Issues with the TD Team

[Ojama]

Originally, I had planned to make a thread regarding the issues with the TD Team within the next few weeks/months (basically before WCOP starts), but the recent events sped up the process and led me to post earlier than anticipated. The purpose of this thread isn't to call out the current and former TDs, but to address the various concerns I, and more specifically the Smogon Community, have had over the past few years, because a lot of people feel like Smogon is slowly going downhill and the people in charge are the direct responsible of the current situation. Of course, the TDs aren't responsible for all the issues with Smogon, but being a tournament player, my main concerns are directly related to how tournaments are handled and all the decisions that are made about tournaments, and the TDs are the ones in charge for this. I will try my best to avoid falling into a tl;dr post.

First of all, I will obviously start with the Raiders drama that occurred a few days ago and which the final decision was posted earlier today. My opinion on the matter, and I'm convinced that a lot of people share it too, is that the decision made is a poor one and doesn't make much sense. Why would TDK be the only to take the blame here? Because he is the Head TD? How is that relevant in such a situation, let alone the fact that this role of Head TD is purely subjective, doesn't provide more powers than other TDs, and was created to inflate the ego of the person nominated. The other TDs involved in this situation, Jirachee and Pearl, are as much responsible as TDK in this one. TDK is a really good friend of mine on Smogon and I can't really defend him here, but I absolutely refuse he should be the only one to take the blame here. The 3 TDs involved should step down immediately. The Tournament Directors are supposed to represent fairness and sportsmanship, which was absolutely not the case here. I don't care whether they said it was bad or not, they decided to remain silent and took advantage of the leaked information in an Official Tournament to give themselves a better chance to win a very important game in order to make Playoffs. Such attitude from those whose job is to make the most important decisions about the Official Tournament issues is extremely concerning and ultimately leads the Smogon Community to think that the TDs are obviously biased and benefit from unfair advantages thanks to their position as TDs. This leads to thinking that whenever there was an issue with a TD involved, the decision made was to benefit the TD. This has to change, and for that to happen, I want the Smogon Staff or the future Head TD, or whoever can take such a decision, to demote Pearl and Jirachee from their TD positions.

The last part of the previous paragraph arouses the following issue: the impact of the Smogon Community over issues like these and the decisions taken. To me, this is a major issue and probably the biggest ones. Over the years, these little groups of people that were given some responsibilities, have turned into some kind of circlejerks in which only a few users have a chance to ever make it into, because they have the rights to nominate whoever they want and nothing can be made against that, and who use their powers to take whatever decision they want, without even consulting the community. Don't even try to tell me that the few discussion threads you posted ever had an impact on your decisions. The best example being the WCOP format thread where literally 95% of the community was against locking the format of Team Tournaments, but you did it anyway because you do the things you want. It is a real issue that a small group of people are given so much power and can decide the fate of Smogon Tournaments. I entirely agree that we need people to make big decisions and apply the rules, but I don't want them to think they are above everybody else and can control things the way they want. The community's opinion should matter more than anything else and you should make the decisions that satisfy the majority. Yes, you can't satisfy all parties, that's part of the game, but there is a difference between satisfying the majority of a community and satisfying a small group of people.

The issue I'm about to address is kind of linked to the one above, but I think it's better to separate both issue to make things clearer: how and by whom are Tournament Directors nominated. Since forever, the users who are nominated to become TDs have been picked by the TDs themselves, which is another huge issue to me. As stated in the previous paragraph, these small group of selected users (Councils / TDs) have become a group of friends with powers they can use to do pretty much whatever they want: suspect test a Pokémon or an Ability, nominate new TDs or Council Members, etc... Maybe this used to work back when the people in charge didn't fall into the circlejerking category, but this isn't the case anymore. Over the past few years, there have been countless of very questionnable nominations by the TD Team and nobody could go against these. I don't wanna call out anyone in particular, but I'm pretty sure you know who I'm talking about. Some of the current TDs fall into this category as well and I seriously hope they will recognize themselves. I'm obviously not bringing up this issue out of nowhere, I got evidence to backup what I'm stating, but as I said, I don't wanna call out anyone in this thread, I just want to make a general statement about what does not work with the TD Team and should change as quickly as possible if we want to move things positively and get Smogon back on its feet. It shouldn't be acceptable that the TDs get to pick their friends for next TDs because this makes their life easier and they won't have to deal with anyone that could go against their little shenanigans. Unfortunately, a lot of old-TDs, and some current ones, were nominated because they were friends with some TDs, despite being totally unqualified for the role, and this ultimately led to what Smogon is right now: a shithole. You don't have to be friends to do a good job is what I'm saying. The community should also be consulted on the matter. Don't get me wrong, I know there is a thread posted when a new user is nominated to become TD, but let's be honest, these threads are useless you barely pay attention to what is posted. I think the tournament players should be consulted because they are the ones who are directly concerned by this. Obviously you can't ask all the tournaments, but maybe consult the main figures of the Tournament Scene (All SPL Players for instance)?

Last but not least: the attitude of the Tournament Directors. What am I trying to say by this? It's pretty simple, the TDs are almost unreachable besides a few of them because they just consciously ignore you, acting like they are some kind of Presidents and that you aren't worth their time. This is also related to what I said above regarding users who were nominated despite being unqualified for the role and who went on hiatus as soon as they were promoted. The inactivity within the TD Team is a real issue and their arrogance causes all these tensions between the Community and the TD Team. You have to keep in mind that we are just playing Pokémon for fun, with no money on the line. Get back on Earth. It has always pissed me off how TDs care so much about all these policy stuff and rules, making threads about rules nobody actually reads, when all cases should be treated separately. A good example is the timer issues we have encountered in SPL. Because of an arbitrary rule the TDs set, a lot of bad decisions were made just because the TDs wanted to follow the said rule, which is just an absurdity. All issues should be treated case by case, and trust me the decisions will be a lot better, and there will be much less people trying to abuse the loopholes in these rules. Why do you absolutely want to set rules everywhere? Why can't you just analyze the different situations you face and make the most logical decisions? Another good example is the WCOP format and that decision taken to get rid of RBY when the RBY Community is one of the strongest and most active on Smogon. With the amount of players rising over the years, why don't you just increase the WCOP spots to 12? Why did you decide to lock the format when a new Generation comes out every 2 years and forces the format to be redefined? You have to accept that Pokémon is a game that keeps evolving and forces you to adapt your formats. You're just making your life easier by setting a rule, which is the issue I was talking about. Anyway this is kind of off topic so I'll end the post here, but you got my point.

I have tried to address what I think are the most important issues right now with the TD Team, but obviously there are more issues, but with Smogon as a whole. It is certainly not easy to be a TD, but I think many things could have been done better. Thanks for reading me.

 

[Sam]

Heya, not a TD but I was an admin for a year and a half and that's pretty similar here. I won't go into the whole Raiders thing because I don't have all of the information, but I feel I can touch on the more general stuff.

