Updating and Standardizing Format Pages

[UT]

(this post is lightly outdated, see the announcement post)

Hello friends! One of the things we have been discussing in cc-staff recently is enhancing the format pages on the dex; they're a great, easy link to share with people, can make forum resources much more accessible for users that aren't familiar with forums, and long term we hope to integrate with Chatot and PS! more effeciently.

To the last point, and to also make maintaining them more straightforward, I wanted to start a conversation about standardizing what the format page looks like. This will make integration much easier when it happens, and hopefully make maintaining the page easier for C&C moderators.

As a starting point, Isaiah and I have made a first pass at the AAA format page to try and make the resources and important links easily visible and accessable, even for users that may not be familar with how Smogon or PS! chatrooms work.

AAA Format Page

Questions for y'all:

Is the presentation good? Can it be improved while still being easily parsable for future integration?

Are there other, common resource types that should be standardized? Non-standard resources can absolutely be included in the format page as well, they just may not be called out specifically in future integration efforts.

Are there any challenges you currently have with maintaining the dex page? Any improvements, technical or policy, that would make it easier to do so?

This is meant to be open ended, so if you have any feedback on this idea, please feel free to bring up anything and everything!

 

[Pubo]

Hey i like it a lot, if anything i would add the respective C&C forum link to help people get more interest in C&C in general. Particularly, i only found where and how analyses were written some months after creating my account.

 

[UT]

Okay now that almost everyone has updated this and we've gotten a chance to play around with it, I wanted to talk about what people are putting there, how we want to integrate with PS! / chatot, and if there are any changes or improvements to be had.

The main questions I want to answer are what things do we want integrated with Chatot / PS!, what things do we want on the dex but not necessarily linked to Chatot / PS!, and are there any display improvements we want to make on either end?

To get started, here are some examples of things we are commonly seeing in the resources section:

breakdown

Common resources:
Sample teams
Viability rankings
Speed tiers
Role compendium

Get connected (no Smogon account):
PS! Room
Discord

Get connected (yes Smogon account):
Simple Questions, Simple Answers
Metagame Discussion Threads
C&C forums

Miscillanious other threads:
Tiering information (common in lower standard tiers)
Team bazaars
Stuff like this: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...pes-and-cores-a-data-driven-approach.3654874/

I think that the no-brainer inclusions in the resources section are the common resources, PS! rooom, and Discord. They offer the highest value to new users and the lowest barrier to entry. I think everything else should be on the dex (which will also be linked by chatot / PS!) to increase their visibility, but do not need to be included in the integration.

An example of how I think this could look; as a reminder "Resources" would be called out in the Chatot / PS! links, while "Contributions" would still be accessible through the main dex link:

Screenshot

formatting if we want to steal it

[overview]

Almost Any Ability (AAA) is an Other Metagame where Pokémon can now use almost any ability! That means that you can give your [Corviknight](/dex/sv/pokemon/corviknight/) (ability: sv/Fluffy) or your (pokemon: sv/Talonflame) (ability: sv/Magic Guard). Some abilities are just too strong on any Pokémon, however, so make sure to see the full banlist below.

This metagame is run by [Isaiah](/forums/members/375662/) and a council. It has a permanent ladder on Pokémon Showdown!

[resources]
Sample teams: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3710568/post-9390590

Viability rankings: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3710571/post-9390607

Speed tiers: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3710571/post-9390609

Role compendium: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3710571/post-9390610

Discord: https://discord.gg/djkXr4D

Pokemon Showdown! room: https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/othermetas

[description]
Contributions and Advanced Resources
=================================
Discuss the metagame yourself in the [metagame discussion thread](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3710568/)!

Write analyses in the [Contributions and Corrections forum](https://www.smogon.com/forums/forums/om-um-analyses.763/)!

Check out this really in-depth guide to AAA teambuilding [that I totally didn't make up for the purposes of this example](https://www.smogon.com/forums/forums/om-um-analyses.763/)!

The advanteges I see to this are that the Chatot / PS! links are focused on stuff that is accessible and relevant to new players, while we still give flexibility for sections to highlight new contribution paths and explain more in depth resources as needed.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Insults? Suggestions? Improvements? Disagreements?

 

[chaos]

quick thoughts

- For teambuilder integration at least I agree that having stuff like C&C visible isn't useful, it's not particularly relevant to teambuilding

- Chatot integration I could see wanting the link easily available, like if you're using the /tier command as a quick way to get a "directory" of a format. People on smogon discords are more likely to be integrated in the community than random people using the teambuilder, and there isn't a clear call to action in discord usage like "build a team"

- What if there were different kinds of resources? Like for the teambuilder, it could group the teambuilding specific links together, and then below that have like Dex page | C&C | Discord, idk

- Non-[resource] links get the advantage of having prose. This is something I've been concerned about from the start, I sometimes think the wall of blue links is overwhelming and it would be nice to break it up. Some ideas I had include 1) icon bullet points for PS/Discord, maybe also for Smogon links, 2) allow resource names to be like The [Metagame analysis] thread which says that only the text within [] is linked and the rest is just normal text

- I'm concerned that formats just... won't update stuff that isn't linked from chatot. These pages haven't been loved as much as I would like and I don't want people to get the idea that the only reason to update them is for the integrations. They're important and in and of themselves. Maybe having the "For more info, see this format's Dex page" linked from chatot and the general workflow involving the dex page will keep this page in people's mind, though