Discussion Abstain Votes in Suspect Tests

[Concept]

I believe the best course of action would be removing abstained from the qualified pool of voters from the overall vote total; but still giving them points towards tiering contributor. This allows players that don’t actively play the tier and can’t decide on whether or not something is actively healthy for the metagame an alternative instead of equivalently voting do-not ban(if not automatically removed already). I know for certain that laddering for one suspect is not always enough time to form a complete opinion on a tier; there are times when you don’t see the Pokémon being suspected frequently, nor are you always using the suspected Pokémon which can lead to uncertainty when voting. This can also apply to some ladders being dead and unfortunately running into non-competitive players which skew your overall opinion on what is good in the tier.

Removing abstained and non voters helps by alleviating the purpose of a suspect test by removing any dead votes that would otherwise have a negative impact on the vote by auto reverting into do not ban. (If not automatically removed already)

Players who vote abstain shouldn’t get punished for their lack of an opinion or indecision, but through removing their votes from the overall total you can ensure only people with an active opinion on the metagame are voting. Although they aren’t contributing to the overall tiering vote, they’re still contributing to the ladder portion which is the most important factor that everyone has to overcome to meet the voting requirements. Because of this even if a person abstains they should still get the points towards tiering contributor but not the overall vote.

TC will always be considered one of the easiest badges to obtain and I don’t think the badge requirements should change, nor should a user be punished because someone wants to abstain from making a decision that they’re not completely certain on.

If anything it shouldn’t be forgotten that badges are given to users who contribute to the site and while they aren’t contributing to the voting portion, they are contributing in the laddering stage which is just as important as the voting.

 

[Finchinator]

Voting abstain does not contribute to tiering, so it should not count towards the tiering contributor badge if/when it is an option.

Abstain votes haven’t been allowed in SV OU and I have received two complaints all generation despite fielding >1500 total votes. The same can be said for SS OU.

Relatively uninformed or neutral parties will vote every suspect. This is not an issue abstain solves as the vast majority of the time people will listen to their friends or prominent community voices rather than abstaining anyway. The only time I support abstain existing is when we have a double/triple suspect as people shouldn’t have to vote on X if they only feel strongly about Y or vice versa, but this type of suspect has been discontinued in OU since generation 6 and they likely will not come back anytime soon.

 

[Meminger21]

I once qualified for a PU suspect after winning some games on puwc, but since I knew nothing about the metagame I ended up voting abstain. I don't have an opinion on it couting for TC, but I think it's good to have this opition of vote even if it's just for this specific reason, some votes are very close and if 1 or 2 voters are deciding the suspect I think it's better to just let them vote abstain instead of relying on their friend's opinions. Also, in this case they could just not vote at all, but if they're the last ones the outcome will only come up on the deadline, which shouldn't be much of a problem but I think it's better for suspects to end early.

 

[Finchinator]

I once qualified for a PU suspect after winning some games on puwc, but since I knew nothing about the metagame I ended up voting abstain

Feel like this is a different situation as most tiers stick to ladder reqs as opposed to tournament reqs. I do not want to derail this thread on to that topic of if tournament reqs are suited for CG suspects or not, but I think the spirit of this thread is mainly geared towards people who ladder.

I would be more ok with people “abstaining” (and not getting TC credit) if they didn’t go out of their way to ladder, but instead inherited reqs from some tournament months prior. We end up having a handful of people not voting every single suspect in old generations like BW because they no longer play or care after achieving reqs many months prior. This just isn’t the case in CG tiers very often.

 

[North]

We should never incentivize people to make uninformed votes on tiers they have no interest in, and I fear removing abstain votes in the current system would allow that. However, the fundamental issue here is that the current system incentivizes people to get reqs in tiers they have no interest in. I feel the best fix would be to remove the "10 tiering related votes" requirement for TC and to only keep the "4/6 votes in a single official/unofficial tier" requirement. If someone is willing to get reqs in the same tier 4/6 times, they will almost assuredly be invested enough to make an informed vote, and have no reason to abstain.

 

[LBN]

As someone who fiended for over 50+ suspects during covid's period, I can say with great assurance that even if most of my suspects weren't things I was particularly invested in (stuff like godly gift kyogre and the like) the idea of voting abstain never once even crossed my mind. It's almost a certainly worthless function because if somebody is uninformed enough to consider abstaining they usually contact their friends on what their opinions are or vote for reasons as petty as possible. Whether it be for reasons like a pokemon is unhealthy, or reasons as petty as wanting the mon in BL for the aesthetical value of the blue contrast of pelipper next to moltres-galar it doesn't really matter what their reason is they will tend to find one if they dont have a preformed opinion from the jump. As finch alluded earlier, the absence of abstaining causes next to no problems in practice and making it widespread policy has very few issues that actually occur in practice.