Being a leader on this site kind of sucks. I'm not gonna go all "heavy hangs the head", but I lost a lot of friends and had a lot of contentious moments through the course of being a tier leader and admin. If you ever wonder why a lot of stuff in policy review goes without any action being taken, it's because taking a side often gets vilified to the point where's it's not really worth it. TDs kind of have their hands forced because they often have to make these decisions in short time. I've posted before about how the TDs could probably benefit from having better communication, and I still stick to that point. Still though, given the volunteer nature of the position you can't realistically expect them to engage with literally everyone and for good reason a lot of the discussion takes place behind closed doors. It's just the nature of how it is. I've been involved with a few of the current TDs and I can guarantee you that they do take discourse seriously. But even in sports if a referee makes an informed decision, it's still going to piss off half of the people watching game. That's just kind of how it goes. They can and should take community opinion into account, but they are still autonomous and don't just parrot whatever a majority split may want.

I've taken part in nomming smods/admins so again I feel this is a parallel. Honestly, you start to take people into your friend group because you see them as competent, not the other way around. Honestly, the initial way I got my foot in the door a while ago was by talking to kokoloko about my concerns with how council was run. After we worked those things out I became more trusted, getting involved in some of the discussions. It's not a correlation that become friends with TDs will get you TD, but if you are going to get TD you're probably going to be trusted by the current staff. I think that makes sense.

I know "it's a thankless job" has been played out but really, often times there is no winning play. Everyone has their own different opinions on what is perfect, but ultimately someone has to decide how things go. I think it would do wonders if people on this site would treat others with more empathy and understand that the staff really does have the best intentions. Thank you for taking a civil approach to this.

 

[Oglemi]

I know "it's a thankless job" has been played out but really, often times there is no winning play. Everyone has their own different opinions on what is perfect, but ultimately someone has to decide how things go. I think it would do wonders if people on this site would treat others with more empathy and understand that the staff really does have the best intentions. Thank you for taking a civil approach to this.

Agree with the rest of your post but it's hard to be empathetic when 3 TDs were just found guilty of borderline cheating/shady behavior and other "exemplary" TDs in the past have been found of the same or worse in the past couple years. I think that's the major contention that Ojama et al has a problem with, that these "inside guys" that are so against cheating (or in Ojama's words "for policy and rules and stuff") keep ending up using their power for cheating. Hard to be nice to a group of people that appear aloof and out of contact while actively undermining that empathy they ask for.

This said, there is never going to be the perfect TD or TD team that are going to make all the right decisions and be totally cool and awesome. Like Sam mentioned, when was the last time you were completely happy with every decision a referee made during a football game? No matter who you give the power to make those decisions, there is always going to be people who agree and people who disagree with every decision. You're never going to prevent "bad decisions" from occurring every once in a while. That's just a reality of the situation. So when it does happen, raising pitchforks needs to not happen as much as it currently does/always has. Maybe more "box reviews" or "manager challenges" could happen to help lessen the amount of "bad decisions" that stick, but that's just a spitball idea from me.

I'm not familiar with the current state of activity or interaction with the TD team, but going forward I think the members of the TD team should be more open to arguing and addressing inquiries with people if that's an area people are having issues with. Easy to armchair this, but that was a major point that I made as a TD was to be available to argue over everything. Everyone's opinions don't need to be taken into account, and decisions don't have to change just because some vocal people are against a decision, but the discourse needs to happen (even if it leads to some people's bannings 9.9).

 

[p2]

TDs have self-interest. This always exists, so if self-interest is the reason there’s an issue, whether it’s through creating rules or applying them, then something else has to change. We can’t "make the TDs more accountable" or "be nicer to volunteers." Well, making TDs more accountable would help, but there is a painfully obvious problem: Why the fuck are TDs playing in tournaments? Would any of this have been an issue otherwise? If TDs found out that someone had been cheating, they gather the evidence and ban the person. In this instance, there was undeniable cheating, yet half of the TD team was too conflicted to respond, and ignored their job.

Here’s another thing we need to establish: TDs are (mostly) shitty at being TDs. And that’s ok, even expected. People dedicate their livelihood to organizing competitions and making decisions on them. These people don’t. As long as there are "clueless" TDs like pearl who claim to have been "conflicted" and blame everyone but themselves (what a joke), then we need to change the rules to make the job of the TD easier.

Preventing TDs from playing in tournaments is the blatantly obvious choice to make this happen, let alone the insane conflict of interest TDs face when playing tournaments. Also, disallowing TDs from tournaments would make their actions more accountable towards the outcome of OTHERS rather than themselves. The merit of their decision is then more important to them than the outcome is (whether x or y is benefited etc), which would otherwise affect themselves if they were in the tournament. On top of that, this will prevent pond-scum like rozes and bloo from getting incentive to be TD. In other words, it's pretty obvious that there's an advantage in being a TD for competing in tournaments, so disallowing them from competing would self-select a lot of shitty prospective TDs who don't care about the rules.

There’s no reason this shouldn’t be considered, although I know it will never happen. TDs would decide whether TDs could play in tournaments. Yea, no issue there. Sounds good. I know there are good TDs who mean well and are smart, but you need to be honest with yourself. Even if you think you can play tournaments without a conflict of interest, can the other TDs do it? Evidently not.

But even in sports if a referee makes an informed decision, it's still going to piss off half of the people watching game. That's just kind of how it goes. They can and should take community opinion into account, but they are still autonomous and don't just parrot whatever a majority split may want.

YEA, THAT’S BECAUSE THE REFEREE ISNT A MEMBER OF THE FUCKING TEAM HE’S PENALIZING

 

[blank]

per the discussions in the tournaments discord, the TDs claim that when decisions happen regarding their own teams, they completely excuse themselves from the discussion. with this being the case, there is no reason to want TDs that don't play in tournaments. in fact, doing this would probably lower the quality of potential TDs significantly; there are definitely potential TDs (and current TDs) who would be / are high quality and do not play in tournaments, but most people who care enough about tournaments to be TDs play in tournaments.

the issue is not TDs playing in tournaments: the issue is TDs not putting the duty of being a TD first. in Pearl's (not a call-out) post in the SPL thread, he mentioned that he tried to make the best choice juggling his responsibilities as a manager and as a TD, and he was successful in this. however, an ideal TD shouldn't be "juggling" these responsibilities; rather, TDs should try to be as unbiased as possible regarding their own teams, meaning the 3 involved in the recent situation should have reported this rather than not (and trying to delete the logs to top it off).

this is obviously very idealized, and trying to achieve this is basically impossible. this brings us back to the original choice: have a TD team where TDs are not involved in the tournaments, or have a TD team where TDs are allowed to play in the tournaments.

i think the ideal solution here is finding a middle ground by having roughly about as many TDs playing in tournaments as TDs who do not play in tournaments with the head TD ideally being someone who doesn't play in tournaments. this gives a more diverse set of opinions, which could help to minimize the circlejerk issues Ojama pointed out. i understand with sections on smogon, those who run them are more inclined to promote people they know very well because they trust those people, but when this gets excessive, it can lead to some of the issues discussed in this thread.

as for the recent incident, i don't think it makes the TDs corrupt or anything: this could've happened with any other team. in this instance though, the 3 TDs involved seemingly valued their duty as members / leaders of a team more than they valued their duty as TDs... not much you can do but move on and try to promote more people who would be less inclined to be like this in the future (easier said than done).

tl;dr: rather than making it so TDs cannot play in tours, just promote some more TDs who are qualified but less inclined to play in tournaments.

