Policy Review Project Pace and Timeboxing

DougJustDoug · Jun 28, 2014

Project Pacing

I have been concerned for a while about the pacing of CAP projects, feeling we are moving too slowly on... well, just about everything!

It's obvious to everyone that we don't produce CAP pokemon as frequently as we did in Gen 4, and that isn't objectively a bad thing. But subjectively, I've been frustrated that it has become normal (and generally "acceptable") that we only make two CAP pokemon PER YEAR nowadays. I've never been able to quantify why I think we are too slow on CAPs these days, I couldn't quantify what I think is the right pace for a given CAP, and I certainly couldn't propose any objective ways to speed things up around here.

I'm the kind of person that likes to use metrics to figure things out, so I have been collecting stats on the timing of CAP projects and threads, dating all the way back to our very first pokemon creation project. Yes, "Stat Boy" is alive and well here in Smogon, at your service! (for those of you that remember my nom de plume from my days of maintaining the original DP usage stats)

So before I get to my interpretations of data and my proposals, I'll present all the raw stats and explain what they mean. I attached a zip file with an Excel spreadsheet, if you would rather view all this in spreadsheet form, but below all the information is formatted into fixed text tables.

Calendar Stats

Code:

+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
|        |           | TL Noms    | Concept      | Final Product | Playtest   | Total Forum  | Total Project | Post-Project  |
|        |           | Opened     | Opened       | Posted        | Completed  | Participation| Days          | Lull Days     |
|        |           |            |              |               |            | Days         |               |               |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 18 | Volkraken | 2/22/2014  | 3/2/2014     | 5/21/2014     | 6/8/2014   | 80           | 106           |               |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 17 | Cawmodore | 7/9/2013   | 7/22/2013    | 11/10/2013    | 11/30/2013 | 111          | 144           | 84            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 16 | Malaconda | 1/28/2013  | 2/3/2013     | 4/25/2013     | 5/10/2013  | 81           | 102           | 60            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 15 | Aurumoth  | 9/4/2012   | 9/10/2012    | 11/16/2012    | 12/2/2012  | 67           | 89            | 57            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 14 | Mollux    | 4/3/2012   | 4/9/2012     | 6/24/2012     | 7/9/2012   | 76           | 97            | 57            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 13 | Necturna  | 10/31/2011 | 11/6/2011    | 2/8/2012      | 2/26/2012  | 94           | 118           | 37            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 12 | Tomohawk  | 2/20/2011  | 2/24/2011    | 4/29/2011     | 5/30/2011  | 64           | 99            | 154           |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 11 | Voodoom   | 6/27/2010  | 7/5/2010     | 8/22/2010     | 9/9/2010   | 48           | 74            | 164           |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 10 | Krilowatt | 2/20/2010  | 2/28/2010    | 5/2/2010      | 5/21/2010  | 63           | 90            | 37            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 9  | Colossoil | 9/4/2009   | 9/25/2009    | 11/8/2009     | 11/30/2009 | 44           | 87            | 82            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 8  | Cyclohm   | 4/3/2009   | 4/6/2009     | 5/24/2009     | 6/16/2009  | 48           | 74            | 80            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 7  | Kitsunoh  | 1/26/2009  | 1/26/2009    | 3/6/2009      | 3/28/2009  | 39           | 61            | 6             |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 6  | Arghonaut | 11/27/2008 | 11/27/2008   | 1/8/2009      | 1/21/2009  | 42           | 55            | 5             |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 5  | Stratagem | 8/26/2008  | 8/26/2008    | 11/7/2008     | 11/17/2008 | 73           | 83            | 10            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 4  | Fidgit    | 6/14/2008  | 6/14/2008    | 8/12/2008     | 8/23/2008  | 59           | 70            | 3             |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 3  | Pyroak    | 4/1/2008   | 4/1/2008     | 5/17/2008     | 5/27/2008  | 46           | 56            | 18            |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 2  | Revenankh | 1/18/2008  | 1/18/2008    | 3/30/2008     | 4/19/2008  | 72           | 92            | 2             |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| CAP 1  | Syclant   | 11/27/2007 | 11/27/2007   | 1/16/2008     | 2/27/2008  | 50           | 92            | 2             |
+--------+-----------+------------+--------------+---------------+------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+

That table contains the dates of four major milestones for every CAP project:

Topic Leadership Noms Opened
For my purposes, this date signals the true "Start of a CAP Project". For the first two CAP projects, Topic Leaders were not selected, so I just used the date of the first thread for those two projects.

Concept Submissions Opened
This date is what I consider to be the "Start of Public Participation in a CAP Project". Yes, I know that all threads, including Topic Leader noms and selection threads, are open to the public. But we generally don't make big public announcements (like Smogon front page news) and start hyping the start of a CAP project until Concept Submissions are opened. So this is the date I used for marking the "Forum Start" of a project. For CAP projects the predated the existence of a formally chosen Concept, I just used the first thread of that project.

In the early days, up until Cyclohm, even with an explicit Concept step, we always opened Concept Submissions and Topic Leader Nominations at the same time. We'd accumulate concepts at the same time we were figuring out who would lead the project. As soon as a TL was selected, their first job was to make a slate of Concepts to vote on, based on submissions that had collected in the thread. So, for the first several CAP projects -- the start dates of a project, both public and private, were the same.

Final Product Posted
This date is the "End of Public Participation in a CAP Project". After the Final Product OP, there might still be some public discussion of height, weight, or whatever in the Final Product thread, but for most CAP forum participants, this thread means the end of the project. This is where the primary momentum of a CAP ends, even if there is still playtesting, prevo, etc. left to do.

Playtest Completed
This date is the definitive "End of a CAP Project". For early CAPs, we did not have defined playtest periods. We just implemented the CAP on the server and said "Hey everybody, go battle with this new pokemon and post here with your feedback!" Then we moved to a defined one-week playtest, and later expanded it to two weeks. So for early CAPs, I just added seven days to the date playtesting was announced to come up with a playtest completion date.

From those four milestones, I generated three significant time periods, measured in calendar days:

Total Forum Participation Days
The period between Concept Submissions Opened and Final Product Posted. This is the number of days where the general public was actively involved in that CAP project.

Total Project Days
The period between Topic Leader Noms Opened and Playtest Completed. This is the number of days where CAP leaders, veterans, diehards and/or sim battlers were actively involved in that CAP project.

Post-Project Lull Days
The period between the Playtest Completed date of one CAP and the Topic Leader Noms Opened date of the next CAP. This is the "dead time" between CAP projects. Yes, there are sometimes lots of things going on during this period (Prevos, Analysis writing, Policy Review, etc), but in terms of the publicly-visible core mission of Create-A-Pokemon, this is effectively our downtime.

(Click the chart to see it full size)

Detail Stats

Code:

+------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
|                                          | CAP 18    | CAP 17    | CAP 16    | CAP 15    | CAP 14    | CAP 13    | CAP 12    | CAP 11    | CAP 10    | CAP 9     | CAP 8     | CAP 7     | CAP 6     | CAP 5     | CAP 4     | CAP 3     | CAP 2     | CAP 1     |
|                                          +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
|                                          | Volkraken | Cawmodore | Malaconda | Aurumoth  |  Mollux   | Necturna  | Tomohawk  |  Voodoom  | Krilowatt | Colossoil |  Cyclohm  | Kitsunoh  | Arghonaut | Stratagem |  Fidgit   |  Pyroak   | Revenankh |  Syclant  |
|         Thread                           +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|                                          | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind | Seq | Ind |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Topic Leader/TLT Apps/Noms               | 6   |     | 11  |     | 4   |     | 4   |     | 4   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 6   |     | 6   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 4   |     | 6   |     | 4   |     |     |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Topic Leader Selection                   | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     |     |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Topic Leadership Team Selection          | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 1 - Concept Submissions             | 6   |     | 4   |     | 4   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 4   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 5   |     | 4   |     | 4   |     | 8   |     |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |
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| Part 1 - Concept Poll 1                  | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 1 - Concept Poll 2                  | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 1 - Concept Poll 3                  |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 1 - Concept Poll 4                  |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 1 - Concept Assessment 1            | 5   |     | 4   |     | 5   |     | 4   |     | 4   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 10  |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 1 - Concept Assessment 2            | 3   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 2 - Typing Discussion               | 4   |     | 5   |     | 4   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 2 - Typing Poll 1                   | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     |
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| Part 2 - Typing Poll 2                   | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 6   |     |
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| Part 2 - Typing Poll 3                   |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |
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| Part 2 - Secondary Typing Discussion     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 2 - Secondary Typing Poll 1         |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 2 - Secondary Typing Poll 2         |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |
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| Part 2 - Secondary Typing Poll 3         |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |
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| Part 3 - Threats Discussion              | 5   |     | 4   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 4   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part ? - Counters Discussion             |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 6   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 3   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Art Submissions                          |     | 26  |     | 42  |     | 24  |     | 22  |     | 19  |     | 14  |     | 13  |     | 12  |     | 15  |     | 13  |     | 13  |     | 9   |     | 17  |     | 10  |     | 13  |     | 2   |     | 15  |     | 14  |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion      | 4   |     | 5   |     | 4   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 4   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 9   |     | 2   |     | 4   |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 4 - Primary Ability Poll 1          | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     |     |     | 3   |     |
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| Part 4 - Primary Ability Poll 2          | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 4 - Primary Ability Poll 3          |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 5 - Stat Limits/Bias Discussion     | 3   |     | 6   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 6   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 6   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 4   |     |     |     |
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| Part ? - Stat Limits/Ratings Poll 1      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 4   |     | 4   |     |
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| Part ? - Stat Limits/Ratings Poll 2      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |
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| Part ? - Stat Limits/Ratings Poll 3      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part ? - Bias Poll 1                     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     | 3   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part ? - Bias Poll 2                     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part ? - Bias Poll 3                     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part ? - Bias Poll 4                     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part ? - Bias Poll 5                     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 6 - Stat Spread Submissions         | 4   |     | 8   |     | 5   |     | 3   |     | 4   |     | 6   |     | 2   |     | 5   |     | 5   |     | 4   |     | 5   |     | 6   |     | 5   |     | 6   |     | 9   |     | 5   |     | 6   |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 6 - Stat Spread Poll 1              | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     |     |     | 3   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 6 - Stat Spread Poll 2              | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 6 - Stat Spread Poll 3              |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 7 - Secondary Ability Discussion    | 2   |     | 9   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     | 3   |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 7 - Secondary Ability Poll 1        | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 7 - Secondary Ability Poll 2        |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 7 - Secondary Ability Poll 3        |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 7 - Secondary Ability Poll 4        |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 8 - Art Poll 1                      | 2   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 8 - Art Poll 2                      | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 8 - Art Poll 3                      | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     | 3   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 8 - Art Poll 4                      |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 8 - Art Poll 5                      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Name Submissions                         | 7   |     | 5   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 4   |     | 3   |     | 7   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 5   |     | 4   |     | 3   |     | 6   |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 9 - Name Poll 1                     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 9 - Name Poll 2                     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 9 - Name Poll 3                     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 9 - Name Poll 4                     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 9 - Name Poll 5                     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Sprite Submissions                       |     | 24  |     | 30  |     | 31  |     | 21  |     | 26  |     | 41  |     | 24  |     | 16  |     | 19  |     | 15  |     | 8   |     | 7   |     | 9   |     | 6   |     | 26  |     | 20  |     | 7   |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Attacking Moves Discussion     | 6   |     | 12  |     | 5   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 4   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 6   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Attacking Moves Poll           | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Non-Attacking Moves Discussion | 7   |     | 6   |     | 6   |     | 4   |     | 2   |     | 7   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 5   |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 4   |     | 5   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Non-Attacking Moves Poll       | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part ? - New Move Discussion             |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part ? - New Move Poll 1                 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part ? - New Move Poll 2                 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part ? - New Move Poll 3                 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Movepool Limits                | 2   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Movepool Submissions           | 6   |     | 7   |     | 7   |     | 5   |     | 7   |     | 7   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 6   |     | 5   |     | 4   |     | 4   |     | 6   |     | 6   |     | 3   |     | 3   |     | 5   |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Movepool Poll 1                | 2   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |     |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Movepool Poll 2                | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 3   |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Movepool Poll 3                |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 10 - Movepool Poll 4                |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 11 - Sprite Poll  1                 | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 11 - Sprite Poll  2                 | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 11 - Sprite Poll  3                 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 12 - Third Ability Discussion       |     | 3   |     | 5   |     | 5   | 2   |     | 4   |     | 2   |     |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 12 - Third Ability Poll 1           |     | 2   |     | 2   |     | 1   | 1   |     | 4   |     | 1   |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 12 - Third Ability Poll 2           |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 12 - Third Ability Poll 3           |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Pokedex Submissions/Misc Flavor          |     | 5   |     | 6   |     | 5   | 3   |     | 4   |     | 3   |     | 6   |     | 3   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     |     |     |     |     |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Part 13 - Pokedex Poll 1                 |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   | 1   |     | 1   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 2   |     | 1   |     |
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| Part 13 - Pokedex Poll 2                 |     | 2   |     | 1   |     | 1   | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     | 5   |     | 1   |     |
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| Part 13 - Pokedex Poll 3                 |     | 1   |     | 3   |     | 1   |     |     | 1   |     | 1   |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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| Part 13 - Pokedex Poll 4                 |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | 1   |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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|                                          | Volkraken | Cawmodore | Malaconda | Aurumoth  |  Mollux   | Necturna  | Tomohawk  |  Voodoom  | Krilowatt | Colossoil |  Cyclohm  | Kitsunoh  | Arghonaut | Stratagem |  Fidgit   |  Pyroak   | Revenankh |  Syclant  |
+------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Total Sequential Thread Days             | 95  |     | 126 |     | 85  |     | 69  |     | 88  |     | 95  |     | 55  |     | 62  |     | 79  |     | 69  |     | 94  |     | 71  |     | 66  |     | 95  |     | 90  |     | 49  |     | 60  |     | 46  |     |
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|                                          |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |
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That table contains the duration in days for every thread in every project in CAP history. For most threads, I simply took the date of the OP and the date of the closing post to figure out the "duration" of that thread. But as I discovered the hard way, many threads from older CAP projects did not have nice discreet starts and ends. So I had to dig into the threads and read the posts to figure out what really happened. Lots of boring work, but I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to stats. Also, I gotta admit it was often interesting to go back through some of those old projects. I was part of every single project, so the trip down memory lane was kinda cool. Now, I'm gettin all misty-eyed...

