Using simple majorities for tiering votes

[jrrrrrrr]

Can someone explain why we picked 2/3? We made the voting process rigorous so that a majority would be convincing. Nobody has had any issues with it until now...I'm just wondering why the extra 16% makes it so much more valid. What does that come out to, a difference of 4 votes? It doesn't really seem like a big issue to me and nobody in this thread has convinced me otherwise. It just seems like a completely arbitrary change.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority#Two-thirds_majority

Generally, 2/3 Supermajority is the one that is used by most governments to make important decisions, and as such, it seems like a good number to go with. It also happens to mean that to ban something, twice as many people have to think it's broken as think it's not broken, and a 2-1 majority seems effective.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

SDS, what does that have to do with making Pokemon decisions? Last time I checked, most governments don't make you write an essay explaining your vote. Governments don't have a three stage process with extensive testing of every candidate, allowing us to go back and fix things.

We deliberately created this system so that we know every vote is meaningful and backed by sound reasoning. On top of that, we will be voting multiple times on each suspect. A majority of votes says enough in this instance, arbitrarily pumping it up to 66% makes no sense whatsoever, especially since we have already voted. I *might* be for this if it was implemented at the start of the next stage or if someone can explain why this arbitrary number is better than what everybody agreed on months ago, but at this point there is no reason to enact this completely random change.

To me, changing it at this point would mean that there is something inherently wrong with just using a majority vote. Can someone explain why the 50% number is suddenly not good enough, considering how arduous it is to even get your vote accepted?

 

[Hipmonlee]

It doesnt have to be a change made immediately, although tbh I see no reason to hold off. Perhaps not before the manaphy vote..

And the reason is that given how arduous it is to get your vote accepted, and because of the filtering that goes on we can assume that our voters are well informed, if there isnt a convincing majority among accepted voters then we havent fulfilled the requirement that the philosophy of smogon has laid out for banning something.

The cut off point of 2/3 is arbitrary, but imo it is clearly better than 50/50.

Have a nice day.

 

[haunter]

To me, changing it at this point would mean that there is something inherently wrong with just using a majority vote. Can someone explain why the 50% number is suddenly not good enough, considering how arduous it is to even get your vote accepted?

Jrrrrrrr is right here. If only for a matter of consistency, I believe we should leave things unchanged until the end of stage 2.
If at this point we thought that a simple majority is not enough for the next suspect tests, then shouldn't we vote again for those pokemons who have been voted (and temporarily tiered) in stage 2 using that simple 51% majority?
When we'll have stage 3, instead, since we'll be deciding for the permanent ban of some pokemons (or at least for a long time ban) we could provide for higher majorities, and that would be perfectly consistent with Smogon philosophy which attempts to avoid bans as much as possible.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

If our voters are well informed, isn't a majority convincing enough? 2/3 is not clearly better than >50% to me, it is just a majority. I can't see any reason to suddenly enact this change after a bunch of tests where the majority worked out just fine. Obviously a close vote will draw attention to itself, that wouldn't change no matter where the cutoff point is. I just want to know what makes 66% more convincing than any other majority.

I'm not trying to be a douche or anything, this change just makes absolutely no sense and nobody who supports it has given any convincing reason as to why this is better.

Traditionally, we have used a system where a simple majority is required to reach a conclusion on an issue. However, there is nothing significant about a simple majority when it comes to banning a pokemon -- potentially half the sample disagreeing a pokemon should be banned is a big chunk of the relevant people, and not enough to justify banning it from the tier it is presently in.

In order to recognise the seriousness of moving a pokemon into a higher tier, I recommend that we switch to a 2/3 majority system. Specifically, if exactly 2/3 of the voters, or fewer, vote to move the pokemon into a higher tier, it should stay in the lower tier; only if more than 2/3 of the votes are to move the pokemon into the higher tier should it happen.

How is a majority "not enough to justify banning it"? What makes banning so much preferable to unbanning that unbanning only needs a simple majority? Can you explain any of your positions or are you just theorizing? If 65% of the voters think its uber, isnt that an even bigger chunk of relevant people that will be pissed off if the vote doesnt go "their way"? You are stating your opinion as fact. I don't even necessarily disagree with you, I just want to know WHY you are proposing this arbitrary change to be made when we have agreed on the same system for months already.

