reyscarface
World Defender
First things first, here is the full context for whoever wants to read it: https://pastebin.com/nd6cbCUS
Suspect testing has been since their inception, aside from tournaments, Smogon's most defining characteristic as a competitive website. The idea that there is a community-and-leader driven discussion followed by a choice of action is the one thing that separates this site with all others. The Suspect test has underwent several changes and has evolved to what we have now: The Council chooses the problem in the metagame, and the community decides its fate.
This is the theory of it.
As I see it there are several glaring problems in practice with the approach we have right now:
1) As per Council members, the suspect test is basically a formality. The main reasons for this, as explained by them, is that 2 weeks of a Suspect test do basically nothing to change the mind of the voters. The metagame of a suspect test might have existed for months previous to the suspect test, and the Council thinks (probably correctly) that 2 weeks of playing the same thing means nothing. As it stands, the test are just used to gather "competent" voters that will decide whether the problematic element will be banned or not. Or do they? This leads to...
2) Suspect tests as they are right now are a false illusion of "democracy" and "community involvement". The current philosophy of the OU council is to only put up for test things that they (and most of the tournament community one can assume) have deemed way over the top. This means that for a test to happen, the Council has to basically be in agreement that this element is... well... broken. In other words, controversial potential problematic elements are left in a limbo in which a lot of people consider them troublesome for the metagame, but since it is not clear cut, the Council will not put a test up. Which means...
3) The Council decides the metagame. If the only elements that are tested are those that the Council deem way over the top, to the degree of basically near unanimous (or unanimous idk) agreement, then it is no surprise these elements will be banned when put up for testing. This is equivalent to a Council unilaterally deciding what to ban without a need for a test, as if it were quickbans, just that this process is long and tedious.
This might be ideal for some people, but to me and many others it is not. That said, I am not gonna get into the theme of what the Council's responsability should be because thats better left off for another thread.
So what do we do?
One of the things I think we should start taking into account is that this process is made by US. There is no authority over us in the matter of competitive Pokemon, and even if there was, we dont care. We play in Smogon with Smogon rules. What I am trying to say is we shouldnt be scared of changing things up because of precedent or because "this doesnt seem like the correct way to do things" or whatever preconceived idea one might have. To put an example, the idea that to Quickban a ridiculous element such as Moody in SS we need full agreement from the council, and whatever weeks they might need to make up their mind, when the community is basically BEGGING for this shit to be gone is really confusing. Things are slow, innaction is prefered to action, thats how things are right now (1 year or whatever without a test in SM is another example despite MULTIPLE cries for action). To echo blunder's sentiment of "There should be a suspect test at all points in time" <- Why is this not a thing? Whats stopping us from constantly suspecting stuff? A test that ends in no ban IS NOT A WASTE OF TIME.
So with this in mind, there are several things we can do. There is no right or wrong here, just change and evolving in order to achieve a better state of things.
1) McMeghan brought up the option akin to how back in the day people got reqs in order to NOMINATE the mons that were going to be put up under the guillotine. This is one course of action.
2) Periodic polls to the community at large on if they feel there is a problematic element in the metagame at the time. If there is a division on "yes" and "no", subsequently another poll asking people what they feel stands out as problematic. Even if its a divisive choice, if there is enough support, there is 0 reason not to test it.
3) Even if we were to have more frequent tests, the issue arises that it is still 2 weeks of a Suspect test vs whatever amount of time people have created their opinions from. To tackle this we can take different approaches, such as 2 weeks of an inverse test, AKA remove the problematic element from the metagame followed by 1 or 2 weeks of the mon being thrown back into the metagame. Just an option to shake things up. Sure this adds more time to an already slow process but then again at least something is being done. Action > Innaction.
4) Lets suspect test several things at once! It worked back in BW, could work now.
Again these are just ideas, I repeat that there is no right or wrong here. There is literally no correct or incorrect, as a suspect test vote is based on OPINION. We created the suspect test process, there is no reason why we cant revamp it fully. And if we fuck up, its about time we get into the mindset of "Okay, we admit a fuck up was made, we will revert it / correct it". Accepting mistakes is not a sign of dumbness its a sign of wisdom (cough cough MOODY).