Anyway -- Some threads have changed names over the years, and there was some subjective interpretation that went into determining how older CAP project threads should be categorized. Also, the order of threads is listed according to our current process. The ordering of steps in CAP has changed drastically over the years, and I did not attempt to show the correct ordering of threads for every project. For older CAPs, I recorded the thread duration in the appropriate row based on the content and purpose of the thread, regardless of the thread name, or whether it was conducted in the sequence we use today.

On the first few CAP projects, the threads were so very different from current CAPs, that it's almost pointless to categorize them on the same terms as current CAPs. But I started with Volkraken first and worked my way backwards. So by the time I got all the way back to Pyroak, Revenankh and Syclant -- I was almost done, and I just couldn't bear to leave the first few CAP projects out of the analysis. So don't put much stock in the durations of those early CAP threads. The durations are accurate, don't get me wrong. But the content, activity and purpose of those old threads is so different from modern CAPs, that its hard to consider their durations to be "comparable". I just included them more for shits and giggles than anything else. And, yes, you are reading the table correctly -- back in those days we didn't have dedicated discussion threads separate from polling threads. There were just polling threads, and we discussed a given step while votes were accumulating in the poll. Amazing, but true...

I separated the thread timings into two categories:

Sequential
Threads that were implemented as part of a discreet sequence, in that they didn't start until something else completed. This covers almost every thread in a CAP.

Independent
Threads that ran independent of the normal CAP sequence. This is for long-lived submission threads like Art and Sprites, and for recent CAP flavor threads that were opened after the Final Product was posted.

At the bottom of the table is Total Sequential Thread Days, which is the sum of all the Sequential threads for that CAP project. Remember that this is NOT a calendar duration. It's just the sum total of all the "thread days" spent on sequential steps in that CAP. Because CAP threads run in parallel sometimes, and because there are sometime delays between the start of one thread and the opening of the next thread -- this total numbers of days can be more or less than the calendar duration of a CAP project. I originally thought this total number would be a good indication of the "efficiency" of a CAP project when compared with calendar duration. But after seeing the data, I don't think this is a very useful number at all. You may have a different take on it, so I've included it for completeness.

Section Stats

Code:

+--------------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
|                    |   CAP 18     |    CAP 17    |    CAP 16    |    CAP 15    |    CAP 14    |    CAP 13    |    CAP 12    |    CAP 11    |    CAP 10    |    CAP 9     |    CAP 8     |    CAP 7     |    CAP 6     |    CAP 5     |    CAP 4     |    CAP 3     |    CAP 2     |    CAP 1     |
|     Section        +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
|                    |  Volkraken   |   Cawmodore  |   Malaconda  |   Aurumoth   |    Mollux    |   Necturna   |   Tomohawk   |    Voodoom   |   Krilowatt  |   Colossoil  |    Cyclohm   |   Kitsunoh   |   Arghonaut  |   Stratagem  |    Fidgit    |    Pyroak    |   Revenankh  |    Syclant   |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
|                    | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls | Disc | Polls |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Topic Leadership   | 6    | 2     | 11   | 2     | 4    | 2     | 4    | 2     | 4    | 2     | 3    | 1     | 2    | 1     | 1    | 2     | 6    | 2     | 6    | 3     | 3    | 0     | 3    | 2     | 3    | 1     | 4    | 1     | 6    | 1     | 4    | 1     | 0    | 0     | 2    | 0     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
|                    |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Concept            | 14   | 2     | 10   | 4     | 9    | 3     | 6    | 2     | 7    | 3     | 4    | 3     | 5    | 3     | 4    | 3     | 6    | 2     | 4    | 2     | 13   | 3     | 6    | 4     | 4    | 4     | 4    | 2     | 8    | 3     | 0    | 0     | 2    | 0     | 0    | 0     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Typing             | 4    | 2     | 5    | 1     | 4    | 3     | 2    | 2     | 3    | 3     | 1    | 4     | 1    | 1     | 2    | 3     | 4    | 3     | 3    | 3     | 2    | 3     | 3    | 3     | 2    | 2     | 0    | 9     | 1    | 5     | 0    | 3     | 0    | 10    | 0    | 8     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Threats & Counters | 5    |       | 4    |       | 2    |       | 2    |       | 4    |       | 5    |       | 1    |       | 6    |       | 3    |       | 2    |       | 0    |       | 1    |       | 3    |       | 0    |       | 0    |       | 0    |       | 0    |       | 0    |       |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Abilities          | 6    | 6     | 14   | 9     | 7    | 7     | 7    | 5     | 8    | 10    | 6    | 9     | 2    | 6     | 4    | 2     | 4    | 6     | 6    | 2     | 4    | 7     | 2    | 4     | 3    | 3     | 3    | 4     | 9    | 5     | 4    | 3     | 7    | 2     | 0    | 7     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Stats              | 7    | 2     | 14   | 4     | 8    | 2     | 4    | 2     | 7    | 5     | 12   | 2     | 3    | 2     | 6    | 2     | 6    | 2     | 10   | 1     | 7    | 8     | 6    | 7     | 5    | 7     | 6    | 9     | 9    | 12    | 5    | 6     | 10   | 5     | 0    | 12    |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Movepool           | 21   | 5     | 28   | 8     | 19   | 6     | 13   | 3     | 13   | 3     | 17   | 6     | 7    | 6     | 7    | 4     | 14   | 6     | 10   | 5     | 11   | 8     | 10   | 7     | 13   | 3     | 17   | 13    | 7    | 7     | 3    | 5     | 5    | 0     | 0    | 4     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
|                    |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |      |       |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Art                | 26   | 4     | 42   | 5     | 24   | 5     | 22   | 5     | 19   | 3     | 14   | 5     | 13   | 4     | 12   | 4     | 15   | 5     | 13   | 4     | 13   | 9     | 9    | 5     | 17   | 4     | 10   | 6     | 13   | 3     | 2    | 3     | 15   | 5     | 14   | 7     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Name               | 7    | 3     | 5    | 3     | 3    | 3     | 2    | 2     | 2    | 2     | 1    | 3     | 1    | 1     | 3    | 1     | 4    | 2     | 3    | 2     | 7    | 6     | 3    | 3     | 3    | 3     | 5    | 3     | 4    | 4     | 3    | 2     | 6    | 0     | 0    | 2     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Sprite             | 24   | 2     | 30   | 2     | 31   | 1     | 21   | 1     | 26   | 2     | 41   | 5     | 24   | 2     | 16   | 3     | 19   | 4     | 15   | 3     | 8    | 3     | 7    | 2     | 9    | 3     | 6    | 4     | 26   | 1     | 20   | 2     | 7    | 1     | 0    | 2     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+
| Pokedex Entries    | 5    | 4     | 6    | 5     | 5    | 3     | 3    | 2     | 4    | 3     | 3    | 5     | 6    | 3     | 3    | 2     | 0    | 0     | 0    | 0     | 0    | 0     | 0    | 0     | 0    | 0     | 2    | 3     | 3    | 2     | 2    | 3     | 0    | 7     | 0    | 2     |
+--------------------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+------+-------+

That table is a roll-up of the duration in days of all the threads that pertain to a given Section of the CAP project. The competitive sections and flavor sections are divided, just to make it easier to see the two separately, since we generally think of them separately. Also, for a given Section, the total thread durations are split into the total duration in days of Discussion/Submission threads (the "Disc" column) and the total duration in days of Polling threads (the "Poll" column). These totals are summed from the Detail Stats listed above, so remember these are NOT calendar durations for the Section. They are the total "thread days" we dedicated to that Section.

Analysis and Impressions

I originally planned to do some formal statistical analysis on the data and then draw some conclusions from that. But as this project has worn on, I just didn't have the motivation to keep grinding on the data. And after collecting the raw information you see above, I have many doubts as to whether the data is clean enough to be used for rigorous analysis anyway. So, I'm going to just throw out my thumbnail impressions and we'll take it from there.

I'm sure many of my interpretations have a heavy confirmation bias to them, and there is a lot of blatant subjectivity involved. Feel free to call me on it if you disagree with my interpretations, and feel free to do your own analysis of the data, if you are so inclined. I guess what I'm trying to say is -- Even though I'm presenting a lot of numbers in this PR thread, I'm not claiming this is "pure science", by any means. These are simply my opinions, that have been "colored" somewhat by a detailed process of collecting of lot of timing data.

CAP project durations are trending upward.
Yeah, this is stating the obvious. I didn't need to gather a bunch of stats to prove that CAPs take longer to make than they did in the past. But I think the data was revealing in HOW project durations have been trending upward.

The line chart on calendar time is interesting to me, because it clearly shows that CAPs have a "rise and fall effect" similar to stock prices, etc. I don't know if there is a mass community mentality driving this stuff (like stocks), but there is clearly a pattern. Projects appear to steadily take longer and longer until eventually the community collectively decides they are sick of it, leading to a "market correction" downward in the form of much shorter projects. After the correction, subsequent projects creep upward incrementally, and the cycle repeats itself. This could be a coincidental pattern, I can't say for sure.

Obviously there are more steps and more processes to CAP than there was in the past, so it's not surprising that overall project durations have increased over the years. But at a core level, we are still making pokemon with pretty much the same number of "sections" as we always have (Typing, Stats, Art, Movepool, etc.) and on a few supposedly "modern" CAP projects, we have had short projects comparable to the early days. Compare Tomohawk and Aurumoth to Fidgit and Arghonaut, for example. They are not too far apart, in terms of forum participation days. So, we can't just pass off the upward trend, as an unavoidable consequence of increased process complexity. We CAN make pokemon at the same pace we used to, if we set our minds to it.

We probably have a collective distaste for CAP projects that take "too long" (whatever that means).
I think this is a driving force behind the "rise and fall effect" I just mentioned. My personal recollections match up with the data in most places, but not all.

I remember during Stratagem, I was very frustrated with how slowly Tennisace moved on many threads, letting discussions linger on with very little activity (or so it seemed to me at the time). After Stratagem, we talked a lot about how the TL needed to monitor project pace and keep up community momentum. As you can see from the data, Darkie was MUCH faster in pushing Arghonaut along. And then when Magmortified took the reins of Kitsunoh, I remember him bragging afterwards that he completed the fastest pokemon creation in CAP history. After Kitsunoh, I remember feeling like we were rushing things a bit too quickly, but we didn't do anything drastic to slow things down. Projects did trend upward over the next several projects (even spanning the generation leap from DP to BW), but we didn't have a noticeably "slow" CAP again until Necturna. The next two projects were much shorter, but then Cawmodore took longer than any CAP in history on all levels. I knew Cawmodore took a long time, but now after looking at the data, it didn't feel like it took THAT LONG. Maybe that's just me.

The TL/TLT leadership model imposes extra lag into the creation process, and will require explicit policy to check or prevent it.
We've now done three projects with the TL/TLT, and it has been a good leadership model for CAP. But I didn't foresee the effect it would have on project pace. Since every Section of CAP has different leadership, I think each section tends to drag out a bit longer than past projects. Each Section is a "mini-project" for all intents and purposes, and I think we tend to treat each section as having "beginning, middle, and end phases". Whereas, in the past, each section was simply part of the "middle" of the CAP project.

Look at the Detail Stats and Section Stats above for the past few projects. It appears we spend a lot more time discussing stuff these days than we did in the past. Maybe that's a good thing for the project, in terms of quality participation. But we take a hit in terms of how long it takes to make a pokemon, and my assertion is that is a net negative for CAP as a whole.

There is also probably some intrinsic "handoff lag" between the Section Leaders and the Topic Leader as slates are determined and all that, which probably causes unproductive dead time to accumulate during the project. I didn't dig into any threads to confirm this, I'm just going off general recollection here. I could be way off base in assuming there is causality on this point.

I won't go into much more detail here about how the TL/TLT model relates to project pace. I just wanted to throw it out on the table, and I'm curious to hear what others think. I'll respond more as we flesh out the discussion.

Art and Spriting sections are in-progress WAY TOO LONG these days.
This is not the fault of the artists or spriters. These two steps run concurrent with other steps, and their start and end is bound to the completion of those other steps. So when the rest of CAP takes a long time, the Art and Sprite sections elongate as well. For the majority of CAP history, Art Submissions were typically open for two weeks or less. Nowadays, Art Submissions are open for almost a month, and on Cawmodore the art thread was open for 42 DAYS!

The art thread is arguably the biggest attraction of a CAP project from a general public standpoint. To have that thread stay open for weeks and weeks, even if posting activity stays brisk, is not a good thing. It diminishes the energy and excitement of the thread, and everything begins to get kinda stale. Don't get me wrong, the art is always amazing. But after a month of looking at the designs, and seeing the ten billionth rehash of the same typing and concept cliches, the newness wears off and we hunker down just waiting to see how the poll plays out.

That's not the way it used to be on CAP art. The art thread was fast-paced and exciting, with one fresh new design being posted after another. And right about the time the thread was hitting its crescendo -- boom, we jumped into the art polls, which were always a nail-biting spectacle. We should always strive for that kind of high energy on our biggest public relations threads, which are Art and Sprites.

Movepool still takes too damn long.
I've been grinding this axe since the early days of CAP, and after looking at these timing stats, I'm even more convinced. As a competitive section, in how it impacts the competitive viability of the pokemon, Movepool is roughly equivalent to the other major competitive sections (Typing, Stats, and Abilities). But because there are SO MANY parts to a movepool (70 moves or more is not uncommon), our process for discussing and selecting a movepool takes forever.

Look at the Section Stats above, and you will see that the Movepool Section consistently takes TWO TO THREE TIMES as much time to complete as other competitive sections. I totally understand why, but it *shouldn't* be that way, if we look at things from a matter of competitive importance. And from a project momentum standpoint, considering that Movepool is the last competitive section of any given project, it is really the WORST time to have a long, drawn-out step. We should try to end on a high note, not finish on a long boring note when project energy is waning most.

