The UU Senate

[Heysup]

The old old early gen 4 suspect test method produced pretty good results (even though I didn't agree with a lot of bans). The reason it was stopped was because it was an absurd amount of work to possibly not even get anything done. The council setting makes it just 5 of the most qualified people (as defined Jabba (yes I know it's subjective, but that doesn't mean wrong)) and essentially is based on whether you can analyze, defend, and back up your decisions. Narrowing down the voters into people that have shown they can and will be objective about their decisions only further boosts the objectivity of the suspect tests.

I think you're combining two different ideals that aren't necessary logical equivalents. Appealing to popularity, or in other words, "majority rules" is actually a logical fallacy (read this and this if you like). The public (or in this case, everyone who's good enough / has enough time to make the requirements) does not necessarily make the right decision but the decision most of them want. The council in this sense actually kills two birds with one stone (eliminates the fallacy, and reduces the ridiculous amount of work).

A council still is not a certainty but it's a significant increase in the chances to be "the right" choice. There's no way to even tell what the "right" choice is since that itself is subjective. It does ensure validity that a requirements-based voting does not.

EDIT: Jabba won't discriminate based on your knowledge of the english language that's a ridiculous assumption.

 

[Pikapwnd]

I like the system, and its not as if we can't participate. Get on IRC and debate with them, provide calcs and logs, you do this and they won't ignore you. As long as these senate members are committed to doing this I'm completely game, just don't want somebody who is making half assed desicions based on maybe playing a little bit. Sure they can get their reqs and look good but you have to put time in to see the meta for what it is. These senators need to be active consistently, and maybe have a few guys from different time zones for players. Thats all, this has my support.

 

[LMK]

I'd say the large voter pool of the suspect testing process did a very good job at minimizing individual bias, and reflected accurately the overall community's viewpoint on suspect issues.

Honestly, I don't think the suspect testing process has produced any unreasonable ban thus far. The only mishap I could identify is the recent vote on baton pass. However, I believe the results would have been much different if there was a clarification on the OP stating to only ban BP if you truly think the move Baton Pass is broken, not the strategy it's associated with (Smash Passing / BP Chains).

I have to echo these thoughts. What was so wrong with the suspect process that we have to have a new system? If we don't need a new system then why are we trying to implement one?

As it stands the senate would be a minority that can vote without repercussion. I don't think the UU community needs appointed representatives. The only way I'd see this new system as being somewhat equal to the suspect process is if senators were voted on and had set terms. The UU community should vote based off submitted applications in which each individual would have to outline their mindset as it relates to balancing the metagame. When the term is up they can opt to go for reelection. There should also be flexibility when it comes to reintroducing certain pokemon to the metagame. If senate group A deems Pokemon X broken but the metagame significantly changed then senate group B should have the power to reintroduce pokemon X for testing if the community wants it and a majority vote is reached. And then you start from there doing down what if scenarios and the whole deal seems unnecessary.

You know, if Smogon wants to implement a system that is representative of what the people want how about we vote to see if the community actually want the process to change.

 

[Pocket]

Okay, Heysup, you emphasized that getting this position is no walk in the park (which is probably why Jabba has set the senate size so low), and the people selected are truly committed to the health of the metagame... definitely worth a try. Seems like my worries will not be realized, as long as the selection process does a good job in selecting unbiased, well-informed, open-minded candidates.

True, Pikapwnd, the rest of the community can contribute through actively sharing their play experiences in discussions taking place on the forums or the irc channel.

 

[jas61292]

From one of the links:

Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
Therefore X is true.

As you stated, this is a fallacy. This however:

Most people approve of X
therefore we should do X

is not.

As we have agreed, decisions are subjective. This means, there is no truth to anything we do. Everything is just an opinion. In such a case, saying that we should do the popular thing is not a fallacy at all.

There is no right decision. However that doesn't mean we shouldn't make the game what most people want. Claiming that most people wanting something makes it right is stupid. But claiming that something that has no right answer is better decided on by a small group then by the populace is equally foolish.

