Policy Review Policy Review Committee Discussion

[tennisace]

Hi there.

I've been talking with a lot of different people lately, and the majority of people who don't currently participate much say that it is because there is a lot of "red tape" in CAP. I want to fix this.

Basically, I want to simplify CAP as much as possible. People shouldn't have to read a dissertation to understand the project and participate. As people have seen from my recent threads, I want to streamline the process as much as I possibly can, so that the projects go faster and more smoothly, allowing us to do more projects in a shorter period of time, while also allowing more time for certain discussions.

What this thread is about specifically is the Policy Review Committee. In theory, it was created so that "good" posters would have some say in the policy of CAP, and also get to elect the TL. However, there have been no recent votes on policy by the PRC. All policy changes have been suggested by mods (or at least posed by mods), and decided on by mods. This system works.

In the meantime, the PRC still elects the TL. However, the PRC is chosen, again, by the mods. I'm not going to bullshit you all and say that there was no favoritism involved in selecting the PRC, because there was. Mods were automatically on it, former TLs were automatically on it, and if you had status in #cap (given by me usually), you were on it. All this did was encourage people to suck up to the mods in my opinion.

So I want to do away with the elitism and get rid of the PRC. This raises a couple issues:

• Who will elect the TL?
• What incentive for good posting will there be, especially for those who don't frequent #cap?

For the first one, there are three (really two) viable possibilities. We could:

a) Have the mods choose the TL through the standard application process, cutting out the middleman of the PRC completely.

b) Have the public as a whole vote on the TL, opening up the privilege of voting to everyone but also opening the possibility of bandwagoning.

c)

Hide

The nuclear option and one not really up for discussion at this point, getting rid of the TL entirely and having moderators create topics and run discussions, like other forums. (I would really rather save this for another thread, but I mention it so people can see my full thoughts on the matter. This is why it is in hide tags.)

For the second issue, there are a few different ideas I'm mulling currently, but I could use more. In addition to giving status on #cap should a good poster frequent IRC, I am planning on making a "Poster of the Month" type competition (obviously not just once a month given the time frame for a typical CAP). This will include both CAP poll discussions AND discussion threads about the various CAP metagames that I will be making soon (others can volunteer if they have ideas, just not in this thread).

I'd like to hear the general public's thoughts on this, keeping in mind that this is the major hold up for getting CAP2 started.

 

[HD]

Removing the prc should've happened anyway a long time ago - favoritism is apparent even when the user has not actually contributed in a CaP or two (me). PRC rarely does anything anyway, and when we did we got DDOAK.

Having mods choose the tl removes any democracy that may or may not be there anyway.

The public choosing the tl is the best option since bandwagons generally have at least one reason for choosing a specific candidate and it gives the illusion of a democracy.

 

[Wyverii]

I have absolutely no problem with having the public vote so long as there are no bad choices. This goes for a lot of things in the cap process but I must stress that if this is to happen bad candidates should be pulled from the pool of TLs. This isn't generally an issue, we usually get a small pool of good TLs every cap process and having them picked by vote would really bring the community behind the TL.

 

[Paradox]

I prefer option a). It would make things a lot smoother and quicker as you said (especially compared to a forum vote) and I'd be a lot more confident in the TLs chosen by CAP mods than those chosen by the public; its not a matter of Pokemon but one of leadership and knowing the TL-noms which the majority of the public probably won't. Though if there was a strict screening of TLs before the vote as Wyverii suggested that'd amount to pretty much the same thing, so that's cool too. Only thing is it becomes more popularity contest than merit (although that's what all of CAP is, maybe somewhere a line can be drawn?)

A custom title for a poster chosen by mods and TL/ATL alongside the play-test champ one could be a pretty cool way to bring quality to the forum side of things.

 

[Deck Knight]

Last Policy Review Committee Thread

Might notice something on there, namely that it was opened up to BW OU players.

This whole thread stinks of a Poli Sci 101 lecture gone wrong.

It's not favoritism that gets you on the PRC, it's relevant experience in recent projects. In the last PRC it was opened up to BW OU players so we'd get the voice of experienced players in selecting a TL nomination. Or: "the system worked."

As for the elitism charge: Show up for two recent CAP Projects; Apply; Get in.