The amount of time spent on a project doesn't correlate much to project "success".
I realize it is very subjective as to which projects were "successful" and which were "failures". I personally don't think any CAP projects have been failures, but I think some have been better than others. As I look back across all those projects, there have been long ones that were great and there have been long ones that were not so great. Same for short projects. The point is -- whether we spend a lot of time building a CAP or not, it doesn't seem to be too terribly important for making a good CAP pokemon and having fun while we build it. I'm eager to hear other thoughts on this, and see if they align with my own.

Proposals

As this thread's title signaled -- I would like to implement some form of Timeboxing for CAP. Timeboxing is explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeboxing.

In a nutshell:

"In time management, timeboxing allocates a fixed time period, called a time box, to each planned activity."

I would like us to timebox various aspects of each CAP project. At the outset of a CAP project, we should be able to build a timeline for the entire project. How detailed the timeline will be is to be decided through the course of this PR thread. But make no mistake, I am proposing a complete change of the long-standing CAP mindset that, "CAP projects do not follow any set timelines." (that's a direct quote from our SQSA thread OP).

I'm not sure the best way to implement concrete timeboxing proposals for CAP, but I'll start by throwing out some general proposals related to timeboxing. We can refine concrete proposals from these, if these ideas achieve some consensus.

We should try to make FOUR(4) CAP pokemon per year.
This is a somewhat arbitrary goal, but after looking at the timing stats, I think it is perfectly reasonable to achieve without rushing or lagging. I picked four based on looking back at the general pace of DP and BW projects, and because I believe four projects represents a good pace of yearly productivity for a large community endeavor. Create-A-Pokemon is not unlike a corporation, in that we have hundreds of people working on projects to make a "product". Companies do lots of things on a quarterly basis, so four significant product cycles per year for CAP seems to be a good starting point for planning.

There are two parts to each "cycle" in CAP -- The CAP project itself, and then the lull period between CAPs. In this thread we can discuss ways to manage both parts of the CAP cycle to build a pokemon every quarter.

We should try to make Typing, Stats, Abilities, and Movepool sections roughly equivalent in total duration on each project.
All four aspects are roughly equivalent in terms of competitive importance and we have four equal leaders on the TLT for each section. It stands to reason that community interest and involvement is roughly equivalent between all four sections, as well. So we should dedicate equivalent time to each section.

We should prescribe the duration of every thread in our creation process.
Poll thread durations are practically cemented in stone already, so those are not too controversial. Discussion and submission threads are another matter entirely.

If you look back through history, many important discussion threads did just fine when they were open for TWO DAYS OR LESS. Lately, it seems like we spend a week or more on almost every discussion. If we want to achieve the timeboxes mentioned above, without removing a large number of steps from our process, we should probably consider going back to the compact discussions we had in the past.

We can also look at running more stuff concurrently, but I think that is unnecessary. I'm not convinced we are getting much benefit from long discussions, and I think we are encouraging a low-enthusiasm mentality as protracted discussions become more and more pervasive. I don't want to rush people, but I think we should encourage a higher level of activity and attention on the project.

Policy Review threads should be planned before the PR cycle, and timeboxed accordingly.
Any policy issue worth discussing, is worth planning ahead of time. I realize I have been a bottleneck in making PR threads sometimes (like the PR thread you are reading right now!), but I also have been willing to accept that if I "miss my window", I have to wait until a future PR cycle to bring up an issue.

We need to formalize the process of signing up to make PR threads ahead of time, and then mapping out a timeline for each PR that adheres to the overall project cycle timebox proposed above. If the PR thread is not posted "on time" by the designated author, then the issue is automatically tabled until the next PR cycle. No wondering if it is going to happen or not.

When we reach the predefined end date of the PR discussion, a conclusion can be virtually guaranteed to be posted, if we set up a simple hierarchy of responsibility for PR conclusions. Perhaps something like:
CAP Head -> Head Moderator -> CAP Moderator (mod date seniority to determine order) -> Thread Author
We could work out a simple IRC or forum based system to quickly run down the hierarchy near the end of the thread, and determine exactly who is available to post the conclusion, and who takes responsibility for doing so.

Closing Thoughts

I've presented a lot of information here. I do not expect everyone to dig through all the stats I presented, but for those of you that are stat geeks or CAP history buffs, perhaps you will find them interesting and informative.

Feel free to comment on the stats I present and give your own interpretations and analysis. And, of course, please comment on the general proposals for timeboxing our project.

I expect the biggest concerns with these proposals will be that we might become too rigid in marching forward on every project with strict deadlines and order, or that we'll be rushing things along at a breakneck pace. That is NOT my goal. I like having a flexible project that is conducive to supporting creativity along the way, that can accommodate a wide variety of pokemon concepts. I'm sure we can figure out a way to improve our project pace, without sacrificing the creative freedom this project has embodied since its inception.

Bughouse · Jun 28, 2014

I'm sure I'll have more to say, but I did want to get this out there first. The chart of total project length Doug posted and how he explained it is misleading imo. In reality, the first 11 projects (DPP) averaged 76 days. The projects since (excluding Cawmodore which suffered from many issues that no other CAP since has suffered from and is thus a clear outlier) have averaged 102.

Yes that's a clear increase of 26 days per project relative to DPP days. However, this is NOT an upward trend as Doug has claimed. Instead, the projects since have been remarkably consistently close to that 102 average (99, 118, 97, 89, 102, and 106).

A more accurate way to discuss the issue is that BW and XY CAPs have simply taken longer than DPP CAPs used to. There is no evidence to suggest that CAP completion times will take any longer in the future than they currently are taking.

Compare that increase of 26 days per project to the increase of interproject time increases we've seen relative to DPP. Early DPP was able to do 4 CAPs per year because THERE WAS VERY LITTLE LULL. Getting to 4 projects per year without tackling our PRC problems is going to be a futile effort.

That's not to say that our current project length is acceptable or that there aren't (many) things we could do to improve the efficiency of the project itself. I just wanted to get out there that a current project and all future projects should we continue this way, would take ~102 days. If we can just get inter-project times down, that would be the biggest single improvement we could make.

Stratos · Jun 28, 2014

i think the most important words in doug's entire thread are low enthusiasm. This is absolutely the spirit that CAP has been cultivating since, well, since i've been here. Projects moving at a glacial pace freaking kills me, and very little can be said after the second or third day to change anyone's mind anyways. By the end of a project my participation had always dwindled to near-zero and I dont think this can be entirely blamed on me just not liking movepool. I am absolutely in favor of timeboxing every cap discussion if it means we can actually generate some excitement for the end of a cap.

I think we are all guilty nowadays of contributing to the problem of a slow-moving CAP because we wait three days to post but if we know we are on a deadline people will probably make the switch to getting their thoughts out there instead of trying to write them *perfectly* yet slowly.

as for shrinking movepool to be equal in length with the other sections, i'm not sure how we could get that done tbh. Perhaps we could combine attacking and non-attacking move discussion? There's frankly very little that distinguishes the two. However, we should maybe still hold their votes separately because often move A will influence move B and i never like letting those "influences" bleed into the movepool stage because CAP voters always vote for the movepool with the most power cards.

last thing i'd like to say w.r.t. the projects themselves: "We can also look at running more stuff concurrently, but I think that is unnecessary." I kinda disagree here. There should never be a break from a competitive step and unless im mistaken there is currently a break between ability 2 and movepool—a long one, at that. I know the break is so we can hold art voting but i think we should instead run this concurrently with attacking moves discussion; we'd save five to six days and the interest of the competitive players, and five days can probably be cut out of sprites since the thread was up for nearly three weeks last CAP. Of course, we'd have to see how the timeboxing works out with that but yeah i'd like to keep this option on the table. Or at least start the attacking moves discussion after art poll 1.

when it comes to prc threads, i think the big problem is that nobody wants to be the one to post the conclusion which is totally understandable since that's kind of a big burden. I think a possible solution to this is to have them timeboxed like "conclusion is posted after five days" or whatever but NOT close the thread to comment after the conclusion. so if someone has a big problem with the conclusion the moderator posted then they can post afterwards with their reasoning; if their reasoning gains traction with other members then the conclusion can be revised but this is on your own time and the next thread is already up. That way nobody has to be timid about posting the conclusion because youre not shitting on someone else by doing it.

the big problem, with both cap and prc, is that people are timid about closing threads. timeboxing puts the law on their side, empowering them to form consensus instead of waiting for it to develop. that's why i'm in favor of it.

DetroitLolcat · Jun 28, 2014

I think we might be going too far with trying to quicken the CAP Project's pace. Doug's post split the process into two parts: Total Project Days and Post-Project Lull Days. Only Post-Project Lull Days has become significantly larger since the beginning of the Fifth Generation. I do not believe it is fair at all to compare the CAP creation process in BW and XY to that of DPP, as Fifth and Sixth Generation game mechanics and CAP logistics are so much different than those of the Fourth. We also didn't have Tertiary Ability/Hidden Ability, Dex Entries, or Threats/Counters Discussion two generations ago. To show how alien the DPP CAP process is to the current one, we didn't even introduce Concept Assessment until halfway through the generation. It does us no good to compare the current project duration to the one from Generation IV.

Counting only the CAPs from this generation and the previous one, if you plot Total Forum Participation Days with respect to CAP Number (Tomohawk being 1, Necturna being 2, Volkraken being 7), r=0.41. If you remove Cawmodore (which had many delay issues that are not likely to re-emerge), that correlation value drops to 0.15. The advent of the TL+TLT model (which will, on average, add a short amount of the time to the project) is the main source of this uptick, but both of these correlations are still weak. The latter is, for all intents and purposes, insignificant. CAP Project length has not increased significantly this generation. The CAP Project doesn't really have any "time sinks" either; the only one I can think of is the end of Art Submissions and the Art Polls because no competitive discussions are taking place at the time. There's no reason for that time sink to exist. Pwnemon said it best:

Pwnemon said:
There should never be a break from a competitive step and unless im mistaken there is currently a break between ability 2 and movepool—a long one, at that. I know the break is so we can hold art voting but i think we should instead run this concurrently with attacking moves discussion; we'd save five to six days and the interest of the competitive players, and five days can probably be cut out of sprites since the thread was up for nearly three weeks last CAP.

We're never going to get CAP back to DPP-length, and it wouldn't be in our best interests to do so. We're not "wasting" much time during the project, either. Besides the aforementioned Art delay, we're always having either a competitive discussion or a poll during the process. I think we'd be at risk of lowering discussion quality if we tried too hard to shorten discussions, and we've already done all we can to quicken polling. If we want to quicken project pace, we should look at cutting the Post-Project Lull Days. A quick look at the current PRC threads clearly exposes what's wrong with the process. The CAP Metagame thread has gone without a post or conclusion for six days. This has been a recurring problem for a while now. jas61292 said on IRC earlier:

jas61292 said:
Ugh, I'm looking at some of the thread conclusion times on PRC threads, and it is really depressing. Just last cycle, we had a thread that had no posts for 5 days before a 48 hour limit was announced. And then it took 4 days from the warning to the end. Another that had 17 days from second to last post to conclusion, and another with 21 days without a post before a 48 hour warning, which took another 5 days to actually finish up.

The last PRC Review thread dealt with posting culture in the PRC, this one should focus on concluding PRC threads. I'm entirely of the mindset that PRC conclusions are the vast majority of the problem with project pace. The last six days have been entirely wasted by the non-Art members of the PRC, and that's because we really don't have a mechanism for closing threads. It usually entails waiting two weeks and Birkal stepping in. I believe bmb's proposal in the previous PRC thread will go a long way towards saving PRC time:

bugmaniacbob said:
Discussions that have not seen any activity over a given period of time (say 96 hours; this can naturally be modified) since the last post are either closed or postponed until the next CAP cycle at moderator discretion.

While I'm not a fan of 96 hours as the specific number (I'd prefer something shorter, likely 48 or 72), this is an excellent idea. We don't need to timebox our threads, and we don't need to truncate discussions for the sake of saving time. We don't tolerate six-day delays in the actual CAP project, and we shouldn't tolerate six-day delays in Policy Review. If we establish a concrete method of concluding Policy Review threads, we'll eliminate the vast majority of CAP delays at once.

Looking at the OP's proposals, the first three vaguely follow the assumption that the CAP process takes too long. I don't think that's the case, and I don't think many others think that's the case. If we want to make 4 CAP Pokemon per year or equalize the four sections, we have to shorten the process. While movepool can probably be worked on (I agree with the OP that "Movepool still takes too damn long"), I think the pace that Malaconda and Volkraken (~80 days Forum Participation, ~100 days total) had was perfect. And a quick poll on IRC backs this up:

17:33DetroitLolcat Hey quick question everyone
17:33DetroitLolcat do people right now think the CAP process (not PR, but actual forum participation stuff) takes too long?
17:33Eagle4 not at all
17:33Kadew I don't thing so.
17:34jas61292 nope
17:34Kadew If anything, the portions that happen during the art thread duration go by far to quickly. :T
17:35Mos_Quitoxe except right now
17:36Mos_Quitoxe groans some more

The bottom line of this post is that I don't think we need to make big changes to get big results. The PRC, not the CAP process, is where the problem lies. There are only minor changes that can improve the CAP process without infringing on discussion quality, but there are minor changes to the PRC that save time and improve discussion quality. We don't need to timebox our threads to cut delays, we need to conclude them properly.

bugmaniacbob · Jun 29, 2014

I don't have time to go over and evaluate the mass of data offered in this post, so I'll quickly go over the proposals here and hopefully offer a more thorough set of arguments at a later date.

DougJustDoug said:
I would like us to timebox various aspects of each CAP project. At the outset of a CAP project, we should be able to build a timeline for the entire project. How detailed the timeline will be is to be decided through the course of this PR thread. But make no mistake, I am proposing a complete change of the long-standing CAP mindset that, "CAP projects do not follow any set timelines." (that's a direct quote from our SQSA thread OP).