If there were an objective way to determine brokenness, then I would agree that a council is better than a popular vote. But then, if that were true, a council would be unnecessary because we could just have a computer decide it for us.

You know, if Smogon wants to implement a system that is representative of what the people want how about we vote to see if the community actually want the process to change.

Exactly

 

[CaptainBlue]

I couldn't agree more with jas's last point. I do not believe there is anything inherently wrong with the previous system, and I suspect that many share my view. If the majority belive that the senate is a better proposal than that is fair enough, but I also feel that the community should have input on choosing the method of testing.

Most people approve of X
therefore we should do X

This is only incorrect when the level of understanding of the majority is way below the level of understanding of the select few. In this case, especially since uu is not the mainstream meta and as such attracts a more thoughtful userbase, I do not beleive there is much truth in this.

 

[Heysup]

You do realize that those two statements are logically equivalent as long as your suggestion of what we "should" do is the best choice. You're just adding another part after the statement, not fundamentally changing it.

Most people approve of X.
Therefore X is the best decision AND we should do X.

Still fallacious and still not likely to sway anyone's decision.

Think about the big picture. You're suggesting an entirely subjective to every single person's idea of what their preferred metagame (ill-defined at best) where as a more objective and competitive procedure is to remove the uncompetitive (still subjective, but defined) aspects from the metagame.

For example:

I would prefer to never have to deal with Alakazam. It's not broken but I'd just prefer it not be there.

vs

Alakazam is broken, I try to prepare for it but it still destroys every team concept I come up with. Any time I can beat it I take too big of a loss to handle the rest of the opponents team, though I still enjoy using it. Ban it.

Our goal is to create the most competitive metagame. If it makes it easier to understand, our preference is to make the most competitive metagame. It's the big picture not little bans here and there.

EDIT: @ Blue Tornado, you may want to read some of the posts in this thread before making baseless posts that are less sound than those that have already been addressed.

 

[Moo]

Love the idea, but I think 5 is a bit low for a number.

 

[Blue_Tornado]

I've honestly never understood the benefit of councils. The ONLY true pros to a council is usually its ability to make quick decisions. And I say usually because even these things take a while in this half-assed community, but I'm not going there. If you claim that a large group of skilled and experienced players can have their opinion swayed / set easily, then you also need to show that a very tiny group of players don't suffer from the same problem. In my opinion, it is much, MUCH easier to sway someone's opinion in a group of, say, 10 people, when three have already presented a very nice, similar opinion and two to four others change their opinion as a result. Statistically speaking, it's harder to change the opinion of a LARGE group of players in contrast to a SMALL group of players. If three respected players present a strong opinion, a group of ten is more likely to follow suit than a group of, say, a hundred. And don't give me the "a council decision undergoes debates and whatever" bullshit because what actually happens is the "louder" side making the other side essentially give up, in an illusion that their opinion is worse.

A decision is always more accurate when a larger group takes part in it. I hate councils. Always have, always will.

 

[Oglemi]

You know, if Smogon wants to implement a system that is representative of what the people want how about we vote to see if the community actually want the process to change.

This is actually really funny. If you haven't noticed, Smogon never used to be a democracy. The suspect test was a trial thing that Aeolus and Jumpan16 implemented for DPP, and it worked for the most part and is why they continued to use it. Before that, the leaders of the site (chaos, etc.) just determined what was too strong for the metagame and went from there (granted it was easier to determine Ubers for the most part). And RBY leader Hipmonlee just dismantled the BL tier of RBY because he felt like it, just more on a whim than anything.

Smogon never was a democracy. And the current tiering leaders (me/Nails, Jabba, and Vader) were told we could no longer continue with suspect tests from the newest site leaders (at least for now, who knows maybe we will go back to suspect tests), hence the new UU Senate and the RU (Jedi) Council. Obviously this is going to be unpopular with the masses because we're effectively revoking democracy, but to say that the council system is worse than suspect tests is a blantant fallacy.

The goal is to get a good, balanced metagame. How we get there really doesn't matter as long as we get there.

