How can we serve you better?

[Stellar]

As we slip into the slow period between game releases, I'd like to take the opportunity to rethink the way we do things here in the Orange Islands. I want this forum to be a place where everyone feels comfortable posting, but also a place that promotes intelligent discussion, so keep that in mind when posting suggestions.

You may pitch anything from rule changes to new competitions here; however there is one guideline: you may not use this thread to complain. I want all posts to be constructive—if you disagree with a current policy, suggest a new one rather than griping about the old one. Make sure to back up all suggestions with sound reasoning. If your idea seems like a positive change, I'll discuss it with the other moderators and implement it ASAP.

I look forward to hearing from you!

 

[Karxrida]

I'd like to order a sandwich, please.
I personally think we need to open up more discussions about the parts of Pokemon that aren't directly related to the games, like the anime, manga, and maybe even fan-made stuff (webcomics, fangames, hell maybe even fanfiction). I know that a ton of discussion tends to happen on IRC, but I think having a thread for stuff like that would let people who don't have time to be on IRC or are never on when we have those discussions have their opinion heard.

 

[Hulavuta]

There are threads on the manga and anime, but they just died off because people stopped posting in them. Honestly, I think that is the only problem: inactivity, not really anything that is the moderators' fault or anything they can fix. Maybe it's just because it's that time of year where everyone is busy with finals and whatnot, but personally I haven't really found anything to post in Orange Islands in a while despite lurking pretty much all day. I'm just sitting around, waiting for noobcubed or BaffleBlend to make a thread so I can post, but then these threads tend to die out quickly as well, or are about your own personal experiences and so there isn't much of a discussion.

This isn't really something that only the mods can do, but if the mods were to create more threads or join in more discussions, it could increase activity. We need more threads that are actual discussions, such as this one or this one. Threads where people disagree with each other and have a reason to post more than once are going to have a lot of activity.

Also, I think tags should be brought back...not sure why they were removed. At the very least, I think Let's Play and Challenge tags should return, since pretty much everything else can be assumed to be a discussion.

 

[RotomPoison]

What about more speedruns/races of in-game? Is it possible to set up a new Twitch for that and have there be a race every week between a few people? Seems like something people would enjoy watching and competing in.

 

[Stellar]

What about more speedruns/races of in-game? Is it possible to set up a new Twitch for that and have there be a race every week between a few people? Seems like something people would enjoy watching and competing in.

This is something Mekkah and I have been speaking about for a while. Hopefully we can get something up and running soon.

 

[Codraroll]

I think the "problem" is that most casual Pokémon fans love to talk about what could have been, as much as what we actually have. I.e. "Your dream Pokémon game" or "Wouldn't it be awesome if they made a Sound type" type of discussion. See for instance the popularity of speculation threads when new games are announced.

However, (and fortunately, I must say), Smogon doesn't approve of wishlisting, demanding its users to promote actual discussion when opening threads. This can best be illustrated by counting the proportionate amount of locked threads in Orange Islands, where mods swiftly deal with any such "+1 post count" threads hours or even minutes after they are made.

This results in two things:
1) People go elsewhere for discussion with more lax standards, leaving Orange Islands a little devoid of activity. They may use the rest of Smogon for competitive discussion, but Orange Islands can't substitute Serebii or Bulbagarden when it comes to non-competitivity.
2) People are discouraged from opening threads here, instead heading elsewhere. Most established users have learned that "If you don't have anything worthwhile to discuss, don't open threads", so it's up to newer users to eagerly open threads before they realize this. Once in a while, a decent thread results from this and we get blooming activity for a while. Most of the time, though, the thread ends its days with a padlock icon, and we end up without any good, active threads.

I don't think we can do anything with 1). Smogon will hopefully never lower their standards to the point where every kind of riff-raff and language-challenged preteens can open whatever thread they desire. We can't compete with Serebii or Bulbagarden when it comes to accept and accessibility, and we shouldn't try either. Orange Islands is the non-competitive corner of Smogon, where Smogon's rules and standards still apply, not a playground for Pokémon fans.
2), however, can be remedied to some degree. The solution is "more good threads", which admittedly is kind of hard to achieve without conflicting with Smogon's strict (and in my opinion, necessary) standards. Perhaps mods can find good topics, or even try to make some "bad" ones good by setting proper guidelines for discussion.

