I'm bumping this again, since the release of Nasty Plot Celebi has brought this issue to the forefront again. For all the people who missed or ignored this thread the last time it was brought up, the key question in the OP is:
How do we approve and confirm new moves that Pokemon get from either events or New Games in a generation?
Right now, we have no process whatsoever. We have no clear means for recognizing changes based on Nintendo Events. We have a bunch of people running around on Shoddy and IRC, asking "When is <x> going to be implemented on Shoddy?" And then they hammer me or Colin and insist that we implement a change. I actually have no qualms with implementing changes to our metagame, based on events. But, I don't think this community should rely on my judgement for what should be in the metagame, and what conditions should be met for changes to be considered "official".
We had a discussion on #stark yesterday, which I felt was terribly unproductive -- because most people seem to have a hard time understanding the dilemma here. So here's a few questions (some rhetorical) that I hope will help people understand why this is not nearly as simple as some people might think.
Should I implement changes every time someone sends me a PM and tells me that an event has happened? Obviously not. Hoaxes happen all the time. And, people lie about this sort of thing ALL THE TIME.
Should I implement changes if another site promotes that an event has occurred? No offense to Serebii, Bulbapedia, or whatever -- but they get stuff wrong sometimes. Smogon should do our own leg work and investigation to determine the veracity of events.
Should I implement changes because Nintendo supposedly is advertising it? Probably, but what is considered "official advertising"? National web ads only? Are TV shows considered official?
More importantly, who needs to witness and verify these ads or websites? If I don't see them personally (which will be the case most of the time), should I trust the opinions of others?
If some guy sends me a camera picture of a flyer advertising a Wonder Guard Spiritomb, and says he got it from the Nintendo store in New York -- should that be considered "official"? Obviously not. What if twenty people send it to me? How about 100? Does it even matter how many people supposedly "verify" an event, if the rest of the community can't verify it?
If someone sends me a pokemon through GTS, should that be considered "proof"? Obviously not. Hacks are easily passed. I only mention this because every time I talk about "verifying" event pokemon -- some retard pops up and says, "I can prove it, Doug. I have one. I'll send it to you, if you don't believe me." Unless the person that is vouching for the pokemon, and has it in possession, is recognized as an "official event pokemon verifier" or something like that, then it really doesn't matter if the pokemon physically exists on someone's game cart. If I can't get it on my cart personally, then you are basically just telling me "Trust me, Doug. I'm not lying about this." I think we all know what a waste of time that is.
What about event pokemon that are given out exclusively for participation in a Nintendo tournament? How do we verify those? Do we just trust random eyewitness reports?
What about giveaways at Gamestop, Toys-R-Us and movie premieres? There have already been instances of people hacking the trasmitters and distributing hacks to general customers. What if I was one of those customers? What if I unwittingly received a Wondertomb from an official Nintendo giveaway for Deoxys or whatever, because some asshole hacked the transmitter? What if it wasn't so blatant? What if my Deoxys just had Draco Meteor hacked onto it? Should that be recognized? I'm an admin of the community, I received the pokemon personally, and I could swear on a stack of bibles that I received it at an official giveaway event and I didn't hack it. Is that enough proof? Uh... no.
How do we verify past events? Even if there was a ton of advertising, proof and a widespread distribution of pokemon at some point in the past -- if it doesn't exist today, then how can we verify it? How are those situations differentiated as being anything other than just trusting X number of people who say "Yeah this really happened"?
Ok, I'll stop there. I hope this gives people an idea of why this is not as straightforward as saying "Hey, Nasty Plot Celebi is out in Japan now. Put it on Shoddy ASAP, kthanksbye."
We need a process for verifying and recognizing these things. I don't really care what the process is -- just as long as we make some reasonable attempt to mitigate the risks of recognizing fakes, and that the process is transparent and verifiable by others. No such process exists today, and without it -- we really can't get anything done with any semblance of formality. Smogon is WAY too advanced to be flying by the seat of our pants on this sort of thing. Considering the level of research and detail we put into every meaningful area of the competitive metagame, I find it hard to believe that we consider it acceptable to recognize major changes to the metagame based on what essentially amounts to rumor and innuendo.
Earlier in this thread, I suggested an approach for this. But, we really didn't get much feedback on it or alternative suggestions. And no one stepped up to plate and offered to actually do the work, and/or organize the effort. Without a meaningful community effort, then this will likely remain like it is today -- all talk, no action.