Announcement Changes to ADV OU forum structure

[vapicuno]

Changes
1) Metagame discussion will now move from the current thread to the VR thread. Hence, the metagame discussion thread will be unpinned and locked, and the VR thread will now double as a VR + metagame discussion thread.
2) A new thread for opinions on the ADV OU ruleset (i.e. bans) will be opened up. All discussion about bans should only go in that thread, so as to keep the metagame discussion in the VR thread centered on the current ruleset. This thread will list a history of past tiering actions and threads.
3) The team dump thread by thelinearcurve will be pinned to encourage team sharing. It will be renamed to emphasize that.

Reasons
The structure of separate "metagame discussion" and VR threads is a common feature across tier subforums because many tiers, especially of the current generation (CG), have dynamic ruleset changes. In these dynamic tiers, the "metagame discussion" thread serves to track the metagame balance, while the VR thread is where the relative viability of Pokemon in the present metagame are discussed. Many players who come to ADV from dynamic tiers, through no fault of their own, expect to post about possible ruleset changes in the "metagame discussion" thread. Unlike CG tiers though, ADV has evolved quite a lot in spite of minimal ruleset changes. Thus, we (the ADV moderation team) thus believes that discussion in this subform should be steered towards innovations and changes within the current ruleset rather than of the ruleset itself.

That said, we also hear the call for discussions on bans (ruleset changes), and want to provide this avenue. We note that many past threads on ruleset actions have resulted in rehashing of old arguments. While many points have been brought up, this overall phenomenon provides little coherence to the discussion. Thus, the upcoming thread will also list past tiering actions to make the current ruleset more understandable and hopefully provide some common ground for discussion.

The current state of OU discussions on the ADV forum have leaned far towards speculative ruleset changes, yet we saw a more productive period in 2019 when mutual sharing of teams by top players encouraged others to do the same, laying the foundations for rapid evolution of the metagame that one could see tour-to-tour, and leading to the vibrant ADV community that we have today. We wish to rekindle this spirit of the ADV forum.

Thus,
Changes (1) and (3) prioritize discussion and sharing on Pokemon, teams, and strategies within the current ruleset and deprioritize discussion on changes to the ruleset.
Change (2) provides an approved avenue for discussion on changes to the ruleset.

 

[goldmason]

Update:

https://www.smogon.com/forums/forums/adv-lower-tiers.967/ This exists now. All lower tier discussion and resource threads have been moved there. We will be tirelessly working on upgrading it into a premier forum for ADV discussion of lower tiers, as well as working with individual tier mods and council members to make sure resources are updated consistently. JoaF has already gotten us started, and with him joining our moderation team we'll be tackling this in earnest.

As you have probably also seen, we have an archive now, and have been using it pretty rabidly to keep the forum focused.

We also have a few other projects we're working on, but if you have any ideas for the ADV Forum, please let me know!!

 

[goldmason]

Update:

We have a Rate My Team subforum now! If you want some input on a team you've made or want to contribute to ADV by rating other's teams, that is the place to do it! We'll be working in the background to make improvements to it over the next few weeks; if you have any suggestions, let me know!

 

[goldmason]

Hello everyone.

If you've been looking at the forum in the last few days, you might have noticed some incredible and radical changes we have made to it. To sum up all of the changes:

• Most outdated discussion threads have been archived.
• Tournaments now has its own separate archive. Usage Stats for every team tournament have been pinned there.
• Almost every standalone resource thread has been moved and archived (more on this next)
• jimmy the card has created 4 wonderful new archive threads for you to peruse, to make sure you do not miss any of the old discussion threads and to catalog any outdated resource threads.

The four threads in the archive are:

• The ADV Tournament Directory - A place to find pretty much every thread related to almost every past tournament that has featured ADV OU in an official capacity.
• The ADV Policy and Announcements Archive - To keep track of every relevant change to the game and the forums. Includes Lower Tiers!
• The ADV Superceded Resource Archive - A catalog of every outdated resource thread and any archived Discussion threads.
• The ADV Team Index - Your one-stop shop for every single relevant ADV OU paste ever posted to the ADV Forum.

And finally, to wrap it all together, we have the brand new ADV Resource Directory & Info Hub. This incredible thread will direct you to pretty much anything you need, and now itself houses most standalone resources like Samples and Speed tiers. I hope everyone makes good use of it!

All of these resources should be considered works in progress.
If you spot an error or an omission, please let goldmason or jimmy the card know so we can add it to the to-do list or fix it!
Alternatively, if you spot a mistake on any resource, or wish to request a thread to be unarchived, please use this form.

A shoutout must be given to jimmy the card for the finalization of this wonderful project. Doing this has been a dream of mine since I started moderating the forum but I never had the time or bandwidth to really make something happen, and JTC has been genuinely spectacular to work with and make that dream a reality finally. I cannot thank her enough.

In the near future, expect a sample update courtesy of mielke, some updates to some older threads, as well as some clean up on any threads we might have missed or forgotten. Thank you so much for your interest in the ADV Forum!!