Implemented Bring back the alt rule.

[Maia]

Okay team I've been saying I'll make this thread for months but I have finally written it.

Bring back the alt rule.

"But Theia, what is the alt rule?"

Well before it was that you have to play on a name that matches your forum name or a name you specifically signed up with.

This was done for a couple of reasons:
- Reduce confusion bc people don't know who's playing a match
- It's reportedly more hype to see people playing on their main names and not some dumb shit
- Sogeking had a nasty habit of faking being people's opponents
- Mostly that first thing though

The problem was that the way the alt rule was enforced in a stupid way - People had to sign up with a PS name and play only on that name. That led to the infamous "Xrn getting infracted for playing on the 'Xrn' account" incident of 2022.

There's no real objective way to enforce "your alt must be recognizable as you" (apart from my proposed criteria of "If i show a group of ten 13 year olds who don't know what Smogon is your username and a list of all tournament participants, at least seven of them must be able to identify it's you"), so this is a case where we will have to use some slightly subjective discretion and common sense, but like that's probably fine.

This should hopefully resolve both people getting confused by not knowing who's playing and people who want the creative expression or whatever to play on names that are SHOWMAN THE WELL and not Welli0u.

Would propose that the rule apply to all official team tournament games and top 16 and up of official individuals.

Original Proposal | Repeal Thread

 

[Rewer]

I haven't really had any problems identifying who's playing, even when it's really bad like silcoonfan21 vs cascoonenjoyer98, someone will say who they are in the chat. This seems to annoy a lot of people though, but limits to creative expression also annoyed a lot of people and understandably so.

If we do anything it should definitely be small limitations and small punishment, preferably some verbal warnings before starting the infractions.

 

[BigFatMantis]

If I ever face someone who is playing on an alt on smogtours, I always ask them before accepting the challenge "are you (player xyz)?" and have them confirm yes before I accept, even if I already know very well it's them because you just never know. While I don't think it's really fair to require someone to do this every time, a simple way to do this would be to require the alt to identify themselves immediately if they want to play on an alt. Or, you could just have players request you don't play on an alt, and then you have to play on your main account, similar to how you can request to play on smogtours if someone wants main and you can force smogtours.

I'm not sure anything more rigid than this would ever work without some crazy xrn-esque scenario happening, or without people getting into a debate about how "close" your alt is to your name, but the above outlined things seem to have no real collateral damage and just makes sense to do.

 

[Conflict]

Just voicing my support for Theia's points because they strongly resonate with my own view on this.

Please implement this.

 

[Larry]

I think that enforcing something like this is a good idea for official tournaments.

What about defining 'recognizable account' as an account that is voiced on smogtours? Could still make exceptions on case-by-case basis for people that don't have a voiced account, but I think there will be precious little of those when limiting this to only official team tournaments and top 16 of official individuals.

 

[Eledyr]

Consider this as food for thought. If an official match starts with pirategamer123 vs epicdragon666 (by that, I mean if the alts aren't crystal clear), a simple rule of thumb would be to require players using alt to identify themselves clearly at the beginning of the game. I leave the details to the TD team, but with a rule like this, I'd have absolutely zero problems with official games being played using alts.

 

[cityscapes]

my issue is why enforce something like this on a site-wide level? it's such a minor thing and i really don't see the idea behind employing moderation for "making the spectator experience confusing" or whatever. there are some eccentric people who love playing on unrecognizable alts and they may have some friction with other competitive players watching their games, and as far as i'm concerned that's fine; they can just talk out their issues. if i was managing a team in a team tour and i didn't know which player in the game was my guy, i would ask in the game, and then tell my player after the game to please clarify beforehand, it's not complicated.

some of my fondest memories from playing competitively on this site have been getting paired with friends in tours and both of us playing on funny alts with inside references that no one else gets (s/o akira and fiora). i say this as someone who usually plays on their main. but i'm glad there are people in my community that find joy in constantly changing their ps name, especially cause you can absolutely not do the same thing with smogon usernames. i think keeping that sort of thing alive is important. (edit: i could go deeper into this but basically i think absolutely prioritizing fixed identities over changing ones is lame, changing identities is one of the main draws of the internet in the first place)

anyway if you want a rule that improves the player experience, consider changing "ignore spectators" to cover mods so i don't get my concentration thrown off by them shitposting in the game chat

 

[Alumn]

I think if the games are played on ST, just make a copy of the /alt cmd ==> /whois cmd for the plebs where they can see the alt and the main acc (we hide the harmful IP info and stuff). We just have to make sure that they log in on their main acc first.