If that's elitist, it's been dumbed down pretty far. The whole criticism in other words is fairly erroneous, and while I know you have likened the nomination process to fellatio before, for one I respect and a value the feedback we get from the people on the PRC as far as what they look for in the TL. Moreover it adds about 3 days to the process. It's not worth "streamlining" just so that we mods can appoint somebody TL - there's nothing elitist about that, mind.

The idea of the PRC is that yes, we discuss policy, but the intermittance in service of late has killed a lot of that. That's not a weakness of the system, it's a weakness of not having a good 5th Gen transition and having to rely on an outside, non-Smogon simulator to address our very specific needs. Not all the mods agree on who would be the best TL, and the current process enfranchises contribution over multiple projects. Moreover, we;ve had multiple people flow in and out, and we've had PRCs as large as 24 or more people. It's meant to be inclusive, not some kind of mod's favorite's club. If you view it that way it's rather disappointing, actually.

 

[jas61292]

I really can't say if favoritism or other such things were involved in picking the PRC, I wasn't really around then. However, I will say that, either way, I really do not see why such a committee is necessary. Policy Review should just be done by those who know what they are doing, we don't need a special committee for that.

The bigger issue is the TL voting, and to be honest, there is no reason to have a committee here either. If the mods can just make sure applicants are qualified, we should let everyone have a say. As long as all possible TLs are qualified, the best TL is the one that people will be supportive of. And the best way to find out who that is is via a community vote. Basically, I think what Wyverii said. If there are no bad choices, why not let the people choose who they want?

 

[DetroitLolcat]

I know having the public decide things doesn't work well in Suspect Testing, but on CAP I think having the public decide is the best option. The TL is the head of a CAP Project, but the engine of CAP is not the TL, not the mods, but the community. Without the public, there's not fun or point in CAP. One of the most important duties of a TL is to interpret the will of the public and move the project forward accordingly, and public favor is going to help that immensely.

In something like deciding tiers, there are definite right and wrong answers (it either should be banned or shouldn't), and that's why only the best of the best should vote. However, in a community project/election like CAP, there's a lot more gray area. It's based on preference as opposed to logic, and that's why the most preferable choice should be chosen.

Because of that, I think TL decision should be a public election. Or maybe anyone who's been with CAP for at least one project should vote, just to keep people who just show up from DST with no intentions of staying with CAP from voting.

 

[Elevator Music]

I like things the way they are. The 'red tape' problems with CAP do not lie with the PRC. If anything, I think that PRC gives more members an opportunity to feel involved with the CAP process...

However, if you're insistent on choosing one of the options though, I'd go with a. I trust you guys to make an intelligent decision when selected the TL. I definitely trust you guys more than the entire forums (it has been shown time and time again that option b never works in the long run), and I think that option c probably puts way too much strain on you/deck/wyv/tmon, which is ultimately the last thing we need.

EDIT: I guess my dislike of option b must sound pretty cynical given the nature of CAP, but choosing the right TL is just too important to leave up to the general public. I don't mind the bandwagoning that goes on in each individual step of CAP (actually I really enjoy it), since the end product isn't the only thing that's important... but it is still important, and to get a good end product you NEED a good TL.

EDIT 2: Sorry tmon i forgot you were also a mod here!!!

 

[Aldaron]

Question, if we go with B, how are the choices voted on determined?

 

[Rising_Dusk]

You want to streamline the process, but add superfluous status such as 'poster of the month' to complicate standings? I think that's counterproductive to your ultimate goal, and regardless of the outcome of this thread, we should shy away from that sort of thing.

I'm really against a public vote for TL, particularly because while CAP is a communal project, choosing someone to lead a CAP is a much more serious and critical-to-mission-success decision. We cannot let that go to public voting unless we already hand-pick the options beyond reason. As Wyverii said, we'd have to cull the poll, and then we may as well have the mods choose the TL anyway. For that, I am immediately dismissing the public vote and discussing the other option: mods choosing the TL. There are some serious issues with that proposition too, though, and unless they can be sorted out I don't think removing the PRC is a feasible or helpful idea to the mission of CAP.

