days is an eternity on a CAP project.

As a general rule, we should never have a "dead" thread on a CAP project. I would like to implement the following changes to our process to avoid dead threads and maintain project pace:

The first poll and/or discussion thread for a given step on a CAP project should normally be open for two days.
The first thread of a project step is always the most active and interesting. But very rarely is anything substantial added after the second day of discussion. Normally, after day two, the post rate is very low. If not, it's usually because a few posters are going back and forth arguing over something ad nauseum and the rest of the community isn't participating or paying attention anyway. I can see certain threads stretching for three days in some cases, but two days should be the norm. TL discretion will still reign supreme when determining the duration of threads, but this will serve as a general guideline.

All secondary polls should be open for one day only.
Secondary polls are a real drag on the energy level of the community. All the interesting discussion comes out in the fisrt poll. People rarely change their minds in secondary polls. Even if they do, people aren't too interested in talking about it. I don't think secondary polls should be discouraged; they are essential to arriving at a fair democratic decision. But, secondary polls need to be completed swiftly. One day is plenty of time to simply collect and tally votes.

The Topic Leader should monitor the posting/voting rate of all threads and move on to the next step when project activity begins to lull.
This is very subjective, and really isn't a "rule". But, it is a clear statement that the TL is responsible for preventing the project from losing momentum. This rule is also a precursor to my next proposal...

We should select an Assistant TL to help the Topic Leader monitor project pace, tally votes, and to step in during project lulls and open new threads, if the Topic Leader is not available to do so.
Topic Leader is a big job, and requires a lot of time and attention. Sometimes it requires too much time and attention to do the job properly. In those cases, we should have another member of the project ready and empowered to step in and lend a helping hand. The forum moderators can always do it, but I think an Assistant TL will help build the community. Assistant TL could be a training ground for future TL's.

I can think of two suitable ways for Assistant TL's to be selected.

1) Whoever comes in 2nd place in the regular TL selection balloting
2) Allow the Topic Leader to select their Assistant TL
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Personally, I like option 2. But, any process is fine as long as we name a person with a clear expectation that they will serve as an assistant and backup to the Topic Leader.​

I will also make some suggested changes to the Order of Events, that should help prevent certain threads from staying open too long while waiting for other steps to complete.

I look forward to hearing feedback on the issues and proposals mentioned above.

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I'm going to have to go with option 2, sorta like the President chooses the Vice President. An Assistant TL would have helped a lot with counting bold-votes and pushing through discussions. I would also suggest that the assistant TL be from the opposite "wave". That way, there's always someone leading the discussion.

I think that along with activity, the actual content of the thread needs to be assessed. if there is a topic that the TL deems needs addressing that is still in the open, despite a post slowdown, that should be a factor. This is primarily important on the opening poll, and not so much the secondary polls. apart form that i agree with the pacing, and that timezones should be factored in as tennis said.

All in all I'd say 24~36 hours for secondary polls is a good range at the discretion of the TL

I think bold voting is another thing we need to address. Bold voting+reasoning i think should be used for sure on the initial concept/niche poll since it decides the whole course of the project (this is what i was argueing against in the EVO 1 Process, among other things). However Bold voting+ reasoning needs more than a day open imo since people have alot to read/write as they vote. is there anywhere else in the general process framework where bold voting+reasoning should be applied? perhaps movepool/typing/ability/stats or some combination of those?

1) Whoever comes in 2nd place in the regular TL selection balloting
2) Allow the Topic Leader to select their Assistant TL

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I like option 2 as well. The TL and TL assistant(s) need to be able to work together and the TL is probably a better judge of that than the public.

