Forum Rules said:If you are not an experienced member of the CAP community, it is strongly recommended that you do not post in this thread.
This thread is intended to contain intelligent discussion and commentary by experienced members of the CAP project regarding CAP policy, process, and rules. As such, the content of this thread will be moderated more strictly than other threads on the forum. The posting rules for Policy Review threads are contained here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1412586&postcount=2
CAP4 was the first project to begin with a Concept. In the end, the Concept turned out to be enormously successful at achieving the desired goal. It focused the entire project on a single unifying theme and eliminated a lot of distractions common to previous CAP projects.
But the Concept submission process itself was a total mess. We really need to clean it up. I only have one firm proposal, and then I will look to the rest of you to help with further improvements.
I think we should rename "Concept" to "Role".
This may seem small, but I think it will help clarify the sort of submissions we are soliciting. We want a broad description of the role the pokemon will play in the metagame. We do not want a short description of an entire pokemon. In fact, we must have almost no specifics included in the Role description.
The purpose of the Role is simply to allow the later polls to proceed with a modicum of direction. It is an organizational tool, nothing more. Too many people tried to cram too much into this early phase of the project, not realizing that our pokemon designs take shape over the course of several weeks -- not in a single thread. This led to all sorts of problems.
We must figure out a way to structure the Role submission process such that we get a general idea of where we are going, without pre-determining ANY of the fundamental aspects of the pokemon that will come later. I think renaming it to Role, will be helpful. The word "Concept" was just too all-inclusive and was an invitation for people to "design in advance".
I am interested in hearing further suggestions to improve this particular step of the process.
I realize there is a lot of energy around this issue, so I will remind everyone that this is a Policy Review. It is not a chat or back-and-forth discussion. Please compose your thoughts on this topic and make a reasoned post stating your position and/or specific proposal.