There will always be a problem, though, that there's only so much that can be said about a topic before we start repeating ourselves. A thread can't live forever and still be good. We've already milked topics like Pokémon Amie, favourite soundtracks, favourite locations, Pokémon models, attack animations and such completely dry. People simply stopped posting in those threads. The frequent users of OI have had their say about this already, and feel that saying it again would be a waste of time. As such, it's almost inevitable that we will hit quiet periods now and then, either until more can be said about the same old topics, we get new topics to discuss, or enough new users sign up that discussing the same old things can be justified again.



Lastly, if you want more thread suggestions, I once proposed opening a thread reminiscing a little about the past. Specifically, speculation before game releases. For instance, what we thought this-and-that tidbit of information could be or mean. The endless discussions regarding type speculation. The supposed new abilities of Kyurem-W and -B, that negated the charge turn of Freeze Shock and Ice Burn. Where we were right, and where we were wrong.
Then again, I suppose it's hard to discuss past discussion, so I guess it would fit better in a Smog article.

 

[Level 51]

I liked Orange League a lot, especially the first incarnation of it where we had teams and stuff. I understand that was hard to orchestrate, but I'd like to propose that the next time we run Orange League, which is whenever, we keep the rounds a bit shorter; otherwise, lots of enthusiasm gets killed while waiting for people to submit their scores and for the tallying and yada yada.

 

[MikeAU]

Hey Stellar,

Great post and hope you get some valuable feedback from the community. I love OI as a subset of Smogon, it is a great place for advice, thoughts and in general help -- whether it be receiving or offering.

Perhaps, we can look towards some of the other area's of Smogon and find ways that we can adapt and cater some unique/new and valuable offerings. Some idea's I have are:

• The idea around speed-runs or unique challenges is quite cool.
• Orange League: Perhaps look at frequency, and even perhaps some more X/Y based challenges.
• Battling: I know there are the more competitive areas of Smogon for this, however, I feel/observe that this is something that doesn't get much attention. Maybe we could have some casual battle competitions/activities. Ranging from like introductory type rounds (not like mentoring) but try and get some laddering going, through to tier based challenges. Again, nothing super competitive/formal but in-line with the tiers (OU/UU)
• CAP: Still relatively new to smogon-pokemon some areas are a bit daunting to venture in to, perhaps something a long this line, a little more casual and slightly different? Perhaps -- left of field, some writing competitions -- write an episode or something like that.

Just some thoughts -- certainly would support and get involved with more stuff around OI. It was my first real taste of Smogon and such a great place!

 

[chaostothemax]

I really enjoy OI. I love the idea of a casual, relatively easygoing community in the ocean of competitiveness that is the rest of Smogon. Of course, there are always ways to improve this.
-More group events. I couldn't really participate in the Orange League, but I love the other events. Jimera's stream and Movie Nights are great events that bring the whole community together. We need more of those.
-Competitions in the vein of Orange League, but for other types of things would be great as well. Things like writing a Pokemon Episode, as suggested above, would be cool, but making it a competition for a banner like the Orange League would be fantastic.
-I also love the idea of a more casual CAP. CAP is a cool idea, but it feels too systematic to me and takes forever to get anything done. With a more casual CAP, we don't have to worry about filling a 'niche' in the metagame, so we have much more creative license and don't have to worry about making the pokemon competitively viable, allowing us to focus on flavor.

 

[DHR-107]

-I also love the idea of a more casual CAP. CAP is a cool idea, but it feels too systematic to me and takes forever to get anything done. With a more casual CAP, we don't have to worry about filling a 'niche' in the metagame, so we have much more creative license and don't have to worry about making the pokemon competitively viable, allowing us to focus on flavor.

As a CaPper myself, I am very much against the idea of Orange Islands doing anything of the sort. We do not want to be seen as making "Fanboy Pokemon". CaP creates something which can be used and played with and analyses something interesting within the OU metagame itself. CaP already caters to "flavour mons" with the Prevo projects. Please go there when there is an active project and dip your feet into CaP in that environment. It's a lot less intimidating! CaP is not a scary place by any means, the process is there for a reason and there is lots of information within the CaP forum which can help explain better.

 

[noobcubed]

-I also love the idea of a more casual CAP. CAP is a cool idea, but it feels too systematic to me and takes forever to get anything done. With a more casual CAP, we don't have to worry about filling a 'niche' in the metagame, so we have much more creative license and don't have to worry about making the pokemon competitively viable, allowing us to focus on flavor.

This is probably better off in the fanart subforum. Once you strip away competitive attributes, a Pokemon is mostly aesthetic design anyway.

