We normally discourage people asking questions like "When is X going to happen?", since we really don't have timelines for most things, and no clear schedule. The answer is almost always, "Be patient. It will happen when it happens." But, in this case, we have had the longest layoff between CAP's in the project's entire history. For those of you that are not involved in all the off-forum activity of the CAP project (the server, the IRC channel, etc.) -- you are most likely completely in the dark on the current state of the project. So this will serve as an update for everyone to know where we stand.
It's very normal to have a lag between CAP projects. The biggest factor in the length of the intermission is Policy Review. We constantly evaluate the project and try to improve it. For a variety of reasons, we have discovered that it is a bad idea to alter the project's rules while we are in the middle of a creating a pokemon. So, we make all our process changes in between CAP projects.
After CAP 8, we made some fundamental changes to the CAP project -- most notably to the role of Topic Leader. In addition to the time required to complete the Policy Reviews threads, the PR changes have required us to make numerous updates to several reference documents. Completing those changes has been a very slow process. Also, many senior members of the project are on summer break from school, and have a variety of RL complications that have constrained their involvement with the project. For these reasons, this "PR intermission" has taken much longer than it has in the past.
Here is a list of "Things To Do" that we have been working on, listed roughly in order of difficulty/time to complete. The hardest/longest stuff is listed at the top.
As you can see, there's still several items left to be finished. But, a lot of the difficult, time-consuming stuff is done. I'm working on this as much as my schedule allows, and several other folks are helping wherever they can. When this list gets completed, or is almost all complete -- then we can kickoff CAP 9.
So, for anyone curious about the state of the next CAP, and wondering why we haven't started yet -- there's your answer.
It's very normal to have a lag between CAP projects. The biggest factor in the length of the intermission is Policy Review. We constantly evaluate the project and try to improve it. For a variety of reasons, we have discovered that it is a bad idea to alter the project's rules while we are in the middle of a creating a pokemon. So, we make all our process changes in between CAP projects.
After CAP 8, we made some fundamental changes to the CAP project -- most notably to the role of Topic Leader. In addition to the time required to complete the Policy Reviews threads, the PR changes have required us to make numerous updates to several reference documents. Completing those changes has been a very slow process. Also, many senior members of the project are on summer break from school, and have a variety of RL complications that have constrained their involvement with the project. For these reasons, this "PR intermission" has taken much longer than it has in the past.
Here is a list of "Things To Do" that we have been working on, listed roughly in order of difficulty/time to complete. The hardest/longest stuff is listed at the top.
- Policy Review threads *Done*
- Write a new Topic Leader Guide *Done*
- Update the Process Guide:
- Topic Leader *Done*
- Policy Review Committee *Done*
- Concepts *Done*
- Art Submissions *Done*
- Style and Build
- Stat Spread
- Move Discussions
- Movepool
- Add "thread hogging" rule to general forum rules *Done*
- Add the TL Guide to the EnCAPlopedia
As you can see, there's still several items left to be finished. But, a lot of the difficult, time-consuming stuff is done. I'm working on this as much as my schedule allows, and several other folks are helping wherever they can. When this list gets completed, or is almost all complete -- then we can kickoff CAP 9.
So, for anyone curious about the state of the next CAP, and wondering why we haven't started yet -- there's your answer.