It's sketchy for the mods to be deciding the TL if a single other mod applies; as a user, I feel like that's even more elitist than people already perceive us to be. Next, I think that as a 'random user', if I saw that the moderators picked the TL, I'd feel that I wouldn't really want to try that hard in CAP. I say that because there's nothing to work toward besides "mod" and for a lot of participants, that's too much responsibility; they don't want to be mods. PRC is very practical as the middle ground. In addition to that, I'd be bothered by the feeling of "Who do the mods like the most?" At least with the PRC, it feels like you're getting broader community input from relevant CAP participants, while retaining selectivity and quality control in such a mission-critical decision for the project. I like that and would be sad to see it go. Basically, I feel that removing the PRC removes community input and would ultimately hurt CAP with minimal gain.

 

[Umbreon Dan]

We cannot let that go to public voting unless we already hand-pick the options beyond reason.

are you not aware that the forum mods already filter out the joke candidates?

 

[tennisace]

are you not aware that the forum mods already filter out the joke candidates?

THIS. We already do this, and have forever. So lets go over the play-by-play shall we? The PRC doesn't vote on stuff really. It just elects the TL via a slate of candidates handpicked by the mods. It itself is handpicked by the mods. So in reality: the mods already have a huge amount of influence, and rightfully so. Why do the mods need to pick a committee of users to pick a TL that the mods picked?

I'm really against a public vote for TL, particularly because while CAP is a communal project, choosing someone to lead a CAP is a much more serious and critical-to-mission-success decision. We cannot let that go to public voting unless we already hand-pick the options beyond reason.

This is exactly what I am talking about here. So fucking what really? We're making fake Pokemon on a competitive Pokemon website. We're not disarming nuclear bombs. We're not curing cancer. We're just trying to have fun, unless somehow people think we're going to reinvent the wheel and save humanity by doing this. I donate my time because I think this is a fun place where we can discuss some of the "what-ifs" we have. Others do the same. There is no mission, there is no critical-to-mission-success. If someone fucks up really badly as TL, then whatever, nobody died. Sure it kind of sucks if they can't lead a project right, but again, we the mods would at least take the bad candidates out of the slate first. In addition, we are moderators, not janitors. I, and the other mods, should be more than willing to aid in leading discussion at various points.

 

[zarator]

I agree with DK on this. There was nothing wrong with the committee to begin with. I can't recall of any single person meeting the prerequisite and not being able to join because the mods denied him. There's nothing inherently elitist about the PRC. If you participate to CAP, you'll get on it eventually.

Plus, there's a terrible fault with part of your reasoning. You basically said something like: "Since the mods decide the slate of options for TL nominees anyway, why don't we cut it short and let the mods pick one option to go with?". Now, let me apply the same reasoning somewhere: "Since the TL decides the slate of options for CAP polls anyway, why don't we cut it short and let the TL pick one option to go with?". I'm sure everyone can see what's wrong here.

The less you let voters vote on (from TL to CAP process), the less creativity there will be throughout the project. This amounts especially for option (c) in the OP. One of the biggest factors to each CAP's uniqueness is the fact the TLs are different every time. If the TL were always the same (in this case, the CAP mods), we would lose a lot of originality and interesting input.

Long story short: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The PRC is fine as it is. Please don't change it.

 

[Wyverii]

Hmm, I'm not sure I get this resistance. So far nobody has actually made a compelling argument to keep the PRC.

There are three things that the PRC are supposed to specifically do:

Selecting a TL. This is the main topic of discussion at the moment and I don't see the point of it. Barring the obviously bad participants that are culled anyway we always tend to get a small group of excellent individuals that can all bring something to the table. In this case I would have no problem putting it to a public vote because it insures the TL will have a strong presence.

Creating policy review topics. Sorry guys, this just doesn't happen all that often these days. I'm not sure why but the mods shoulder most of the PR stuff regardless of who's in the committee. If the PRC is kept around people have to be reminded that yes, this is the sort of thing you can do. Only experienced people are generally brave enough to even try to put these up and PRC members are required to get mod permission anyway. Why not open it up to everybody to pass their PR threads for mod approval? It won't cause us mods much more bother I assure you.

And finally, voting in policy review threads. This doesn't happen so much these days either. General community consensus from experienced members is usually what decides the outcome and since these PRC worthy peeps are already drawn to and discussing in these threads and the unexperienced chased out, why the formality?

I'd like to insure everybody here that by supporting getting rid of the PRC is not an attempt to devalue our best members, or let the unexperienced run riot. People on the PRC tend to be loved members of CaP and they don't need to be in a club to prove that. I've spent a long time watching how the PRC works and at this point I just do not think it's worth the effort spent anymore, even though we have put a lot of work into it.