On that note, even if these councils "mess up," with the tier leaders stronger power over the tiers, we can always go to a revote on banned or unbanned Pokemon at a later time (example: me and Nails could just ban whatever the hell we wanted to in RU as long as it was obviously broken, such as Venomoth and Yanmega).

Finally, while I don't necessarily agree with having only 5 people and them having a life-long position, I trust Jabba to make the correct choices for what is best for the tier, and so should everybody else.

 

[LMK]

This is actually really funny. If you haven't noticed, Smogon never used to be a democracy. The suspect test was a trial thing that Aeolus and Jumpan16 implemented for DPP, and it worked for the most part and is why they continued to use it. Before that, the leaders of the site (chaos, etc.) just determined what was too strong for the metagame and went from there (granted it was easier to determine Ubers for the most part). And RBY leader Hipmonlee just dismantled the BL tier of RBY because he felt like it, just more on a whim than anything.

Smogon never was a democracy. And the current tiering leaders (me/Nails, Jabba, and Vader) were told we could no longer continue with suspect tests from the newest site leaders (at least for now, who knows maybe we will go back to suspect tests), hence the new UU Senate and the RU (Jedi) Council. Obviously this is going to be unpopular with the masses because we're effectively revoking democracy, but to say that the council system is worse than suspect tests is a blantant fallacy.

The goal is to get a good, balanced metagame. How we get there really doesn't matter as long as we get there.

On that note, even if these councils "mess up," with the tier leaders stronger power over the tiers, we can always go to a revote on banned or unbanned Pokemon at a later time (example: me and Nails could just ban whatever the hell we wanted to in RU as long as it was obviously broken, such as Venomoth and Yanmega).

Finally, while I don't necessarily agree with having only 5 people and them having a life-long position, I trust Jabba to make the correct choices for what is best for the tier, and so should everybody else.

Oh trust me, I was around before the democratic revolution. The post count may be low but I've been lurking since my join date.

I was unaware the such a decision was made. Well then, if the senate process will be in effect no matter what can we alter the rules? It seems like many people would happy if the number of senators was expanded and the appointments were not lifelong. That doesnt seem like too much of a stretch really. I don't have a distrust of the powers at be. I just feel like the particular details of this new process could be better.

Oh, and its not that the senate is worse per se, I just don't see how it is better. If the goal is to make a balanced metagame I do not comprehend how giving a qualified minority the power to determine bans is inherently better than letting the qualified masses determine bans. Does that make sense? I have nothing against change, when it's for the better. I see this change as arbitrary simply because I don't understand the logic.

 

[New World Order]

Could we have something similar to this for OU?

EDIT: I agree 5 is a bit low, but I guess for UU, it might suffice due to relatively less people playing. If something simlar is implemented for OU, there should most certainly be more people.

 

[Oglemi]

Oh, and its not that the senate is worse per se, I just don't see how it is better. If the goal is to make a balanced metagame I do not comprehend how giving a qualified minority the power to determine bans is inherently better than letting the qualified masses determine bans. Does that make sense? I have nothing against change, when it's for the better. I see this change as arbitrary simply because I don't understand the logic.

It's not that necessarily the council/senate that is better, but the leaders' stronger power over the direction of the tiering that's better. With the suspect tests, the leaders (Aeolus, Jumpman16, Philip7086, reachzero, etc.) couldn't really go back on any of the democratic votes. With the council setting, "experimenting" (bad word but yeah) with the metagame (banning and unbanning) Pokemon is conceivably easier (not that we will constantly be banning and unbanning things, quite the opposite to be true). Plus, changes can be implemented quicker, because we don't have to wait 3 weeks to initiate a change, we can do it whenever we feel like it tbh.

I know my thoughts might be a little hard to follow at this point (and I really shouldn't be talking for Jabba he might have something totally different planned, I'm more talking for myself) but we still haven't worked out the kinks yet. So, bear with us.

 

[Blue_Tornado]

It's not that necessarily the council/senate that is better, but the leaders' stronger power over the direction of the tiering that's better. With the suspect tests, the leaders (Aeolus, Jumpman16, Philip7086, reachzero, etc.) couldn't really go back on any of the democratic votes.

