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SPL XIII - Commencement Thread
- Thread starter Ticken
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I think the way the administrative decision is worded brings an interesting question: had devin been active, would you have blocked the sellback? That seems awfully harsh to the Raiders as they effectively lose a player with no compensation in that case.
For devin, there is no more incentive to contribute to his team; he can't earn playtime, reputation, or a trophy if the Raiders win the tournament. Expecting him to contribute only to avoid a ban is ridiculous; this is a hobby, not a job. People should only be expected to participate in events they have something to gain from.
We are in a situation where both devin and the Raiders have lost already: devin is disqualified from SPL and the Raiders will have to replace him with a most likely worse player. Why is there the need of further punishment for either of them? The damage is done already.
When I was a TD, something I always liked to keep in mind was something M Dragon always said: We are not robots. What that means is that while consistency in our decisions was important, we had a responsibility to ensure the rules and punishments we applied really had a goal. I understand the TDs decision to apply the rule they have in place to ban inactive players from the next iteration of the tournament, but here I think you have to keep in mind that the sellback occurred because of circumstances outside of either devin and the Raiders' power. Recognizing that, I think the correct decision is to allow the sellback to go through and not give further punishment to devin.
For devin, there is no more incentive to contribute to his team; he can't earn playtime, reputation, or a trophy if the Raiders win the tournament. Expecting him to contribute only to avoid a ban is ridiculous; this is a hobby, not a job. People should only be expected to participate in events they have something to gain from.
We are in a situation where both devin and the Raiders have lost already: devin is disqualified from SPL and the Raiders will have to replace him with a most likely worse player. Why is there the need of further punishment for either of them? The damage is done already.
When I was a TD, something I always liked to keep in mind was something M Dragon always said: We are not robots. What that means is that while consistency in our decisions was important, we had a responsibility to ensure the rules and punishments we applied really had a goal. I understand the TDs decision to apply the rule they have in place to ban inactive players from the next iteration of the tournament, but here I think you have to keep in mind that the sellback occurred because of circumstances outside of either devin and the Raiders' power. Recognizing that, I think the correct decision is to allow the sellback to go through and not give further punishment to devin.
Gonna play Devil's Advocate here:
While the ruling is... questionable at best, there is some merit (hah) to it when looking at it from a diff. angle. Yes, Devin can't gain anything "palpable" from continuing to be active in SPL13 - but it's still a dickmove towards his teammates. I don't know him personally, but I'm sure he has ways to contribute to the team's success without playing matches, be it by building teams, helping with scouting or w/e. Just dropping out of the Discord without further notice is not the move.
Whether that in turn justifies a ban for next SPL as well is a different story
Edit: Jirachee has an interesting point about the sellback though, would be curious as well to get some TD statement on that
Edit2: Chill with the reactions guys, I said this is just playing Devil's Advocate x)
While the ruling is... questionable at best, there is some merit (hah) to it when looking at it from a diff. angle. Yes, Devin can't gain anything "palpable" from continuing to be active in SPL13 - but it's still a dickmove towards his teammates. I don't know him personally, but I'm sure he has ways to contribute to the team's success without playing matches, be it by building teams, helping with scouting or w/e. Just dropping out of the Discord without further notice is not the move.
Whether that in turn justifies a ban for next SPL as well is a different story
Edit: Jirachee has an interesting point about the sellback though, would be curious as well to get some TD statement on that
Edit2: Chill with the reactions guys, I said this is just playing Devil's Advocate x)
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I dont think you understand how it goes from devins perspective, getting banned from smogon + removed from spl is not the best motivation to help your team out where you are banned from. I think if I were to be his teammates I would understand that he doesnt want to continue contributing to his old-teamcord since there is more to peoples lives than just mons lol. so its certainly not a dick-move, people have a life outside of this online pokemon simulator.
Dont play devils advocate, this is a shocking take
Getting banned is the biggest “go away for a while” message you can get. What is the point of banning someone from Smogon if you still expect them to contribute and punish them further if they actually leave. Its like sending a guy to prison then doubling the sentence when they dont show up for work, what are you expecting
if anything the devils advocate questions are
1) why wasnt the sellback immediate when he got forum banned for the duration of spl
2) should banned users even be given the option to contribute to their teams when they arent even allowed to play/post
but saying a banned player is obliged to stick around and prep is a v poor take
Getting banned is the biggest “go away for a while” message you can get. What is the point of banning someone from Smogon if you still expect them to contribute and punish them further if they actually leave. Its like sending a guy to prison then doubling the sentence when they dont show up for work, what are you expecting
if anything the devils advocate questions are
1) why wasnt the sellback immediate when he got forum banned for the duration of spl
2) should banned users even be given the option to contribute to their teams when they arent even allowed to play/post
but saying a banned player is obliged to stick around and prep is a v poor take
Your wonky definition of devil's advocate aside, nobody said he's OBLIGED to stick around. Just that helping his teammates/friends is something you can certainly expect a decent person to do. Unless somehow he hates everybody on his former team, which then raises the question why he played in it in the first place
- Perhaps you underestimate the amount of effort that goes into prepping and helping out with a team tour actively. I wouldn't expect even a "decent" person (whatever your definition of that word is) to continue helping out, especially when there is no incentive remaining to do so - you don't get to show off those trophy pixels, you don't get the reputation that comes with it. Hell, you don't even get to play the game anymore.
