Proposal Early Week Activity Wins and Act Fishing Culture

[LBN]

Disclaimer

I am not a person known for delicate writing matters. If my wording is too abrasive or whatnot, please look past it, I tried.

There's been a particularly long growing trend on the site of fiending activity wins no matter what. While everybody's time is important and making people wait because of scheduling incompetence should not be rewarded, I am a far bigger advocate of actually playing the video game. The idea that people can claim they cannot play from Monday/Tuesday all the way to late sunday is a bold lie 95% of the time, and this applies even moreso for individuals, where extensions are on the table.

I'm not going to beat around the bush, this thread is almost entirely motivated by the recent ORAS OU Invitational incident. Mannat and Avarice scheduled for 5pm Monday. Mannat had a family medical emergency, said he couldn't make it. Now, what do you think is the acceptable response to Mannat's request? Offer condolences? Reschedule for the rest of the 150+ hours still available to them? Schedule later that day perhaps, like Mannat offered?

Avarice proceeded to claim and win an activity call from this. Skipping past how this is the grimiest thing I've seen a user try to pull all year, this is something that shouldn't be allowed to happen. I don't intend to blame or point fingers at the hosts, they were trying to follow the letter of the law. And to that, I propose we re-examine the law, and potentially change it to something more lenient.

I propose something similar the following:

In an Individual:
If a player misses a Monday/Tuesday scheduled game, force a rescheduling. If there is reasonable grounds to assume bad faith is at play, or if a player genuinely cannot play even with an extension, then host discretion can apply.

In a team tour:
If a player needs to reschedule from a game on Monday/Tuesday - grant that request, unless there's reason otherwise.
If a player is late to a game on Monday/Tuesday by the 30 minute window and no sub is provided, force a substitution. If the managers cannot get it done within 8 hours from the scheduled game, then the sub is done automatically via an objective system. (Most expensive sub, alphabetical, randomized? Doesn't really matter which method) Of course, host discretion applies.

I think we can all agree that the ideal scenario for a tournament is actually getting the games played. We sign up to play a tournament, so we should maximize the games played and dissuade (if not infracting) blatant activity fishing. This whole mindset of "fish for wins no matter what" mindset is a scourge on this site for awhile, and I think even if my proposal isn't the ideal route, we at least consider some changes to the current system. Whether its making it a host discretion call, or barring it altogether doesn't hugely matter.

 

[UT]

In an Individual:
If a player misses a Monday/Tuesday scheduled game, force a rescheduling. If there is reasonable grounds to assume bad faith is at play, or if a player genuinely cannot play even with an extension, then host discretion can apply.

Worth noting, this is already the case in late-round official individuals. If the community wishes to see it extended further with regards to officials, I am open to that discussion, but this is already the policy in late rounds.

While the ORAS Invitational is not an official tour and not bound by our policy, they would be free to point to this policy to inform their own decision making.

In a team tour:
If a player needs to reschedule from a game on Monday/Tuesday - grant that request, unless there's reason otherwise.

Be so for real, who is playing SCL / SPL on Monday / Tuesday.

 

[PDC]

 

[Tack]

again? seriously? how come its ALWAYS this guy who disrespects us as a collective and goes unpunished?

shoutouts to the time this guy spent like an hour after his scheduled time gaslighting our entire bwpl chat in 2023 when he decided to fucking noshow at scheduled time in finals tiebreak and insist that it was rescheduled and fine WHEN HE COULDVE JUST FUCKING PLAYED THE GODDAMN GAME AT THE SCHEDULED TIME THAT HE WAS ONLINE FOR

shoutouts to the time he tried to get his opponent's custom stripped in pupl after he lost an act call decision in another finals tiebreak I've been told there's more to this one in particular but frankly all of my goodwill is entirely gone at this point

how about that time he spent a full week dodging watashi in round 10 of an oras circuit tournament this year?

god only knows what we don't know about because he did this to someone who didn't feel comfortable stirring the pot against someone whose profile has like 8 alumn'd badges that has a habit of deleting all of their scheduling logs after they request act. It's legitimately fucking pathetic that he keeps getting away with this, and we shouldn't need to rewrite the rules every time this guy decides to disrespect someone in the community. There's an INCREDIBLY simple solution to that particular problem.

Tourban Avarice.