The discussion of keeping abstains in place of older gens is definitely worth considering though, and I wouldn't be opposed to having it around for fringe cases like that.

 

[DrReuniclus]

It's almost a certainly worthless function because if somebody is uninformed enough to consider abstaining they usually contact their friends on what their opinions are or vote for reasons as petty as possible. Whether it be for reasons like a pokemon is unhealthy, or reasons as petty as wanting the mon in BL for the aesthetical value of the blue contrast of pelipper next to moltres-galar it doesn't really matter what their reason is they will tend to find one if they dont have a preformed opinion from the jump.

Idk most of the posts in this thread make me feel like I'm crazy, but, if someone is voting based on the aesthetic of a pokemon, this feels to me like a great reason abstain should be utilized and more normalized and this user should be pushed to do so cause I don't see that as much of a reason to make a tiering decision. Smogon's had at least a few amounts of close votes this gen, kyurem, tera, uu weavile to name 3 off the top of my head. If what determines an overall vote is that a couple of users liked the funny hats on a pokemon's head in game battle more than those that don't, then I'd be pretty mad if I had a vested interest in the game or tier being played. I think pushing these types of people to vote and utilize the abstain option would be useful and worth a try, but I also recognize this might be too difficult to convince uninformed voters to do in practice. I think having an informed voter pool should be the ultimate goal of a suspect and giving those users access to information should be the top priority. But those who don't feel like they have an informed enough opinion after hearing both sides from their friends or whoever should be able to abstain and it should be more normalized. I do wanna say I think the 60% pro-ban in OU helps to reduce the impact of what I see as uninformed voters in regards to voting as they have to want the ban more so kudos. I'd argue if some tiers wanted to go that way it could be neat, but there are some that don't really have the voting numbers in suspects to make that happen, hence why you guys started doing tournament recs in some lower tiers to get the voting numbers up.

Also for everyone talking about the tiering contributor badge, I get the context that you don't think that a person abstaining contributed to the tiering process, but this seems like more of a badge rework problem than anything and this seems like a semantics issue. You're pretty much asking people that want the badge who don't have a hard stance to just pick something they don't feel they have knowledge or care about, which again is dangerous. I also don't get the level of effort difference between typing the word abstain vs the words no ban or ban and I think it takes a level of effort to realize you don't think you're qualified, knowledgable enough or have a hard stance to be voting in the tier just like making an "informed" decision even if most don't consider it "contributing". I joined discords read opinions and still have times where I don't think I'm knowledgable enough to vote cause I don't know the gen enough and just taking some guys opinion off the internet and agreeing to vote with them due to their background just feels wrong to me for some reason no matter who they are cause it doesn't feel like its my personal stance.

At the end of the day I realize I might be the crazy person here because I'm one of the few people who utilized this during voting, but I utilized it even after getting TC. I got recs over the years because I like learning new tiers and its the most fun way for me to play the game with a set goal in mind and its not about the vote or the badge. However, I'd much rather put a vote in than do nothing both to help keep the public suspecting process alive and because I think abstain, nonvoting and those who don't qualify are all different things despite all counting as the same voting result. I've joined the discords and read posts and do my best to make an informed decision, but sometimes I still can't come to a final decision in a vote, but still wanna vote for some reason. But if I'm really the crazy person here I get it and you're free to remove it, not many people use it anyways.

 

[Eternal Spirit]

Hey, abstaining a vote shouldnt be allowed as people literally get reqs as a goal, doesnt make a lot of sense throwing a potential vote that will change the suspect out in the trash afterwards. Also, if you think people will vote w/o meta knowledge, pokémon is way simpler than you think... If someone got reqs, is an active player and his goal is getting the badge, the said player has everything thats necessary to make a decent decision based on his experience, even If that was in the suspect ladder only, usually the result of the suspect is obvious too. It makes less sense when you remember that the badge is literally named tiering contribuitor, you gotta contribute if you got reqs bro LOL. If you dont wanna contribute in a tier you "dont know", then dont play the suspect test, you will have a lot of other opportunities to play suspect in tiers/gens that you actually will know what you are doing, but idt thats too relevant as again, you have what it takes to bring out your opinion if you got the reqs.