Edit: On a rather funny note, tennisace here was actually the one who made the PR for the PRC in the first place and contributed greatly to its birth. It was originally under the title of, "round table". To be here now and see him post for its removal is almost poetic.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with the PRC in its current incarnation. The charges levelled against it seem to be 1. it's elitist/encourages favouritism, 2. it does basically nothing constructive, 3. it's a waste of time. I'm not really certain that I've seen anyone who applied to the PRC actually rejected, barring a few people with <100 posts. For my own part, I've never really exchanged a single word of conversational dialogue with any of the CAP mods, and yet I've been "elected" to the PRC every time I've applied. This doesn't strike me as reeking of favouritism.

Second, it's nice to have a back-up governing body to make decisions that call for a greater level of community input than the mods all banding together and working out a solution for themselves. I'd like to make the point that where a CAP is already in progress, the body that makes the decision should be the TL's choice. Whether the TL chooses by themselves, or asks moderators for guidance, or calls on the PRC for a vote, or puts it to the general public. See the Multitype discussion for Krilowatt, where all of these bodies were involved in some way. Just because the PRC doesn't happen to have any official, scheduled tasks doesn't mean it shouldn't be there to begin with - it ensures that there's always a body of experienced community members that can be called upon, should such a thing be desired.

Oh, and I've also never understood the desire to make the CAP process as short as possible. Maybe it's just me, but I think that the making of the CAP is by far the best part of the project, and easily the one that brings in the most community input, so I have no idea why we would be trying to condense this experience.

One thing I would like, if the PRC stays, is to make it a bit more accessible, and a bit less cliquey. And I'm pretty sure this could be achieved simply by making the application thread less intimidating.

 

[zarator]

If a group of people vote on a decision, the chances of the group as a whole to take the best decision depends on how knowledgeable each person is. More in detail:

1) If each voter has more than 50% chances to choose the best option, then the larger the group is, the higher the chances to pick the best option as a majority will be
2) If each voter has less than 50% chances to choose the best option, then the larger the group is, the higher the chances for the group to be wrong will be.

Now, let us consider the following three situations for choosing the TL:
a) TL is chosen by mods
b) TL is chosen by the PRC
c) TL is chosen by popular vote

In case (a), we can easily argue that each of the voters has more than 50% chances to pick the best option. I mean, they're the mods! They can be trusted in this at least. This means that group (a) will have over 50% chances to give the good answer over the bad one.

In case (c), the situation will probably be the opposite. Many of the voters will be largely uninformed about who's the best candidate, and will vote in a more or less misguided way. We can then assume that the chances for each voter to vote for the best option will be, on average, below 50%. This means that, not only group (c) will have less than 50% chances to get it right, but the larger group (c) is (and it is definitely large), the more chances to be wrong it will have.

In case (b), we are in a situation similar to (a) under many aspects. A PRC member generally has good experience about CAP, so he has all the tools to discern between the better and the worse options for TLing. He knows well enough the criteria and can make an informed choice. So, we can assign to each member a higher than 50% chance to be right. Again, this means that the group at large will also have a higher than 50% chance to be right, and this chance will be even right for each additional (informed) voter joining the group.


After this preliminary exam, it should be clear we need to discard option (c), since it's clearly the most faulty one. So, we are left with either option (a) or option (b). However, one thing is immediately apparent. Mods are five people. PRC counts 4 or 5 times more (often, even more than that). This means that the sheer number of informed voters within the PRC allows for higher chances to get the answer right than the mods alone.

And on a related note, option (b) is also the more transparent one. Although one can doubt about its sincerity, the PRC always voted giving reasons for its vote. Each PRC member was expected to. This gave the PRC final choice a degree of legitimacy, in the face of "public reason", which neither the mods nor the popular vote would have.



tl;dr: It can be mathematically proved that the PRC vote is the most accurate one when compared to mods or popular ones. It can also be argued that the PRC vote is the most publicly acceptable one, since it's the only one which gives reason for its decision. So, why do we need to get rid of PRC? It works, it's democratic. Anything else wrong?

 

[jas61292]

tl;dr: It can be mathematically proved that the PRC vote is the most accurate one when compared to mods or popular ones. It can also be argued that the PRC vote is the most publicly acceptable one, since it's the only one which gives reason for its decision. So, why do we need to get rid of PRC? It works, it's democratic. Anything else wrong?