I can't help but feel philosophically opposed to the idea of timeboxing, given that in my experiences of how CAP tends to move and progress from one topic to the next, it would strike me as a bit more limiting than the OP would indicate. This very thread is perhaps an example of this. Say we gave ourselves one week to conduct the PRC Review thread. Well, that thread had a number of proposals in it, and ideas about how better to frame the questions being asked, and directly led into this thread, which can naturally be viewed as an extension thereof. And yet, it seems that this progression would be impossible, or at least difficult to plan for, under the measures proposed in the OP or any typical implementation of timeboxing. The timeboxing thread is a new thread, containing a new train of thought, and a new proposal that was not offered in the OP of the previous thread, and has not been "planned for" in advance. Given that this is the case, would it necessitate that this thread would, under timeboxing, have to be withheld until the next PRC cycle? This seems, to me, to be a greatly inconvenient way of doing things. This is, of course, an extreme example, where an entirely new thread is born from the old, yet less extreme examples are commonplace. New topics are continually brought up in discussion threads, such that there is barely any reasonable way of telling how long the discussion will take. This problematic, especially when a concept assessment thread might need only three days to reach a conclusion, yet is allotted a week, or where discussion has not ceased when it comes time for that thread to be closed.

Thus, my opposition to the proposal. I am not convinced that timeboxing can be implemented in such a way that it does not seriously detract from the quality of discussion taking place, or at the very least make it far more of a headache for the people responsible for maintaining discussion.

We should try to make FOUR(4) CAP pokemon per year.

This would be great and I would wholly agree if there were a plausible way of making CAPs within such a timeframe, but I can't seem to imagine a way of doing so that would be plausible without reducing the quality of discussion that currently exists; looking at the graph provided, it takes about 90 days or three months to make a CAP at a bare minimum with the process currently in place, which includes both project and playtest, and most recent CAP projects have been far and away above this. Now, if we assume (for the moment) that 90 is a reasonable figure to aim for in terms of cutting down on days spent making CAPs, we would have to cut out PRC altogether in order to fit four of them into a single year.

Having said that, two per year is also somewhat exasperating. If timeboxing is indeed implemented, then three per year is optimal.

We should try to make Typing, Stats, Abilities, and Movepool sections roughly equivalent in total duration on each project.

Typing is always going to be shorter than the other three, and I don't see how we're going to change that unless we go back to picking one typing at a time to even it out. Abilities requires two competitive discussions, the second of which is heavily affected by the first, so will typically have twice the duration of Typing purely by virtue of what requires discussing. Likewise, Stats require both ballpark figures to be discussed and voted on, and then submissions to be created and, well, submitted, then voted on. The time taken to tweak a personal stat spread more or less equals the time for the second round of ability voting. Finally, Movepool. Quite simply, it takes far, far longer to make a movepool than it does to make a stat spread or a small post in the abilities thread supporting Shed Skin, and unless we want to go the route of "all RMs are fair game" or "bloated movepools are ok" then the attacking/non-attacking and movepool limit threads are non-negotiable.

I cannot see any feasible way that this could be implemented whatsoever while retaining the safeguards that have been added to the Project over the years.

We should prescribe the duration of every thread in our creation process.

While I agree that compact discussions are more or less mandatory if we want to make four Pokemon per year, I wholly disagree that cutting down on thread duration or even prescribing the duration of threads is necessary or even desirable. To an extent, this is for selfish reasons. My own time zone is several hours ahead of the American collection of zones, where I would hazard that most posts in the discussion thread can be traced back to, with the result that it is fairly difficult for myself or anyone else in this time zone to actually manage to discuss anything even as it is. I make a post in the thread, generally in reply to the posts that have come before, and I will be asleep long before any reply comes, and it will be a good 24 hours before I am in a position to respond to the posts that responded to my own. And typically, by that time the discussion has moved on. For that reason, I generally require more time to open up a dialogue, or indeed bring an issue to the fore. In a 48-hour thread, I should be limited to probably a maximum of two posts, and if that's all I have, it's going to be hard to discuss anything or engage with the ideas of others. And, for the people who care about such things, will likely result in a long post trying to assess all the discussion that has occurred in the last 24 hours. Which is both difficult and tiresome for others to read.

But this is an aside note, and wholly irrelevant to anybody who isn't me, I'm sure. My other objection comes from, as I mentioned above, the philosophical objection to assigning durations long ahead of time to discussions that possess far too much noise for there to be any objective means of determining an optimal duration; to that end, I can only see the timeboxing of such events resulting in the strangulation of still energetic discussion or the prolonging of a profound disinterest. To me, a far simpler solution would be more ideal, as DetroitLolcat already mentioned, as well as a more organised transition between threads.

Policy Review threads should be planned before the PR cycle, and timeboxed accordingly.

As I said earlier, PR threads especially are very capable of spawning secondary discussions that were not anticipated ahead of time which would be appropriate topics for discussion in the here and now, without simply halting all discussion until the next cycle; indeed, it is more than possible for PRC threads to run concurrently, so I don't see any problem with them existing. Furthermore, given the way that problems generally need time and careful thought to be ironed out, I don't see rushing to conclude threads as being a step in the right direction, particularly if they are still active.

I do, however, agree that signing up to make PR threads ahead of time should be formalised, and threads that are not ready by a designated time should be tabled. This would, I feel, bring some sense of what we intend to achieve from a cycle to the proceedings - for my own part, I am rather confused as to what or how much we are trying to achieve in this particular cycle. Even so, I will reiterate that placing an arbitrary cap on duration is not the way forward. That's not to say that caps are in and of themselves a bad idea, but making them set in stone long before we know how they will turn out is not, in my view, advisable.

A hierarchy of responsibility is a nice thing to have, but still leaves us in the same situation vis-a-vis uncertainty over who exactly has the power to do what under what circumstances. Does Birkal have to seek permission from Doug every time he wants to close a thread? Could I just declare my thread over and apply whatever policy I thought was community consensus if the time to close a thread happens and every member of the moderation team is absent? To my mind, this issue could be solved far more readily than this by other measures.

---------------

While I agree that, possibly, there are things that can be done to streamline the process, I do not think that attaching arbitrary limits to discussion threads or timeboxing are the best way to go about it. I have a few proposals of my own:

Place deadlines on submission threads at the beginning of the thread, not at the end.

At present, the procedure for submission threads (Concept, Movepool, Stat Spread, Art, etc) is that the thread is opened, then left for an unspecified period of time in which submissions and feedback accumulate, and then once the submissions begin to tail off, the Section Leader posts a deadline, composes their slate, and finally the thread is closed and the TL and SL work on a consensus that is eventually given to us to vote on. For Volkraken, this process took around six days. Personally, I can't help but feel that concessions can be made here. If the movepool submissions opens with a 72-hour (or whatever it might be) deadline, we lessen the problem of energy evaporating as people wait for the movepool submissions to be finalised while not knowing when exactly they will be called upon to vote. At the same time, the Section Leader would be required to be constantly on top of their slate choices and in discussion with the Topic Leader, such that on the close of the thread, there should be less of a delay between the thread closing and the voting thread going up. I see this as less problematic than for discussion threads since, well, discussion threads are more apt to run in unexpected directions than submission threads.

Naturally, there are problems with this approach - firstly that it may discourage participation, particularly for the movepool stage, which requires a significant degree of time investment, which is why I would think that this submission thread would need a more generous deadline than that for, say, stats or concept. Another is that this provides less time in which to garner feedback, but then again, feedback for competitive submissions has been notoriously difficult to obtain in submission threads for a while now, such that I don't think this could make the problem any worse. Even so, this is something that really needs a PR topic all of its own to address, and probably doesn't have an answer to it regardless.

Topic Leaders, Section Leaders and Moderators need to minimise time spent between one thread and the next.

As Doug pointed out, there seems to be something of a handoff lag as a result of the TL+TLT model, and I feel that this is an area where adjustments certainly can be made to There are any number of ways this could be achieved, but having spoken to some people on IRC about this after Volkraken, it seems that one of the big sinks for time currently in place is the time taken between one thread closing and another thread opening. Generally speaking, I thought it a fairly good principle in previous CAP projects that no thread was closed without the next being ready to post, and while this is naturally not going to be possible for things like sequential polls, it is perfectly possible to make the transition an easier affair. ~~BBcode OPs, such as the one currently in place on the page for Concept Submissions on the CAP site, should be made available for all threads~~ EDIT: This does exist I just forgot where it was, my mistake. In addition, the "our CAP thus far" sections should be readily available on something like pastebin and kept on the IRC topic header, where they are easily accessible. Topic Leaders and Section Leaders should, as alluded to above, be on the same page regarding the slate for the entirety of the thread in question, so that there is no delay in place at the end of it. I would even go so far as to suggest that individual OPs be the responsibility of particular moderators, to be allocated the moment a deadline is set, such that we can be certain it will go ahead, though naturally this will run into problems should that moderator be the victim of an unforeseen occurrence.

Other options? Well, there's always giving the slate-maker the chance to create threads for themselves again, since the original purpose behind getting mods to open threads was because of TL burnout, in that it was too much for the TL to be expected to create an OP with all the correct information on top of writing the first post in the thread to arrange for direction, but now that section leaders exist it seems that a devolution of powers would not be a step backwards. For example, a Topic Leader could be responsible for creating the OP in concert with the Section Leader, who could then post their opening statement, or indeed the Section Leader could be responsible for both and thus minimise the time between the two in that way. Burnout would be unlikely, since each Section Leader would be responsible for only a few threads under their domain. The slate-maker - should that be the Section Leader or the Topic Leader after editing - could open poll threads without the need to find a moderator to open the new thread. Cutting the number of people responsible for opening and closing threads might make the process run a tad faster.

Discussions that have not seen any activity over a given period of time (say 48 hours; this can naturally be modified) since the last post are either closed or postponed until the next CAP cycle at moderator discretion.

I thank DLC for bringing this up again; there's really no reason to keep threads open that aren't being actively worked on, unless it is the case that these threads are running concurrently with some other, active discussion. In any case, this seems to me to be a relatively simple solution to the problem of Policy Review threads not having any sort of formal process to end them. Hopefully, this is not something that should ever come about - if there is a concrete proposal in place that can be voted upon, then naturally this should be what brings the thread to a close. But a discussion thread that is going in circles and losing its interest benefits no one by staying open.

I would add the other proposals that I made in that thread in addition, but since these have little to do with timeboxing I'll let them be.

Just as a last note:

DetroitLolcat said:
A quick look at the current PRC threads clearly exposes what's wrong with the process. The CAP Metagame thread has gone without a post or conclusion for six days. This has been a recurring problem for a while now.

I was under the impression that the reason that nobody was posting in that thread was because we were waiting on posts from individuals who expressed an interest in adding their thoughts on the current topics of discussion before we moved on to the next topic? At the very least, that's the impression I got when I asked ginga (and I may have misunderstood; if that's the case, apologies), and the reason why I haven't bothered posting there since then.

Bughouse · Jun 29, 2014

Aside from my comment above about project lull, I have some thoughts specifically on TL/TLT coordination and how to cut down on the length of movepool to be more reasonable. I'm still considering a few options on movepool, so for now this is just on project leadership efficiency.

The first way the TL/TLT model can be made more efficient is to stop locking all threads before a TLT posts the slate and between the TLT's slate and the TL's approval. The only time the thread needs to be locked is when it is actually finished. Locking the thread means that any time we have a TL/TLT member who is not a CAP mod, they have to find one. This sometimes causes a delay of an hour or two, sometimes it causes a delay of a full day because the user has only a narrow window that day they can post their slate. This problem is instead solved very easily by a moderator posting when discussion time has elapsed that the next post(s) belongs to the TLT/TL and that any other user who posts will be breaking a forum-specific rule and be infracted. Locking is unnecessary bureaucracy.

The second way, which is less direct, but I think would work equally well, would be the creation of a PM between the TL/TLTs/CAP mods at the beginning of the project. In this PM, the TLT members will post when they believe they want their respective stage to close with at least 48 hours of advance. The TL will have the next 24 hours from the TLT's message to respond when they think they can review that slate. CAP mods will then respond any time within that last 24 hours to claim availability (or not) at that time. I'm hazy on what sort of schedule this approach would take, so my timeline is easily improved, I'm sure, but this would be a simple way to institutionalize the scheduling process of handing off authority between stages.

The third way is a guide of principles for TL/TLT members to follow. For example, DLC and I went over the stats slate together for quite a while before I posted it, making his review very easy. He knew my thought process behind what I picked and didn't pick, but he still had his own thoughts on what he might add or veto, which I understood. Communication is key, particularly in stats, but in all other stages too.

There's not a ton of fat to be cut out as far as the TL/TLT system goes, when its done well. But I think any of these three proposals would help avoid the sort of slowdown we faced regularly during Cawmodore.

jas61292 · Jun 29, 2014

I'm sure this is fairly unsurprising, based on my posts in the PRC Review thread, but for the most part, I am in agreement with DetroitLolcat, and I also agree with a lot of what bugmaniacbob said as well. I think we are really being overzealous with any attempt to try and speed things up, and that, when we look at it, there is very little on the project that we both want to speed up, and can speed up without hurting the quality of the project. Since DLC and bmb covered a lot of this stuff already, rather than repeating all the parts I agree with, I'm going to approach this from a different angle.

I think that in even considering a lot of proposals in this thread we are being overly hasty. Why is it suddenly a big issue that CAPs are slower (if they really are, as DLC pointed out) than they used to be? As Doug mentioned in the OP, we seem to go in cycles of projects lengthening and shortening. This is something that just seems natural to me. What's more, I really don't think that most people actually believe that the projects are too long. While I know that the sample size DLC got in that one IRC sample is very small, I do think that it is a fairly accurate representation of the majority of the community. Most competitive contributors probably don't care much about length so long as the threads are good. And again, while the sample size is to small to make a conclusion from just the words of Mos and Kadew, I would hazard a guess that most artists would always rather have more time than less.

To continue on that last point, I think the whole idea of cutting the art threads off at a "climax" is pretty misguided. Yeah, art is a great advertisement, and it can get stale in the threads. But I think it is only getting stale to those that are project regulars who will check it all the time no matter how long it goes. To outsiders, the one to whom the advertisement matters, I don't believe that this would be the case. Art is still our biggest poll, and I don't think any level of "staleness" would change this. If anything I think the longer thread benefits just about everyone overall (with the obvious exception of those who have to moderate it, unfortunately).