 

[hex]

Let me preface this by saying: as someone who's a friend of avarice of multiple years and share a server with him where the people there have also known him for a very long time - we ALL told him he was in the wrong for these scenarios and got on his ass about it. That being said, I don't think dog-piling on him right now is really gonna move the thread in a productive way (though I agree his behavior in the past has been incredibly unjustifiable and I do not support it in any way). He's probably and hopefully learned his lesson at this point.

That being said.....

Worth noting, this is already the case in late-round official individuals. If the community wishes to see it extended further with regards to officials, I am open to that discussion, but this is already the policy in late rounds.

While the ORAS Invitational is not an official tour and not bound by our policy, they would be free to point to this policy to inform their own decision making.

Be so for real, who is playing SCL / SPL on Monday / Tuesday.

I don't think being sarcastic (@ scl/spl comment) with OP either is going to help anyone's case. He's obviously trying to bring a beneficial policy to the site that I'm sure many people would support. Well, I would at least. Not to mention posting threads like this takes some courage, and the response being immediate sarcasm makes posting some of these threads such an eggshell walk and turns people off from wanting to do it further, which hurts the overall integrity and transparency of the community. I think it's important to be sensitive in these threads especially when you're speaking as someone who holds a leadership position, I respect all people who put in thankless hours of work to keep the site's cogs turning, so I don't want this to come off as bitchy in any fashion.

It's obviously great that these rules are in place for late round officials, but the overarching point is to reach a wider portion of the site. Better rules mean less work for hosts as it's already a thankless job and having to run around and ask other people on rulings can be a drag even if it's a short DM back and forth, a time saver truly does mean a lot (@ ORAS invi hosts having to ask more people about rulings and etc.)

Addendum: Act was literally claimed on a Wednesday in Week 1 this SCL lol. Sure..not a Mon/Tues but still not a great precedent to set imo.

Unfortunately though I don't feel that there's a good workaround for stricter act rules as we're all people coming from different walks of life and have things going on all the time and don't always have time to reschedule or play at a certain time in the week. Having to dance around the idea of when act is valid or reasonable to call seems like an easy circle to run around, though I hope it's something that can be refined regardless of my pessimism. I'm not someone who enjoys posting in these threads but I can already tell this is just gonna be a shit show if someone doesn't try to steer the conversation on an otherwise productive and needed thread.

 

[ninjadog]

Don't agree with this at all, really easy to not miss scheduled games (especially if the games are on a Monday/Tuesday meaning you scheduled them at most 48 hours earlier), in the vast majority of cases there isn't a serious reason for someone missing and in the rare case there is most people are willing to reschedule, this feels like an overreaction to fix a rule that isn't broken because of one outlier case in the OP. The argument that someone's time on a Tuesday is less valuable than their time on a Friday is also nonsensical.

Most of the ire towards people 'act fishing' is bizarre to me, I'm sure a lot of us agree scheduling is the worst part of this site and as someone who almost always takes act/forces sub in team tours it isn't due to trying to 'win at all costs' or to get out of playing games - Between timezone issues (granted this part is worse for me than the majority of users), working full time, other hobbies/irl commitments, wanting to leave time open for other plans that may come up etc. it becomes annoying having to reschedule. I'd rather play but if the opp doesn't show I don't want to have to allocate any more time to a single tour game than initially planned - and I imagine most people who 'act fish' feel similarly.

 

[avarice]

again? seriously? how come its ALWAYS this guy who disrespects us as a collective and goes unpunished?

shoutouts to the time this guy spent like an hour after his scheduled time gaslighting our entire bwpl chat in 2023 when he decided to fucking noshow at scheduled time in finals tiebreak and insist that it was rescheduled and fine WHEN HE COULDVE JUST FUCKING PLAYED THE GODDAMN GAME AT THE SCHEDULED TIME THAT HE WAS ONLINE FOR View attachment 786162

shoutouts to the time he tried to get his opponent's custom stripped in pupl after he lost an act call decision in another finals tiebreak I've been told there's more to this one in particular but frankly all of my goodwill is entirely gone at this point

how about that time he spent a full week dodging watashi in round 10 of an oras circuit tournament this year?

god only knows what we don't know about because he did this to someone who didn't feel comfortable stirring the pot against someone whose profile has like 8 alumn'd badges that has a habit of deleting all of their scheduling logs after they request act. It's legitimately fucking pathetic that he keeps getting away with this, and we shouldn't need to rewrite the rules every time this guy decides to disrespect someone in the community. There's an INCREDIBLY simple solution to that particular problem.