Here is what I don't get: how do you mathematically prove that one method is more likely to pick the best result when there is no best result to begin with.

Tennisace put it best with his lat post. This entire thing is a bunch of random Pokemon fans making a Pokemon. There is no right answer to everything, there is just the answer that people want. Everyone here arguing that the PRC needs to stay for some reason seems to think that this one aspect is too important to let the public decide. Well, let me put it this way, if it is a community project, and this is the most important part, then it is imperative that the community do the selection. All that is being done here by arguments against the vote is basically insulting the average user. If you don't think people will make the decision you think is best, then you can go elsewhere and make your own Pokemon. People come here to be a part of the process, an cutting them out because they might "make the wrong decision" is totally against what we are trying to do here.

Besides, even there is nothing wrong with the PRC, there is no reason it is needed either. All getting rid of it would do is slim the process down a bit, taking more focus off the process itself, and putting more focus on the Pokemon creation.

 

[v]

If mods have always filtered the trash then who allowed the legend known as linton?

I've been on almost every PRC and my only actual responsibility was to select the TL. I commented on PR issues that caught my attention (like this one) but I would have done that regardless.

Before you disregard my opinion, please note that I have been on every PRC bar the first and maybe the most recent one. I may not submit something at every stage or vote in every poll, but I think I know well enough how things are done here and have been done here to have a say. Bar tennis, deck, wyv, doug, and maybe jibs I've been part of this project longer than any of you. CaP is already and always has been super democratic, sometimes to a fault.

The PRC doesn't add anything other than informed people voting on a Topic Leader. PRC members comment on PR topics anyways. PR topics still have to be approved by mods. I'm not sold on an open poll for TL, but I don't mod CaP and really decisions like that should be relegated to the mods of the forum.

Thanks for reading UNLESS YOU ARE TENNISACE FUCK YOU TENNISACE

 

[FimPhym]

If a group of people vote on a decision, the chances of the group as a whole to take the best decision depends on how knowledgeable each person is. More in detail:

1) If each voter has more than 50% chances to choose the best option, then the larger the group is, the higher the chances to pick the best option as a majority will be
2) If each voter has less than 50% chances to choose the best option, then the larger the group is, the higher the chances for the group to be wrong will be.

~ snip

The following is a Public Service Announcement on behalf of mathematics. (Warning: Low CAP content.)

This is not good maths. This is a bad model to represent reality because it fails to account for really important stuff. Communities are not random vote generators who can either be likely or unlikely to vote 'right' - if there's a right answer in the first place, just pick that one! There's politics, good relationships, trust to and from the community, and the previous and important 'not a selection of right/wrong' thing.

Furthermore, this strikes me as the logic only possible of coming from someone that is in the PRC. I don't know if you are, but if you're not I'll be amazed. It is inclusive of you (mods alone aren't good enough!), but exclusive of the public (they're not smart enough!)

Here is a quick test of your model by matching it to reality.

In political elections, people can either vote for the right party or the wrong party. If they have more than a 50% chance of voting for the right party, they are more likely to choose the right party. Less than 50% then vice versa. What makes people more likely to vote right? Let's say education!

Now we have politicians (most educated in politics) land owners (well educated citizens) and general public (least educated in politics). To make sure the group is >50% likely to vote for the right party, we should let politicians and landowners vote, but not the general population.

I hope you can see why this isn't a great system.

The moral of the story is, please don't use grossly simplified models of reality, flex a little maths and then say

mathematically proved

This does not mean what you think it does.

This has been a Public Service Announcement for mathematics.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Let me give you my perspective on the role I wanted PRC to serve in the big picture of the CAP project -- because I haven't seen anyone mention it yet.

For those of you that have not been around CAP from the very beginning, and even to some of you that have been around forever -- keep in mind that when I was organizing the CAP project a few years ago, it was very important to create a sense of community and purpose here. At the time this project was founded, and all the way up until fairly recently -- the CAP project got very little respect within Smogon, and was even the outright target of a lot of derision and ridicule from other supposed "leaders" in Smogon. There was not widespread support for an expanding CAP project, and there were no incentives to participate and work to improve the project. I saw this as a HUGE limitation in attracting good people to join the project and get involved at a organizational level. Every project will get a bazillion voters, and half-ass posters. But we needed a strong community to make this project self-sustaining.