 

[teal6]

If you want competent, unbiased, non-playing tournament directors you need to compensate them. The site turns a profit, I'm assuming, so some of that should be reinvested into the scene.

Regards,
teal6

 

[PDC]

hmmmm yeah

you either compensate them or do a rolling council of td's. as in: you have x # of td's being on the active set at any given time and when they play in official tournaments they are automatically subbed off of the tournament director team. you're never going to eliminate the problem of association or friendship in the scene; you can't possibly expect outsiders in this community to even have the knowledge to make accurate calls. the talent has to come from the tournament pool. the question is how to regulate that talent and make sure it stays fair.

say you have 8 total "td" members. tdk / pearl / tony / hogg / abr / mdrag / flcl / shake. the 4 latter players want to play in spl, so they're subbed out of the td team for that season / decision making.

this is still probably flawed and honestly i really don't care about the TD situation - it doesn't bother me - but either do this or pay money.

 

[Raven]

Springboarding off the above:

As paying staff isn't something I assume would be considered (If we pay TDs, what about other kinds of senior staff? I imagine that would get messy before we start to consider legal/taxational complexities) I think there's an angle being missed when discussing conflicts in the TD role: Why must a small group of people be responsible as both lawmakers and match officials across the official tournaments?

TDs should still set the rules and have the final say where required, but it should be pretty simple to tweak and expand the current workings of the tournament community to facilitate refereeing without TDs having to directly ref tours in which they compete.

As I understand it, current hosts work towards CC as opposed to TD, so this isn't much of departure in logic: Engage current hosts (formally) as part of a wider pool of tournament officials (-> CC) which are as a matter of course drawn in to adjudicate in higher level tournaments where the chosen individuals have no apparent conflicts of interest.

This would also make the pipeline for TD promotions more transparent so could help mitigate some of the ire in that space.

 

[Finchinator]

ftr this is in response to p2's post mainly (and people who expressed this sentiment on discord recently, too) -- haven't entirely caught up since then, but anyway...

Personally, I feel that my team this SPL was at no disadvantage when lacking a TD and teams like the Raiders did not have much of an advantage with multiple TDs, either (hell, they probably had none). I think that the roots of this segment of conversation are formed on the sentiments of knee-jerk reactions in anger in response to recent events. With that said, I understand why people are skeptical and why people like dekzeh believe that TDs can influence decisions to favor their teams -- there is no actual way to completely disprove this notion no matter what we do, unfortunately. Regardless of that, there is no actual solution to this and while people above have alluded to the potential for excluding the TDs from these tournaments or finding new, non-playing TDs, I find both of these to be impractical ideas -- I shall get into that throughout the remainder of my post, specifically later on.

I think that something that has been either blatantly understated or simply disregarded by people presenting the argument for non-playing TDs is the fact that someone who does not frequent tournaments probably does not know how to properly direct them. Part of the reason why the tournament directors are so often participating in tournaments like SPL is because the people who have the best tools run tournaments -- through creating policy, enacting policy, and ensuring the proper running of tournaments as a whole, especially when it comes to logistical matters -- are those who have experience with them as long-time managers, players, and participants in any capacity. Much like any other "job", experience and understanding correlates to competence and success and it should be no surprise that this is the case here, too.

This means that, if we want TDs who do not have these supposed conflicts of interest/compromised position that has been alluded to a number of times, then we essentially need to do one of two things:

• Have all or a significant portion of TDs, who are also active tournament players, sit out of the most important tournaments for the sake of their volunteer position
• Promote suboptimal (due to inexperience, as I described above) and unfit new TDs, who likely compromise the quality of the team, which already seems to not be regarded particularly highly as is, in order to have hosts and decision makers that do not have a stake in things

As for the former...good luck getting that to work. TDing already has been labeled as thankless and tedious by previous TDs and I highly doubt many active participants would be ok with not participating for the sake of their position and some supposed increase in the genuine nature of the tournament's running. On top of that, it isn't exactly fair to even try and enforce that either. All in all, this seems unrealistic and not ideal.

As for the latter, this isn't even a solution for pretty obvious reasons to me. First off, the community already seems to not be content with some decisions made and the quality of the TD team, hence this thread and many recent opinions being stated. How would adding/replacing members with even less qualified and experienced individuals change this for the better? This opens up a whole new group of problems with potential incompetence and it is certainly not something we should resort to. On top of that, who would even want to do this if they are not actually involved with and thus probably do not feel as attached/caring about tournaments in the first place? There are a number of issues with this is basically what I'm trying to say and it would not make sense to move forward with.

Overall, this is always going to be a flawed system and we are always going to run in to some conflict and the best that the TD team and us as a community can really do is try to promote the right thing/common sense (which seems to be lacking a lot lately), have the best people possible on the team, and promote competent, experienced hosts, who should be able to make the decisions themselves primarily, thus making the insight of the remainder of the TD team and whatever perceived advantage there is and may be either minimal or, ideally, nonexistent.

 

[Ciele]

Being a TD is horribly stressful because you're always criticised and complained at regardless of your decision. Obviously some decisions are objectively bad, but most of the time it's a judgement call and there's support for both/multiple sides. If there's a choice to be made about tiers in some team tournament and half the community want option A and the other half want option B, the TDs are guaranteed to end up in a position where large parts of the community are condemning them and calling them out for bias or clique mentality.

I don't think most people realise the extent of what happens. It's not every time a questionable decision is made, or once a year when SPL comes around, or whatever, it's virtually every single notable decision that gets made. You get 100% concrete evidence that someone cheated in a tour and you ban them for it? Prepare to deal with hours of backlash from not only them but many others regarding your evidence (or lack thereof), your failures to do more to catch other people, why ghosting should be legal, etc. You reject someone's obvious attempt at gaming WCoP's eligibility rules? Prepare to get slaughtered by an entire team for your supposed bias and inconsistency. And when it does come to choosing the tiers that are going to be included in a tournament? Forget about logging into Discord or Smogtours for the next two weeks and not seeing a thousand PMs calling you more corrupt than FIFA. It's little wonder that so many TDs end up ignoring people or setting themselves to invisible. And this isn't about "having thick skin" or whatever nonsense, because this is a voluntary role in a community you joined as part of a hobby, not a high-paying position in a publicly-traded company.

