I don't see why everyone who wants to vote in a suspect test should be able to. The reason suspect tests exist is to help improve our metagames, not let people get TC badges. If a voter's incompetence could lead to undesirable metagames, they shouldn't be voting. I'm not talking about any specific case, since I don't personally know if there have as of yet been any cases of the "wrong" suspect option being chosen because of incompetent voters, but this whole mentality of "everyone should be able to vote if they want to" is pretty nonsense when there's plenty of other places for people to participate elsewhere without needing to be a good player.
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Improving Suspect Testing
- Thread starter Evan.
- Start date
First of all, the number isn't actually fixed thanks to flexible spl roster sizes and tour points, and second of all, is this seriously the extent of your problem? This is what sparked your ridiculous comment about "tournament organizing groups"? Are you serious? If you really want to avoid having some number of spots that everyone competes for (instead of setting a limit that not everyone will reach, which somehow doesn't exclude anyone) that badly, you could add some kind of other way to make it onto the council, be it high ladder reqs or whatever else, but this is just nitpicking on another level.
Yeah, no shit, we can't scientifically prove that someone is right about tiering. Everyone knew this from the start; if we could then we wouldn't have votes in the first place. What's your point?
(All questions above are rhetorical, I have nothing else to say to you)
Undesirable for who? You, or the voter?
Keep in mind that just as you will have a desired metagame, so too will everyone else who plays OU/UU/RU/NU/PU/Double/LC. I understand there has been a lot of controversy of the 'worthiness' of voters as of late, but keep in mind that, so long as it is a public vote, everybody's opinion is equally valid. You may disagree with their competence, or reasoning, but they're affected by the outcome just the same as you are.
What's nonsense is this argument that people have "plenty of places to participate elsewhere." Suspect votes affect all players, and as such, it is not a question of participation to the site in this case - as while smogon is very much a oligarchy, suspect tests are democratic, both in intent and in execution. And while you may think the voter who votes to keep Aegislash because it's the core of many of their teams a idiot who isn't voting the right way, if they put in the time to show that they've had experience with the meta and thus have a vested interest in the outcome and are allowed to vote, their vote is just as valid as yours is.
That's why it's a 'vote.' You can't have a 'wrong vote' if there are only two options - otherwise there's no point in having a vote in the first place. If there is ever a case found where the "wrong" suspect option was chosen, that would be a direct failure on the council's part, not the voterbase - because if it's that clear cut that there was a 'correct' decision, the council shouldn't have put it to vote in the first place, and should have made an executive decision.
As a pre-emptive disclaimer, I do not personally believe that you should be hypothetically voting to keep Aegislash in the metagame simply because you really like to use it, and I don't believe such votes are very intelligent. Regardless, they are still valid, just like a vote for Donald Trump because you think it would be funny would be valid in a hypothetical United States election where he was one of the candidates for presidency. Valid doesn't mean smart - it just means a qualified voter's vote is worth and should be worth the same as anyone else's, because regardless of what you think of their reason for voting, it is still their reason, and why they vote in that way in the first place.
Honestly I believe we're fine as we are. Just increase the GXE stuff or something. Suspect tests need to be accessible to everyone who can make a certain requirement, and ladder + suspect tours is really really fine. Giving up the ladder and the "vote" of the crowd of people don't play tours (or who is bad at them, or not as good as "popular players' inner circle") could let some votes being spoilt by the V.I.P. whine (remember the 1st Aegislash suspect with certain people who's even PMing voters in way to change their vote; regardless the aegi ban was wrong or right, that conduct was pathetic and arrogant). I'm just meaning that the popular vote is -most of the times- balanced. Yeah true, several noobs with 0 knowledge of the tier can say shit and this episode could be dangerous if it's recurring in large number, but this is not a problem if the requirement is high enough to cut them off.
We could add a "paragraph" but Ubers fiasco comes to mind, and I'm not sure councils wanna deal with subjective criterias.
Increasing ladder reqs and decreasing tours reqs (maybe top 8/16 depending on how much people signed up instead of the top 2/4 ?) could balance even more the weight and the wisdom of votes, but remember that there isn't a staple right vote, at least a "commonsensly rightful" one, which is the majority vote (of a popular voted suspect).
Also, there's people (generically bunch of people with few and misinformed knowledge of competitive metagames) who shittalk on Smogon regardless of suspects' results. A popular vote could virtually "let them change things" even though basically this never happened for obvious reasons. Otherwise they could say shit about oligarchy, elitist community blabla and this is not good, and this is not what most of people want.
We could add a "paragraph" but Ubers fiasco comes to mind, and I'm not sure councils wanna deal with subjective criterias.
Increasing ladder reqs and decreasing tours reqs (maybe top 8/16 depending on how much people signed up instead of the top 2/4 ?) could balance even more the weight and the wisdom of votes, but remember that there isn't a staple right vote, at least a "commonsensly rightful" one, which is the majority vote (of a popular voted suspect).
Also, there's people (generically bunch of people with few and misinformed knowledge of competitive metagames) who shittalk on Smogon regardless of suspects' results. A popular vote could virtually "let them change things" even though basically this never happened for obvious reasons. Otherwise they could say shit about oligarchy, elitist community blabla and this is not good, and this is not what most of people want.
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Why is everyone's opinion equally valid? This isn't a democracy, and some random guy who decides to vote in a suspect test because they want a badge but couldn't care less about the fate of the tier shouldn't have an equal say in the fate of the tier as the people who actually regularly play and care about it. Even if a decision isn't obvious, a close vote can easily be swayed by people who aren't competent or who will never play the tier again until the next suspect. The fate of our tiers should rest with the people who actually care about them.
My point is that you shouldn't be entitled to vote in a suspect test just because you want to. Regardless of which outcome is ultimately better, it shouldn't be so easy for any random person to have a say in it.
You misunderstand. My point is that everyone whom is qualified to vote has an equally valid opinion - I do not believe that it should be as simple as "register for smogon, grats, now you can votearoni." There should absolutely be some sort of requirement to vote, but it should be one that simply showcases a voter has experience with the meta. So a strict match requirement with a basic w:l ratio that doesn't rely on padding yourself with wins from Ash anime teams while you're lower ranked. If you regularly play in a meta, you should be able to meet that # of matches without a problem, and should be easily able to retain at least a 50%~ w/l ratio (or specific rating threshold, which again, should be something reasonable that showcases you weren't just throwing matches left and right). While you may not believe a lowered barrier to entry to vote would be ideal, I personally think that the decisions of a tier, if it's put to a vote, should be in the hands of as many people who care about and play the tier as possible, because the outcome of the suspect vote will affect all of them. I understand the annoyance that higher-level players may have at the fate of the tier being in the hands of lesser-skilled players as well, but it's important to remember this is an incredibly large community, and anyone who cares enough to actually browse the forums likely has a more vested interest in and cares more about the future of their tier than someone who just plays on PS and never participates beyond that.
That being said, the Tier Contributor badge is a serious blight and a major distraction in the first place, and should be changed to more accurately represent tier contribution, not just tallying off 8 votes and calling it good. The fact this badge exists in its current state does not help the current state of affairs, and by design pushes people to vote in metagames they know absolutely nothing about. I imagine a lot of the problems with people simply playing a meta for long enough to get a stamp card on their TC badge would vanish if it was changed. I have my sympathy for people who view it as a reward for their time spent grinding out the requirements to vote, but it's also an incredibly toxic badge by design, and represents a real thorn in the suspect test system's side.