PS when are we tackling the actual process =)

Gormenghast said:

I think bold voting is another thing we need to address. Bold voting+reasoning i think should be used for sure on the initial concept/niche poll since it decides the whole course of the project (this is what i was argueing against in the EVO 1 Process, among other things)

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This is a bit off topic, but bold votes take time to receive and count. Thats where the assistant TL would come in. There should be WAY more bold votes to prevent bandwagoning, and mods should crack down way harder, a la the original Garchomp/Wobb/Deo-e votes. Even if people quote good reasoning, they just have to have a reason for voting that's competitive, unless its in the art polls. Bold polls would help us achieve that, but it significantly lengthens work for everyone.

yeah like i said it's hard to talk about pacing without talking about the process, are there gonna be separate threads? Maybe i took this

I will also make some suggested changes to the Order of Events, that should help prevent certain threads from staying open too long while waiting for other steps to complete.

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to mean something it didn't for this thread.
Also i really don't think bold votes for arts polls is necessary, can't we just use a multiple clicky poll option?

Gormenghast said:

I like option 2 as well. The TL and TL assistant(s) need to be able to work together and the TL is probably a better judge of that than the public.

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Even though TLs aren't selected by the public at large, but a few select members as well as the past TLs, I do get the point.

I prefer option 1, seeing as the pick of assistant TL may degenerate into server members bugging the hell out of the TL or the TL doesn't quite think of the reason for the assistant TL and instead just picks a good friend of theirs (not that I'm saying anyone would do this, but hey, it could easily happen).

honestly if the TL can't even find someone with whom they can do work/tell people to fuck off they are probably not a great choice to begin with :U

I agree with all of Doug's proposals, especially the "Assistant TL" idea which I think I suggested sometime around the start of Gem.
And yes it should be the TL who chooses the assistant, if they want they could simply ask Doug who came second and appoint them.

Another idea would be to, at carefully chosen points, have more than one voting thread open at a time. Specifically the less important polls that are based largely on personal preference like Name or Dex Entrys could be run simultaneously with another poll.

And off topic (I think, so maybe it should be saved for a different PR thread please?) I disagree with required reasoning very strongly, I think that it would reduce participation in the project vastly as well as being hard to run for the TL and very subjective as to which votes to count.

The topic of this PR thread is Project Pace. I should not need to remind everyone to keep the discussion on point.

I will not post another warning like this in any other Policy Reviews in this series. Any future warnings will come in the form of an Infraction PM. I have a certain tolerance in other threads. But, the OP clearly states that PR threads will be very strictly moderated. Don't push it.

I think the proposal for an assistant TL is a good one if for no other reason than the bold vote threads. Those posts always end up being many pages long with all the votes that get entered.

I dont think that a poll should be closed because off low post rate. This way - for example - I and a few others could simply make some extra post with some pretended reasonment just to "bump up" the post. I cant see why someone should do this, but it could technically happen. Moreover, if, for example, i wait part X because I'm interested in it and I miss it because it was open early due to the previous part having closed for low activity... I think it would not be fair

EDIT: and sorry for the little derailment of before, if these excuses mean something...

I heartily agree that an Assistant TL is a necessary addition to the CAP process in order to avoid dragging out a project.

The scope and powers of an ATL's job though needs strict and clear guidelines to avoid possible clashes between TL and ATL for example if the ATL opens a new discussion/poll before the TL is happy for this to occur.

There are some pros and cons for each method of ATL selection:

1) Whoever comes in 2nd place in the regular TL selection balloting

Pros

• More democratic meaning the community is more likely to be happy with the choice of ATL.
• More people involved in the choice meaning that the ATL is likely to be well rounded, reliable and experienced.
• The ATL is more directly accountable to the community than if option 2 is chosen.
• The ATL will have to give reasons why they would make a good TL which acquaints the community and the TL selection panel with the ATL and gives them practice for becoming TL in the future.

Cons

• The TL and the ATL may not like each other, get on well or otherwise mesh.
• Less well known or less popular users will be less likely to be chosen, regardless of experience.