I'm not posting this simply to defend the TDs and their position. I know some of the criticism is justified, especially when it comes to general inactivity. I'm posting this to ask how exactly you plan on fixing the issues at hand. God knows we've seen enough TD changes in the past two years to know that a change in personnel isn't going to make a difference. Only appoint non-playing users to TD? Good luck getting the tournament community to accept that. While xenophobia certainly played a part too, let's not forget the whole SPL 8 host debacle with Prague Kick. Or even the aversion to QQ being the Head TD instead of someone "more involved". As for community input, if you can't trust the TDs to be impartial, I'm not quite sure why you would trust a wider group of people who don't even have low standards to abide to. Public opinion doesn't even have to disguise its lack of impartiality. I mean, isn't this exactly how LC and Doubles got into SPL 5? Unsurprisingly, the recent WCoP survey has had a ton of biased voting, as well. So if there's going to be some great revolutionary change, what's the plan here?

In addition to the above, I'm also interested in why people think the TDs are under more fire and criticism now than ever before, despite a common community meme being that pre-Style Smogon was a state of total anarchy. Not a day goes by where we don't hear of memorable incidents involving managers becoming players, auctions resetting, and recorded ghosting going unpunished. So why are the current TD team receiving far worse treatment than their predecessors? Is it because they publicise everything now whereas they didn't before? Or because TDs like Aeolus and Aldaron would Totally Obliterate anyone who spammed low-effort memes to mock their decisions? Genuinely curious here.

 

[Lemonade]

Promote some level-headed non-player users, who consult with a pool of players if necessary, to make decisions. Players keep their own interests in mind, and if they advise something biased, then their advice will probably be in conflict with the advice of multiple other players.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

I agree with a lot of the solutions presented in the thread, I would also suggest creating a set of guidelines as to criteria that contribute to being a good TD, then setting those as the only public post in a private forum for people to use to apply for TD consideration. This serves the dual function of opening a pool of potential candidates when TDs move on while somewhat ameliorating the complaints against the TD team of promoting favourites.

While it's true that the TDs would still inherently be more likely to promote those they know and trust, by having an individual's interest be known to them it gives the TDs incentive to more closely notice and scrutinize the actions of these individuals, this awareness itself serving to effect greater knowledge and trust over time by the TDs.

In an ideal situation this would function to some degree as an informal interview, those with the desire to lead have the chance to make their interest known in a private manner and the TDs get the chance to vet potential candidates, and also to consider people they may not have otherwise thought of.


I also want to specifically support the concepts of term rotations for TDs, 6 months on/off is I believe an effective way to manage the issues of persistent stress and TD burnout. I also support TDs abstaining from team tournament play with the caveat of it being managed appropriately, as a concept it's much easier for TDs to be ethical when the consequences of failing to act do not impact theoretical teammates.

 

[Bughouse]

I can scarcely think of any other sport/game that is taken seriously where the refs are also some of the best players and sometimes are actively playing in the same competition.

The only even close to perfect solution (and even this may still have issues...) is to get people in charge of making these decisions who are entirely disinterested in the outcome, which can only be accomplished if they are not themselves participants in the event, and probably not top players either, since that brings with it the baggage of reputation, friends, etc.

Think about TDing as a parallel to a legal system. The US government as a whole might convene a committee of experts on a "sentencing commission" that draws up guidelines for sentencing convicted federal criminals - minimum and maximum sentences, etc. But ultimately, the sentencing for an individual criminal falls on some specific judge(s) for each specific case. I think it's totally fine if the general guidelines continue to be set by the "experts" about tournament play, which can certainly include all the current TDs. But if you want fairness in how those guidelines get applied in individual cases, you need a third party to be the one that actually implements it.

 

[reyscarface]

As a member of this community for a very long time, I would like to point out the issues I have seen over the years re: responsibilities of the leading team of the Tournaments section.

1) Inactivity - While I disagree with the OP's way of putting things on the table (Yes, you can argue that we are playing Pokemon and we dont have to be so stuck up yada yada. You can just as easily counter argue that TDs are people having fun just the same, being brought to a position of leadership due to their qualities and the general trust of the community. Saying that they act like "Presidents of the forum" and them being "arrogant" is just ad hominem that is based on emotional experiences), I think it is very true that the biggest issue within the TD team is the activity part. There has been a worrying amount of inactivity in the recent TD teams, and this is something that really grinds the communities' gears. Lack of activity translates to slower action which in turn means things just dont get done. The Championship discussion thread took MONTHS to reach a conclusion, OST recently had very troublesome issues that most of you know, and perhaps worst of all very few discussions actually end in something productive. Looking at a few tournaments related threads, they reach a point in which people stop replying and nothing seems to be agreed, and then its just forgotten. I think a good step forward is having the TDs make a final statement in, at the very least, every tournament policy discussion. An example would be the "ties in team tournaments" thread that had some good arguments, a couple posts from some TDs and then... nothing. This kind of thread deserves a conclusion, and TDs should make the final stance known in order to avoid future confusion. The community isnt asking 24/7 no life drones, but theyre asking for moderate activity. If a TD is busy, there is no reason why the other x number of TDs cant get something done. If this inactivity spreads to many days, a demotion should be considered. There is no point in having a 7-9 man TD team if half of them will be busy. The inactivity leads me to the next issue.

2) Lack of communication/transparency - This ties well to inactivity, because if the TDs dont have enough time to get stuff done, they will have much less time to properly communicate the state of affairs of the community. And this is extremely important, there is plenty of examples online. Look at Niantic (Pokemon Go) or Hello Games (No Man's Sky). They made mistakes, people noticed, but what really got people mad was the extreme lack of response from both these entities. Its like they disregarded their communities and that leads to two things: Discontent and loss of trust. Which is something going on in Smogon right now. There is a huge lack of trust on the TD team not just because of the cheating "scandals" but also because you cant trust someone who doesnt give you a reason to trust them. For every decision the TD team makes, there needs to be ample reasoning in order to make the situation clear. If people dont agree, reply to their arguments in PM. You dont have to spend 24/7 like I said before, just 15 minutes to reply to the concerns makes a ton of difference in the opinion the community has of its leaders. TDs are allowed to make mistakes, and theyre allowed to make decisions that go against the majority, but they must have a reasoning and that reasoning must be communicated. It really cant be understated how annoying it is to have a situation going on and be kept in the dark for ages before you receive a half assed resolution. Problem solving is a process, and in a situation in which theres two sides, there needs to be communication in most of the process in order to not leave the other side completely clueless. The transparency point has been noted several times in the past and I feel there has been an improvement regarding it. There are sensible things that shouldnt be disclosed, but there are things that deserve to be communicated to the community in order to keep people updated. For example, the most recent SPL situation happened like it did because of a lack of communication and transparency, and it shouldnt have gotten to a public outing like it did.