 

[Larry]

my issue is why enforce something like this on a site-wide level? it's such a minor thing and i really don't see the idea behind employing moderation for "making the spectator experience confusing" or whatever. there are some eccentric people who love playing on unrecognizable alts and they may have some friction with other competitive players watching their games, and as far as i'm concerned that's fine; they can just talk out their issues. if i was managing a team in a team tour and i didn't know which player in the game was my guy, i would ask in the game, and then tell my player after the game to please clarify beforehand, it's not complicated.

some of my fondest memories from playing competitively on this site have been getting paired with friends in tours and both of us playing on funny alts with inside references that no one else gets (s/o akira and fiora). i say this as someone who usually plays on their main. but i'm glad there are people in my community that find joy in constantly changing their ps name, especially cause you can absolutely not do the same thing with smogon usernames. i think keeping that sort of thing alive is important. (edit: i could go deeper into this but basically i think absolutely prioritizing fixed identities over changing ones is lame, changing identities is one of the main draws of the internet in the first place)

anyway if you want a rule that improves the player experience, consider changing "ignore spectators" to cover mods so i don't get my concentration thrown off by them shitposting in the game chat

the proposal is, as far as i can tell, only for official team tournaments (SPL, SCL, WCOP) and top 16's of trophy tournaments, which have far more stake and people interested in spectating the game. Noone cares what account you're playing on in gen3neverusedpremierleague with 5 spectators, but an official game with at times over 100 spectators shouldnt require half of them to ask who the players are.

I think if the games are played on ST, just make a copy of the /alt cmd ==> /whois cmd for the plebs where they can see the alt and the main acc (we hide the harmful IP info and stuff). We just have to make sure that they log in on their main acc first.

this
1) potentially leaks peoples secret ladder accounts
2) requires people to have been logged into their main acccount beforehand, which i can already tell you is not always gonna happen
3) requires everyone who watches the game to complete an action, making this unnecessarily complicated
4) requires everyone interested in the game to know about that command

best to keep this as simple, transparant and effective as possible

 

[Excal]

I think the players in these high stakes matches should be catered to over the spectators. I value creative expression regardless of how stupid the alt name seems. I think enforcing the alt rule will lead to increased tension between moderators and the community; we will inevitably see subjectivity be met with backlash. Removing subjectivity by requiring a voiced account is too strict and limiting. I oppose this proposal, as I think the inconvenience to the spectators is minimal and attempting to moderate alts for their convenience means well but ultimately ends as overzealous.

 

[Stories]

calling stuff like “BBL Gojo” creative expression feels like a bit of a stretch to me

 

[chimp]

Bros this is a competitive tournament if you want to express your creativity go write a book, paint a picture, sing a song, it is a huge detriment to the spectator experience to not immediately know who is who in a match and to constantly see “who is this?” asked 40 times in the chat. Not to mention when reviewing replays, where if who is who isnt explained in the main chat then you’re just fucked I guess. You have 6 pokemon you can give funny nicknames to express your creativity and to make inside jokes.

 

[Welli0u]

I believe it's important to have some guidelines, but overly strict rules can be frustrating. It's especially annoying when a tour game starts and you have to figure out who's playing.

Here's my proposal, you can either:

1. Play on your main account.
2. Use an alt account that is recognizable as you, but you have to specify your main account the first time you use it at preview/turn 1.
3. You can play on any alt account, but if it's not recognizable as you, you must always specify who you are at the start of each game.

This way, iconic alts can remain usable, new alts can become iconic, and the rules aren't nonsense.

 

[daunt vs]

I thought it was common sense to tell your opponent the name of your alt in discord/smogon wall if you are going to challenge them with an alt they dont know. Only issue is spectators not knowing who is who but that doesn’t tend to be an issue because people just ask it

 

[April]

you all underestimate how many people will open a match, see two main accounts, and still ask who's playing

 

[QT]

I am strongly in favor of forcing people to play on their mains in livetours, but as far as forum tours go unless it's an important match idc, so I agree that it should be restricted to them.