2) Allow the Topic Leader to select their Assistant TL

Pros

• The TL will (hopefully) choose someone they are well suited to working with, who may be able to support them better than (potentially) someone they have not encountered much before.
• The ATL will (possibly) be less likely to undermine the TL's authority in any way e.g. by ending or starting discussions or polls when the TL is not happy for this to occur.

Cons

• The TL may choose someone the community deems unqualified for ATL.
• The TL may only choose his/her friends.
• The TL may choose someone who is not That interested or dedicated to the job (i.e. not enough to submit themselves for TL).

I think either option could work but that group decisions are generally more informed and less biased so would suggest option 1 is better for CAP6 at least.

Edit: By the way tennis unless you would have supported Sarah Palin for VP your analogy is Not a good one, in fact a perfect example of someone choosing their their second in command for the wrong reasons.

tennisace0227 said:

That's generally effective, but there are two separate "waves". There's the Oceanic Wave, which are the Americas and the UK. Then there's the Australasian Wave, which is like Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. Usually, they're about 12 hours apart, so one full day usually tells us how "dead" a thread is, because the waves repeat themselves twice a day.

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Having TL and ATL from different "waves" is a great idea, it could potentially speed up the project pace ALOT.

jagged_angel said:

• More democratic meaning the community is more likely to be happy with the choice of ATL.
• More people involved in the choice meaning that the ATL is likely to be well rounded, reliable and experienced.

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Sorry how is it more democratic when they're chosen by an arbitrary panel? Obviously there will be a bias. Also, the ATL may or may not be well rounded, because there have been random people running for TL with no experience whatsoever.

The TL will (hopefully) choose someone they are well suited to working with, who may be able to support them better than (potentially) someone they have not encountered much before.
The ATL will (possibly) be less likely to undermine the TL's authority in any way e.g. by ending or starting discussions or polls when the TL is not happy for this to occur.

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you're really not giving the TL alot of credit here o_O; the use of (potentially) can be applied to pretty much every one of your sentence too, none of this can be certain, the parentheses words just make it seem like we're being stupid trusting the TL, and that everything could spin out of control if he gets to choose who he works with.

Quite simply if the community doesn't like the TL's choice, or the TLs choice is found to be lacking for whatever reason, we can speak up but in the mean time i think we should be giving TLs the benefit of the doubt.

We could restrict the TLs choice to someone who put them up for TLing but honestly i don't see a good reason for it. Hell i could be like

Cons:
-ATL may be jealous of TL and sabotage him

Basically I'm not sure i agree with alot of your list

i think you should give teh TLs objectivity/willingness to do hard work more credit... that IS why we're choosing these people right?

also agreeing with tennis.

Maybe we could do just like the USA poll: The TL tells the community about who he will make ATL, so the community may weight their vote on both the TL and the ATL...

what if they're both running for TL though x)
running as both atl and tl is kind of problematic since it gives those people an unfair advantage over others. I really think the TL has the best idea of who he'll work well with. if it doesn't work out, the TL or the community step up and change it.

zarator said:

I dont think that a poll should be closed because off low post rate. This way - for example - I and a few others could simply make some extra post with some pretended reasonment just to "bump up" the post. I cant see why someone should do this, but it could technically happen. Moreover, if, for example, i wait part X because I'm interested in it and I miss it because it was open early due to the previous part having closed for low activity... I think it would not be fair

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This proposal does not impose any specific measurements on post rate for closing a thread. It simply tells the TL, "Move on when the thread dies down." It's still a subjective decision as to when the thread has "died down". My OP does mention a few rules of thumb that I think are indicators of community activity. They are by no means scientific, and the TL is not obligated to adhere to them.

No part of the process should ever be open less than 24 hours. One full day, at a minimum, is plenty of time for every member around the world to make a contribution. As the OP states, the most active threads will be open for two days. If someone can't log on for days at a stretch -- then that is tough shit for them. The whole community should not sit around idle while we are waiting for a few additional votes/posts to trickle in from people. The CAP project does not have a set number of members, so we'll NEVER know if "all the votes are in".