 

[Jellicent]

For me, the best threads have always gotten the community involved somehow or inspired people to play. Challenge threads (Orange League, Nuzlocke, Scramble, etc.) get people playing games and sharing experiences. Let's Plays and Twitch streams offer entertainment value to those reading and watching, as well as those actually playing. Similarly, movie nights and Google Hangouts provide entertainment and bring the community together. In-game Tiering threads promote in-depth discussion on the most efficient ways to play the games, which is great. The Battle Maison thread also provides good discussion, as well as a reason to compete and play. Guides are excellent, since they're valuable resources and help people playing the games. Even research threads like the Shiny Charm and Masuda Method ones get people playing and talking about it, which is good.

Threads where you just talk about your favorite X or what you'd like to change about Y don't inspire much discussion, bring the community together, or get people playing. Those three things should be OI's focus, and if a thread promotes either of the latter two, the first will almost always follow.

 

[Stellar]

I'd love to hear more opinions about potential speedraces. Are more people interested in participating or watching (Twitch + commentary)?

 

[Jimera0]

Well I'm glad to hear that people have been enjoying the Orange League at least.

However I think it's worth bringing up a few challenges that need to be addressed with regards to some of the ideas proposed here. These challenges don't mean that the ideas are unworkable or anything, just that there are things we need to consider when we try to enact them.

The big one I want to address is the suggestion we increase the frequency of the OL challenges. The main thing with that is that it's actually a lot harder than it looks to come up with a good challenge every week that fits the format of the OL without repeating ourselves. One of the things that's a requirement for the OL is that we need the "proof" for each round to be a single screenshot so we can easily verify people's submitted scores without making people go to prohibitive lengths (like having to record video or live stream). This immediately rules out a lot of creative potential challenges because the proof of a final score and that the rules have been followed can't be captured in a single image. Then there's the issue that we need to keep the playing field level for all-comers; we don't want someone winning just because they happen to have a completed copy of the game filled with loads of competitive IV bred Pokemon or something else similar. Then on top of that is the issue of picking games that everyone can compete in (the Pokemon Snap round showed the issues with that). All in all coming up with a new challenge every 2 weeks is hard enough as it is, let alone once a week as proposed. Either we'd need to start repeating challenges pretty frequently or someone is going to have to propose a solution me and Hulavuta haven't thought of yet. We've been open to suggestions for challenges for a while, but no one ever submits any so me and Hula have to wrack our brains every week to come up with something remotely new. I'm open to suggestions on how we can fix this, but making OL challenges more frequent is easier said than done.

Challenge threads (especially ones that require full-game playthroughs) have their own issue I discovered a while ago when I tried to make my own one (The Gauntlet Challenge, if anyone remembers). The issue is that challenge threads of this sort kind of compete with each other. People are only going to take on so many full-game challenges at a time, so there really isn't room for more than 2 or 3 popular challenges at once, since most people will have their fill with just one or two challenges. My Gauntlet challenge fell prey to being too similar to the Scramble Challenge and Nuzlocke Challenges, so with those being more popular the Gauntlet Challenge never really took off. You see this happen all the time with similar challenge threads; the only ones that really tend to stick around are the Scramble and Nuzlocke challenges. This isn't because all the other challenges suck, they're just out-competed. Because of this, I don't think creating more full game challenges will really help bring in more activity on its own. Whatever sorts of challenges we create have to be something completely new and fresh in order to survive, so they don't compete for time and save files with Scrambles and Nuzlockes.

I suspect we'll have a similar issue if we start flooding the forums with too many group events; people can only take the time to attend so many a week, if you make too many they'll begin to compete for participants and eventually die out.

So what's the moral of the story here? I think we need to balance out the things that require time from people, otherwise we risk overwhelming them and having our ideas drop like flies. I know that's really general and vague but it's the best I got.

Anyway, sorry to be a bit of a downer here, but ideas can only succeed when you've worked out how to deal with potential problems right?

 

[noobcubed]

On the Orange League: I regret not getting involved.

 

[cant say]

Lastly, if you want more thread suggestions, I once proposed opening a thread reminiscing a little about the past. Specifically, speculation before game releases. For instance, what we thought this-and-that tidbit of information could be or mean.

This could be a cool idea. I remember back when we were waiting for X+Y to come out and we had that mega thread going on for it, there were a couple of users saying that they were collecting some of our best speculation and putting it all together so they could release it after the games had been released so we could see if we guessed right about anything, or which of our guesses were horribly wrong. Can't remember who these guys were but if we can track them down I think that would at least spark some discussion for a while...