What the hell are you saying here? "Leaders didn't have as big of an influence on the vote, so the council is necessary". Why should they? What makes leaders' opinions better than other voters' opinions?

With the council setting, "experimenting" (bad word but yeah) with the metagame (banning and unbanning) Pokemon is conceivably easier (not that we will constantly be banning and unbanning things, quite the opposite to be true). Plus, changes can be implemented quicker, because we don't have to wait 3 weeks to initiate a change, we can do it whenever we feel like it tbh.

Wrong. We all saw how quick the 4th gen council dealt with their one decision. In case you weren't there at the time: it wasn't so quick at all!

 

[Oglemi]

What the hell are you saying here? "Leaders didn't have as big of an influence on the vote, so the council is necessary". Why should they? What makes leaders' opinions better than other voters' opinions?

And I could ask what makes the masses smarter than the leaders' and councils' opinions?

There isn't a straight answer. And if you read my post before you'd realize we were told to discontinue suspect testing. (at least I was anyway)

If you can come up with a democratic system that is better than the council/senate system and isn't suspect testing, I'm all ears. The only thing that I can come up with is a paragraph SEXP system that UU did for a while, but even that isn't really different from a council setting because the leaders are still choosing who gets to vote.

Wrong. We all saw how quick the 4th gen council dealt with their one decision. In case you weren't there at the time: it wasn't so quick at all!

And in case you aren't paying attention to the RU system at all you'd realize that it's only been 4 days since we've posted the thread saying who was on the council and we're discussing/possibly voting tonight. 5 days isn't that long if you ask me. The reason behind this quickness is because me and Nails handpicked without a nomination process as to who is on the council based on forum activity/ladder standing/IRC activity/shown metagame intelligence. We will be posting a thread in the near future as to how we will be determining future members too, but I can assure you it won't be a nomination process.

This is my last reply to this thread, but hopefully you can see more clearly where at least I'm coming from and my understanding as to the direction of the tiering process.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

The only problem with the Senate/Council/Voting Body is that there is a limited number of spots. This method is a huge step in the right direction except for that only 5 people can be on the Senate. It makes the assumption that at any time there are only 5 people qualified to decide if something is broken or not. This is the same reason why the Smogon Council at the end of Gen IV was an enormous failure.

What if there are 20 applications, 16 of which are utter garbage? You would have to accept one person who has no idea what they're doing. What if you receive 20 applications, and 10 of them are excellent. You deny 5 competent people the right to vote simply because 5 is the magic number.

A more selective Suspect process is essential to creating future metagames. However, I believe we must be wary of becoming too democratic (having anyone with a 1400 or above being allowed to vote) or to dictatorial (executive decisions* deciding everything). Subjectivity isn't bad either. Jabba** is more than competent to choose qualified voters, and that's why he's the tiering leader!

However, one competent voter shouldn't be allowed to vote just because there isn't enough room for him. This is probably the one thing the democratic Suspect Test system got right. What if you got six equally excellent reports? Would one person have to sit out? What if you got fifty equally excellent reports? (unlikely, but possible). If there are that many qualified voters, then that completely defeats the purpose of a fair Suspect Test system.

I believe that if the "5 people only" restriction was lifted, this new system would be virtually perfect.


P.S. I don't like the "one simple majority=permanent ban". If I could I would like to throw around a few ideas:

If a Suspect is voted UU, then it should not be voted on again until other Pokemon leave the UU tier (either by OU usage or by banishment to BL).
Also, since a suspect can always be voted on again, I don't think one simple majority should be a permanent ban to BL. Maybe 4-1 (if 5), 5-2 (if 7), 6-3 (if 9), et cetera? I don't think 50%+1 should equate to definite brokenness and immediate necessity for a ban.

EDIT: Why the hell am I posting this when I could be laddering?

*Executive decisions deciding Suspects is ten times worse than having too large a voter pool.
**while sober

 

[Thatsjustpeachy]

This is definitely an interesting idea to say the least. I would love to be a part of it but I know I won't have time for the position, so good luck to everyone. The biggest advantage to this is that the ladder will finally be competitive again =P.

