Policy Review Policy Review: Attacking / Non-Attacking Move Revisions

Approved by darkie:

Policy Review: Attacking / Non-Attacking Move Revisions:

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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The biggest problem I have seen with Move threads is that posters are asked not to post lists of moves. This policy is sound insofar as we want a thread that discusses moves rather than throws them up on a wall and hopes a favored move sticks.

However, it is difficult to start a discussion when the thread literally begins a blank OP. This is why the first few posts invariably list 4-5 and sometimes more moves for suggestion. There is absolutely nothing to discuss until a poster actually brings something up. It is patently unfair to complain about the quality of a discussion when it is effectively required to arise spontaneously from random poster ideas. Plenty of experienced CAP members gripe about random inexperienced posters infecting certain aspects of CAP, yet we let a critical part of the process be governed entirely by the ideas random posters bring up.

This leads me to Revision 1:

Attacking/Non-Attacking Move polls will begin with a canonically supportable list of Allowable attacks already in the OP. Do not worry about creating such a list; I have already done the legwork. The Attack and Non-Attack moves are attached solely to types and serve only as an initial listing. There is no guarantee these moves will be on the final movepool.

This Revision serves two purposes: First, it means STAB Moves and common type-linked support moves do not need to be brought up in a post. Second it allows an actual discussion to take place because there is pre-existing content to discuss. Posters can thus debate which STAB attacks the pokemon should get rather than bringing up a litany of forgotten moves like Force Palm and Wake-Up Slap, for example.

Here are some further revisions I would propose to a lesser degree than the above:

Revision 2:
Move Submission Limit:

Each individual poster may only suggest [3, 4, 5] competitive moves for discussion. This lowers the overall clutter and allows focus on only a few select moves.

Revision 3:
Move Discussion Limit:

Each post may only discuss up to [2, 3] moves at a time. I don’t think discussions are so myopic that they truly require one move argument per post, but there shouldn’t be 5 or 6 different arguments for different moves each post.

Revision 1 is the primary revision and works in tandem with the other two revisions to “clean up” the problems in move discussion threads.

Please consider these revisions and suggest any others that you think would alleviate the problem.

i agree with submissions 1 & 2, but have a question in regards to the third one. if using the same argument either for or against a group of moves, would that be counted as a single point of discussion, or one point per move listed (screens or recovery moves for example)?

I obviously support Revision 1. We all knew it was coming, and it makes sense.

Revision 2 is a bit iffy. By only allowing 3-5 moves per person, there's a slight chance that there could be something important missed. However, since the moajority of the important moves should be in the OP, that chance is fairly slim.

I don't see the point of Revision 3. Why should the discussion be limited in any way? What's wrong with discussing five or six different moves in one post?

ferron said:

i agree with submissions 1 & 2, but have a question in regards to the third one. if using the same argument either for or against a group of moves, would that be counted as a single point of discussion, or one point per move listed (screens or recovery moves for example)?

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If moves are similar enough it would be a single point of discussion.

Roar/Whirlwind for example would be a single move despite Roar being blocked by Soundproof, though it would be preferable if you just argued for one or the other. WW takes up Level-Up or Egg Space.

As far as Screens:

No screens is a single point
Reflect not LS is a single point
LS not Reflect is a single point
Both screens is a single point

But if you say No screens OR Reflect you're a) incoherent and b) entertaining two arguments.

If they're competitive and provide decent coverage, Elemental Punches really should be listed separately.

Umbreon Dan said:

I don't see the point of Revision 3. Why should the discussion be limited in any way? What's wrong with discussing five or six different moves in one post?

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Pretty much the same reason you should only argue for a limited number of moves. It is difficult to address an argument when the post its attached to addresses 5 different moves. Then you are compelled to agree or disagree with each, ad infinitum until we get the same problems we were having.

I really like these points. While groups of moves should be allowed to be bunched together, like "screens", or "all grass-type moves" because they commonly have similar arguements against them. But other than that, I think this is fine.

Deck Knight said:

Pretty much the same reason you should only argue for a limited number of moves. It is difficult to address an argument when the post its attached to addresses 5 different moves. Then you are compelled to agree or disagree with each, ad infinitum until we get the same problems we were having.