- A player who has signed up for the tour has signed up to play in it, even if they've been picked up as a sub. Asking someone to continue helping a team out with no shot of playing is ridiculous unless they offer to do so - and no one is obliged (or has enough time on their hands) to do this. Even if they do, you cannot blame them for not helping out - it isn't officially your time after all, since you don't own the player anymore.
- You don't get to pick what team you're on, and what teammates you have. Most of the power with regards to that lies in the hands of the managers who bid on the players, and it is up to them to take how friendly all the teammates are into consideration or not. It is probably very hard to draft a capable team where everyone is BFFs with each other, and you have to make do with what you get.
All said and done, I feel like this decision is just illogical and has not been thought through. I hope whoever handles this stuff reconsiders the repercussions of this decision, rethinks it, and does fair by its player base (not just now, but in the future as well). Here's to hoping that there's some kind of accountability measures in place so that people aren't free to make decisions like this over and over again.
What's it with people not understanding such an age-old term as "Devil's Advocate"
For the record, I'm all FOR unbanning Devin. And as mentioned several times, no, he is NOT obliged to help out his team anymore. Reading helps. So everybody pull up your skirts and go hate on the TDs instead of me lmao
For the record, I'm all FOR unbanning Devin. And as mentioned several times, no, he is NOT obliged to help out his team anymore. Reading helps. So everybody pull up your skirts and go hate on the TDs instead of me lmao
¿Quién eres?
The problem here is that the activity rules as they are now doesn't distinguish between a general activity sellback and somebody getting forum banned. The rules do say that players sold back for activity will be barred from next SPL. By how they are currently, they should be applied the same. Which is what the hosts are doing here.
I'm not sure where the impression came from but tour hosts shouldn't make up new rules on the spot or make exceptions to the rules. Clearly there are issues with the rules, but reworking rules mid-tour is a problem in its own right so reworking this post-SPL to properly cover this and then retroactively applying it to Devin would be the least problematic approach. It's not like SPL 2023 is tomorrow anyway..
I'm not sure where the impression came from but tour hosts shouldn't make up new rules on the spot or make exceptions to the rules. Clearly there are issues with the rules, but reworking rules mid-tour is a problem in its own right so reworking this post-SPL to properly cover this and then retroactively applying it to Devin would be the least problematic approach. It's not like SPL 2023 is tomorrow anyway..
"we dont feel like dealing with this rn lets just do it next spl"
You have to understand how it looks, right? People are going to be angry when you post a decision that is clearly flawed. I don't blame the hosts for following the rules, but this is clearly an issue that could have been identified before posting it. The fix isn't exactly a head scratcher either; the TD teams can act on such a minor rule change at any time. If you weren't sure which way the decision would go at the time of posting because timing was an issue, clearly indicating it in the post would have been the way to go.
This rule is completely irrelevant to this particular iteration of SPL, so I'm not sure where the issue of fixing it midtour is?
???
If there are issues with the rules it's your only job as TDer do something to review them as soon as possible, who cares if SPL2023 is or is not tomorrow. Just to be clear, the TD team would not exist without tournament community so at least try to treat properly your playerbase, I think that the TD team literally showed 0 respect to Devin, treating him without dignity. Also I think that you TDers have written the rules so it's your responsibility to review them if they don't work, you should not use your users as cavy for your bad written rules.
This is becoming a bit much of championing/making a case out of devin so we're gonna lock this thread topic for now, so thanks for the various suggestions on ways to improve the appeal system tournament banning of players. We'll come back at a later time after devin's SPL 2023 ban with proposed changes and conclusions overall.
This ruling is making my time as commish look downright amazing. What are you TDs thinking lmao
I wasn't even involved in this decision and only saw it after it had been posted. I can't act on things I'm not aware of them happening. The hosts made a decision that were following the rules and since forum bans aren't grounds for the sellback the only thing that applies is the activity rules.
Are there problems with the rules? Yes. Which I already said we were going to look into. Just because I said post-SPL doesn't even necessarily mean that it won't be discussed before that point, but I'm not going to promise a final decision before that point. The "easy" change is disqualifying anyone with a forum ban that lasts longer than the rest of SPL, but then what about appeals? too few players? I just rather want to do it properly and cover all we can think of in one go rather than end up in a similar situation the next team tour again.
I don't necessarily agree with the decision regarding devin, but it's concerning to see this level of vitriol directed towards the SPL host and TD team. We often hear about the crisis of leadership on this site, and I don't think it's getting any better by lambasting the volunteers who run this tournament and many others. There's a way to respectfully disagree with a decision, but it's not entirely on display in this thread.
dude why are you posting then wouldnt it be better for the host/TD who made the decision to address it
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