But yeah lets fix this please.
Suspect testing has been since their inception, aside from tournaments, Smogon's most defining characteristic as a competitive website. The idea that there is a community-and-leader driven discussion followed by a choice of action is the one thing that separates this site with all others. The Suspect test has underwent several changes and has evolved to what we have now: The Council chooses the problem in the metagame, and the community decides its fate.
This is the theory of it.
As I see it there are several glaring problems in practice with the approach we have right now:
1) As per Council members, the suspect test is basically a formality. The main reasons for this, as explained by them, is that 2 weeks of a Suspect test do basically nothing to change the mind of the voters. The metagame of a suspect test might have existed for months previous to the suspect test, and the Council thinks (probably correctly) that 2 weeks of playing the same thing means nothing. As it stands, the test are just used to gather "competent" voters that will decide whether the problematic element will be banned or not. Or do they? This leads to...
2) Suspect tests as they are right now are a false illusion of "democracy" and "community involvement". The current philosophy of the OU council is to only put up for test things that they (and most of the tournament community one can assume) have deemed way over the top. This means that for a test to happen, the Council has to basically be in agreement that this element is... well... broken. In other words, controversial potential problematic elements are left in a limbo in which a lot of people consider them troublesome for the metagame, but since it is not clear cut, the Council will not put a test up. Which means...
3) The Council decides the metagame. If the only elements that are tested are those that the Council deem way over the top, to the degree of basically near unanimous (or unanimous idk) agreement, then it is no surprise these elements will be banned when put up for testing. This is equivalent to a Council unilaterally deciding what to ban without a need for a test, as if it were quickbans, just that this process is long and tedious.
This might be ideal for some people, but to me and many others it is not. That said, I am not gonna get into the theme of what the Council's responsability should be because thats better left off for another thread.
So what do we do?
One of the things I think we should start taking into account is that this process is made by US. There is no authority over us in the matter of competitive Pokemon, and even if there was, we dont care. We play in Smogon with Smogon rules. What I am trying to say is we shouldnt be scared of changing things up because of precedent or because "this doesnt seem like the correct way to do things" or whatever preconceived idea one might have. To put an example, the idea that to Quickban a ridiculous element such as Moody in SS we need full agreement from the council, and whatever weeks they might need to make up their mind, when the community is basically BEGGING for this shit to be gone is really confusing. Things are slow, innaction is prefered to action, thats how things are right now (1 year or whatever without a test in SM is another example despite MULTIPLE cries for action). To echo blunder's sentiment of "There should be a suspect test at all points in time" <- Why is this not a thing? Whats stopping us from constantly suspecting stuff? A test that ends in no ban IS NOT A WASTE OF TIME.
So with this in mind, there are several things we can do. There is no right or wrong here, just change and evolving in order to achieve a better state of things.
1) McMeghan brought up the option akin to how back in the day people got reqs in order to NOMINATE the mons that were going to be put up under the guillotine. This is one course of action.
2) Periodic polls to the community at large on if they feel there is a problematic element in the metagame at the time. If there is a division on "yes" and "no", subsequently another poll asking people what they feel stands out as problematic. Even if its a divisive choice, if there is enough support, there is 0 reason not to test it.
3) Even if we were to have more frequent tests, the issue arises that it is still 2 weeks of a Suspect test vs whatever amount of time people have created their opinions from. To tackle this we can take different approaches, such as 2 weeks of an inverse test, AKA remove the problematic element from the metagame followed by 1 or 2 weeks of the mon being thrown back into the metagame. Just an option to shake things up. Sure this adds more time to an already slow process but then again at least something is being done. Action > Innaction.
4) Lets suspect test several things at once! It worked back in BW, could work now.
Again these are just ideas, I repeat that there is no right or wrong here. There is literally no correct or incorrect, as a suspect test vote is based on OPINION. We created the suspect test process, there is no reason why we cant revamp it fully. And if we fuck up, its about time we get into the mindset of "Okay, we admit a fuck up was made, we will revert it / correct it". Accepting mistakes is not a sign of dumbness its a sign of wisdom (cough cough MOODY).
But yeah lets fix this please.