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I've never had a problem with this. If someone makes a post discussing five moves, there's no reason why you can't choose to respond to just one of his points.

I'm pretty much in agreeance with Umbreon Dan; I get the first revision, but not so much the second two. It's not really that difficult to address multiple arguments in a single post. More time consuming, yes, but not more difficult; all you'd have to do is break the post up into the sections on each move and then address them one by one. Since from what I'm gathering, the arguments basically have to be distinctly separated anyway to be considered multiple points (and not just be something like say "no fire moves" which would be a single point and easily addressable anyway), that shouldn't be too difficult.

Also, it's not like you can really relate large groups of moves like Explosion, Selfdesruct, Eruption, Water Spout, Flare Blitz, Volt Tackle and Head Smash together beyond the fact that they're very powerful moves that "may be a bit too much", and if that's the argument used, then you, even if you only agree with part of it, can simply state that while that's true for certain moves, you don't agree with others, and go on to say why. I see you have in fact mentioned this Deck, but you've painted the act of doing so as if it's something to be avoided, stating that it makes the posts difficult to respond to, but I'm not really understanding how. As I've just displayed, such posts are quite easy to respond to; you simply state what you agree and disagree with. The only thing I can really figure is that responding to those kind of posts makes the responses longer and thus more unsightly, which isn't really an issue as I get to a bit later.

More briefly, when you're trying to relate large numbers of numbers together, you'd only do so in three ways, none of which should be that problematic to respond to:
1.) Refer to all of the moves with a general term, like fire moves or stat-boosting moves, which is easy to address since it's more of just one point (and even if you are split on statement like that, you'd still be able to respond to it briefly anyway with something like "actually Fire Blast may be too much, but Flamethrower should be fine, as it only does <damage calcs here>").
2.) Use an argument like "they're alll way too powerful", in which you can just express disagreeance on the ones you don't feel that applies to.
3.) Not bother relating them at all, and separate them into individual points, where it's quite easy to respond to.

Plus, if the posts don't link a large number of moves with the same argument, it's not like you are likely to object to every move that a user submits anyway, so the amount of time it takes to respond shouldn't be an issue (especially since a TL shouldn't simply be zipping through the process without giving people time to respond, so you should have enough time).

To add to this, in the end, there's really no difference between one person suggesting ten moves and two people suggesting five; the discussion that takes place either way will be the same. The only major difference is that responding to them all in one go is a bit more unsightly, due to the longer lengths of the posts. However, the fact that we're able to make it through the movepool thread with it's gigantic posts, especially in the OP of the voting thread, indicates that post length really isn't an issue. It may look better to have it cleaned up, but I'd really rather the users have the ability to discuss as many moves as they want in a post, just so that they don't have to hope towards the end of the life of the thread that someone will post again before the TL closes the thread so that they can discuss more moves (as those points could be very valid, and it would be a shame if they don't get heard if only because of such a rule), if that is at all possible. And since we've been managing with that, I'd really rather let users continue to do so.

So, while I definitely agree that the OP should start with a list of moves, users being limited in the number of moves they can submit is not exactly something I'm sure I agree with, and I'm definitely not in agreeance with users being limited in the number of moves they can address in a response.

I agree with Umbreon and Naxte for sure, it's not difficult to discuss several moves at a time, since you can just state your opinion for each move that you want to post about.

I disagree with #2. I mean, what's the difference between one person posting 10 moves and two people posting 5 moves like Naxte has stated? It could work in some cases if there was a rule that says not to repost an already said move or a move that's close to it (e.g Roar/Whirlwind) since there's a bunch of people who do this. That being said, we'll have several posts consisting of different moves in which we can start a discussion right away.

i like the second submission, but probably for a different reason than most of you would consider; the fact that it encourages new member participation. you usually have a strong attachment to anything you submit, and if all the older individuals, who have gone through move discussions and know the set ups and possible reactions, nominate the majority of the moves, then it gives one a feeling of having done less in that specific CaP (sorry for the run-on).
i think this could actually help to create a slightly more welcoming CaP process.