3) The current culture - There has been a ridiculously big shift in the tournaments culture from the early 2010s to now. And there has also been a shift as to what being a TD entails. Modern TDs seem to be nothing more than Official Tournaments posters and criminal detectives. Their labor is only the management of the Trophy Tour Circuit and investigating cheating scandals. This shift happened, I believe, because of trying to appease to the masses. Slowly and gradually TDs became community punching bags that receive criticism (sometimes deserved, sometimes excessive, most of the time in non constructive ways) for every decision they make. There needs to be a shift back to closer to what being a TD used to be. Im not saying go back to the "dictatorship" we had with deletion of posts everywhere and silencing masses, but there needs to be a certain degree of assertivity. TDs are community leaders and they are dedicating their free time to the betterment of the community, whether you believe it or not (and guess what, TDs are always trying to improve the state of the forum, even if you disagree with their decisions, they arent going to be doing things out of malice) and as such they deserve respect. If you want to mock the decisions in private cliques and whatnot then so be it. But in the official Tourneys Discord, Smogtours, and the Forums, there needs to be restraint. Right now everyone feels comfortable shitting on the moderation team because there is no repercusion, and that needs to change. If someone is going too far, there needs to be immediate action. The Z+V / ict situation shouldnt have gotten as far as it did. The insults thrown to TDs and accusations of their motives should have no place. Nobody is a saint, we are all guilty of this and its because the atmosphere has gotten too lax. There needs to be better moderation. Community leaders should lead the community. Perhaps we dont need the level of moderation of the past, but we need to make use of moderation tools more often. When was the last time a Bad Sportsmanship infraction was used? When was the last time someone was muted in Discord for insulting the TDs?

Re: TD Nominations - Sometimes you can have a nomination that looks very out of place and you can think "yep thats because theyre friends", but most of the time its more about what Sam said. Mostly its "I know this guy will do a good job because I know him well" rather than "This guy is my friend and that is the reason im giving him this position". This happens everywhere, be it a corporation or an internet site and its not inherently a problem IF and ONLY IF the person proves to do a good job. If the person is clearly not apt for the position, well, TDs are allowed to make mistakes, including in nominations. But it shouldnt take months until the person says "ok yeah this is getting ridiculous I have only said 5 words in the Discord in the past 3 months" followed by them stepping down. There needs to be quality in the team, and as such we need to check for it. If a person is not pulling his weight, warn them. If they dont listen or the situation doesnt change, demote them and find a suitable replacement. Regarding suitable replacements, something that bothers me is the stigma the community has about people doing things because they want to reach a position of power. I distinctly remember people making jokes about a user that got mad at another user slandering his name because it could affect his chances at being a TD in the future. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having that as a goal, and if thats the main motivator towards the person doing work and supporting the community, then who the fuck cares. At least theyre contributing and yall know we are in dire need of contributors. Everyone starts somewhere, some people start by hosting tournaments, others by participating in policy, others by handling tedious work like spreadsheets, and others by being good presences. We should be taking note of the people that are shining in each of these, and support them to be able to become strong in all aspects so that we have great TD candidates in the future, not making fun of them. Speaking of which, we should probably have some guidelines as to "How to be a good contributor to the Tournaments Forum". As far as I know, there are a lot of these guidelines in many forums, at least I remember RMT having it a few years back. Having what we expect from people there means the path to becoming a community leader is more "This guy is doing things right and we notice it" and less people thinking "this guy is x's friend".

Re: TD intentions - Everyone is going to have opinions and TDs arent exempt from this. Everyone is going to have biases and TDs are also not exempt from this. A few years back I know all TDs participated in discussions and I was heavily against this. I remember situations in team tournaments in which opposing teams had a TD in their ranks and as such had immediate access to all the discussion going on. I know recently this was changed, and now TDs that have a relationship to any side in a decision abstain from participating in such discussions. But I would even go a step further here and make it so that TDs that have a side should be barred from conversations altogether. Not just from participating in them but also from seeing the discussion. If my team has no TD and as such I have no access to the things being mentioned, neither should the opposing team. This levels the playground morally, because in practice I dont think it makes that big of a difference. But this is a measure that promotes trust and lowers people doubting the intentions of TDs.

Also speaking of how the way to fix this is to have non player TDs, I think this is very silly. The people that know what the Tournaments community needs are the community itself, the people participating in it. I wouldnt go to the RU forum and claim to know what their community needs because I am not a part of it. This translates to Tournaments as well. I understand the point people like p2 and starry are making but its simply not feasible. There are VERY few people who would drop playing in tournaments in order to get an administration role, and the amount of APT people that would do it is minimal. Even the current TDs that people consider "non players" actually do play. What should be done is, like he said, make TDs more accountable, and also to remove any potential "advantage" a TD could get. This is done by doing what I said above, completely remove TDs from discussions in which they might have a side.

All in all there is a lot of issues at hand that need to be solved, but they will never be solved overnight and they will most likely take a while. What is obvious is that this isnt just TD work, the community at large needs to be more receptive to the work the TDs do (because saying stuff like "Theyre posting big posts with rules that noone cares to read" is completely silly, that is a community issue not a TD one lol).

 

[Style_Dota]

If you want to remove corruption, then don’t allow TD’s to participate in tournaments, or as lemonade said, pick TDs that are not idiots (not implying any of the current TDs are before someone gets butthurt) and not tournament players. Therefore there are no incentives in self motivation.

 

[Genesis7]

Would people be interested in joining the TD team post “retirement”? I know that most players don’t quit altogether after stopping actively playing in team tournaments, often they just remain active in off-topic discussion and IRC/Skype/discord. Let’s say Finchinator gets a new job tomorrow and decides he is now too busy to keep up with the tour circuit, but he still has time to chat on discord in his phone and after work. Why not approach someone in this situation and ask them if they would like to be a TD? Heavily involved in tours up until recently, still attached to the community, etc. only difference is that they no longer have a dog in the race (Finchinator is simply an example).
Is being a TD too dependent on activity for this? Obviously I know nothing about how this process works. Maybe you can’t find enough people to fulfill this mould, supplementing with guys like QQ, Prague kick, get backer, etc. are fine.
Just an idea.

 

[keys]

I'd like to segue from rey's post (which I think is fantastic and summarises most of my thoughts on this very eloquently) into something that I also think is very pertinent. Just because you can't physically see something, it doesn't mean it's not there. I know transparency is extremely important, considering what they do is ultimately a service for the community, but some things just can't be shared by the tournament directors. Sensitive information being leaked may be abused and/or deter future procedures. For instance, TDs are instructed not to share some of the proof that is sent in for cheating investigations, as it will only encourage community members to abuse or berate the person who has sent it in, which in turn only discourages them from sending it in a second time, meaning you're now being less efficient at catching cheaters. As another example, if TDs exposed the precise minimum timer value to characterise a disconnection as opposed to a timeout in tournament games, imagine how much more this could be manipulated by tournament players, leading to a less competitive and more dishonest system. These are just two of the things that come to mind, but those are important to show that some information just can't be disclosed, despite being extremely relevant to how these particular decisions are made. With that being said, these obviously don't excuse TDs from not relaying any kind of information, as transparency is key to garnering trust and making sure that all their decisions are well-fundamented and based on sound guidelines rather than accidental bias (or at least showing the community that they are). The community is meant to keep the TDs in check just as much as the TDs are meant to keep the community in check, which means we must do so by making sure that whenever possible, they are explaining and sharing their reasoning behind these decisions, so that we can make sure there is no personal bias affecting said conclusions (if we can't do that adequately, then both sides are failing rather than just the "awful TD team"). Calling them out for every decision that goes against your will (as ludicrous as you might think they are) or whining about every minimal change being made is actually detrimental to the process, gradually wearing down the lines of communication we have with them as well as making it less likely to be consulted about future changes. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's actually healthy to question and contest the decisions being made, but there's a very fine line between trying to understand something and trying to shun or condemn that same thing, especially when you might not have seen the entire picture.

