Community Rules Discussion: Timers, Alts, and Replay Hiding

[BW PU AAA TD]

Here is my legal opinion:

People should be allowed to converse with their team midset, and they should be able to take ~3-5 minutes to do so if necessary, certainly not more tho, and it shouldnt be 5 every game.

If you make the rules contrary to the above, absolutely do not classify it as ghosting.

It honestly whatever I think. Just enforce the rules. There is no need to actually go and make new rules or make them harsher. Clark has already been made example of. Just infract the other people who do stuff like this and they'll either stop, take less time, or quit.

 

[Acetylaldehyde]

spies

The issue between Clark and Acetylaldehyde would not have been a problem if both players had been clear about their boundaries and more mindful of their opponent's

No, this is just false. I made it clear. Any decision I made in that scenario would've upset someone and we'd be arguing about it anyway, so I went with I thought would be the least controversial. I don't know why you think it's helpful to be condescending and dismissive. Posts like yours and Kaz's demonstrate an unwillingness to recognize the frustrations of others', and that brings us no closer to an agreement.

Do you not realize that this whole thread's purpose to is to accommodate the philosophies of you and your cronies? We are collectively saying, "we by and large do not appreciate this behavior, but we want to work with you to find a compromise we can both play the game the way we want." It doesn't have to be an us vs them situation, but that requires finding common ground. Ya my other post was shitty; this is a fresh chance at a dialog.

Nicole's post is a very helpful example, on the other hand. She clearly outlines her philosophy and what she wants. Cool, I may disagree, but now I can figure out how to accommodate. You want 5-10mins to midset prep, fine. I just want on time starts. This is how a dialog takes place. Failing to acknowledge how other ppl are feeling and belittling me is arguing in bad faith. It's similarly disrespectful.

The first version of these new rules was already an overregulation of normal human situations

I just don't agree. They were written in good faith to be accommodating. Pace of play is not controversial. We have a 5min in game timer, yet nobody freaks out at the rules when it hits zero and you lose. a similar out of game timer doesn't seem wild. We're just trying to play the game, while making allowances for ppl who want to take it slower.

it is sad that the "community" has a lot to say when there is an issue like this but little to say about the actual games

Yup, but I don't see you posting in the cord. where's your VR after SPL? maybe you're not part of the solution either?

It is sadder that the RBY community needs stronger rules than the rest of Smogon because apparently there cannot be adult understanding

I totally agree, it upsets me. I think being an adult means arriving to your engagements on time and recognizing that your actions affect other people. I also think it makes sense as the first community to standardize boX that we are also the first community to solve its issues.

Moderating team, community leaders and team managers should promote dialogue instead of policing.

Literally the point of this thread my guy. But if you don't come to the table in good faith, there's not much we can do.
Maybe we should just do nothing and go back to how it was. We certainly can. You can have your 5 mins, I really don't mind that. But next time someone is late and/or taking too long, I'll call act and kick it to the smogon TDs. Is escalating the issue up the command chain really preferable to compromising here? I don't think it is.

Either way, I am tired of being at the center of this issue, so I'm gonna stop posting/engaging on the matter. Anyone can DM if you actually care to discuss. I'm not an important enough member of this community to be at the center of this conversation anyway. Sabelette I trust you to make whatever decision you think is best.

 

[NotVeryCake]

Do you not realize that this whole thread's purpose to is to accommodate the philosophies of you and your cronies? We are collectively saying, "we by and large do not appreciate this behavior, but we want to work with you to find a compromise we can both play the game the way we want." It doesn't have to be an us vs them situation, but that requires finding common ground. Ya my other post was shitty; this is a fresh chance at a dialog.

"It doesn't have to be us vs them" And in the sentence directly before you call about 10 people a group of Spies's cronies, and you also say this thread is to look for a solution to, well, "them" "the other" "not like us". We have people like Sabelette saying the issue is that the current rules are exploitable and that the Wartortles are not the focus here in fair points such as " incentivize people to schedule their games only for times their SPL player managers/teammates are online to build/adapt teams for them while they're in the middle of game 1 and prepare their lines for them...", and then we have things like this and what Amaranth said (before it got deleted) which are sowing division. The point of this thread is to make rules that everyone can agree on as a cohesive that fit to strike a balance between leeway to giving human leeway to this game of unofficial Pokemon we play and to prevent bad actors from intentionally abusing them.

I'm not going to solely make this about that though, for I do have a suggestion of my own to make that I believe can strike a balance between fair and firm here:

- ~3 minutes between games in a Bo3, up to 7 for the whole set. This makes it so that if you're a few seconds past this allowed time / whatever may happen, even for both games, you cannot be punished. You can only be punished if you start showing up 30-60+ seconds late both times or multiple minutes late for either game individually.

- In a Bo5, this will be changed to instead be a maximum of 10 minutes of break time for the entire set, this gives an average of ~2 minutes per game, which is shorter. But is compensated by the fact you can take more / less time on some games compared to others. Reasonably, you should not even be taking like 2 minutes for the early games like between g1-g2 and g2-g3. Which would give you more time in between the later games, like if you want to take an extra long 5 minute break between both g3-g4 and g4-g5

- You can do whatever you want in this time you take, whatever. It is a breach of privacy to intrude on what someone wants to do with their own free time if they do not wish to disclose it. If someone wants / has to take more time than what is traditionally allowed they can say what they need to take the extra time if they wish, something simple like "emergency pizza delivery at my front door, can I take a few?" or "Nuclear alert in my pants, about to detonate and I need to evacuate the area, can we take a 5 minute break?"

- This is completely conditional on if both parties are not fine with taking breaks to the tune of however long they want. This is just the minimum for those who don't want their time messed with.

 

[dangerk1d]

Per Volk's post, most of my annoyance with this issue has more to do with the spirit of the rules in that I don't think they really imply or allow for mid set prep; but that's my pride talking. Looking at the rules on their own merits and not within the drama of the past few weeks, I don't really think it's the end of the world if there were three to five minutes or so allocated between games specifically for mid set coaching or whatever. Right now there's an ambiguity between the time for irl stuff (drinking water or taking a dump) and game stuff, and I think having a rule that specifically mentions prep/coaching would help keep everyone on the same page. Some people may object to that under the ghosting concern, but for me the majority of the tension is less about the prep and more the ambiguity for when the game is actually supposed to start.

I also like Cake's solution (I guess my proposal is basically the same as soda's as well, lol), but I do think actually specifying mid set prep/coaching in the ruleset would help smooth things over and better set expectations.