Banning in Gen 5

[JabbaTheGriffin]

Ok, fair enough...but I still don't think that abstentions should help something get banned as they did with D-N. Since banning is an extreme measure, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the supermajority has to be of all voters explicitly voting "Uber" before banning something. I change my stance from advocating removing abstentions to just making abstentions count in the total vote tally (but not for one side or the other).

That makes just as little sense though. If a user doesn't want to vote on a Pokemon, why should their lack of a vote make it harder for a Pokemon to get banned. With what you're proposing an abstention may as well be called a vote for OU. If someone doesn't want to vote on something, their lack of a vote should not be counted towards anything. In a vote of 20 people if 10 people think a pokemon is uber, 6 think it's OU and 4 want to vote on that particular pokemon, how does it make sense to keep that Pokemon OU?

ps: agreeing with obi's proposal

 

[obi]

My proposal was simply to eliminate the part of a vote by which you say "Abstain". If you want to abstain, don't put in a vote. I think that even having the "Abstain" as an option changes the result of the vote.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

In a vote of 20 people if 10 people think a pokemon is uber, 6 think it's OU and 4 want to vote on that particular pokemon, how does it make sense to keep that Pokemon OU?

Because 10 of the 20 eligible voters did not vote to ban it. It's worth noting that in your example (like the D-N one), it would be put up for another vote during the next round and get banned if it had the same vote total. I would be OK if that happened.

Your example is a bit off because that 10/16 is not a supermajority for instant banning, though. I think the reason why I was so annoyed at the D-N vote was because it was instantly banned despite not having a clear majority of voters wanting to ban it.

I think this post sums up why I am so skeptical about the pro-ban community in gen 5:

Unless it is banned or somebody presents a good way to deal with it, I will stop playing competetive Pokemon, because I do not enjoy playing an offensive team at all, and shouldn't be forced to use one.

If this is seriously the mindset the community holds, we're in a lot of trouble.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

No, 6 of 16 voters did not vote to ban it. 4 qualified voters did not vote. Just because someone is qualified to vote does not mean their lack of a vote should count as a vote.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

No, 6 of 16 voters did not vote to ban it. 4 qualified voters did not vote. Just because someone is qualified to vote does not mean their lack of a vote should count as a vote.

10 of 20 eligible voters did not vote to ban it. The question here is whether we should count all eligible voters or only those who explicitly state one way or the other. An abstention isn't the same as no vote in this case.

A vote for uber is a vote for a ban, a vote for anything else should be a vote for no ban. This is what I assume to be true because we've established that banning is only for the most extreme circumstances, it should require a clear supermajority from those that we bothered to ask for votes. If something was truly broken then those abstentions would have shifted over to ban votes. The only thing that abstentions do is take away votes from the "no ban" side.

 

[Philip7086]

Not posting would be fine, but I like knowing when voters have had a chance to check out the voting thread. Posting and abstaining allows us to know where we're at and hopefully move on to the next vote faster. This is important for getting new tiering ready fast enough for tournaments like SPL to adopt. I think a good compromise would be for me to explicitly state that abstaining is not for people unsure about a suspect, it's for people that don't want to vote for that suspect. If you're unsure, then you MUST vote OU. Does that sound okay to everybody?

Edit: apparently jabba steals my ideas and time travels to make them look like his.

 

[eric the espeon]

If someone can qualify for voting without learning enough about a suspect to convince them it's Uber, that is a fairly strong indication that it's not a major problem in the metagame. I would suggest rather than voting Ban, Do not ban, or Abstain for each suspect, players simply listed those Pokemon they thought were major problems in the metagame so wanted to ban, and all that they did not feel were bad enough to remove were counted as no votes. Yes, it may seem odd for a person who has little experience of a suspect to have their vote counted, but the very fact that the top players have not run into it or used it on it's own suggests that the Pokemon is not as bad for the current metagame as those who wish to ban make it out to be. The burden of proof always lies with those who wish to ban, and the initial assumption is always that a suspect is not broken unless there is a fairly strong consensus that it is. Honestly, if almost 1/4 of the players who have played enough to reach the level of experience required to vote have not used it or seen it in action more than a few times, and another almost 1/4 don't think it's too bad from what they have seen, it's an utter joke to ban it. Especially considering a significant portion of those who did vote will have done so based on very limited experience.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I think a good compromise would be for me to explicitly state that abstaining is not for people unsure about a suspect, it's for people that don't want to vote for that suspect. If you're unsure, then you MUST vote OU. Does that sound okay to everybody?

If someone can qualify for voting without learning enough about a suspect to convince them it's Uber, that is a fairly strong indication that it's not a major problem in the metagame.

Thank you two for getting this idea across way better than my attempts.

I like this compromise.

 

[Chou Toshio]

So with only 1 out of a relatively small list of suspects getting banned (manaphy) in round 2, can we drop the claims of the voters being overly ban-happy? (though frankly I thought some of the other shit shoulda gotten the can . . . :P)

 

[Ice-eyes]

So with only 1 out of a relatively small list of suspects getting banned (manaphy) in round 2, can we drop the claims of the voters being overly ban-happy? (though frankly I thought some of the other shit shoulda gotten the can . . . :P)

Manaphy shouldn't have gotten the boot seeing as it hadn't had a proper test in an Aldaron meta, and all of the other suspects similarly deserved a test in a playable metagame.

 

[eric the espeon]

One Pokemon which is effectively untested and thought by a significant minority to be likely not a huge problem (and sits at 178th usage on a very similar ladder not causing too big a fuss over on PO, though that should rise significantly when people become more aware of it and we'll have a proper test) and one which was tested in an environment which made the teams which used it best far more powerful (with rain teams in general being significantly nerfed, players will be able to focus on keeping Manaphy down more easily) are banned. I'm glad to see that the players thought it best not to remove half of the top ten, and also glad to see a significant drop in abstentions, but I'm far from convinced that the ban-happy accusations were unfounded.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

So with only 1 out of a relatively small list of suspects getting banned (manaphy) in round 2, can we drop the claims of the voters being overly ban-happy? (though frankly I thought some of the other shit shoulda gotten the can . . . :P)

Doryuuzu, Latios and Rankurusu are the only three things to not get banned when put up for a vote, unless I'm mistaken. Every suspect in gen4 was banned, and 5/8 total suspects in gen5 have been banned (not even including the two abilities also banned). I don't think that claim is ready to go just yet.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

...Do we have to allow Kyogre in OU for the voter poll not to be accused of ban-happiness anymore? It wasn't even "the voters" the ones who nominated Reuniclus, but the community (from Jabba to randomnoob1234). If we can't accept the community has an opinion (as "twisted" as it may seem in some aspects) neither trust the voters they won't "fuck up", then why let them have their say on the metagame?

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I don't see why it's a big deal what "the voters" have a reputation of since the voting pool changes literally every suspect test. It's just describing a trend, I think you guys are making a big deal out of nothing.