 

[lilyhollow]

If our voters are well informed, isn't a majority convincing enough? 2/3 is not clearly better than >50% to me, it is just a majority. I can't see any reason to suddenly enact this change after a bunch of tests where the majority worked out just fine. Obviously a close vote will draw attention to itself, that wouldn't change no matter where the cutoff point is. I just want to know what makes 66% more convincing than any other majority.

I'm not trying to be a douche or anything, this change just makes absolutely no sense and nobody who supports it has given any convincing reason as to why this is better.



How is a majority "not enough to justify banning it"? What makes banning so much preferable to unbanning that unbanning only needs a simple majority? Can you explain any of your positions or are you just theorizing? If 65% of the voters think its uber, isnt that an even bigger chunk of relevant people that will be pissed off if the vote doesnt go "their way"? You are stating your opinion as fact. I don't even necessarily disagree with you, I just want to know WHY you are proposing this arbitrary change to be made when we have agreed on the same system for months already.

51% support is not indicative of an "obvious decision," regardless of how much trust we can place in each individual voter. Sure, rigorous voting requirements can increase our confidence that people are actually voting for the right reasons, but that has nothing to do, at least directly, with the accuracy of their conclusion. Basically, I'm not understanding how an increase in the quality of the entire voter pool somehow lowers the significance of the minority's opinion, which is also by definition "well-informed"-- I think it increases our ability to perceive why a particular conclusion is made, but not (inherently) our ability to place a significant amount of faith in that conclusion.

As for whether a majority vote is automatically indicative of an "obvious decision," which you at least seem to believe when we happen to be dealing with "informed voters" (though in my mind there's really no difference, because as stated above I think voter quality has little to no direct/inherent impact on the accuracy of our conclusion), I don't think there's any way to convince you of anything in that regard. You're correct that 67% is just an arbitrary value that most people like to consider more "conclusive" than 51%, but to me it looks like things don't go much deeper than "certain members having higher standards of 'obvious' than others." I don't think there's much to say about this, it's just a disagreement.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

If anything, the fact that voters have had to prove themselves worthy with the strict requirements makes a simple majority even less convincing. The reason being that, if all voters are considered intelligent and responsible enough, then any vote against banning must have an extremely good reason behind it. It wouldn't be good enough to just say 'Oh, 51% Uber vote, that's a majority which is good enough, obviously the other 49% are wrong and are idiots' because the process was designed to eliminate that idiocy, or noobishness or whatever you want to call it.

However, I can sympathize with j7r's side of the argument here, as it is next to impossible to justify any particular voting threshold from a purely objective standpoint. I'm not necessarily in favor of 2/3 exactly, just something much higher than 50%, but of course if there was 100% confidence in the legitimacy of voters, even a single vote in disagreement with the majority would be enough doubt to keep a Pokemon out of Uber or BL. I do not have a solution to this problem myself, and there probably isn't one, but I think it is an important point that needs to be made to put this discussion into perspective.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

People who vote in opposition to the majority are not portrayed as "idiots" or "wrong". I just don't see why 67% is convincing and 50% is not. 67% isn't convincing to me, why not require 80% so we can be even more sure? Better yet, if banning is such a serious decision, wouldn't we want everybody to be on board? If a majority isn't convincing, how is making the majority arbitrarily larger going to magically make the process foolproof?

I just don't get how people could say that 51% isn't convincing and then support an equally as unconvincing 67%, is all. Nobody has given me any reasons as to why 51% isn't convincing, so obviously I will remain opposed to this unnecessary, arbitrary change. Is this a set up for next years April Fool's joke?

 

[Hipmonlee]

I dont get how you can say 67% is equally as unconvincing as 51%.

I mean, whatever you argue here, surely you have to admit that if you get 67% of people saying something is uber, it is probably more deserving of being moved to ubers than something that only gets 51% of votes.

Have a nice day.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

If something gets 67%, it is probably more deserving of being moved. How do you go from there to "something that only gets 51% of votes is not deserving of being moved"?