I dont see this happening. It might be competitive between 10 people maybe, but not the entire UU ladder which is what the old method would have done. Without an incentive for the average battler, less will try to get high up on the UU ladder. I liked the old system because it gave everyone a chance as long as they met the mark, basically the guarantee of being part of the process(Not to mention you get a stylish voter checkmark).

I remember when people were laddering constantly for like the last 3 days of the voting period for the recent OU vote. I talked to alot on ladder and most people that were lesser known/unknown on smogon but still were competent in laddering wanted to earn the checkmark and participate in the vote as a benchmark for themselves in terms of battling skill. I even started battling because i wanted to participate in the vote since I felt I would be participating in something bigger. The old method offered everyone a chance, new battlers or experienced battlers, to participate. With this method it's going to be harder to participate for newer members. I mean sure you can post stuff about the metagame and engage in arguments but the actual battling aspect of it diminishes due to the reduced number of spots.

Its hard to describe but i just dont think that this new method will generate the competitiveness. The badge, the guarantee to be part of something bigger, and the fact that everyone had an equal opportunity regardless of knowledge background(which i know is important but newcomers can get a grasp and understand the metagame quickly as well) were all enticing factors to get good at laddering.

Edit: Im not bashing the effectiveness of the system in creating a better metagame. I just think the old process was more enticing to the newcomers to the tier. The elite battlers will likely be indifferent since they will likely still contribute to metagame changes anyways.

 

[Shy Glizzy]

What was wrong with last gen's method? I think most of us would agree that 4th gen UU's metagame was balanced, or at least very close.

 

[Aldaron]

We were commanded by the top brass to stop suspect tests.

Whether we wish to or not.

We can either whine about it or try to make the best of what is given to us.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

The only problem with the Senate/Council/Voting Body is that there is a limited number of spots. This method is a huge step in the right direction except for that only 5 people can be on the Senate. It makes the assumption that at any time there are only 5 people qualified to decide if something is broken or not. This is the same reason why the Smogon Council at the end of Gen IV was an enormous failure.

What if there are 20 applications, 16 of which are utter garbage? You would have to accept one person who has no idea what they're doing. What if you receive 20 applications, and 10 of them are excellent. You deny 5 competent people the right to vote simply because 5 is the magic number.

I'll definitely consider upping the number depending on how many quality applications I receive

Jabba isn't going to be binded by his own rules on any hypothetical scenario in which "common sense" should prevail.

 

[Mike Legend]

We were commanded by the top brass to stop suspect tests.

Whether we wish to or not.

We can either whine about it or try to make the best of what is given to us.

let's go to pokemon-online

 

[PttP]

why would anyone want this job between all the time spent with consistently beating hax on the ladder and having to deal with a lot of shitty np arguments

could actually deprieve your life of all joy and at the very least give you bad acne

 

[Banedon]

I got a suggestion Jabba ... why not have a nomination thread where we nominate senators (instead of Pokemon, moves etc)? Not only would this show who we think contributes good stuff to the forums / IRC, it would also give those people some motivation to ladder and write an application.

 

[Avira]

I got a suggestion Jabba ... why not have a nomination thread where we nominate senators (instead of Pokemon, moves etc)? Not only would this show who we think contributes good stuff to the forums / IRC, it would also give those people some motivation to ladder and write an application.

This sounds like a great suggestion. Hopefully, Jabba considers this.

 

[FlareBlitz]

I dont see this happening. It might be competitive between 10 people maybe, but not the entire UU ladder which is what the old method would have done. Without an incentive for the average battler, less will try to get high up on the UU ladder. I liked the old system because it gave everyone a chance as long as they met the mark, basically the guarantee of being part of the process(Not to mention you get a stylish voter checkmark).

This is a good point. If we eliminate suspect testing, we will need to introduce some other element that makes the average person want to play competitively on the ladder. I know we can all say "people should be playing competitively regardless etc" but everyone here knows from experience that the ladder is at its best in the middle of a suspect testing round. I am not sure what our solution can be, but this is certainly an issue that should be addressed.