 

[zinnias]

I feel like removing abstain would just mean that the people that were voting abstain are going to vote for a random option. If they didn’t care originally they aren’t going to start caring, the goal was to get tc points

 

[ishtar]

Someone entering a tier to get reqs and then coming out of the process without a clear view of what they want out of the vote should not be forced to vote one way or the other. Part of the suspect test process is to allow people to hopefully come out with a decision about a certain mon or tier element. If that is not reached through the process, I believe that it is a lot more genuine to abstain than to come up with a fake answer you do not believe in or to vote in bad faith based on something that doesn't actually contribute to the point of the process.

Abstain might not contribute to a tiering decision but it definitely still contributes to notions about how players perceives a Pokemon and its impact on the meta, with the minimum amount of knowledge that was gained through ladder reqs, which is valid and valuable information still. I've never once abstained in a vote and i can't imagine myself going through the process without making a decision, mostly considering the resources available in the form of forums and Discord for people to form an opinion, but I still believe that those who feel undecided should be allowed to express that, and I'd argue that that's better than randomly voting or utilizing a non tiering related reason to do so. As for if it should contribute to TC or the future of the badge in general, I agree with these opinions:

If this is the viewpoint that other people hold, then clearly making abstain not count isn't the solution on its own - we should make it harder or less rewarding to ladder suspect tests across formats to get TC... again. Or we could just axe the laddering portion of the badge entirely and award it only to tier leaders and tiering council members.

The idea of laddering for "a suspect you don't care about" is something I believe we should actively discourage at every turn. Let's encourage people to play formats they're actually interested in, rather than getting people to play UU for one week twice a year or whatever.
to be clear this is not a dig at UU

Fwiw abstention votes right now are treated the way you're describing them (or at least they're supposed to be). TLs shouldn't be treating them as DNB votes, they're just removed from the pool. Example here - p old but yea still the same thing now

Personally agree w/ the camp of thought that right now the flaw lies in TC's badge requirements and that encouraging uncertain voters to flip a coin is unideal. I would prefer if we'd allow abstain votes to count towards TC and focus on exploring better solutions to how people qualify for the badge - to me an abstention vote is more thoughtful than just picking at random because you want the point, since it has a level of humility attached and still rewards folks for laddering which is the current goal of the badge. If picking at random is enough to qualify as contribution then that's a sign that things need to change at their core.

People vote one way or the other with the dumbest reasons already (or lack thereof), let's not encourage more people be inclined to do so.

 

[spoo]

If someone is self-admittedly uneducated enough to form an opinion on a suspect, so undecided that they aren't confident in either option, or just flatly doesn't care at all about what happens, then why force them into a position where they impact its outcome? I don't think that's the kind of voter you want helping to make lasting and meaningful tiering decisions. Like, if someone believes that a suspect test will have a more fair result without their vote, we should probably believe them too. Aren't people always talking about how they want tiering to be done by people who actually play the tier? So, why incentivize someone with 0 personal investment in a given metagame or suspect process to influence the final result? I feel like the assumption here with TC is that all contributions (votes) are equally positive contributions worth rewarding, and abstaining is somehow the least helpful thing a person can do. But someone laddering a few dozen games and coinflipping, guessing, or parroting their friend on a decision that they don't even want to make in the first place seems much worse to me, hardly something that should make progress towards a badge. Granted, lazy/uneducated people cast votes all the time, and there's nothing to be done about it beyond just raising the suspect requirements –– but further enabling it, even guaranteeing it, with the aim of making TC a "better" badge doesn't feel like a net-positive trade. If someone gets reqs and then realizes they should sit out, just let them, no harm no foul.

 

[Volk]

If voting abstain doesn't count towards the TC Badge because you aren't contributing to tiering, then voting against the actual outcome of the suspect test should take a point away from the TC badge because you are actively working in opposition to tiering.

Actual Thoughts

I don't really have much of a horse in this race because I don't really care about the TC Badge right now, but I am surprised that some people are so fervently opposed to the existence of an abstain option. Even if it is uncommon, is it really that outlandish that someone might be interested in partaking in a suspect test, get reqs, and then realize that they don't feel confident in their opinion or that they don't have a strong opinion? Why would we want to take away the option to be honest with yourself and the community? I'd keep the abstain option and allow it to count towards the TC Badge because the player still got the reqs, engaged with the community and the suspect process, and reported their honest view. That's the point of the badge. I also think gatekeeping the badge to only those with firm opinions (or more accurately, those willing to say they have firm opinions) is just arbitrary and frankly pointless, given the badge isn't exactly pivotal in getting you privileges or even clout. I do doubt that removing the abstain option would cause a sudden epidemic of random votes, but I don't see why we would want to incentivize random voting when we can just not do that. I genuinely do not see anything gained by removing the abstain option or not giving abstain voters credit towards the TC badge.