To help build a community, we needed an organizational structure that allows people to "work up through the ranks", if you will. And even for those that choose not to work for rewards and recognition, they should know those that have achieved different levels of recognition. In the earliest days of the CAP project, we only had server mods and the TL. Later we added additional forum mods. But as we got a few CAP projects under our belt, there was a clear collection of people that were known as "experienced CAP participants", but there was no real way to recognize them in an official capacity, or give them any special privileges to incentive them.

In my mind, THAT is what the PRC provides -- it officially recognizes who are the current "experienced members of the CAP" project and gives them access to a few key decision processes that generally require experience anyway. By creating a specially recognized body it sends out an important underlying message about the CAP project:

"We have intelligent recognized participants that have gained experience in an intelligent, organized process."

By implication, that means:

1) This project is not a noob fanboy shitstorm (This deflects criticism and ridicule)
2) There are rewards and recognition here (This builds a sense of community)
3) We are organized (Gives structure for participants to work within)​

I have never thought of the PRC as elitist at all. In fact many people felt like it wasn't elitist enough, because we never rejected anyone. I always liked that the PRC worked on the principle of self-nomination. Basically, if you are willing to stand up and tell everyone publicly that you think you are an experienced participant in CAP -- then you probably *ARE* experienced in CAP. To my recollection, we've never had an unqualified person ever nominate themselves for PRC. I have always thought that was really cool. Instead of granting recognition by executive fiat, we basically ask the community "Who here thinks they deserve recognition?" -- and guess what? -- every single person that raises their hand actually *does* deserve recognition. Yes, just in case some idiot decides to nominate themselves, mods can reject a nom. But in the history of CAP, the PRC membership has been wonderfully self-regulated. We never have PRC members that are completely out of touch, and we never have any squabbles about who is or is not on the "recognition list". I wish I could say the same for Smogon recognition in general...

Do I think the CAP project will go horribly astray without a PRC? No. But I do think the PRC serves the function I intended it to serve back when it was first formed. It's a constantly refreshed list of "Experienced CAP Members", and it confers official recognition, if that means anything to anyone. If outsiders seek to get experience with CAP, just so they can vote on TL's, participate more confidently in PR threads, or tell their friends "I'm on the PRC" -- then so be it. If there are experienced members that don't think it is worth their time to nominate themselves for the PRC, because they think the whole committee is bullshit -- that's fine too. I don't make the PRC out to be any more or any less than what it is.

Perhaps the time for the PRC has passed. The CAP project is a well-established sub-community of Smogon nowadays. CAP members have gone on to all sorts of other leadership positions in Smogon, and we don't have to fight for credibility so much any more. I think we needed to have a serious-minded approach to things back when we were building up the CAP community. But maybe we need to lighten up a bit and not put so much emphasis on things like CAP experience and organization.

But don't discount the value of having a form of recognition like the PRC in the community. For those of you that have mods and badges and all that, it may seem like a waste of time. But there is an undertone message to the PRC that should not be ignored. If that undertone has become something elitist, then yes, the PRC should be abolished. But if the undertone is still inclusive and respected, then it should stay.

 

[zarator]

I expected to be a bit misunderstood, so I'll try to explain me better without getting offtopic as much as I can.

@jas: If you think choices all have the same worth - i.e. none is better than the other - you may as well make the slate and then roll a die to see who's the next TL. The reason we have a vote is that, while we believe all the people who made it into the slate are good enough to not fail as TLs, there could be one choice which is better than the others. We have no objective way to decide which is the best one, hence why we hold a vote.

Also I do not buy the "slim" the process thing. One thing is that if we have something which slows down the process in the middle of the process itself. It may draw people away from CAP and prove to be a burden overall. But having a poll to create a PRC and elect a leader is not much different from, let's say, starting the CAP process with (oh my) 4-5 days of delay. Delaying a process is not as much troublesome as extending it. CAP will still last the same amount of time, whether we use the 5 days before it begins to choose a TL or whether we all go play Kirby in those 5 days.

@FimPhym: The reasoning I put in my post has often been used in history both in favor and against democracy. Obviously the supporters assumed the casual voter has more than 50% chance to make the good choice when it comes to politics, whereas the detractors will assume the same casual voter has less than 50% chance.