This same kind of logic I believe can be applied to every other thread on the project. For example, movepools are long, but that's because there is far more to it than any other stage. We can't really eliminate any part of it without getting rid of the improvements and regulations that have been created up to this point to make the movepools better and more realistic. I guess we might be able to run some of the movepool discussions simultaneously, but that would probably put undue stress on the movepool leader. So, before we go out and start saying we should be cutting out time spent on these things, we should really be looking at what we will be cutting. From my point of view, there is nothing out there, other than perhaps thread in-between time, that we can really cut down on without harming the great infrastructure we have in place, and I personally don't see any great need for any time saving measures anyways.

While Doug has certainly given us a ton of great stats and analysis, I think by far the most important piece of the entire OP is that "the amount of time spent on a project doesn't correlate much to project 'success.'" I think that with this being pretty much undoubtedly the truth, most of the proposals that are brought up in the OP are completely unnecessary. Why are we working to do something that not only has no concrete benefit, but also is something that a ton of people don't even think is any sort of issue to begin with? While I appreciate the stats, and find them interesting to no end, I don't really think anything in them is suggesting an actual problem with the way the CAP projects themselves are currently being run.

With all that said, there are a few things from the OP that I do agree with. Most importantly is the stuff related to PRC. If there is a timesink in these forums, it is PRC. However, I don't think it is the threads themselves but, rather, the starting and concluding thereof. I am all for a more structured way of thread conclusion and for requiring basic forethought before the PRC session for a thread to be made. I do agree with bmb that we do have times where one thread leads to another, so some flexibility would be nice with regard to this. I also agree that a hierarchy in and of itself is not really enough for thread conclusion if we don't have procedural rules to go along with it. Even so, anything done to make sure this has an actual structure and is not just up in the air every single time will do a lot to help fix the biggest problems we have.

Additionally, while I am absolutely against any and all timeboxing for discussions, I have less issue with timeboxing for submissions, and am absolutely in favor of timboxing TL and TLT nominations.

Overall, I think we need to keep one thing in mind above all else: this project is about quality debate and discussion with the goal of learning about competitive Pokemon. It is not, despite its name, about creating Pokemon. Trying to make more for the sake of making more at the expense of the debates and discussions that are what we are all about is contradictory to the real goals of this project.

EDIT: One other point that I forgot to bring up here, but was reminded of shortly thereafter on IRC is that leadership burnout still exists. Trying to speed things up will only make things worse. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but when I was TL, I don't think I could have handled things if they were going any faster than they were, and whenever people ask me how I enjoyed it, my answer is always the same: it was a wonderful time and a great experience, and I never want to do it ever again. It was really stressful, even with the lessened workload the TLT provides, and anything we do to take away the time the TL has to work with will only make this worse on them. I'd be very interested to hear from other former TLs, specifically capefeather and DetroitLolcat who were TLs under the TLT system, but also Deck Knight, bugmaniacbob, and any other old TLs who may still be around somewhere to see what they feel about time with respect to the workload of TLs.

Stratos · Jun 30, 2014

I think it's safe to say we all agree with timeboxing submission stages. Also that we're all in favor of Doug's idea for concluding PR threads.

One other point that I forgot to bring up here, but was reminded of shortly thereafter on IRC is that leadership burnout still exists. Trying to speed things up will only make things worse

this is a good point. When I was a TLT member, I basically devoted all my free time to the project, and I always felt like I was falling behind. It was a huge burden. However, I think that a large part of why I did this is that I am naturally bad at posting (case in point, i already spent almost a half hour on this post) and i don't expect that anyone else had quite as shitty of an experience as I did. Still, speeding up the process certainly seems like it won't make TLing any easier. But it might, if we change our expectations. Right now, discussion threads are expected to "wrap up" naturally and taper to a halt but why? The section leader's job should be, in my opinion, just to make sure every rock is turned over during the discussion, to make sure that we approach the vote with every option examined and the valid arguments for and against each option made. Once these two things have been accomplished, it's silly to keep the threads open any longer, expecting some "consensus" to develop. We vote on consensus. All that will happen is that one side or the other or both will get bored and the thread will die, or that neither side will get bored and the thread will turn into a shitfest. Expecting our Topic Leaders to steer a "consensus" is way above and beyond the call of duty and, frankly, impossible.

I think some people are expecting boredom to be a necessary part of CAP. I don't think it has to be. I'm in favor of any method proposed which doesn't wait until we get bored to advance the project. Doug's proposals are one possibility.

nyttyn · Jul 1, 2014

Full support for almost all of this.

We should try to make Typing, Stats, Abilities, and Movepool sections roughly equivalent in total duration on each project.

I do not support this, however. Movepool is naturally going to take longer then the other stages - instead, we should just make sure it doesn't take an unreasonable amount of time, but it should still have more time allotted to it then other stages (seriously it takes multiple all-nighters to make one of those things, inbetween realistic level up pools, flavor, egg moves, legailities, reasoning, so on and so forth).

Finally, to help with TLT/TL communication, I still believe that we should encourage them to work as a team, and communicate together. To that end, I suggest that we impliment some sort of #CAPTLT IRC channel, subforum, or forum group, where the TLT can co-ordinate and communicate to help ensure that we don't end with awkward lulls in the project. Heck, they could even help provide advance and support to oneanother, which would help with the workload problem.

Deck Knight · Jul 2, 2014

I've taken Doug's code and uploaded an Excel Spreadsheet to Google Docs that indicates the difference in days for various aspects of the project. The only error I found was that Doug missed the primary typing discussion/polls on Tomohawk. The difference amounted to 3 days. Link is here if you want to check it out: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0N2AjAnqfHDZ0ptYU1DTVJfMWc/edit?usp=sharing

After running the numbers, my assessment is that Tomohawk was probably a little too short [example: Primary Ability Discussion was literally a single day], but most of the projects could afford to cut the fat somewhere.

The single biggest offender on most projects, especially recent ones, has been the movepool stage. A few more days were added on some projects by poll lag - some of which way caused by 502 errors on the site, Mollux being one I know was affected. Cawmodore IIRC was impacted by the forum move, so it's not really representative. In the spreadsheet I have run an idealized project timeline which includes significant time for submissions and assessments. This idealized timeline has 40 days of non-poll competitive time (Catholic conspiracy ftw.) and 56 days including polls, or exactly 8 weeks from nomination through completion. The Playtest will last 2 weeks afterward, So we should get a project accomplished every 10 weeks. Assume 4 projects and 3 weeks for PRC inbetween, and presto - 52 weeks or 4 projects a year exactly.

capefeather · Jul 2, 2014

I'm not sure what to say about my TL experience, to be honest. While it's true that I was starting to struggle to maintain activity during Cawmodore's movepool stage, and hardly participated in Volkraken past the concept assessment, I'm not sure how much of that was due to TL burnout. When other former TLs talk about TL burnout, the sense I get is that they clearly felt that the job itself was predominantly responsible for their burnout. For me, the Cawmodore project went on for so long that my participation in it was affected by accumulated sources of stress in real life and on Smogon outside of CAP.

While I agree that a shorter project can potentially put more pressure on the TLT/TL, similar issues can also happen if a project goes on for too long. The longer a project goes on, the more likely it is that unanticipated factors impact on any TLT member's ability to do his or her job. Moreover, it's not just the TLT's lives that change over the course of months. The OU metagame does as well. If the metagame looks significantly different every time we start a new CAP project, one has to wonder how reliable our conclusions from each project are. I guess Cawmodore was an outlier in this regard, but I still think that this side of the coin should be kept in mind.

As for PRC dragging on for too long, I've been wondering whether it's really necessary for every possible PRC topic to be concluded during project downtime. CAP 19 can easily proceed regardless of when something concrete comes out of the "state of the CAP metagame" thread. It was established in the last thread that it's probably not a good idea to run entire PRC sessions concurrently with a CAP project. However, I wonder if that doesn't just apply to topics that are critical to conclude before the next project.

Birkal · Jul 4, 2014

DougJustDoug, you're on to timebox and conclude this thread. Let us know what your thoughts are for a timeline; CAP19's beginning will be determined based on your schedule for this discussion and conclusion.

DougJustDoug · Jul 4, 2014

I am working on gathering a lot more statistics and making another significant post here. But, after I make the post, this will not drag out for weeks of more discussion. If it looks like we need a lot more time to discuss possible policy changes, I will table this until the next PR cycle, and we'll get on with CAP 19.

BTW, there are also some technical things that need to get done related to the new Smogon server, dex, and the CAP subsite before we launch CAP 19. I'm working on that stuff too. Stay tuned...

DetroitLolcat · Jul 4, 2014

Sorry for not getting this earlier, but I'd like to share a few more thoughts:

Pwnemon said:
I think it's safe to say we all agree with timeboxing submission stages. Also that we're all in favor of Doug's idea for concluding PR threads.

I wouldn't go that far. While I do not strongly oppose timeboxing submission stages, I don't think it's going to do us much good. I don't see what's wrong with what we're doing right now. We open up Concept, Stats, and Movepool submissions, let people submit on their own time, then the TL/TLT member posts a deadline and it moves on. I believe if we timebox the thread from the start, it would encourage people to sneak their submissions in by the deadline (which would limit discussion of Final Submissions). Even if timeboxing submission stages doesn't have a negative effect on discussion, it's not going to have a significant effect on project pace. Recently, Concept and Stats Submissions take about 3-4 days on average (Volkraken's Concept took 6, but I was out of town for two of those days), while Movepool has taken 6-7. Given how difficult it is to create well thought-out concepts, stat spreads, and movepools, I don't think we can make those much shorter without seriously infringing on discussion or submission quality. I (obviously) can't speak to how difficult it is to submit a concept, stat spread, or movepool this generation, but in the past I've often used the entire period to finalize my Questions or Calculations.

In all submission stages (and especially in Stats), we expect a ton of work from our submitters. Last CAP, alexwolf's winning Stats submission was 2648 words long. Korski's winning movepool was 2266 words long. While Concept submissions are naturally shorter, winning Concept Submissions still require a ton of metagame knowledge and effort. If we make these steps shorter, it will be harder for people to create and fully justify their submissions. jas61292's post asked leaders to share their views on timeboxing, I'd like to hear from some winning and high-placing submitters because I highly doubt that the submissions would have been as good as they were if there was less time to create them.

If we aren't timeboxing threads to make deadlines shorter, then timeboxing is a solution looking for a problem. If winning and high-placing submitters believe submission deadlines are too lenient, then I agree with timeboxing submission stages.

DougJustDoug said:
We should try to make Typing, Stats, Abilities, and Movepool sections roughly equivalent in total duration on each project.

All four aspects are roughly equivalent in terms of competitive importance and we have four equal leaders on the TLT for each section. It stands to reason that community interest and involvement is roughly equivalent between all four sections, as well. So we should dedicate equivalent time to each section.

I agree with nyttyn on this matter. I do not understand this proposal at all. The four sections could not be any more different, and it's naturally going to take longer to choose one or two types out of 18 than to choose 60 moves out of 600. I do not believe that just because we have four equivalent TLT members that we need to have each of them lead for the same amount of time when some steps of the process require more care than others. Typing is never going to make or break a Pokemon (although it may make or break a Concept), but Abilities, Stats, and Movepool might. It's not going to be feasible to realize (or even come close to realizing) this proposal without gutting steps out of Movepool.

jas61292 said:
I'd be very interested to hear from other former TLs, specifically capefeather and DetroitLolcat who were TLs under the TLT system, but also Deck Knight, bugmaniacbob, and any other old TLs who may still be around somewhere to see what they feel about time with respect to the workload of TLs.

The workload of being a TL was about what I expected it to be. A lot of being a TL involves responding to individual users' concerns, and that takes time that can't be measured by posts and IRC presence. The delays that I was responsible for were more about technical difficulties than burnout, and I never felt like I wasn't pushing things quickly enough. Volkraken (and Malaconda by extension) balanced leader workload with pace reasonably well in my opinion.

Deck Knight · Jul 6, 2014

Before this closes up I'll just add my experiences from TLing. The only thing that was really difficult for me was making decisive choices near the end on movepool, where so many people wanted Scald but I knew it would drastically change the way Mollux was played if it were included. The pressure was intense but I eventually decided against it. As a matter of fact I avoided having polls on controversial moves at all.

I did make an entire thread about it once, link here.

The shortened version of that post is basically under the old model it was a very personal, taxing project that really tested who you were as a person. That's why we had so much burnout, because after doing that there is literally nothing that compared to it within the forum. I imagine the burden is lighter under the TL + TLT model, but it's still a challenging and personal experience.

DougJustDoug · Jul 8, 2014

WARNING: Sorry for making another mammoth post, but I've been digging through a lot of historical data in support of this policy proposal, and I just can't address this stuff without going into quite a bit of detail. This is not light reading, by any means, so don't wade into this unless you have some time on your hands!

Timeboxing does not require us to be inflexible. We can be flexible as hell and have fluctuating discussion lengths all we want. The big thing timeboxing provides is that it sets expectations ahead of time. If we are in the middle of a great discussion, and perhaps there is a new unexpected wrinkle that comes up and the discussion leader wants to extend the thread -- that's fine. But it should be explicitly and formally extended by exception, not just on a whim.

Right now, no ones knows what to expect in a discussion thread. Everyone lingers at the end, wondering if we are nearing consensus or not. The reality is that in most cases, we use dwindling posting activity to be the spur for a 24-hour warning to close the thread. Let me rephrase that practice a different way: After we discover that the majority of the community has lost interest in the thread, we require everyone to be bored for another day. This has to change.

By keeping the project moving along at an ACTIVE PACE (note: NOT a "rushed" pace), we will hopefully increase overall enthusiasm and energy in the community.

Also, by making CAP pokemon more frequently, we will grow more active "CAP veterans". CAP veterans are the life blood of the project. If we iterate more quickly, we give people more opportunities to participate and learn. We'll also create a more accessible project, because people will have more chances to join the project at the beginning of a new CAP, when it is easiest to get users "hooked" on Create-A-Pokemon.