Tourban Avarice.

@ bwpl thanks for at least saying it correctly, "the collective" mostly decided i claimed act

ive teamed w/ probably everyone actually involved since then (2023), won other tiebreaks, etc. also a scenario where only managers are tagged in hidden channel while act is claimed w/ the player not on stours wouldnt happen today anyway. hosts and tds have changed for the better

@ pupl i made a compromise with a range to avoid either of us having to sub and come game time my opponent misunderstood and cut off logs, and demanded sub like it was a singular time (if it was, wouldve been a double sub). given the pressure manager mistakenly folded (early morning, no hosts online)

the mod team decided to remove custom on their own since the substitution undercut the integrity of the whole tour. i primarily wanted the infraction as proof i took proper measures after what happened with bwpl

@ circuit, this is a seasonal so it was more like round 5, and we played a couple rounds later with no issues. there are act calls in officials that get less strife.

i delete posts to get to my other scheduling via notifs easier, that's all. not an uncommon practice

@ OP had my own family things going on and w mannats behaviors jumped to conclusions. he had dropped by the time i cooled off. i am legitimately sorry to him for being mean at a stressful time, and to the oras community for not taking invitational more seriously as well.

no rules have been rewritten bc of me (see: Amaranth / unrelated but similar rejected thread and UT's respective posts) but ill be making an effort where i can to get games done.

ninja put it well. sunday funday can be fun to watch, but more of a burden with playing and planning around irl (for example, my lab's weekend schedule isnt finalized until friday).

apologies again to all the #realgamers hopefully this is the last of these kinda posts

 

[FlamPoke]

Anybody who has played a tournament game on Smogon will likely agree that the worst part about the experience is the scheduling. This is the nature of human interaction across multiple time zones, unfortunately, and we all accept when we sign up to play games on this site that it's not unlikely that you will have to go back-and-forth with somebody to arrive at a reasonable time that works for both of you. Smogon Tournament Policy is written in a way that tries to accommodate this need for a "common ground" in making games happen, and it also tries to be respectful of people's time with regards to activity calls and forced substitutions.

For better or worse, the rules are written in about as clean of a way as they can be - scummy people will do scummy things regardless of what you try to implement unless you enforce things with absolutes, which nobody wants. I will be hijacking this thread now to offer a solution to the scheduling woes the site has seen over the years;

Reasonable Scheduling Attempts
No offense to anyone reading, but if you're on this site and playing any tournaments at all, chances are you have access to Smogon at basically most times during the week. It takes ~5 minutes to get your phone out, log in, check your notifications, and respond to scheduling requests, even if your response on a Monday is just, "I don't know my weekend availability yet but I will get back to you as soon as I can." The worst part about scheduling is usually the person you are trying to schedule with not getting back to you until late in the week when you've already made other plans around irl and other games - these people should not be coddled and given as much leniency as they currently are when it comes to making sub/double sub requests. Screenshot below taken from the Smogtours server from ABR re: scheduling

This is a bit drastic but the premise is pretty sound, I don't think it really takes much effort to just respond with something and most of these scummy act or sub fishes could be avoided if people just responded in a reasonable time.

My suggestion:
Implement a policy that forces manager and host intervention if your opponent does not respond to your scheduling attempt within 48 hours. After being notified, the opposing manager and player will then have 12 hours to provide a reasonable response, or be forced to provide a substitute that can accommodate a time initially offered.

Example: If I reach out to my opponent on Tuesday at 7am -6, stating that I am available on Saturday and Sunday between 6pm-10pm, my team should be allowed to reach out to the hosts and opposing managers to request a response at 7am -6 on Thursday. Following this contact, the opposing team will then have until 7pm -6 on Thursday to get their player to respond with a reasonable time (host discretion) or, if no response/reasonable time is provided, the opposing managers have to substitute a player of their choice that can make a time provided in the initial contact work (in this example, Sat and Sun 6-10pm -6 is what they have to make work).

------------

Whether or not this suggestion (or a comparable one) is considered, people really should just be better on this site. I am not a fan of calling act personally, almost always rescheduling or waiting past act deadline to play if my opp is reasonable about it, but at some point people just gotta stop being scummy because the rules can't really stop them unless you make things so airtight that the site becomes inoperable. Smogon Tournament Policy does, and should, try to be reasonable and respect everyone as equals with regards to getting games scheduled and played, but any additional policy that can make scheduling more streamlined would be appreciated.