My opposition to this isn't about the number being more convincing, I just can't understand why people think the current system is not convincing when we not only agreed on it already but we also have been using it for 6 months. And, if I'm not supposed to be convinced by a legitimate majority, why should I be convinced by a number that we pulled randomly out of thin air? I get it...."a simple majority lets the tally get close"...but I don't think arbitrarily changing the number now makes the problem go away (since there isn't even a problem). If we were really serious about a convincing majority, we would be requiring something like 85% of votes.

Can you explain why 51%-66% is not deserving of being moved while 67% is? "We just felt like setting the number there" isn't really a convincing argument, especially since the current poll shows that this idea doesnt have 2/3 majority support.

I really hate posting the same things that Jumpman has already said, but seriously...this is exactly why we made stage 3. We already have a convincing, arduous, 3 stage process to decide these things. If this was a "one vote and the tier placement is decided" thing, I would agree without question, but it isnt. This isn't at anyone in particular but I feel like the people supporting this do not fully understand the testing process outlined in OoO.

 

[Philip7086]

It seems we are assuming everybody is a responsible voter. However, the fact of the matter is, that voter bias will always exist, especially when people can potentially stand to gain from the results of the vote. If this system is implemented, the power to put an Uber down to OU and keep it there will lay in the hands of 1/3 of the population (1/3 to vote it down to OU, 1/3 to vote for it to remain in OU). That means that it only takes 1/3 of the population to be irresponsible about the rights they were given to vote to control the whole metagame.

As you are aware of, this policy advocates more Pokemon to be allowed in OU. According to Colin, the superior environment is one in which less Pokemon are banned. This is probably why Garchomp and Wob remained OU on the Official Server after they were decided to be Uber by this community. That's his opinion, and if most people agree with his reasoning, then I will be content with following what the majority of people decide on; I'm not so stubborn to think my opinions are always the right ones. But I ask you this:

Should the metagame be decided by 1/3 of the population?

My opinion is no.

The irony of it all is, this policy would not pass based on the supermajority requirements it's pushing for.

 

[Cathy]

My opposition to this isn't about the number being more convincing, I just can't understand why people think the current system is not convincing when we not only agreed on it already but we also have been using it for 6 months.

It was not convincing six months ago either.

According to Colin, the superior environment is one in which less Pokemon are banned. This is probably why Garchomp and Wob remained OU on the Official Server after they were decided to be Uber by this community.

Actually I basically abandoned Official Server after Smogon Server was launched; I only left it up because some people wanted it up, and because it cost me nothing to do so. However, I realise there was some ambiguity about this, and that's why, as of two days ago, Officially Server has been officially closed.

In any case, the ban on Wobbuffet was widely supported--it would have easily passed the 2/3 supermajority threshold.

Should the metagame be decided by 1/3 of the population?

My opinion is no.

The metagame (by this I think you mean the rules) already is "decided" by a very small fraction of the population--namely the people who complete the requirements to vote. If you actually meant the metagame and not the rules then this is decided by the players of this game, so it would be the same ratio of people involved in deciding it with this proposal as now.

Nevertheless, your reasoning here seems to be that the point of bans is to satisfy people, but it isn't. See the rest of the topic for more details.

The irony of it all is, this policy would not pass based on the supermajority requirements it's pushing for.

The poll is a straw poll--it is not intended to have any effect, but rather to illustrate the level of support.

Nonetheless, there is no reason why--if this were a binding poll--it would require a supermajority to pass. This policy is about making it harder to move a pokemon out of standard, not maintaing the status quo--that means that if this policy applied to the vote itself, a supermajority would be required to maintain the simple majority system, not to implement the supermajority system, because implementing a supermajority system is the option that makes it harder to move a pokemon out of standard. Applying the idea to itself is not entirely straightforward though.

 

[Philip7086]

I am well aware that the reasoning for bans is not to please people. I'm not quite sure where you picked that up from my post. In fact, you didn't really address the actual point I was trying to make at all, so I'll just assume I was not being clear. Basically, what I was saying was that your method would allow 1/3 of the qualified voters to completely control the tiering. This means that people who have a bias towards letting suspects remain in a lower tier so they can abuse them have a lot of weight on the decision. Keeping it at 51% would allow for a buffer zone so that biased people who tend to only vote one way cannot influence the final decision as heavily.