(I think one of them might have been Inferno or something like that idk)

EDIT: also Orange League is great, if we can get more people involved then surely we can all think of more challenges to do rather than leaving it up to Hula and Jimera (we also might find someone who can beat atsync, or maybe we'll just end up with more people for him to beat)

 

[Codraroll]

^Yeah, that was me and a couple other guys. Unfortunately, our findings were collected in a Smogon Group (TM), and the data lost as those ceased to exist approximately a year ago. Doesn't exactly help that the updating of that group became a little haphazard after a while, the initiative taker stopped logging on, and we missed a few important bouts of speculation.

 

[Mulan15262]

One thing that I think would be a good idea is a sub-forum for discussion of fan theories and fan fiction. I've noticed that several other pokemon-related forums have these, but Smogon does not. As long as we have rules making sure that it does not grow out of hand, and require a minimum quality from everyone writing a fiction/theory and responding to such a theory, it should be fine. Fan fiction might be better off in its own forum in Smogon, but theories could work as a sub-forum of OI.

I would also like it better if there was no break between each round of the Orange League, and the rounds simply made longer to compensate. I heard somewhere that there were 2 weeks between the start of each round, and each round was a week and a half long, but it would be better, in my opinion, to just have 2 week long rounds if that was the case. This way, people like me that have very busy schedules would be more able to participate, without harming the people who run it or the other participants, unless there is some reason to have shorter rounds, but I can't think of any reason.

 

[Karxrida]

One thing that I think would be a good idea is a sub-forum for discussion of fan theories and fan fiction. I've noticed that several other pokemon-related forums have these, but Smogon does not. As long as we have rules making sure that it does not grow out of hand, and require a minimum quality from everyone writing a fiction/theory and responding to such a theory, it should be fine. Fan fiction might be better off in its own forum in Smogon, but theories could work as a sub-forum of OI.

I would also like it better if there was no break between each round of the Orange League, and the rounds simply made longer to compensate. I heard somewhere that there were 2 weeks between the start of each round, and each round was a week and a half long, but it would be better, in my opinion, to just have 2 week long rounds if that was the case. This way, people like me that have very busy schedules would be more able to participate, without harming the people who run it or the other participants, unless there is some reason to have shorter rounds, but I can't think of any reason.

We'd have to be VERY careful if we allow fanfiction discussion here, as most are subject to Sturgeon's Law and can enter canon rape territory. Also, we'd have to ban any shipping discussion because a.) People take it way too seriously and b.) It's weird.

 

[Hulavuta]

I would also like it better if there was no break between each round of the Orange League, and the rounds simply made longer to compensate. I heard somewhere that there were 2 weeks between the start of each round, and each round was a week and a half long, but it would be better, in my opinion, to just have 2 week long rounds if that was the case.

I'm not sure where you heard this, but it would be incorrect, 2 week long rounds is what we did. Originally it was a 10 day period with 4 days in between, and then sometime in February or March it was changed to two week periods. Sometimes there were delays of one or two days, but never anything as long as two weeks between the end of one round and the start of the next. Sometimes there were issues that forced us to miss a week, such as the break we took for Christmas, but the only time we had wait as long as two weeks was between the penultimate and final rounds where we had an issue deciding how we would end it and when to start up again.

unless there is some reason to have shorter rounds, but I can't think of any reason.

Level 51 brought up a good reason, which is that it's more exciting. I'm inclined to agree with him. The thread is pretty dead until the round is actually over, since nobody wants to discuss their strategies. Also, we tend to get about 70% of the entries on the last two days of the competition anyway, so I don't imagine it'd be a big loss in the number of entries. If we went through with this, I think a format of 1 week on, 1 week off would be okay.

One thing that I think would be a good idea is a sub-forum for discussion of fan theories and fan fiction. I've noticed that several other pokemon-related forums have these, but Smogon does not. As long as we have rules making sure that it does not grow out of hand, and require a minimum quality from everyone writing a fiction/theory and responding to such a theory, it should be fine. Fan fiction might be better off in its own forum in Smogon, but theories could work as a sub-forum of OI.

There was a fan theory thread http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokémon-theories.3483613/ so I'm guessing fan theories are not against the rules. I don't think an entire subforum is necessary, but I think it'd be cool if people made threads for theories that were very detailed and could bring up a lot of discussion. As for fanfiction, I think the best move would be to host it on external websites like fanfiction.net, and then have a single thread where you can plug and link your own.

We'd have to be VERY careful if we allow fanfiction discussion here, as most are subject to Sturgeon's Law and can enter canon rape territory. Also, we'd have to ban any shipping discussion because a.) People take it way too seriously and b.) It's weird.