 

[Tony]

I want to thank everyone that has posted in this thread for their (mostly) friendly and constructive approach. We're aware the public opinion on the TD team isn't great and we do appreciate your feedback, so long as it's done in a respectful and productive manner.

I'll start with a situation report, because since the creation of this thread we've undergone a number of changes. Following the Team Raiders affair, the TD team currently consists of 5 TDs, whom are lead by Hogg and myself as of yesterday. The TD team will now function with two leaders instead of the usual one, because the stress on a single head TD has produced an absurd turnover rate the past year/two years.

Many people seem to feel that we ignored any of the issues with Jirachee and Pearl failing to report the team leak and only punished TDK. This was a decision that we took very seriously. While no rules were technically broken, the TDs that were reviewing the conduct agreed that failing to report the leak constituted a serious breach of trust. However, TDK's involvement was the most concerning, both because of his position as head TD (which necessitates a greater degree of responsibility) and because he covered up evidence by deleting logs to prevent others from finding out. We were not ignoring Jirachee and Pearl's conduct, but we felt that formally asking TDK to step down was the most important first step.

Regarding the nomination of new TDs, a few theories and methods have been proposed in this thread. The suggestion to either prevent TDs from participating in official tournaments or to promote TDs that don't participate in them isn't a realistic one. Finchinator and reyscarface outlined the reasons why in their posts in this thread perfectly. We are TDs because we want to help improve the thing we spend so much of our free time on: tournaments. If we couldn't participate, then why would we contribute? Right now every single TD has to be publicly nominated and allow for commentary from the community before they are approved. The last set of nominations did not have a single post in opposition. While I can't speak for previous TD teams, I can tell you that the current TD team takes all feedback on these nominations threads very seriously. We rely on community input as a vital part of our process.

Another topic I want to address is our factoring in of community feedback when it comes to Tournaments related decisions, such as excluding RBY from WCoP and the SPL format. While community feedback truly is valued and we do take it into consideration, in the end our job is to act on what we think is best for the tournament and not to serve the most popular opinion. There's also a huge amount of bias involved as tournament players will naturally defend their own interests, regardless of it being optimal for the tournament it concerns. Oftentimes it's hard to see the complete picture, which is why it's important the TDs consider all the factors as they decide.

As for transparency, Dream's post in this thread explains nicely why we can't reveal everything to the public. Having said that, we do want to have a platform for a dialogue, which is why I pushed so hard for this very subforum to be created. We're also all active on Discord, so feel free to contact us there if you have a question about something, too. We may be relatively low on numbers right now, but we are all active (which hasn't always been the case). We'll also be looking into new recruits in the near future.

 

[Heysup]

While community feedback truly is valued and we do take it into consideration, in the end our job is to act on what we think is best for the tournament and not to serve the most popular opinion. There's also a huge amount of bias involved as tournament players will naturally defend their own interests, regardless of it being optimal for the tournament it concerns. Oftentimes it's hard to see the complete picture, which is why it's important the TDs consider all the factors as they decide.

As for transparency, Dream's post in this thread explains nicely why we can't reveal everything to the public. Having said that, we do want to have a platform for a dialogue, which is why I pushed so hard for this very subforum to be created. We're also all active on Discord, so feel free to contact us there if you have a question about something, too. We may be relatively low on numbers right now, but we are all active (which hasn't always been the case). We'll also be looking into new recruits in the near future.

I don't know you that well but you seem like a good guy. You're probably going to feel the brunt of this post but I don't mean to single you out. Sorry.

First, I would like to address the concept of privity as an excuse for lack of transparency. With respect, I think Dream's post is based entirely on a false premise. This false premise is that the information being withheld was sensitive and would have actually had a negative impact. Certainly there are instances where that would be the case. I think it's pretty clear that the SPL format thread and other threads of that nature are not those instances, yet there was no transparency. Perhaps some cheating logs should be withheld. Maybe? But that does not excuse all of the inactivity and transparency.

Second, I am glad that someone finally brought up the SPL format thread. That thread and the posts by the TDs in that thread I think illustrate the common themes and criticisms pointed out in this thread.

It was really hard to give anyone the benefit of the doubt that discussions were being made and that people's thoughts were being considered. The first or second line of the post was something like "we are not considering 14 slots, don't suggest it". Dismissing a seemingly meritorious option off the bat, without asking for anyone's input, without any explanation is not a good way to foster trust. The irony is that the actual reasons given (you can see some TD posts legitimately arguing the merits of 7% of a team win vs 8% of a team win) only added fuel to the fire. The TDs may have spent time discussing it, but it did not appear that way. It had the appearance of sheer closed-mindedness and post-decision bias. Some people were definitely irked that their tiers were being removed or bashed and responded in an unhelpful manner but that was a clearly not everyone and really seems like it was a small minority at best. There were many posts simply pointing out the flaws in dismissing 14 slots or this tier or that tier without proper discussion. These constructive posts were all but ignored in favor of more extreme posts that were easier to attack.

Using "it is our decision and our job, not yours" as the primary argument being made in an explanation of said decision is condescending and is not a good way to sow trust in the community, even if it's true. You can't expect people to just accept everything your say as fact and keep them at least satisfied that you've put in the requisite thought without posting some sort of rational or logical path for arriving at a decision. The attitude that this is an acceptable means of communication needs to change.

Now, I don't expect TDs to be wordsmiths, but what further exacerbates the problem is this formula used by TDs when addressing a seemingly reasonable concern raised at the request of the TD team. The formula I refer to is as follows:

1. "we appreciate your feedback and take it into account"
2. We will not be deciding X, we will be deciding Y because this is our decision and it is our job to make this decision.
3. Friendly closing "we want to have constant dialogue and we do value tour feedback and consider your thoughts".

I invite everyone with access (to be honest, I have no idea how that works anymore) to please read that thread and tell me that I'm wrong. Being dismissive and condescending in one's reasoning (or lack their of) gives off an appearance of a weakness in their position. If there is a viable argument to be made, why not make it? If someone's reasoning has been addressed behind closed doors, why not share it? The whole ordeal seemed like a sham in order to avoid community backlash for a hasty decision. This is what was frustrating to me more than the fact that my tier was removed.