I agree that banning is a serious business, and should not be taken lightly. But I think that a potentially broken Pokemon being left in a lower tier is just as, if not more detrimental to the metagame than if it were banned due to being "borderline broken." Your supermajority suggestion, therefore, does not really solve this issue. Instead, it ust places more value on one situation over the other, allowing the former to be promoted more.

 

[lilyhollow]

Basically, what I was saying was that your method would allow 1/3 of the qualified voters to completely control the tiering. This means that people who have a bias towards letting suspects remain in a lower tier so they can abuse them have a lot of weight on the decision. Keeping it at 51% would allow for a buffer zone so that biased people who tend to only vote one way cannot influence the final decision as heavily.

"Bias" goes both ways, not that I think what you're describing is even an issue, as the rigorous voting requirements are already quite effective in defining what this community views as an acceptable representative. It's hard to tell what you mean by "bias," but either way, if one third of the most well-informed and trusted members in the community simply tend to have an "abnormally" high standard of what is Uber, that's saying something regardless of what you view as the "traditional" reasoning behind an OU vote.

 

[Philip7086]

"Bias" goes both ways, not that I think what you're describing is even an issue, as the rigorous voting requirements are already quite effective in defining what this community views as an acceptable representative. It's hard to tell what you mean by "bias," but either way, if one third of the most well-informed and trusted members in the community simply tend to have an "abnormally" high standard of what is Uber, that's saying something regardless of what you view as the "traditional" reasoning behind an OU vote.

I'm well aware that bias can go either way, but you need to understand that if matters get passed on 1/3, then one side's biases will have a higher weight than the other side's. In other words, every biased vote on one side now equals one biased vote plus one unbiased vote on the other side.

 

[lilyhollow]

Yes, I understand that; it's pretty much just a rewording of the exact point of this proposal, isn't it? Giving more weight to the "biased" (again I really dispute this terminology but whatever) OU voters is just another way of saying that we aren't as threatened by those votes because keeping a Pokemon in the game is the "safer option." Obviously you dispute that to begin with as you explained in your second paragraph, but I just don't think introducing "bias" into the equation changes this argument in any meaningful way.

 

[Philip7086]

When I say "bias," I mean just that. Yes, believe it or not, even among the super-elite who somehow manage to qualify to vote, there are some who would abuse their rights, and vote for the metagame in which they are most successful, instead of the one that is balanced and free of ubers. I'm not talking about the people who tend to think lowly of borderline broken Pokemon; that's their opinion, they can vote accordingly. I'm talking about people who deliberately vote to let a suspect down into a lower tier because they like using the suspect, even though they know it's broken. I know the process of selecting voters is rigorous so that people like this don't slip through, but that doesn't change the fact that I've had people straight up tell me they voted on a biased basis.

Now that that's cleared up, my point still remains that this process would give a huge advantage to people like that. On the other hand, the 51% rule does not favor bias on either side.

 

[Tangerine]

Uh.

And what's wrong with this "bias"? That's the exact point of it. There is no "huge advantage" - we want to make it harder for things to be banned because banning is after all, serious business.

That's the point. Why are you twisting it around like it's unfair or something? That's the most ridiculous argument I've seen the entire thread. I mean, your argument is that "all supermajorities are biased", and I will ask, "so what?"

 

[Philip7086]

What am I twisting around? I wasn't aware that voicing my concern for things would generate such a hostile response o_O. Though even in your short post, you made it abundantly clear that you missed a few things that I said. For instance, although the inherent bias of supermajority voting is something I do not condone, my main concern is the fact that given we have such a tiny voter pool already, this will make it even more possible for a handful of irresponsible voters to control things.

I also questioned the value placed on the opposing scenarios. If this supermajority system is implemented, we are basically saying that it is better to have a potentially Uber Pokemon roam free in OU than it is to have a potentially OU Pokemon banned to Ubers. It's my opinion that both situations are detrimental to the competitive environment, but that doesn't mean one situation should be favored over the other. In fact, for competition's sake, I would say that the latter is more desireable to stay on the safe side. Of course, this changes when we're talking about the 3 stage process that we currently have implemented. Sure, it would be better to have the potential Uber roam free in OU to test it more for stage 3 voting, but what I'm most concerned about is when stage 3 comes around. If this supermajority polling is enforced, we could be looking at a permanent broken Pokemon in OU because 34% of the population want it there. I fail to see why this situation is more desirable than it is to play it safe.