As far as shipping goes, I love it but I have no idea how you can have an actual serious discussion about shipping that isn't completely ridiculous. I'd say leave it out. As bad of an argument as "it's weird" is, it does seem to me like a shipping thread will just be a place where users can easily find people to make fun of.


On a final note, anyone who posted in this thread about the Orange League and is interested in improving it somehow, the best things you can do right now are: come up with specific challenges (message us if you think of something good!) and try to get your friends involved so we have a bigger pool of competitors when we return in August.

 

[Mulan15262]

I'm not sure where you heard this, but it would be incorrect, 2 week long rounds is what we did. Originally it was a 10 day period with 4 days in between, and then sometime in February or March it was changed to two week periods. Sometimes there were delays of one or two days, but never anything as long as two weeks between the end of one round and the start of the next. Sometimes there were issues that forced us to miss a week, such as the break we took for Christmas, but the only time we had wait as long as two weeks was between the penultimate and final rounds where we had an issue deciding how we would end it and when to start up again.



Level 51 brought up a good reason, which is that it's more exciting. I'm inclined to agree with him. The thread is pretty dead until the round is actually over, since nobody wants to discuss their strategies. Also, we tend to get about 70% of the entries on the last two days of the competition anyway, so I don't imagine it'd be a big loss in the number of entries. If we went through with this, I think a format of 1 week on, 1 week off would be okay.



There was a fan theory thread http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pokémon-theories.3483613/ so I'm guessing fan theories are not against the rules. I don't think an entire subforum is necessary, but I think it'd be cool if people made threads for theories that were very detailed and could bring up a lot of discussion. As for fanfiction, I think the best move would be to host it on external websites like fanfiction.net, and then have a single thread where you can plug and link your own.

I meant 2 weeks between one round's start and the next round's start, with a few days between one round's end and the next round's start. I was thinking providing those few days between each round as time for submissions would help busy people make time. I think it would not pose a problem to have one round's discussion while the next is going on, it seems like the few minutes to an hour of practice lost wouldn't bother most participants.


One problem with having it all the fan theories on one thread is that each fan theory could have a lot of discussion about it, and it would be hard to keep track of which theory we are talking about. Even one post replying to another in this style can get confusing, and we could see whole posts critiquing a theory without mentioning which theory is being critiqued, and then people responding to the critique and confusing everyone else.

 

[Hulavuta]

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say. I think there might be a misunderstanding somewhere.

I meant 2 weeks between one round's start and the next round's start

This is what we tried to do, and what we did do for the most part.

I was thinking providing those few days between each round as time for submissions would help busy people make time.

I'm not sure how that would help, because with the current system you can submit any time in two weeks, rather than in a few days like you are suggesting, if I understand it correctly.

I think it would not pose a problem to have one round's discussion while the next is going on, it seems like the few minutes to an hour of practice lost wouldn't bother most participants.

This wasn't really a rule either. It's just that after a few days of discussing, the players tended to not have anything to say anymore.

One problem with having it all the fan theories on one thread is that each fan theory could have a lot of discussion about it, and it would be hard to keep track of which theory we are talking about. Even one post replying to another in this style can get confusing, and we could see whole posts critiquing a theory without mentioning which theory is being critiqued, and then people responding to the critique and confusing everyone else.

I think this was a misunderstanding too. I did say that theories that were very detailed and would create a lot of discussion should have their own threads. Fanfiction is the one I think should stick to one thread. So I think we are on the same page on this one.

 

[Layell]

I'm going to respond to a few general points.

I have always believed Orange Islands is ideally 'a place for competitive players/players who subscribe to the competitive mindset to discuss the in-game and more casual aspects of the Pokemon franchise' rather than just the 'in-game/casual site section'. There is a subtle difference, but it's an important one to consider. We are a community that is centred around the competitive aspects of Pokemon, and things like fan theories or shipping is not part of that culture. With the culture of competitive discussion by our nature we look for intelligent discussion. Again shipping doesn't fit into that.

OI is not the serebii section of smogon, that is not how we envision this forum.

On the note of some topic requests, if they fit within what we aspire this subforum to be, go forth and make them. If threads are inactive, go forth and post in them. Regarding the manga thread I am the biggest Pokespecial fan in OI afaik, but it's the nature of the series that makes it difficult for me to keep following. But if people are interested in discussing I'll go catch up by all means. But if you want something to get bigger help push it in #oi and on the forums.

 

[RODAN]

i am all for competitive shipping

 

[KingHeracrossTheBug]

How about allowing speculations about future or even present games?