If we implement mostly one-day and two-day polls -- there will never be a reason for the TL to close a poll early. My suggestion about closing dead threads was mainly for discussion and submission threads that don't have fixed time limits. Those threads should be open for a certain minimum amount of time (two days, usually), and would stay open longer if community activity warranted it.

If anyone is bumping a thread with bullshit posts, just to keep the thread alive -- I think any competent TL would see right through it.

tennisace0227 said:

Sorry how is it more democratic when they're chosen by an arbitrary panel? Obviously there will be a bias. Also, the ATL may or may not be well rounded, because there have been random people running for TL with no experience whatsoever.

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I didn't think the TL selection panel was arbitrary. It's not randomly chosen from all active members, it's the most experienced and senior members of the community.

More people choosing = more democratic.

Surely as a group the bias will be less than one person's bias?

The TL selection panel wouldn't choose a random person with no experience for TL Or ATL so I don't see how that's relevant.

Gormenghast said:

you're really not giving the TL alot of credit here o_O

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I am simply giving the TL selection panel more credit and trust than I would give to any one TL.

It's the TL chosen ATL that I'm giving less credit to. Why should we as a community have confidence and faith in the ATL if they're not chosen by the senior members of the community.

Gormenghast said:

We could restrict the TLs choice to someone who put them up for TLing but honestly i don't see a good reason for it.

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Gormenghast, if you don't even know the current process, whereby people put themselves up for TLing, you shouldn't be posting in PR threads.

Gormenghast said:

i think you should give teh TLs objectivity/willingness to do hard work more credit... that IS why we're choosing these people right?

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Err partly. I know, it was rhetorical. The TL's willingness to do hard work does not give them the right to choose the ATL.

If I could be assured of all future TLs' objectivity when choosing an ATL, I would be happy. But hell, we don't know who is gonna be the next TL. I Do know who will form the core of the TL selection panel.

jagged_angel said:

I heartily agree that an Assistant TL is a necessary addition to the CAP process in order to avoid dragging out a project.

The scope and powers of an ATL's job though needs strict and clear guidelines to avoid possible clashes between TL and ATL for example if the ATL opens a new discussion/poll before the TL is happy for this to occur.

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I was really hesitant to use the title "Assistant TL". Because we don't need someone to be part of a "TL Committee". The TL should be the definitive leader of a CAP project. The ATL would only come into play if the TL isn't maintaining project pace.

That's why I did not make the Assistant TL a separate PR thread by itself. The ATL is simply a means to ensure the project doesn't lag. That's all. I did make mention of a "TL in training" -- but that probably was a bad thing to include in the OP. I don't want to change the perception of the leadership structure of a CAP project. I don't want clashes or power struggles. I just want someone paying attention to the pace of the project, who is prepared to open new threads if the project hits a lull.

Gormenghast, if you don't even know the current process, whereby people put themselves up for TLing, you shouldn't be posting in PR threads.

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I'm not sure where i sounded like i didnt know the TL selection process (people put themselves up and are decided on by comittee right?)

The ATL is simply a means to ensure the project doesn't lag.

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What about stuff like counting bold votes+reasoning? If we end up implementing more of this the TL might need all the help he can get

j_a I guess we disagree on whether objectivity of the TL is more important than good communication for a project like cap TLing. I still think we need to define the ATL's jobs better before we decide on their selection process, but if they're only "backup TLs" like doug is suggesting, I have no problem with the committee selecting someone.

I agree with option "2)" that we should just let the TL select the ATL on their own. I don't think it's a bad idea for the selection panel to make suggestions, but only the TL him/herself will know which person would be the best ATL based on his/her individual needs (ie Sunday selecting tennis because of timezone differences, etc). This way, the TL will be more likely to adhere to the pace Doug is suggesting.

