Zarator, we are not derailling this argument because your incapable of reading the god damn topic line, we will continue this conversation via PM or IRC
Judging from the tone of your PM, I don't think so.
ok i've heard this enough times, if you're on irc you just heard me rant against it but i need to post also
it's nice to know that the people opposed to flashmatches have a secret pamphlet that outlines the spirit of ASB, so they do and don't know what upholds said spirit.
...wait.
I've seen this argument from both the flavorhounds and the antiflashers so many times, and every time it just makes them sound like an arrogant prick who thinks they're God's gift to this forum. You don't know an ASB mission statement any more than I do. The spirit of ASB is whatever the community wants it to be at the time. The community isn't you, by the way.
I didn't post a detailed argument about why flashmatches go against the spirit of ASB in many ways, because frankly I thought other people exposed them in length, but probably I was mistaken, and for it I apologize. Now, let me give you a rundown of my reasons about the subject:
In a nutshell, t gives a dangerous idea of what a referee is supposed to be like. Referees are, almost by definition, impartial figures. I know this, in the end, is a bit of an idealistic proposition, but if I am to go through a match with a serene attitude, I
have to believe into the impartiality of the referee towards the battlers, or at least have good reasons to believe so. Refereeing a match shouldn't be a favor you do to this or that person, but a service your provide to ASB as a whole since, when you're a referee, all players are and should be equal in your eyes.
Flashmatches, in most cases, are just three people hopping on IRC and getting an agreement about organizing a quick match to rack up counters in a short period of time, with minimal investment of time both from the referee (flavor-barren posts) and from the battlers (attack-spamming battles which end in 2-3 rounds or so). This is pretty much akin to a "trust" (in the economic sense of the word), and promotes a nasty environment where you don't just hop on IRC to spend your time with people, but to asslick them into reffing shit for you. I don't have words to describe how much comtemptful these consequences can turn out.
I may not have a secret compendium called "ASB Spirit" as much as everyone else, but I am pretty sure few people out here would actually defend the idea of an environment relying less on transparency and equal treatment and more on dealings, friends, and asslicking. Especially when the idea of "people who can be trusted to be impartial" is so central to the wellbeing of the entire system.
That being said, no one here is arguing for a system which outright bans flashmatches. Not only that would be undesireable for many reasons (see the shitstorm which came from counterfarming), but it is also offtopic. What WAS argued here is that the fact one or more of the proposed systems discourages people from performing flash matches isn't something which should undermine said proposals. If anything, it is argued that it could very well be the opposite. We're supposed to discuss what makes a certain proposal better or worse than another, and I fail to see how this point is offtopic in this sense.
EDIT: Btw, about the lack of reffing in flashmatches, I'd like to point out that if the kind of effort shown in those was akin to
this (browse down to last post to see how fast it was), a lot less people would complain.