 

[KaenSoul]

I feel like the core problem is people having problems with what TC represents, in the sense that badges as a concept may be valued too high so one of them not being seen as the same level as the others makes the elitist inside of them come out a little bit, like yeah the person playing some ladders games may not be contributing as much as the person that coded the ladder, but why would be a problem when we already assign each badge a value on top of a name that let everyone have an idea on what the user could have done to obtain it?

TC is the entry level badge, it may not mean much to the people that complain about it or don't like its current state, but it is what it is, and I think it does a good job at it, as it must have a real meaning for the people that chase it at least most of the time, is the badge with the most clear explanation on how to obtain it, the only language barrier on it is the same explanation, if someone wants to obtain it then is a good chance is someone who wants to be part of the community but doesn't know how to do the first step or just wants to know what is all about, it doesn't even come with much of a reward with the most interesting part being the ability to write something funny under your name, yet people go after it.

I think is fine for this people to join these suspects were they don't have any personal interest on, and without the need to eventually form an opinion on the subject, because even in this scenario, the entry level badge is doing what it should do, give people a reason to be part of what the community does, maybe to complete the suspect they had to interact with users they wouldn't have otherwise or find a new tier they like that they wouldn't have known that it existed otherwise. Like, yeah, maybe they completed 8 of their 10 suspects just clicking buttons and then voted in a way that didn't affect the outcome, that may not be a contribution, but it shows that they want to stay around and if they had a fun time doing so then they may keep going, maybe now they know about some other badge they could pursue just by leaving their comfort zone a little bit. We do have more people with TC than any other badge, but we also have a lot of really helpful people around that begun with just TC.

In the end I just feel like this is looking for an unnecessary change that may just devolve into looking for more changes for stuff that work just fine, barely anyone has voted abstain all year but is not like it hurts anyone to keep the option around for whoever may need it, as that person must have a better understanding of what they are doing than someone who just pick a side because they feel obligated to do so.

 

[BloodAce]

I think you'd rather let the TC voters who just want to grind the badge and dont care about the actual result abstain than force a vote of ban or no ban. Forcing them to pick an option wont magically mean they will actually care to form an "informed opinion" and they will just pick ban or no ban randomly which can have negative impacts on tiering. A suspect can come down to one vote and lead to a mon getting banned vs not banned just because the person randomly picked ban as they cant choose to abstain anymore

 

[Hacker]

Posting in support of just making it so you can only get TC if you get 4 votes in one specific tier. This fixes the core issue with TC where its just people suspect farming and making uninformed decisions for tiers that they just don't play.

It is true that removing the option to abstain for some people won't stop people from making uninformed decisions and most people currently do anyways. However, you should really only be voting for tiers that you intend to play long term because otherwise you are just casually steeping on other players territory in terms of what people who play the tier think. Changing how TC works to making it so you can only get TC through one tier fundamentally solves this problem as it forces people to actually commit to a certain tier over time.

TC is the easiest badge to get by far, and thats fine. It gives tournaments players a fine avenue to be able to post in PR/Tour Policy without going through the form which is convenient for everyone.

People should get TC through long term commitment to tiering for a tier, and not just jumping around tiers to farm points for it

 

[Eledyr]

If someone is self-admittedly uneducated enough to form an opinion on a suspect, so undecided that they aren't confident in either option, or just flatly doesn't care at all about what happens, then why force them into a position where they impact its outcome? I don't think that's the kind of voter you want helping to make lasting and meaningful tiering decisions.

@ing you spoo but what I say seem to apply to a lot of what was said before.

This is true. This is not something I advocated for when I said that I support removing the "Abstain" option. What people tend to forget is that the option to not vote already exists and have the exact same consequences as voting Abstain as of right now.

Now, I know what you're about to say. Yes, not voting results in not contributing to the Tiering Contributor Badge. But I believe that voting Abstain has the same impact as not voting as of right now, thus it shouldn't be counted as contributing to the tier, given that it has no impact on the final decision. (Which, by the way, is in direct contradiction with Volk's post).

I think there's a deeper issue in what is discussed here: How does the Tiering Contributor should be rewarded? Because, in the end, if the Tiering Contributor was based purely on voting qualifications, and not on the votes themselves, I believe this would solve this issue; people wouldn't be tempted to vote even if they have no strong opinions only because otherwise their efforts put into the ladder would be voided.