I'm a liberal, so I'm obviously in support of democracy. I fully expect the casual European or American voter to have all the tools to make an enoughly informed voting choice to have the right to vote in the first place. However, the current situation is vastly different. Many of the potential voters, if we open the polls to every Smogoner, will vote without any knowledge of CAP at all. It would be as if we let, say, French people vote for the next Spanish president.

The polls throughout CAP are one thing. It doesn't take a CAP expert to see which type best suits a certain concept or not, just common Pokémon knowledge. And we can expect Smogoners, on average, to have more than 50% chance to get it right, since we're a competitive Pokémon site after all. However, the election of the CAP TL is a totally different matter. Most of the voters won't have the necessary information to make an accurate call on who should or should not be the TL. Which is why I assumed the casual Smogoner has less than 50% chance to get it right.

So in the end, yes, this is foolproof from a mathematical standpoint. Unless, of course, you contest the assumption that the casual Smogoner hasn't the knowledge to vote a TL (or that a PRC member has such knowledge) - on average, at least. Which is totally acceptable, but I think I already explained why I can't buy it.

EDIT: @DJD: Thank you for your post. I couldn't have said such things better.

 

[jas61292]

@jas: If you think choices all have the same worth - i.e. none is better than the other - you may as well make the slate and then roll a die to see who's the next TL. The reason we have a vote is that, while we believe all the people who made it into the slate are good enough to not fail as TLs, there could be one choice which is better than the others. We have no objective way to decide which is the best one, hence why we hold a vote.

I'm not going to say all candidates are equivalent. In fact, there may be some who are obviously the best. However, by the time it gets to a vote I would believe that the mods have eliminated any candidates who are not qualified. And once it reaches that point, I believe the only way to determine who is best is with a community vote. The fact is, the TL is the leader of the project for everyone, not just the PRC. When you are electing an officer, or a team captain or anything, they should be voted on by the people they are leading. How would you like it if you are on some team, and you are choosing a leader, but only a small part of the team is allowed to vote, and you are not in that small part? If you are being represented by the TL, you should have a say in who they are.

It is my belief that all the people who could get chosen will be good enough, and in such a situation, the only thing that makes one candidate better than the others is the amount of support they have from the community. If there is some other factor that is signigicantly more important that I am missing, please let me know, but as far as I can see, there is nothing more important than that.

 

[Birkal]

Hello! As a newcomer to the CAP forum, I've been reading through lots of these Policy Review topics with much interest to learn about the culture and "hierarchy" here in the subforum. At the beginning of this topic, PRC was being described with terms like "the mod's pets" and "more correct that the average poster". And if that's what the PRC has turned into, then I would recommend its removal. Those mindsets won't bring in community at all; they will destroy it.

But if you view these things through the lens of DougJustDoug, things become much more clear. The PRC is a self-regulated group of individuals actively seeking to improve CAP with their prior knowledge. It's encouraging to know that nearly anyone gets in if they think they have enough experience. Furthermore, it is rewarding to know that such a group exists! Take me for example. Do I have a lot of experience in CAP? Not really. I've playtested a bit and read through many old topics, but I haven't lived through the process yet. Would I consider applying for PRC? Not at all! I don't know enough about the going-ons and timeline yet to make an accurate decision on a TL.

Even more so, the concept of a PRC makes me actually want to become much more active in the process so that I may one day be able to join it. As a new poster, it's almost frightening to post in topics like these, seeing as I have very little background knowledge at the moment. But to have the confidence that I may someday know enough and be recognized publically for it is a huge incentive. DougJustDoug is right yet again; working one's way up through a system is a great way to peak interest.

So in conclusion, if the PRC really is just the "mod's favorites", then it should be put to an end. But from what it sounds like, the PRC is a public group (with a bit of regulation) that is recognized as semi-veterans to the project. And in my opinion, that is a group worth having.

 

[zarator]

So in conclusion, if the PRC really is just the "mod's favorites", then it should be put to an end. But from what it sounds like, the PRC is a public group (with a bit of regulation) that is recognized as semi-veterans to the project. And in my opinion, that is a group worth having.

As Bugmanicabob and DJD said, a lot of people got in without even knowing the mods, to the point none ever got rejected. I think this answers your doubts more than anything else^^

 

[jas61292]

I think the better analysis would be, as DJD said:

If that undertone has become something elitist, then yes, the PRC should be abolished. But if the undertone is still inclusive and respected, then it should stay.

Whether or not it actually is is really not as important as how it is perceived.