Anyways, let's try to hold off on the hostility until we're at least a few posts into a debate ^_^.

 

[Tangerine]

For instance, although the inherent bias of supermajority voting is something I do not condone, my main concern is the fact that given we have such a tiny voter pool already, this will make it even more possible for a handful of irresponsible voters to control things.

Irresponsible voters voting something not uber isn't a problem. If something is uber, it will resurface sometime in the future.

If this supermajority system is implemented, we are basically saying that it is better to have a potentially Uber Pokemon roam free in OU than it is to have a potentially OU Pokemon banned to Ubers.

Rather, we're saying if that "potentially uber" pokemon is actually uber, then more than 66% of the people will agree that it is uber, rather than just 50%.

Sure, it would be better to have the potential Uber roam free in OU to test it more for stage 3 voting, but what I'm most concerned about is when stage 3 comes around. If this supermajority polling is enforced, we could be looking at a permanent broken Pokemon in OU because 34% of the population want it there. I fail to see why this situation is more desirable than it is to play it safe.

Whatever Stage 3 decides won't be and cannot be "final" - although it'll be pretty damn close. If something is Uber that gets voted OU (ps there is no "potentially uber") then eventually people will pick up on it and realize it, and the chances are, if there's enough support, we can redo the tiers.

 

[Veedrock]

Irresponsible voters voting something not uber isn't a problem. If something is uber, it will resurface sometime in the future.

And with this I ask why is banning serious business but unbanning is not? Based on the process the way it is now, testing suspects in a "true metagame," I would actually think that unbans are the real extreme.

Because stage 3 IS there, and suspects voted uber WILL be re-examined without a doubt, simple majority is enough for now. To those that pass it off as "further testing," it's not tested in the same environment. Say we test Garchomp again and the vote is 65-35. It goes OU. Well the metagame is different (and not "true," like in the test); it isn't the same test, and won't produce the same results. That completely defeats the purpose of the process in its current form.


EDIT: Looks like I did misinterpret your post, but I still stand behind the second half of my post.

 

[Tangerine]

And with this I ask why is banning serious business but unbanning is not? Based on the process the way it is now, testing suspects in a "true metagame," I would actually think that unbans are the real extreme.

Because stage 3 IS there, and suspects voted uber WILL be re-examined without a doubt, simple majority is enough for now. To those that pass it off as "further testing," it's not tested in the same environment. Say we test Garchomp again and the vote is 65-35. It goes OU. Well the metagame is different (and not "true," like in the test); it isn't the same test, and won't produce the same results. That completely defeats the purpose of the process in its current form.

The quote you quoted me from answers the question on why banning is serious business.

If that happens, and people later believe that garchomp is uber, I don't see why we won't have a vote again.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Because stage 3 IS there, and suspects voted uber WILL be re-examined without a doubt, simple majority is enough for now. To those that pass it off as "further testing," it's not tested in the same environment. Say we test Garchomp again and the vote is 65-35. It goes OU. Well the metagame is different (and not "true," like in the test); it isn't the same test, and won't produce the same results. That completely defeats the purpose of the process in its current form.

The "True Metagame" here is a joke. All that happens when we test a Pokemon on its own in the Suspect Test ladder is that we get a highly specialized ladder where the Suspect is used more than Kyogre in Ubers battles (and that's a shitload), and where packing 2, 3 counters to the suspect is not only biable but effective and probably encouraged. Now, I have acknowledged earlier that I have seen the merit of this Suspect Test metagame, and it does give us good and useful information, but it is nowhere near what it's like for the suspect to compete in the standard metagame.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

If something is uber, it will resurface sometime in the future.

Yeah it will resurface, during stage 3. This part I quoted is the whole point of stage 3, almost word for word.

Blammo, problem solved. Now we dont have to make a pedantic and ignorantly arbitrary change to the voting process that we agreed on and have been using for 6 months!