Comparing Past and Present

Comparing XY and BW CAP project timelines to DP CAP project timelines is perfectly valid. I reject the assumption that CAP is so vastly different now that DP projects are inherently incomparable. At the end of the day, we are still creating pokemon, and the core process is the same as it always has been. Yes, we can ignore Syclant, Revenankh, and Pyroak, because I agree the process back then was very different and much more compact than the "modern CAP process". But since the advent of Fidgit, our process at a high level has remained remarkably consistent.

A CAP pokemon is the result of a series of threads to determine Concept, Typing, Abilities, Stats, Art, Movepool, and Sprites. That's it. You can divvy up threads however you want, and we change the order and/or granularity of threads almost every CAP. But at the end of the day, DP pokemon have almost exactly the same constituent parts as BW and XY pokemon. We are creating comparable products, via the exact same creation mechanism we have always used (forum discussion threads and polls). It is very reasonable to compare the timelines of all CAP projects with each other.

Let me back it up with some data. Here's a chart showing the number of comparable threads for each CAP project.

(click for full-size chart)

Guess what? All CAP projects since Fidgit have had consistently somewhere from 40-50 comparable threads during their construction process. If you throw out Cawmodore and Colossoil (the high and low outliers), BW+XY CAP projects averaged 46 threads per project, and DP CAP projects averaged 46 threads per project as well. But if you look at Forum Participation Days, omitting Cawmodore and Kitsunoh (the high and low outliers), BW/XY averages 77 days per project and DP averages 53 days per project.

Does anyone honestly think the process today is so much more detailed and complex that it requires 45% MORE time to complete the SAME number of steps, across the SAME number of threads, to produce the SAME end result product? I don't think so.

Does anyone think the CAP project is so much "bigger" now, in terms of people and complexity that it justifies the massive increase in time to complete the project? Once again, let's look at the numbers. (a LOT of numbers, actually)

Historical Participation and Popularity

I manually collected the number of posts and views of every thread in CAP history, except for Syclant and Revenankh. I only did Pyroak to see how different the numbers would be, but for all the charts below, I focused on Fidgit through Volkraken. Here's a screen shot of most of the numbers collected:

(click for full-size chart)

I collected these numbers as a way to compare popularity and participation in each CAP project. There are many factors that contribute to people posting in projects or people viewing a thread. I am not presenting this as if it is clean, controlled data. There are likely many aberrations in the local data for each project, and I can think of several factors that have probably caused some of these numbers to "drift" a little over time (like "robot views", etc.) But CAP has been around for a long time, and we have done a lot of projects. My assumption is that with such a large sampling of projects and threads, the aggregate data and trends are informative. It's also the ONLY statistical information that is readily available, so we'll do our best with what we have!

(click for full-size chart)

That is a chart of the total posts and total views of the Top 10 threads for each category (posts and views) for each CAP project since Pyroak. I think this is a decent high-level way to summarize the overall popularity and participation of each project. It takes the best 10 threads in terms of posts and views. I experimented with omitting the very best thread or two on each project (to see if big swings in the top art threads were skewing the graph too much), but it didn't change the shape of the graph very much.

The big takeaway from this graph (and every other graph that follows) is that CAP projects during the height of the DP generation actually had MORE people participating than BW and XY. Threads received MORE posts and MORE views, and our polls had more votes in DP than in BW/XY. DP CAP was "bigger" than CAP is today. (see below for more on this)

You will notice a HUGE spike in views for Volkraken, most of which I think can be attributed to the fact that the CAP 18 news announcement sat as the top news item on the Smogon front page for four straight months as Chaos worked on the new pokedex. That news item linked directly to the CAP 18 Concept submissions thread, which, not coincidentally, has had TEN TIMES more views than any Concept Submission thread in CAP history (see the Submission Views graphs below for a more targeted view). This is just one example of "aberrations in the local data" I mentioned earlier. But it also goes to show how much of an impact Smogon front page news has on CAP traffic.

(click any image for full-size chart)

Those are several more graphs on various dimensions of CAP participation. I separated participation on the project into Submissions, Discussions, and Polls, showing the number of posts/votes for each and the number of views for each. I made a few variations on a few graphs to reduce/remove the impact of Art on the graph, because Art has a significantly higher magnitude of posting/voting and views than any other part of the project -- so it makes it difficult to see the variations of numbers in all the non-art threads. I think the graphs are self-explanatory, so I won't explain each one in detail.

All those graphs confirm what I said before -- The CAP project in DP was NOT smaller or less complex than it is today. In many cases, it was larger and more complex. Therefore, any assumption that we REQUIRE more time to complete a project today is false. In fact, there appears to be no correlation whatsoever with the duration of a CAP project and the participation and popularity of the project.

If you look at Arghonaut, Kitsunoh, Cyclohm, and Colossoil, the forum durations of all four projects were very similar (between 39-48 days) and the four projects were done consecutively over the first 11 months in 2009. Yet the participation/popularity stats vary wildly. Arghonaut and Kitsunoh had arguably the WORST participation/popularity in CAP history and Cyclohm and Colossoil had arguably the HIGHEST participation/popularity, depending on how you interpret the stats. We could dig into each project and figure out the reasons for the stat variations -- and it may not be related to the actual "popularity" of the project -- but that isn't the point. The point is that those four projects all had pretty much the same number of steps, and they took the same amount of time -- yet they had significantly different posting activity rates and volume of interested participants viewing every thread.

There are many other interesting participation observations in the graphs above, and I encourage everyone to look it over in more detail to see how participation and popularity of the project has fluctuated from project to project. As a community-based project, we should be cognizant of what we are doing and how it impacts general participation and interest in the project. In collecting and presenting these stats, it opened my eyes to many things and raised many questions. BUT, most of those questions are outside the scope of this PR thread, and I won't drag this down any further than I already have by presenting this mountain of participation data here.

The bottom line, IMO, is that the CAP project these days is not a bigger or more complicated beast to manage than it has been for the past several years, and we do not require much more time (if any) to complete CAP projects than we ever did in the past.

Proposed Schedule

I am not proposing we reduce the time it takes to make a CAP. In fact, I am suggesting we make CAPs at the SAME PACE we always have. I just want to set explicit expectations of the timeframes for each step of the project, and those timeframes are the same timeframes we have always completed these steps.

Look at the following proposed schedule for a CAP project.

(click for full-size chart)

I separated the full CAP project lifecycle into three aspects -- Policy, Competitive, and Flavor. The steps of the project are pretty much the same as what we do for every CAP. The lifecycle "begins" with the first thread in the upper left corner under Policy with the TL/TLT Nominations (arbitrarily set to begin August 1st, only as an example. This is not an actual proposed start date for the next project). The schedule progresses roughly from top to bottom, with the Competitive steps starting after the TLT is selected, and Flavor steps occur as usual, often running concurrently with one or more other steps. The forum project concludes with the Final Product thread, and Playtesting begins. Policy Review is conducted after the project, and then the lifecycle can begin anew.

Each step has a defined Duration and a Start and Stop date. The spreadsheet for this schedule computes every date by using the entered Duration. So I can adjust the Duration for any step, and all the other impacted steps will compute Start and Stop Dates automatically.

Many Competitive steps have an "Average" column. This column is the average duration of that step across the TEN LOWEST past CAP projects for that particular step. This column shows that in almost all cases, the proposed Duration for that step is actually LONGER than the "low average" duration for that step.

In case you were wondering, the total average for most steps is roughly .5 days longer than the low average. But I think we should benchmark off the low average to encourage efficiency, particularly since the low average is computed against 10 past projects, which is hardly cherry-picking a few exceptionally fast projects.

The biggest change I made to the CAP cycle in the schedule above, is proposing we open PRC nominations and begin planning Policy Review concurrent with Playtesting. My thinking was that Policy Review involves a very small subset of the community, and the beginning phases of Policy Review (PRC and planning) are low activity anyway. There is little, if any, project-wide conflict with Playtesting, and it almost certainly won't steal any thunder from the attention given to the Playtest. Since many PRC members are active in Playtesting, I understand if there are objections that we may spread those members too thin. I'm not adamant that we run early PR concurrent with Playtesting, I'm proposing it to show ways we can eliminate some of the "dead time" associated with the lull between CAP projects.

I made some other changes to the schedule as well (art voting, movepool steps, etc.), but this post is already long enough without getting into all the detail there too. If the idea of a more defined schedule is something we want to pursue, I will discuss the particulars of the ordering and durations of various steps in more detail in later posts.

With the proposed schedule, even though no particular step is rushed at all, you'll see the Forum Participation and Total Project durations are significantly lower than the past several CAP projects, and the Full CAP Cycle is only 90 days total.

I did not specifically engineer the numbers to get to the 90 day total (which would allow us to make four CAPs per year, as I proposed in the OP). I made the spreadsheet and started plugging in Durations for various steps, looking at averages and using past experience as a guide to figure out what steps could/should run concurrently. I added the cell to compute total cycle duration last of all, and I laughed when the number came out to exactly 90 days! Completely unplanned, but a nice validation that we don't need to do anything special or rushed to make four CAPs a year. We just need to manage every step of CAP at a "normal" pace, and be a little smarter in how we plan and execute Policy Review.

Implementing a Project Schedule

I propose we make a new sticky thread in the CAP forum named "CAP X - Project Schedule" or maybe "CAP X - Project Calendar", and replace the thread at the beginning of each cycle. The content of the OP would be the schedule shown above, but probably in a more linear form, like so:

Code:

+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Category    | Step                           | Duration | Start Date | End Date   |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Policy      | Tl/TLT Nominations             | 3        | 8/1/2014   | 8/4/2014   |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Policy      | TL Selection                   | 1        | 8/4/2014   | 8/5/2014   |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Policy      | TLT Selection                  | 1        | 8/5/2014   | 8/6/2014   |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Concept Submissions            | 3        | 8/6/2014   | 8/9/2014   |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Concept Polls                  | 3        | 8/9/2014   | 8/12/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Concept Assessment             | 3        | 8/12/2014  | 8/15/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Typing Discussion              | 3        | 8/15/2014  | 8/18/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Typing Polls                   | 3        | 8/18/2014  | 8/21/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Threats Discussion             | 2        | 8/21/2014  | 8/23/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Art Submissions                | 18       | 8/21/2014  | 9/8/2014   |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Primary Ability Discussion     | 3        | 8/23/2014  | 8/26/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Primary Ability Polls          | 2        | 8/26/2014  | 8/28/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Stat Limits                    | 2        | 8/28/2014  | 8/30/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Stat Spread Submissions        | 5        | 8/30/2014  | 9/4/2014   |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Stat Spread Polls              | 4        | 9/4/2014   | 9/8/2014   |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Art Polls                      | 4        | 9/8/2014   | 9/12/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Secondary Ability Discussion   | 2        | 9/8/2014   | 9/10/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Secondary Ability Polls        | 2        | 9/10/2014  | 9/12/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Name Submissions               | 4        | 9/12/2014  | 9/16/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Sprite Submissions             | 16       | 9/12/2014  | 9/28/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Attacking Moves Discussion     | 2        | 9/12/2014  | 9/14/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Attacking Moves Poll           | 1        | 9/14/2014  | 9/15/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Name Polls                     | 3        | 9/16/2014  | 9/19/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Non-Attacking Moves Discussion | 2        | 9/15/2014  | 9/17/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Non-Attacking Moves Poll       | 1        | 9/17/2014  | 9/18/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Movepool Limits                | 1        | 9/18/2014  | 9/19/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Movepool Submissions           | 5        | 9/19/2014  | 9/24/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Movepool Polls                 | 4        | 9/24/2014  | 9/28/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Sprite Polls                   | 2        | 9/28/2014  | 9/30/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Final Product                  |          | 10/1/2014  | 10/1/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Flavor Ability Discussion      | 2        | 10/2/2014  | 10/4/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Flavor Ability Polls           | 2        | 10/4/2014  | 10/6/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Pokedex Submissions            | 2        | 10/6/2014  | 10/8/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Flavor      | Pokedex Polls                  | 3        | 10/8/2014  | 10/11/2014 |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Competitive | Playtesting                    | 14       | 10/2/2014  | 10/16/2014 |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Policy      | PRC Nominations                | 4        | 10/2/2014  | 10/6/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Policy      | PR Planning                    | 3        | 10/6/2014  | 10/9/2014  |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+
| Policy      | Policy Review                  | 21       | 10/9/2014  | 10/30/2014 |
+-------------+--------------------------------+----------+------------+------------+

The formatting of rows could indicate the current active steps in bold, and perhaps show completed steps in italics. The schedule post would be updated by mods if steps are extended or complete earlier than scheduled. With the spreadsheet I made for the schedule (which would be put on Google Docs or similarly shared by the mods), it is trivial to adjust any part of the schedule and all the other steps will recalculate accordingly. So at all times, if anyone wants to know "When is XYZ going to happen?", they can look at the schedule sticky and get a definitive answer.

When mods make thread OP's, they would look at the schedule and post the expected duration clearly in the OP of each thread.

If the Topic Leader or Section Leader would like to extend the duration of a step, for any reason, after a step has begun -- they would simply post in the thread notifying everyone that the thread will be extended for X days, and post the reason for the extension. There won't be any approval process, or anything like that. If leadership wants more time, they can take more time. NO BIG DEAL. They just have to tell people what is going on. This proposal is about setting expectations, not rushing people or forcing them to hit predefined deadlines.

paintseagull · Jul 8, 2014

While I definitely hear and agree with a lot of jas' (and others') concerns, I really like the idea of setting expectations, but allowing flexibility. It's win-win. People know in advance how long they have for submissions and can plan accordingly. People applying for TLT know approximately when they need to be most active, so can choose the position accordingly, and try to get real-life commitments done ahead of time, and clear their schedule. If something comes up with the TLT for a certain topic they could even set an increased duration from the get-go if they need. I like it.

jas61292 · Jul 8, 2014

To me, I kind of see this with the exact opposite point of view as what psg said above. Rather than thinking it is a good thing to set expectations but allow flexibility, the way I see it, by doing this, all we are really doing is setting false expectations for people, and especially for leaders. Its all fine and dandy to say that we will start each thread on a predefined date, but leave it open for change, but in reality, no schedule set with such expectations will be anywhere near reality. Add a day here and there every few steps, and things are already thrown off. Now take into account the fact that threads don't stop and start on the dead of midnight. Communicative and administrative stuff takes time, and no schedule will change that. It doesn't matter if we hit the deadline and no one wants to extend it if the TL is not there to excise their judgment.