 

[Eve]

Just reading everyone saying "if we remove abstain then the TC grinders will vote without knowledge" and can't help but feel the issue here is that the suspect voting process overlaps with badge farming and that those grinders are incentivized to exist in the first place. If the primary incentive for voting on a suspect was, instead, having interest in the future of the tier, the voter pool would have actual motivations behind their votes. I know this is "off-topic", but trying to work around the issue of suspect badge grinders by guiding their voting is a bandaid fix when their existence really seems like the core of the problem here. I don't mind Eledyr's idea above, though waiting to see who's not going to vote (probably a lot of people with that change) would definitely extend how long voting takes. I'd personally just prefer to see all material incentive for taking part in suspects removed, or at least require that TC progress is made in one specific tier as previously suggested in the thread to remove suspect test tourism.

 

[Wildfiree]

As it currently stands I would be against removing abstain personally. Reason being this system that’s set in place already incentivizes badge grinding for tc, which allow people to play and do suspect tests for tiers they don’t main or let alone know anything about. This abstain option allow them to get their “credentials” if you will all while still being able to abstain which is no damage done. Does it contribute to tiering? It does not but as it stands it is best it stays that way so uninformed people aren’t “contributing” to what could be a drastic change without any base in their decision. Before even considering removing abstain I’d suggest making changes with tc badge as a whole rather than moving abstain with the way things are currently set right now.

 

[Murm]

I don't have too much to add, people like Eve and Eledyr have said similar things but ultimately abstaining isn't the issue that needs to be looked at, its TC. TC inherently encourages badge farming, leading to many people voting without well informed opinion, swaying votes. Abstaining actually helps deal with this a little bit, since while a lot of the badge farmers do decide to vote, there are some that would rather abstain and not effect a metagame they might not be too familiar with. Ultimately though, the only way to improve the current situation would be reworking TC. I think making it only 4 or more suspects in one tier is a good start, as you have to be active in one community for a pretty long time, but that also only works for those who play the metagames where it counts for, which is a different can of worms. If I had the final say, I would personally just remove TC altogether, but ultimately most reworks would be an improvement.

 

[Gimmicky]

I've been a vocal advocate for a total reworking of TC for a while now, so while this thread is shifting in this direction, I'd like to add some of my own thoughts as well as suggest an alternative to the reworks already suggested by users. I think this should ultimately be a conversation had/finalized in IS, and I look forward to elaborating in any potential thread there, but for now...

If I had the final say, I would personally just remove TC altogether, but ultimately most reworks would be an improvement.

Going to have to disagree on removing TC outright. There's a conversation to be had about if TC on it's own should reward Inside Scoop access (arguably one of the main incentives for people to go out of their way to "chase" the badge), but I feel like removing the badge entirely doesn't help anyone while harming people who've shown immense dedication to one or more tiers and rightfully earned the shiny pixels on their profile. People should still be rewarded for dedication, and TC can be reworked into a perfectly valid reward without promoting people to vote in tiers they otherwise avoid. We can handle the problem of TC chasers without unnecessary collateral damage.

Restricting TC to only reward votes within a single tier (or, at least, consistency across multiple tiers) does not entirely solve the issue of people chasing the badge and making uninformed votes; especially early on in a generation, it wouldn't be too hard for a good player to acquire 4 votes over a few months in a particularly volatile metagame. That being said though, if you're getting 4+ votes in a tier, you're probably invested enough to have earned that vote, so that's not too much of an issue. This slightly nerfed version of TC would hopefully serve it's original function of rewarding invested players without the downside of encouraging players to make crucial decisions for metagames they don't care about and don't have any experience in outside the 30-ish games of their suspect run.

What exactly the qualifications for new TC would look like, if it should provide IC/policy review access, and if these changes should be applied retroactively are all valid discussion points, but I don't think this is the thread to elaborate on them much more in. This should be a dedicated, on topic Inside Scoop thread.

Sorry for contributing to the further derailing of this thread! Circling back to the original conversation, I think keeping abstain around is fine, if not preferable, if only for the existence of TC and taking some pressure off of uninformed voters. In a world with a reworked TC badge, though, abstain should definitely not be an option. The default option should always be no action. If you're a qualified voter who's invested in the tier and you haven't made up your mind, your vote should be no action. If you aren't confident an action should be taken, the choice isn't a coinflip, it's not going through with the action!

 

[Lily]

Reworking TC is being talked about right now with tier leaders so we'll be closing this for now. Expect an update in the nearish feature :)