 

[gulch]

1. re: spectator identification, gimmicky is right, some ppl will be entirely clueless even if both players are on main accounts

2. do we not already identify alts in scheduling? like, is it not common sense to tell your opponent "hey, on smogtours as x". furthermore, as bfm said, it's good practice to ask your opponent "are you x?" before accepting when they challenge you on an alt. a lot of these issues on the player end feel like they could be mitigated by good scheduling practice and communication

3. HOWEVER, i do think any arguments about "maintaining creative expression" range from unimportant to disingenuous. not gonna beat a dead horse here bc it's been said before, but you have 6 pokemon you can nickname and calling most of these alt names "creative expression" is dubious anyway lol

i personally like the idea of forcing players to set a status or something similar, i don't think there's any realistic way to enforce this otherwise that doesn't lead to another xrn situation unless we wanna just start forcing people to play on voiced smogtours accounts for these tours.

 

[Princess Autumn]

Bumping this thread given that it’s almost SPL season, is there any harm in a bit of subjectivity as outlined in the OP? If an alt fits into either of the following criteria, it’d feel logical to let it be used:

• Matches/loosely resembles the user’s forum name
• Is voiced on tours

No need to overcomplicate things, multiple people have pointed out that you get 6 nicknames to be creative with; if you can’t be creative with your username without it being recognisable, consider getting a different forum name to show just how creative and quirky you really are!

Half Joking

apart from my proposed criteria of "If i show a group of ten 13 year olds who don't know what Smogon is your username and a list of all tournament participants, at least seven of them must be able to identify it's you"

Just use the criteria of “does UT recognise them if given a list of matchups”. A host who doesn’t know a single tour player bar Stresh is the best litmus test you could ask for.

 

[freezai]

The Alt Rule is coming back.

In Official Smogon Team Tournaments, a username must now meet one of two conditions:

• Voiced account on the Smogtours server
• Closely resembles Forum Name and contains Forum Name in an identifiable way

The purpose of The Alt Rule is to improve the spectator experience.

• Knowing players' identities enhances engagement and makes tournaments easier to follow. Spectators find random or obscure names confusing.
• Ensures replays are easier to locate and watch, improving the experience for future viewers.
• Using recognizable accounts simplifies challenges and reduces issues like fake challenges.
• Aura. It is cooler to watch ABR than pooplicker15

Yes, some of the confusion of using alt accounts can be mitigated by asking in the chat or by being "in the know", but the point is that these inconveniences shouldn't exist in the first place. Any form of inertia in understanding what's going on is a bad thing for spectators. Besides a vocal minority, the merits of The Alt Rule are generally acknowledged and an overwhelming majority of users polled (88%) have stated that The Alt Rule is good and should be implemented.

The main question is then deciding the strictness of the alt rule and how to handle edge cases. This is where the problem arose last time and there is no perfect solution. Make it too soft and you have perennial line-skirters doing their best to make the rule as useless as possible and make it too strict and you end up with a repeat of the "Xrn incident".

One approach is to only allow users to use their voiced alt to play. This is the simplest approach and also ensures that each person only has one name, simplifying other aspects related to consistency like replay searching and removing subjectivity.

The other approach is additionally allowing alts that closely resembles the forum name and contains the name in an identifiable way. This allows more flexibility at the cost of not having the consistency of 1 username for the entire tournament. It also adds subjectivity; inevitably there will be some jackass trying to toe the line as much as possible and without an objective criteria this could lead to arguments down the road.

We believe that the latter is the right middle ground to ensure that alts are recognizable while still allowing flexibility. We trust host discretion to make common sense decisions regarding the subjectivity of alts and hosts will have the final say for their tournaments. Clear violations of the rule will be met with a 1 point infraction and edge cases will be handled on a case-by-case basis starting with a verbal warning.

Conceptually, most people agree with the idea of The Alt Rule and our goal is to find the right way to implement it. We may revise this decision in the future to make the rule either more or less strict, depending on community feedback from SPL 2025.

Allowed:
BIHItches Brew -> BIHI
UT is Cool -> UT

Not Allowed:
pitfire -> piyu
UU Farmer Pinga -> Kenix
AttribUTee -> UT