I wasn't going to get involved in this, but when I read that the handling of the SPL format thread was being defended after the points made by Ojama and narrowed down by posts such as a rey's (though I entirely disagree that throwing infractions around for disrespecting a TD would help at all), I changed my mind. I saw the whole process of "we value your feedback but then will dismiss anything you say" happening again.

In summary, I support most of what Ojama says, but I think solving one problem is solving most of them. I think a change in the attitude or mindset of superiority brings a desire to be accountable. Clearly if there is a desire to be accountable, decisions will be made more transparently. With more transparency, there is more trust. With more trust, there is less discontent. With less discontent, there are less threads like this one.

If my doctor dismisses my concerns without much of an explanation, I'm OK with it. He or she has had training that I haven't and shit I probably won't understand anyway.

If I'm a junior lawyer at a law firm and a senior lawyer dismisses my concern without much of an explanation, I'm OK with the decision. They have much more experience than me. However, I would probably be a bit irked that I didn't receive an explanation.

If some kid who may happen to have a super cool position on an online Pokemon website dismisses concerns of other veteran and more respected users than myself without any reasonable explanation besides "because it's our decision", well, I'm sure you can imagine where I'm going with this.

 

[ABR]

I spoke about this on discord recently but for those of you who missed any of that, I'll write some of my thoughts here.

All in all, I think a lot of claims in this thread are making issues out of non-issues. That's not to say the TD team as a whole is perfect right now, but there's nothing near a major issue (or multiple) that desperately needs fixing.

As for the issue of transparency, I think TDs have been quite open about what's going on. We obviously can't disclose information about investigations like the recent Raiders thing, so what's really left to be open about is tour rules and formats. But within that, a WCoP format thread has been made, even with a poll follow up. If you tag TDs in the stours discord with a question, you'll get an answer immediately as well.

I don't think the SPL thread was handled perfectly. TDs originally stated 14 slots wouldn't happen but ended up letting the arguments go on anyway. If they were set on the 12 they should have fully stuck with it and ignored or deleted off topic posts. Additionally, IF TDs were gonna be set in stone on something (12 slots there), then they needed to give sufficient reasoning in the OP. To that extent I'll personally be sure all future decisions are explained thoroughly.

This brings me to my next point. Some people have said something to the degree of "well the community clearly wanted 14 slots so why couldn't the TDs just concede to that" but there are some issues with such an argument. Moreso relating to community vs TD desires as a whole, expecting the TDs to bend to a majority will diminishes the entire purpose of a TD in the first place. TDs are picked because they're believed and trusted to have the capability and desire to make tournaments as good as possible. This isn't a philosophical issue - if you feel any TD isn't upholding that you push to remove said person, not change how TDs as a whole operate. I don't think every Smogon user is stupid. However, I do think many arguments come from either a self benefitting motive (intentional or not) or a narrow minded one. It's a scope issue, not a competence one. TDs are the designers of the circuit and are fully responsible for it, as such all factors have to be considered. The average tour player is concerned with only what is pleasing to them. This isn't to say that 0 non-TDs care for the larger circuit but rather that it's not their responsibility to consider the bigger picture, so often it's not considered. I don't blame people for having certain opinions but valuing everyone's opinion as highly as a TD's is misguided. That's the reality of it.

I care about what the community has to say. I want to make the circuit enjoyable not just for myself, but for everyone on Smogon. Community input is taken to heart and a factor but it cannot be everything, and it won't be everything. At the end of the day, the rest of the TD team and I are the ones trusted to make the final calls for what constitutes a better tournament circuit.

I won't comment on how things were done before I was added to the team but from this point on I will make it abundantly clear what is in consideration and what is not, and all things set in stone will be very clearly explained.

 

[Shrug]

Moreso relating to community vs TD desires as a whole, expecting the TDs to bend to a majority will diminishes the entire purpose of a TD in the first place. TDs are picked because they're believed and trusted to have the capability and desire to make tournaments as good as possible. This isn't a philosophical issue - if you feel any TD isn't upholding that you push to remove said person, not change how TDs as a whole operate. I don't think every Smogon user is stupid. However, I do think many arguments come from either a self benefitting motive (intentional or not) or a narrow minded one. It's a scope issue, not a competence one. TDs are the designers of the circuit and are fully responsible for it, as such all factors have to be considered. The average tour player is concerned with only what is pleasing to them. This isn't to say that 0 non-TDs care for the larger circuit but rather that it's not their responsibility to consider the bigger picture, so often it's not considered. I don't blame people for having certain opinions but valuing everyone's opinion as highly as a TD's is misguided. That's the reality of it.

I know I've been snide or a dick about this stuff in the past, but I want to have an earnest conversation about something that has never seemed quite right to me, or at least never seemed so right that it needed no explanation. What you refer to is a philosophical issue. The language of your post amounts to an ideological stance, although the terms of the argument have never been made explicit. I want to try to lay out as I see it the two sides and make more clear my unspoken belief that has undergirded a lot of my objections and - it seems to me - a lot of other objections to decisions as well.

I think the best place to start is the language of your post. You write "expecting the TDs to bend to a majority will diminishes the entire purpose of a TD in the first place". Some of the linguistic choices in there are pretty forceful. "Bend to the will of a majority" implies the td decision is as originally constructed sturdy and firm, a steel girder of sorts, and that factoring in the majority opinion would be allowing the populace to weaken - "bend" - that steel beam. This is a disputable point. Even if you believe that tds come to more considered, better decisions than the playerbase as a whole, it must be argued that they do - I dont think even current tds would say their own decisions are infallible, or that no tds have been wrong in the past, and so a window of debate naturally opens. Moving lower in the post, I dont think it's entirely accurate to say the tds are better at making decisions on the grounds of "all factors" rather than "what is pleasing to them". There is at least the possibility of self-dealing decisions being made by the td team - i dont know if this has happened in fact or not - and it's slightly condescending to suggest that the public at large is incapable of considering the health of the tour scene as a whole when crafting their arguments. I certainly try to when I argue, and I'm sure most of my fellow non-td users would agree that they weigh the impact on the tour scene as a whole when they make their points. I am sure that in td discussions the full tour-scene ramifications of any decision are weighed, and cannot provide a similar assurance for an individual poster, but it is by no means inherent that the community while only think as to what benefits them while the tds will only consider what benefits the tour scene as a whole. You sort of belie this notion yourself when you use "opinion" to equivocate the position of a "non-td" with that of a td to the latter's opinion should not be valued as highly. If they're all just opinions and not, say, rational decisions based on all factors, what makes one better than another?