As mentioned, a schedule would be based on average times, not a min standard we want to reach. Yet, I believe that the only thing this would actually achieve would be to lengthen the project, not shorten it. Why? Because it sets a min standard, but not a max. Yes, the times we set are based on averages, but those timeboxes are the min thread time, not the max. Essentially we would be saying that project threads need to last at least as long as the average length, but can go even longer. While I personally see no issue with the current time of CAP projects, I certainly don't want to see them get longer, and that is the only thing I can see happening here.

And, as I said at the start, what this does, in addition to negative effects on the time of projects, is set false expectations. There have been situations in the past couple projects where people who ran for TLT did so knowing that they would be busy during certain stages and probably would not be able to lead them well, but could and wanted to lead other sections. By setting a schedule this far in advance, we take guesses like these and provide them with facts to back them up. Someone can look at the schedule and say "oh, the few days I am away will be during stats, so I can't do that, but I could lead something else." But these are false expectations. We still have no idea how long things will last, and I would hazard a guess that the majority of the time, by the time we get to late stages of the project, the schedule will have so many extended days and missed hours for administrative reasons that the scheduled days will mostly be used for earlier steps. And so that person who decided not to lead stats cause they would be away ends up leading abilities and missing three days of Secondary Ability discussion because of the false expectations that we set out for them. False expectations hurt individuals, put stress on leaders, and just are generally bad for the project as a whole.

For what its worth, I also do have some specific issues with the proposed changes to when stages take place relative to one another, but I'll leave those for a late post. For now I think it is far more important to address timeboxing as a general concept.

Anyways, some brief comments on the stats and the analysis thereof:

I find it hard to agree with the notion that the process was larger and more complex in the past. While I am fine with saying that it is not necessarily larger or more complex in the present, I think a lot of stats fail to really address anything related to this concept. I mean, what exactly does it mean to be larger? More posts? More views? More votes? By the former criteria, sure, DP was larger. When it comes to views however, I would say that 5th and 6th gen in general were larger, especially when it comes to the discussions, which are unambiguously the heart of the project. As for votes, I would just throw that out as a criteria, since the change in voting method makes them incomparable in my mind. The old click poll style will easily get more votes on average from the same userbase than current poll styles. It requires more time and thought to vote in a PBV vote, and even for SBV vs Click, Click will see more since you don't even need to read the OP to vote in one of those (which coincidentally is why click polls are completely awful). As for complexity, I don't think anything here suggests anything about that. Complexity has far more to do with the policy changes and reforms that have happened over time, and I for one think that in this regard it is very hard to say that the project has not gotten more complex over time. However, when it comes to pure stats, I don't think anything here says anything about that.

Deck Knight · Jul 8, 2014

My issue with maintaining a schedule thread is mod overhead. Given the multiple timezones and schedules we're working with, it's entirely possible to have the TL and TLT be as far away as West Coast NA, East Coast NA, England, the Netherlands, and Australia, so we're just not going to be able to update that on a time UNLESS the calendar autocorrects for any changes earlier. No mod has the time or the inclination to adjust 40 lines for a single date over or under.

If it's just there as a guidepost to measure against, that's one thing - but we don't need to add overhead when we're already "running behind" as it were. Policy Review is actually the biggest bugbear slowing us down, and that's all *between* projects, so I'd agree with something more like posting a PR period Schedule than a general forum schedule. Once a CAP Project starts the delays are avoided to the best of human ability.

jas61292 · Jul 8, 2014

Not going to make another long post, but we just had a fairly lengthy discussion on this stuff on IRC, and I wanted to share:

<paintseagull> jas61292 and Deck_Knight do you guys also have a problem with thread length expectations but no calendar?
<paintseagull> I see that the calendar will pretty much immediately get thrown off
<paintseagull> but I still can't see how stating an expected thread duration is bad
<paintseagull> I feel like you guys are still expecting that this will be much more strict than I think it's intended to be
<jas61292> I just think setting expectations in general is bad. I don't think we have a real length problem, so short limits are not good, imo, while I believe average limits will, due to delays that will happen, cause lengthening, rather than shortening.
<paintseagull> jas61292: could we just increase the numbers if you think they're too short?
<wobbuffet> Its less that I think they are to short, and more that I just think anything that is not to short will be too long overall
<paintseagull> ???
<jas61292> basically, what I mean is that if the limits are too short we will always need to extend them. In that case we are back to average time, and the only thing they are actually doing is increasing pressure on leadership. However, if they are not too short, they still won't help. At an average time, they will, at best make things average, but more likely, most of the time between communicative and administrative delays, on top of extensions that still will happen on occasion, the overall length would likely go up.
<jas61292> Its a consequence of having limits. If we wait until threads are slowing down and then warn and end, we end up with average length on average. However, if we set the average as the limit, the average becomes the min, while the max stays the same, which necessarily increases the average time.
<jas61292> In other words, max limits suck, as already talked about, in the thread, and the only thing being timeboxed otherwise is the minimum time, which can never shorten anything by definition.
<paintseagull> hrm
<paintseagull> I was more so seeing it as an expectation for contributors
<paintseagull> it should reduce the tendency for people to say "oh, i have lots of time, i'll post tomorrow'
<paintseagull> so post frequency may go up, but the overall number of posts should not.
<jas61292> I would argue though that situations like that don't really happen in the process itself. PRC threads we see it, sure, but in the main project, I don't really think that is the case. Rather, in the project, if people don't post today, the section leader will see no posts and give a warning.
<paintseagull> i can see that having higher post frequency might mean that leaders feel they hve to check in and post more often too, but it could instead mean that you have larger subsection of posts to look at, and can see the quality ones from the bad, and not give as much feedback to the less good posts
<paintseagull> say you check in twice per day, if posting frequency is higher, because people have an expectation that the thread should last 3-5 days, then you have more posts to look through but a better idea of the general ideas
<paintseagull> and can restrict yourself to commenting on the highest quality posts?
<paintseagull> maybe windowing the limits would help? (e.g. 3-5 days instead of 3 or 5)
<paintseagull> like, i'm not saying we have to do things faster, but the data exists and threads have a certain amount of time that they usually take - I can't see how making that information available is a bad thing
<jas61292> Well, in my opinion, you should, as a leader, always be looking at overall trends and commenting on them, rather than focusing on individual posts, unless the post brings up something that you believe needs further discussion and are commenting to spur that discussion. I don't really see a time change affecting that, or ones ability to do that.
<jas61292> I mean, my overall views are still shaped mostly by the fact that I really don't see any time issue on the project itself to begin with (outside PRC), and so when something such as limits are proposed with speed being their big "upside" but while possessing other dowsides, I find it hard to see how it could be possibly worth the downsides.
<paintseagull> It does lag sometimes though jas
<paintseagull> I often get the feeling when reading a thread that there is a bit of an awkward silence near the end
<paintseagull> where people are just unsure when things are going to end
<paintseagull> that's where I feel this would help - just as a way to tidy up loose ends like that
<jas61292> I just don't really see that much lag. It happens on occasion, but usually its because we are waiting on a leader to post, and that is something we will still need to do. Just because we have a limit that says it can end at XX:XX time, doesn't mean that the Section Leader, Topic Leader and/or moderators will be there to do what needs to be done. In fact, by removing said limit from the leader's control, I'd say it would increase the chance that they are not therre.
<Woggers> lag happens all the time lol
<Woggers> it's like, the defining feature of the end of every discussion
<jas61292> I guess we have a very different definition of lag then.
<Woggers> I know I'm speaking in extremes, but I'd argue that if we polled the community, they would feel drag on the ends of threads
<Woggers> in both conversation quality and amount of posts being made
<jas61292> Yeah, things slow down, but slower than the beginning is not the same as lag. And if you do call that lag, then I would argue that some lag is a good thing. Having been TL and a TLT member, I can say that having periods near the end where things slow down is often very helpful as it gives time to think about how things should be concluded without having to reconsider every 20 minutes when a new thought is thrown in.
<jas61292> And, for what its worth, discussions really should slow down. If things are going as fast as they were at the start, the thread should not be ending. I don't see any way that cutting it off when things are going along like that is a good thing.
<Woggers> lag is time wasted
<Woggers> when the community has little left to discuss
<Woggers> and leadership is at a halt for making a decision / putting up a thread / synchronizing efforts
<paintseagull> hmmmm
<paintseagull> Woggers your lack of sympathy for TL burnout surprises me
<jas61292> This is true. But you can't cut off the lag from the former. It is impossible to know if there is little left to discuss until people run out of things to discuss. Lag is a symptom of an issue, sure, but you can't treat a problem until you know you have it, and you can't know you have it without seeing said symptom.
<paintseagull> if jas says he likes the breathing room, I'm fine with it
<Woggers> I'm not saying TLs shouldn't have breathing room
<Woggers> they get plenty of it with the proposed system
<jas61292> Cutting off good discussion in the name of eliminating lag is a far worse crime than allowing a bit of lag to make sure we get all the good discussion in.
<Woggers> but we do know that the lag will happen -- it always does
<paintseagull> the TL/TLT system was set up to reduce burnout and it's worked so far. maybe the side effect is more lag. maybe that's fine.
<Woggers> it is an inevitable symptom
<jas61292> I'm not saying it won't happen. I'm saying you don't know when. And if you don't know when, you can't stop it without taking wild guesses that can hurt discussion just as easily as they can remove lag.
<Woggers> I don't know how the proposed timeboxing system causes TL/TLT burnout
<Woggers> could someone explain?
<jas61292> Its not that I think it will increase it that much. Its that I think that is the only thing it really can do at all.
<jas61292> <jas61292> basically, what I mean is that if the limits are too short we will always need to extend them. In that case we are back to average time, and the only thing they are actually doing is increasing pressure on leadership. However, if they are not too short, they still won't help. At an average time, they will, at best make things average, but more likely, most of the time between communicative and administrative delays, on top of extensions that still will happen on occasion, the overall length would likely go up.
<jas61292> <jas61292> Its a consequence of having limits. If we wait until threads are slowing down and then warn and end, we end up with average length on average. However, if we set the average as the limit, the average becomes the min, while the max stays the same, which necessarily increases the average time.
<jas61292> <jas61292> In other words, max limits suck, as already talked about, in the thread, and the only thing being timeboxed otherwise is the minimum time, which can never shorten anything by definition.
<paintseagull> i'm being converted to jas' point of view (this always happens)
<jas61292> In my views, either limits increase pressure on leadership, or lengthen the process, and never will anything actually be shortened so long as the issue we are looking to tackle is discussion lag and not administrative lag.
<FMD> I support general guidelines rather than a strict limit.
<jas61292> For what its worth, I am glad we have a ton of data, and putting average lengths out there is probably good. But I don't think anything official should be done with them. The best I can see them doing is letting the TLT members know when is probably a good time to think about giving a 24 hour warning.
<FMD> Exactly.
<jas61292> Actually, with that said, I wouldn't think it would necessarily be a bad thing to just get rid of the whole culture of necessary 24 hour warnings. While I do think it is nice to let people know they have a day to get any last thoughts in, I have nothing against simply cutting off a dead thread rather than letting it sit for a day more.
<jas61292> Having averages known would also help there. Cutting off without a warning makes more sense if you are at or over the average length, while warning people makes more sense if the thread is slowing but it has not run for too long.
<FMD> I appreciate the warnings like that. Are they really necessary? I always assumed they were just a courtesy.
<jas61292> I don't know off the top of my head if there is an actual rule, but it is definitely ingrained into the culture. Simply saying in a policy conclusions that they are not required would do a lot to change that culture, even if it was never a rule.
<Woggers> if you're saying that timelines are ingrained in the culture of CAP... that's not true at all
<Woggers> threads vary so much in how long they go on @__@
<HeaLnDeaL> well, maybe shortening a 24 hour warning to 12 or so could help... but I personally like some sort of warning.
<Woggers> ugh I still see absolutely no downsides to going through with this
<Woggers> especially if we're giving it a trial run
<Woggers> it's all speculation at this point and we've having all these unfounded fears and inhibitions about it
<Woggers> good conversations /will/ happen in CAP
<Woggers> there's no doubt about it
<Woggers> heck, if we didn't have a forum and only had one thread per CAP
<jas61292> I'm wasn't talking about timelines being ingrained. Simply 24 hour warning
<jas61292> *S
<Woggers> we'd /still/ have good conversation
<paintseagull> it's a good point that having a 24h warning *after* a drop in conversation is a potential place to cut fat
<jas61292> I just completely disagree about that. Where you see no downsides, I see no upsides and only downsides. And fwiw, I single thread CAP would be a god awful clusterfuck and I would want nothing to do with it.
<Woggers> we already do that
<Woggers> don't we already do that? I think we already do that.
<Woggers> we have "this thread has X hour warnings" all the time
<paintseagull> What if we just said at the beginning of each thread: "This discussion typically lasts 3-5 (or whatever it is) days. Be prepared for a conclusion around that time if discussion begins to wane."
<Woggers> ^^^^^^^^^^^^
<Woggers> that is all Doug is asking!!
<Woggers> that is literally all he is asking for u__u
<paintseagull> well he also has a calendar
<Woggers> we post at the start of a thread "hey, traditionally, this thread ends in 3 days. if the discussion is winding down, we'll close shop around then"
<paintseagull> I see it from your perspective too Birkal but jas has a point that limits = pressure. even if they are not strict.
<paintseagull> it's all about how you word it and the culture that surrounds it
<Woggers> to think that there isn't pressure to post early in threads without time limits is ignorant though
<Woggers> there is /always/ pressure to post first
<paintseagull> it's a subtle point and I think we should pay close attention to what jas' concerns are because it could all go very wrong
<Woggers> it's the quanyails effect
<paintseagull> I meant pressure on the subject leader
<Woggers> I am fully aware that we are changing the culture of how people view these conversations
<jas61292> That's not what it seems like to me. To me it is more "This thread lasts 4 days. If the leader wants to extend that, they can." And in that I see only pressure and no positives. What you are saying is a lot more fine to me, but I don't see that as actually doing anything besides going "hey, here are some stats"
<Woggers> and I think that's a positive change
<Yilx> first posters HATE him!
<Woggers> lol
<paintseagull> Woggers: can you please state the specific culture change that you want?
<jas61292> I am perfectly fine with saying "this is how long this thread usually lasts." I am not at all fine with saying "thi is how long this thread will last."
<paintseagull> I don't think we need a culture change, just a slightly tidier way to finish threads.
<Woggers> I would love a mindset in CAP where people post their thoughts in a timely fashion; where no one feels bored by having to sit around for a few days while we discuss whether or not Shed Skin should be slated..
<Woggers> (that's happened before, btw)
<Woggers> that's what it would be, jas
<Woggers> we aren't going to close threads AT 72 hours on the button
<Woggers> they are done when they are done
<Woggers> but it's the mindset of "hey, we have a lot of great discussions to move onto here; let's try to be prudent and finish up in a timely fashion."
<Woggers> I think the process you've envisioning is that at 72 hours, the thread is closed
<Woggers> if the community whines and cries out for more discussion, the TL re-opens the thread and the conversation is re-ignited
<jas61292> Its all about the wording though. I don't care if it works like a guideline. I care if it is worded like one. Setting a schedule makes it a deadline, not a guideline. Yeah, we don't want to lag, but time is not inherantly a problem, and so deadlines are entirely negative.
<Woggers> I would be against that process at all
<Woggers> time wasting is definitely a problem
<Woggers> less interest in discussions, less interest in the project, less interest to stick around and become a veteran, less people stepping into leadership roles, fewer votes, not being able to track with a bulky weeklong discussion, etc
<jas61292> When I said "time is not inherantly a problem," what I mean is that faster does not equal better. Using time is not losing time.
<Woggers> I can list more if I need to @__@
<Woggers> yes, but we often do not use time; we lose it
<Woggers> which is what this proposal is all about
<Woggers> cutting out the time that we /lose/
<paintseagull> " <Woggers> if the community whines and cries out for more discussion, the TL re-opens the thread and the conversation is re-ignited" this would be awful
<paintseagull> if that's what timeboxing does it would be bad. let's please try to prevent such a thing.
<Woggers> agreed
<jas61292> ^^ If that is the case, the system failed because it did something that should never have been done
<Woggers> if what's the case? psg or my point?
<jas61292> psg
<paintseagull> "cutting out time that we lose" : I don't even think that that's what we should be thinking of timeboxing as.
<paintseagull> We should be thinking of it as setting expectations.
<Woggers> I'm fine with that
<paintseagull> and I like the idea of windowing the expected time. That way it doesn't feel like a deadline.
<Woggers> heck, I'd be fine if we set up timeboxing, get to the end of the process, and calculate that we lost +20 days on what the timebox was supposed to be
<Woggers> because we can use that to see "well, were the 20+ extra days worth it? was this CAP 20+ days-worth of extra awesome?"
<paintseagull> AND that way leaders don't have to feel like they must give 24h warning once the 4-5 day mark (or whatever) hits
<Woggers> I think people are seeing DJD's numbers and freaking out
<Woggers> I'll have to read again, but I don't think he's suggesting we do what we do for polling... for discussions
<Woggers> discussions wane and wax -- we can all agree on that
<FMD> That's an interesting way to phrase it, Woggers
<jas61292> Again, its all about guidelines vs deadlines. I love the idea of saying "this will last 3-5 days." And then closing it somewhere in there when it died. I am not at all happy with anything that makes that anything but a range.
<jas61292> *is dying. threads should hopefully never fully die
<Woggers> what about stating a recommended length?
<Yveltal> you guys
<Woggers> as in: Historically, Non-Attacking Movepool Discussions typically last 4 days on average.
<Woggers> is that too imposing?
<Yveltal> sometimes get seriously annoying
<srk1214> I'm personalyl confused by the assertion that faster, more frequent projects will lead to more veterans
<Woggers> it's about growing users
<Woggers> you can't level up your pokemon unless they've been in battles
<Woggers> so to speak
<Yveltal> one week, someone is complaining that too many chefs spoils the soup, and the next week, everyone agrees that there isn't enough participation
<srk1214> I'm a veteran. I actually think going any faster than we currently go, with the exception of maybe movepool would be a big turn off to me
<srk1214> PRC is a separate issue
<Woggers> yeah, but you're a veteran now
<Woggers> you're allowed to have opinions =P
<Woggers> when you're new, you want /nothing/ more than to make more CAPs
<srk1214> maybe. I guess I don't remember 2010 that well
<jas61292> I have no problem with that. While I prefer ranges, since I feel that would be more accurate (as average does not mean typical), anything that is simply giving people an estimate and not stating something harder is fine (even if the "hard" thing is actually soft, presenting it as hard is bad)
<srk1214> whether I wanted more frequent projects or not
<srk1214> etc
<Woggers> I think having a data point is good to compare ranges at the end of the project, jas
<Woggers> if we think, at the onset of a thread, that the average is three days, and then go four over, that's extrapolation for how we should thread in the future
<Woggers> (e.g. "we had two to three days at the end of this thread where not much happened -- let's try to not let it happen again.")
<jas61292> I have nothing against that. I'd just prefer to present things as they are. If something is an average, then just present it as such. No more no less.
<jas61292> (Yes I know I am kinda just complaining about the use of the word "typical" and that its really not a big deal)
<Woggers> fine by me
<Woggers> anyways, I gotta get going
<Woggers> I think we are all sort of on the same page
<Woggers> I'd at least like to see this given a test runt)
<Woggers> "This proposal is about setting expectations, not rushing people or forcing them to hit predefined deadlines."
<Woggers> that's in bold right at the end of Doug's proposal =P
<jas61292> Well, there are many ways to set expectations. Lenient deadlines won't force people to hit them, but are still deadlines, and not simply expectations.
<FMD> Well people could have developed a consensus that differs from the proposal, Birkal. :P
<Woggers> there was never a "let's set limits"
<Woggers> if I recall correctly
<jas61292> The sense I got from Doug's post was "lets set limits, but we can change them if necessary," while what it seemed like people here were agreeing on was more "lets just let people know the averages so the leaders can have a better sense when to close"