If the ATL's hand must occur only in emergency cases, like you did with tennis, couldnt it be a permanent charge? I mean, it should not make important decisions, but just little changes where it is strictly necessary. If the supposed ATL would behave like you did, it would be fine, and I dont see why it should be chosen by every single TL. If all the senior members would agree of a name, we could keep it like we keep mods, like we keep Bass as Tournament Director and so on.

EDIT: To be more accurate, just choose 2 ATLs that can cover - approximately - the whole 24 hours with their activity (just thought this after reading Bass post)

Gormenghast said:

I'm not sure where i sounded like i didnt know the TL selection process (people put themselves up and are decided on by comittee right?)

j_a I guess we disagree on whether objectivity of the TL is more important than good communication for a project like cap TLing. I still think we need to define the ATL's jobs better before we decide on their selection process, but if they're only "backup TLs" like doug is suggesting, I have no problem with the committee selecting someone.

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When you said

Gormenghast said:

We could restrict the TLs choice to someone who put them up for TLing

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I thought you believed it was possible to put someone else up for TL.

One thing we do agree on is that the first thing to define is exactly when the ATL steps in to speed up the project pace and what exactly they have the power to do.

In most instances it'll be obvious i.e. open the next poll/discussion thread but sometimes decisions need to be made i.e. which Ability/Movepool/Stat Spread submissions go on to form the initial poll.

In these cases the ATL's decision could be pretty important to some people and the TL could potentially be unhappy with it. How to resolve?

After the ATL's role is properly decided we can see how much communication is needed between TL and ATL, how much authority the ATL has, how much experience the ATL needs etc.

All these things will IMO impact strongly whether the TL should pick their own ATL or the panel should choose.

Bass said:

I agree with option "2)" that we should just let the TL select the ATL on their own. I don't think it's a bad idea for the selection panel to make suggestions, but only the TL him/herself will know which person would be the best ATL based on his/her individual needs (ie Sunday selecting tennis because of timezone differences, etc). This way, the TL will be more likely to adhere to the pace Doug is suggesting.

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If timezone is important and the ATL was TL's choice then the TL could only pick people he/she already knew the timezone of. It would be simpler to make it mandatory to include your timezone in your nomination for yourself as TL then the TL selection panel can choose people of two different time zones.

zarator said:

If the ATL's hand must occur only in emergency cases, like you did with tennis, couldnt it be a permanent charge? I mean, it should not make important decisions, but just little changes where it is strictly necessary. If the supposed ATL would behave like you did, it would be fine, and I dont see why it should be chosen by every single TL. If all the senior members would agree of a name, we could keep it like we keep mods, like we keep Bass as Tournament Director and so on.

EDIT: To be more accurate, just choose 2 ATLs that can cover - approximately - the whole 24 hours with their activity (just thought this after reading Bass post)

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zarator I almost posted earlier "Doug, couldn't you Always act as the ATL?" but it depends whether one person is happy to have this duty. I think that actually, 2 permanent ATLs would be the best, most stable and effective option.

I think that actually, 2 permanent ATLs would be the best, most stable and effective option.

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bass and doug leap to mind as they can both lock threads and are obviously qualified, that's if they're down with it.

jagged_angel said:

If timezone is important and the ATL was TL's choice then the TL could only pick people he/she already knew the timezone of. It would be simpler to make it mandatory to include your timezone in your nomination for yourself as TL then the TL selection panel can choose people of two different time zones.

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I am not just referring to timezone though. It's just one of the many complications for a TL. tennis mentioned that he had a lot of school work during his time as a TL, so what if he had selected an ATL who had plenty of spare time on there hands? Maybe time should be a requirement for the TL nomination to begin with, but many situations, including tennis's, are unexpected, making the presence of an ATL crucial if the project is to maintain its pace. Beyond that though, do you honestly think think the TL would select a bad choice? If they were deemed worthy of that position, then they should be able to know which person would be most able to assist them.