You provide an answer later in the post. "At the end of the day, the rest of the TD team and I are the ones trusted to make the final calls for what constitutes a better tournament circuit." This language struck me as out of a particular political tradition, one that neatly encapsulates one of the theories of how the td system should operate, probably the dominant one in current practice. It comes from a Hobbes-via-Schmitt authoritarian political understanding. It's long and annoying, but the most basic and relevant parts of this thinking is that because of the possibility - certainty - of disagreement on matters of importance that are vaguely defined, any society needs a final decision-maker. This authority is needed to prevent dissent from sundering the community, from having it break down into violence and disorder. This tracks pretty usefully (though not entirely - im not calling anyone an english king or a nazi. foh) with an understanding of the td team that takes its opinions as the main premise for decisions. The community will never agree on what counts as the ideal composition of a team tour, so it's up to the tds to make the "final call" because it's impossible to know what is correct. The decisions made by this rubric are sometimes accompanied by reasoning, but any justification is often perfunctory and even superfluous, because the real justification for the policy is authority - it's right because we're in the position that makes it right.

Of course, all political systems include some degree of unaccountable decision-making and thus authority. But not all of them are premised on the totality and primacy of the central decision-making apparatus. Historically, a system would be set up this way to avoid disorder, violence, civil war, etc - man being a wolf to man. I dont think anyone believes that smogon would desend into chaos if the tds factored in the wishes of the userbase in their decisions. But a more modern justification for more total authority is expertise. You trust your doctor to prescribe medicine because he knows more about the human body and its reactions than you. I think the point Heysup was trying to make at the end of his post is: this does not hold here. The tds are all smart users, passionate about tournements, who are experienced players and members of the community they serve. I believe this. But that description holds true of a lot of players who are not tds! Any td knows a lot, but so does heysup, or any number of other people with good knowledge of smogon and its history. the tds are very well informed, but they're not better informed than individual users.

But what's the alternative? I think it has been hinted at, but I want to take a shot at laying it out more formally. The td role should be turning the wishes of the community into enforceable policy and carrying out that policy when needed. This is vague, but by design. I'll draw a little from Ojama's very good post in spelling out what this means: "The community's opinion should matter more than anything else and you should make the decisions that satisfy the majority." Basically, if the community favors something that is a fairly clear majority, the td policy should be based on that prevailing opinion. I do not suggest votes on important issues - too many problems of process and eligibility and other sorts of voting-system problems. But the op cited, and im sure we can all think of, td decisions where the public majority based on argumentative posting was clearly in opposition to the td decision that ended up taken as law. If in fact there was majority support for certain td positions that the users didnt see - supportive arguments from the community that werent posted - they should be made public, so everyone understands where people stand; Im not sure this is the case. If there is not a clear majority and the community is split pretty much right down the middle, then the tds should be granted authority to break the tie. The only time when the tds should usurp the clearly defined view of the majority would be if that view is a dire threat to smogon tournements. I dont think this applies in the majority of disputed cases. This dramatic measure would be among their powers along with formalizing policy and enforcing the rules. There are some issues where majority rule is undesirable - there shouldn't be a vote to decide whether a disconnect merits a restart or a recreate or what have you. But the policy the tds apply should be based off of community wishes for what constitutes a dc turned into clear, enforceable policy. It still requires a lot of trust placed in them to have them carry this out. But the td role should be as enforcer of the community's wishes, for the community is all that makes up smogon and its tournements.

I think the terms of the debate we need to have are around the role of the tds themselves rather than their individual decisions. By the current understanding of td power, any debate about a td choice misses the point: that the current system is set up to foreclose arguments as to the merits of any decision. In a potential new understanding, the tds would be tasked with turning the will of the people into policy and then enforcing that policy when questions arise. In this way, smogon tournaments can become more democratic, more reflective of the community that makes up this hobby in its entirety. I am not going to give a full consideration of the intersecting issues brought up in this thread because i'm not particularly well informed, but i would guess that a reduction in authority would both reduce the incentive to misuse td power and decrease the burnout rate. It seems a possible solution to problems facing the community, or at least a decent start. In a similar vein, I'm not going to get into the td nomming process. I think the tds on here are nice people who try to do a good job, and am too ignorant to know of any potential factional disputes among them or between them and the community. I don't think these exist, or are overblown if they do. I will say that if we lean towards the authoritarian conceptualization of the td role, we should as part of the nomination process have a discussion portion where community members are free to voice quality concerns rather than merely behavioral ones. If we're entrusting individual users who dont look that different from you or me with the power to shape near-unilaterally the defining aspect of our site, those users should be vetted fully, the traits that make them a particularly good captain of the tournament ship challenged and proved. But I hope it need not come to that. I think we can, as a community, come to decisions that collectively advance smogon tournaments, the site as a whole, and the pleasure activity we're all a part of. Thanks.

 

[jake]

...

I am wholeheartedly with you in the sentiment that the community should not be deliberating on its own ruleset, and that the arguments of vocal community members are often riddled with errors and bias. I'm also very fond of hearing that you guys are making an effort towards transparency, which the last few regimes have struggled with, and I'm glad to hear that you do care about the community. However, asking the community to universally stand by the TD decisions despite having objections just because the TDs are competent and invested in the tournament scene (which you all absolutely are!) does not sit well with me.

First and foremost, Smogon is a competitive community where people enjoy playing a stupid, luck-filled, degenerate competitive game and, for various reasons, make nothing of it. We don't have any strict legal or fiscal obligations that demand our rules or tournament systems function a certain way. Smogon is what the people make of it, and I have always personally believed that the TDs should operate with the idea that Ojama posted and Shrug outlined extremely nicely:

In a potential new understanding, the tds would be tasked with turning the will of the people into policy and then enforcing that policy when questions arise.

You are the arbiters of the rules and all of the issues that come with them, and y'all deserve more respect than you draw, especially as of late. I understand (and most understand, I think) issues where the TD team simply has to diverge from the popular opinion. WCoP needed to have some semblance of change in the past. e7e should not have been on Central. But, in scenarios where there is no clear-cut, obvious answer (SPL 9 tiers thread is the most recent example, as is the Championship conundrum), you need to allow the community opinion to override your own personal opinion.

I don't mean to kick a dead horse, but the primary reason why the last SPL tiers thread felt like a TD vs the world cagematch was because the reasoning given for the TD decision was clunky (the world arguments were no less clunky, for fairness), but was presented as an absolute, and that's extremely frustrating for the tournament userbase that does not adhere to the same ideals as the TDs in charge of that decision did. You got a buttload of backlash because the community interest at large (I know I'm not speaking for everyone, babidi1994) and the TD interest for the future of tournaments clashed terribly. You will never be thrown under the bus if your decisions are sound within the rules you have presented and your goals for the future align with Smogon the community, because your community are the dudes that matter and who you're working so hard for.

That's basically all I have to offer

edit: let me put it one more way, actually: if you're not wholeheartedly interested in pursuing community happiness and engagement, why are you interested in managing tournaments? if you believe a certain decision will benefit the community in the future, why not present it to the community and see what they believe and then act accordingly? we're not a bunch of dimwitted apes who are beneath such understanding, you know?

 

[soulgazer]

i have read all the posts in the thread, but im unsure about this idea that the majority of the community believes 14 tiers is better re: the spl thread

you say the tds should listen to the community, which i agree, but i do not believe they should only take into account what people have posted in a thread. some of you seem to request the process to be democratic ; how should tds proceed to even realistically achieve this ?