Basically, the biggest thing for me personally in here is the very last line of that log: The sense I got from Doug's post was "lets set limits, but we can change them if necessary," while what it seemed like people here were agreeing on was more "lets just let people know the averages so the leaders can have a better sense when to close."

While a few people may like schedules and deadlines, I believe that, if those were ever really what was intended, then for the most part among people I talked with, that has been thoroughly rejected. On the other hand, simple guidelines that can help leaders better do their job without imposing any specific limits are something most people can indeed get behind. It may be all about the semantics, but when it comes to the pressure something like this can put on people, semantics can be pretty damn important.

bugmaniacbob · Jul 9, 2014

Quickly before I go to bed, a brief exchange of thoughts from IRC:

Code:

<bugmaniacbob> I'm against even putting anything near a thread that implies the average duration
<jas61292> Though that doesn't take long for me
<Deck_Knight> There is always an option to hide the actual dates and have it just display the start and end date.
<bugmaniacbob> threads should start and end when they've fulfilled their purpose, which should be the prerogative of the appropriate section leader to gauge
<bugmaniacbob> implying anything else is introducing a factor that serves no purpose save to possibly annoy us at some future date
<jas61292> I'm with you on that bmb. While I am not really against stating averages, as it is just stats that a leader can look at to better figure if a thread is dying, I completely agree that discussions should end when they are over, and nothing else should be a determining factor but the discussion itself
<bugmaniacbob> and once again you've phrased it better in one sentence than I did in three
<bugmaniacbob> I mean I could /maybe/ see it added to the event pages on the cap site
<bugmaniacbob> but putting it near the actual threads themselves is suggesting a deadline that does not exist - and if people think it should exist, it shouldn't do
<bugmaniacbob> from experience it seems that people tend to slow down posting the moment a deadline is posted - though that's likely just an non-causative correlation, I have on occasion just dropped a half-written post the moment a deadline appears, and more importantly, a rush to post is damaging to healthy discussion
<jas61292> That's why I'm personally a bigger fan of stating ranges rather than limits. Things vary, and the average doesn't really mean that much. Rather, a range of a few days still accurately represents a typical length, without seemign to impose a deadline
<jas61292> *ranges rather than averages
<bugmaniacbob> that's true, though ranges seem to me to cross the line from overly prescriptive to somewhat unhelpful
<bugmaniacbob> but perhaps that's simply because I've been here long enough to judge how long discussions typically progress, which a newcomer would not have
<Deck_Knight> To be honest I could toss the whole scedule thing for the main process, but demand it for the lull / policy period.
<Deck_Knight> *schedule
<jas61292> I think the biggest advantage would be eliminating outliers. While it won't have so much of an effect as to necessarily shorten all threads, it will likely cause leaders to be more aware if they are going over the average, and thus would likely cause them to be more likely to close slowing threads before they die
<jas61292> Yeah, PRC stuff definitely needs time management more than the main proces, imo
<bugmaniacbob> ehh
<bugmaniacbob> as far as I'm concerned PRC just needs a better framework than "discuss this and maybe something will come of it"
<bugmaniacbob> honestly the last cycle was fine, it's just that this cycle had a majority of threads that invited discussion without setting a direction
<jas61292> Well yes. I think PRC has time issues, but I don't know if a schedule is the best way to deal with it. I think the whole PRC thread conclusion thing we already talked about in the first thread will go a long way to help fix that
<bugmaniacbob> I'm not so sure, but if it means that Birkal will delegate the conclusion duty to someone then it's a positive change
<bugmaniacbob> I dislike how the proposal demanded a conclusion from the threads though. As in, a "draw a red line under this and move on" sort of conclusion
<bugmaniacbob> We saw discussion stop, and there should have been someone on hand to set the direction again
<Deck_Knight> Unfortunately "someone" usually has to be a corporeal being behind a computer screen.
<jas61292> Sadly, yes
<bugmaniacbob> and in a perfect world, it would be the OP, and they would care about the discussion that they started
<bugmaniacbob> not saying they don't already do, but there doesn't seem to be any expectation that they will do that currently in PRC
<bugmaniacbob> it's more or less for that reason that I wanted OP responsibilities to be extended and enshrined, in addition to just capping discussions that peter out

Basically +1 what jas said but I also don't want to see timeboxes, deadlines, or even vague averages anywhere near the process threads.

DetroitLolcat · Jul 10, 2014

I'm still against calendars and deadlines. If we have even a malleable schedule of events then that places pressure on the leadership to meet that schedule. It gives the TL and TLT one more thing to worry about. During the previous CAP, moderators occasionally approached me to inquire about threads being wrapped up, slates being posted, etc. These were usually accompanied by suggestions or their impression of how long a thread should last. These short conversations were very helpful, they helped me judge when conversations were winding down, if people were losing interest in a discussion and when people were ready to move on to the next step. Topic Leaders and Section Leaders can talk with moderators and CAP participants on IRC about when to close threads, and that communication will do a better job of pace control than any schedule, calendar, or timebox can.

I'm indifferent towards posting average thread length in OPs and threads. Now that this thread exists and Doug has compiled all of this data, it's essentially public knowledge. Anyone can look at this thread and see how long a thread generally lasts. Whether they get posted in process threads is immaterial; thread averages and sample calendars exist and will likely be referenced either formally or informally in the future. Leaders know how long the average thread lasts and can use the calendars posted to estimate how long future threads and the rest of the project will take.

DougJustDoug said:
If the Topic Leader or Section Leader would like to extend the duration of a step, for any reason, after a step has begun -- they would simply post in the thread notifying everyone that the thread will be extended for X days, and post the reason for the extension. There won't be any approval process, or anything like that. If leadership wants more time, they can take more time. NO BIG DEAL. They just have to tell people what is going on. This proposal is about setting expectations, not rushing people or forcing them to hit predefined deadlines.

I believe Doug's most recent post sets expectations by itself. We have averages, and I doubt moderators and community members are going to tolerate threads greatly exceeding those averages without good explanation.

Some of the most impactful recent PR threads have ended without a formal policy change. We concluded Checks and Counters PR by reminding everyone to respect that thread, not with a formal change in how we operate. That thread had an immense influence on CAP18 despite no formal change in policy. With PRC Review, we did have a formal change in policy but the most significant conclusion was the informal conclusion about post length and frequency. I suspect that will significantly affect the PRC in the future, and already has in the CAP Metagame thread. We rejected formally implementing the Build Triangle but still decided to respect it by striving not to make Fast, Bulky, and Powerful Pokemon. I see this thread much like those. We can reject timeboxing but still make a concerted effort to control project pace.

DougJustDoug · Jul 11, 2014

I will post a conclusion to this thread no later than Friday, July 18th. That means we can open TL/TLT nominations and get CAP 19 underway immediately.

As for the conclusion of this thread, there are a few potential outcomes (or combinations of outcomes) emerging:

1) We table some or all of these issues until the next PR cycle, after we see how CAP 19 goes

2) We publish some form of Project Schedule with average/estimated/projected thread durations and/or dates, and adjust/update it as the project unfolds

3) We include some information in the OP of each thread as to the average/estimated/projected duration and/or end date of the thread

4) Some combination of the above

I'm still not sure what is the best approach, but the posts in this thread and discussions on IRC have been helpful in assessing the pros and cons of our policy on this. More to come.

DougJustDoug · Jul 18, 2014

Conclusion

DLC made a good point that this thread and the data presented here may actually impact the pacing of future threads, if only because there is now clear information about historical norms. Also there were many valid concerns that by posting schedules and/or time expectations, we might put unnecessary and unproductive pressure on discussion leaders. Let's see how things go with CAP 19 and we may revisit this subject again in a later PR cycle.

Policy Review Project Pace and Timeboxing

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