I am definitely on the same page as you with revision one, but not the others. Revision 2 is very iffy, why can't we post a large number of competitive moves in one post? I mean, let's say in the future(if revision 2)is implemented, one person may have a great idea for a move, that would work really well but was unable to post about it due to the fact that he/she had already posted 5 or so moves.

I am even more against revision 3, as that would be limiting discussion on some moves that should be on there. If were not allowed to discuss everything, we might end up with move(s)that are overpowered, because we didn't get around to discussing it.

I know these are situational, but I hope you get where I'm coming from(along with some other people who have posted here). However I do think revision 1 is a great idea, and I am supporting that all the way.

I'm a little perplexed by the first proposal, since the Process Guide already says this at the beginning of the section pertaining to movepool threads (bolding is mine):

CAP Process Guide said:

The Topic Leader will post a list of moves in the OP of the thread. This list will serve as a single point-of-reference for the current state of the discussion. The first list of moves should be compiled by the Topic Leader prior to opening the thread, and will serve as the initial list of moves to begin discussion.

The list should contain all moves that are considered Competitive for the pokemon being created. The Topic Leader has final say for determining whether a move is Competitive, Non-Competitive, or Required. The TL should use these lists for moves that are generally considered Competitive moves.

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As you can see, the rules already state that the thread should be opened with a list of moves, and that those moves should be pulled from a standard list that has been pre-compiled (by Deck Knight, in fact). So, the first proposed "revision" isn't really revising anything.

DK's first revision is pointing out that the guide should have been followed in CAP 8 -- and was not. So, if this PR thread serves as a reminder for future TL's -- then I guess this isn't a waste at all.

As to the general purpose of this PR -- yeah, movepool threads are, by far, the worst threads in CAP. They suck. Completely. Even when the TL posts a proper list at the beginning, people repeatedly ignore the "No Lists" rule, and just post lists of moves, with or without reasoning -- and the thread lacks any semblance of "discussion". They are basically a free-for-all, unbounded bold voting thread, with a thin pretense of discussion laid on top. It's terrible. I completely agree with the other 2 parts of DK's proposal -- anything to help curb the tide of un-discussable posts in movepool threads.

To those of you that argue that long list posts can be dissected and responded to partially -- yes, you are technically correct. But, nobody wants to engage in discussion like that -- except for the most pedantic posters in the project. And, honestly, those people are not helping the situation at all. The only thing more boring than a long list of moves -- is the long inline-quoted point-by-point response by some boring poster that actually bothers to dissect that list! Lists suck, and responses to lists suck even more.

We have to figure out a way to give movepool threads a more unified "discussion center". In the past, I tried to use counters as a unifying theme, but that has only been moderately successful. The movepool discussion threads are all over the place. I think DK's suggestions will address a few more of the symptoms -- therefore I support them. But, I don't think they address the root cause. I don't have a concrete suggestion to get to the root cause, but perhaps others might have better ideas.

All of these revisions seem like they weed out useless posts, but also block some useful posts people want to make... if you are too afraid of the latter, you could try strongly suggesting a limit on number of moves, discussions, etc. I personally stayed away from this thread (policy reviews of previous CAP's, that is), because of the strong suggestion to not post unless you are experienced. If you make a strong suggestion, most people will only break that suggestion if they have a good reason to.

No, that'll never work. At the top of the other Policy Review, there's a huge warning that new members shouldn't post, and then we got someone asking if we could redo Kitsunoh's art.

It definitely has to be a strict rule.

I'm a bit mixed about this CAP. The first point I of course I agree with, even if I feel it is just an improvement of an already existing system - as DJD underlined.

About the second point, I agree with too. We do not need someone to say "I'd suggest Flamethrower, Gravity, Trick Room, Pursuit, the Screens, Whirlwind, Block and Hypnosis. They would all make sense"

But I'm against the third point. Should the discussion about the moves be good enough, there should be no limit to the amount of moves discussed. Common sense will of course command not to comment every single move so far allowed into the movepool, but if - say - 7 moves are in controversial section, why a good poster should not be able to discuss them all separately? If the argument of the poster is poor, the post should be deleted even if the poster addressed only 1 move, so I do not really see the issue.