I want to preface this post by saying that I enjoy this tier, I respect the tier leader and the difficulty anyone faces with running a tier, and that this post is meant to further discussion and get clarification on some things in a respectful way. It will not please everyone, but that’s really not my concern.
Under Smogon’s voting and tiering philosophy, the burden has always remained on the side of those seeking to change the status quo to muster the support to change it. There is a long history of requiring at least a 60% majority in order to create that change. The purpose of suspects in general is to gather a sample of qualified and informed voters in a metagame. From that sample, we allow those voters to determine whether the status quo should change, or not.
We also have rules regarding how you can vote. We have requirements for game limits, GXE, deadlines to submit your proof of reqs, rules on formatting the post of your vote, and deadlines for when your vote should be submitted. Whether we apply them strictly or loosely, these rules must be applied equally and uniformly to any suspect test, and to anyone who wishes to participate in them.
So, in light of the recent controversy with the Mega Metagross suspect voting process, we are now trying to determine how to count votes in a way that represents a 60% majority. The choice seems to be between requiring a percentage of votes relative to the total number of eligible voters, compared to requiring 60% among those who actually cast their vote. Honestly, I think only the former method is consistent with Smogon’s tiering philosophy, and the latter gets ridiculous when you apply it in practice. Again, the side seeking to change the status quo has the burden to get a 60% majority to create change. Reducing the size of the eligible voter sample because people did not cast a vote effectively lowers the requirement for (in this case) the pro-ban side, because you are mathematically making it much easier to get a 60% majority the more you reduce the number of participants. This is simple math, and it is why the latter standard is ridiculous in practice. If only 5 people voted, would we say that Metagross should get banned because 3 people voted to ban it? No, because you would not only be moving the goal posts by using a system like this, but you would also be creating a sample within a sample. We also don’t know why people don’t vote. Maybe they only wanted to make it harder to get to 60%, but didn’t want to abstain. I don’t know a single voting process that works this way in real life or anywhere else in the world, but this system does not make sense to me as a matter of logic or fairness.
However, this is not the only issue that needs to be addressed here, if we are talking about fairly applying rules and procedure. There were numerous irregularities with the Genesect suspect vote, which used the exact same method as here. The only difference was in the result, and people’s reaction to it. Look directly at the thread and you will see it, plain as day. “Voting will be open until Sunday, February 23rd @ 11:59:59 PM EST.” The word “until” means “not after this point in time”. Yet the final vote which pushed Genesect into a 60% ban majority was not cast until 5:28AM on February 24th, and the suspect was concluded around two hours after that time. The Metagross suspect was appropriately concluded 2 minutes after the deadline, and at that time, there was no 60% consensus. I would not complain about the rules being loosely enforced, if they weren’t strictly enforced prior to this. A user (who stated he was No Ban) posted his reqs 31 minutes after the reqs deadline ended. He was appropriately not allowed to participate in the vote, because the deadline had ended. Yet we allowed someone to cast the deciding ban vote way after the deadline. I don’t know a single voting system that would let you walk into the polling area a day after the vote and cast a vote after the deadline, and allow it to affect the ultimate outcome.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am posting this as someone who is confused at what is going on, and would like some explanation for this. I have no ill-will toward anyone, and while I did not think Genesect or Mega Metagross should have been banned, I am self-aware enough to recognize that these were controversial elements in the metagame, and they always have been. If these decisions were made out of a desire to protect the health of the metagame or the public perception of the tier as a whole then yes, I do understand that. That is why I kept my mouth shut after noticing this in February, and did not post this at that time. Sometimes you do not get what you want, that’s life. However, this is the second time that I feel the process has broken down due to dissatisfaction with the ultimate result produced by the system. I would rather not have been the person to post this, because this is did not feel good to write, but I think something needs to be addressed here.
Under Smogon’s voting and tiering philosophy, the burden has always remained on the side of those seeking to change the status quo to muster the support to change it. There is a long history of requiring at least a 60% majority in order to create that change. The purpose of suspects in general is to gather a sample of qualified and informed voters in a metagame. From that sample, we allow those voters to determine whether the status quo should change, or not.
We also have rules regarding how you can vote. We have requirements for game limits, GXE, deadlines to submit your proof of reqs, rules on formatting the post of your vote, and deadlines for when your vote should be submitted. Whether we apply them strictly or loosely, these rules must be applied equally and uniformly to any suspect test, and to anyone who wishes to participate in them.
So, in light of the recent controversy with the Mega Metagross suspect voting process, we are now trying to determine how to count votes in a way that represents a 60% majority. The choice seems to be between requiring a percentage of votes relative to the total number of eligible voters, compared to requiring 60% among those who actually cast their vote. Honestly, I think only the former method is consistent with Smogon’s tiering philosophy, and the latter gets ridiculous when you apply it in practice. Again, the side seeking to change the status quo has the burden to get a 60% majority to create change. Reducing the size of the eligible voter sample because people did not cast a vote effectively lowers the requirement for (in this case) the pro-ban side, because you are mathematically making it much easier to get a 60% majority the more you reduce the number of participants. This is simple math, and it is why the latter standard is ridiculous in practice. If only 5 people voted, would we say that Metagross should get banned because 3 people voted to ban it? No, because you would not only be moving the goal posts by using a system like this, but you would also be creating a sample within a sample. We also don’t know why people don’t vote. Maybe they only wanted to make it harder to get to 60%, but didn’t want to abstain. I don’t know a single voting process that works this way in real life or anywhere else in the world, but this system does not make sense to me as a matter of logic or fairness.
However, this is not the only issue that needs to be addressed here, if we are talking about fairly applying rules and procedure. There were numerous irregularities with the Genesect suspect vote, which used the exact same method as here. The only difference was in the result, and people’s reaction to it. Look directly at the thread and you will see it, plain as day. “Voting will be open until Sunday, February 23rd @ 11:59:59 PM EST.” The word “until” means “not after this point in time”. Yet the final vote which pushed Genesect into a 60% ban majority was not cast until 5:28AM on February 24th, and the suspect was concluded around two hours after that time. The Metagross suspect was appropriately concluded 2 minutes after the deadline, and at that time, there was no 60% consensus. I would not complain about the rules being loosely enforced, if they weren’t strictly enforced prior to this. A user (who stated he was No Ban) posted his reqs 31 minutes after the reqs deadline ended. He was appropriately not allowed to participate in the vote, because the deadline had ended. Yet we allowed someone to cast the deciding ban vote way after the deadline. I don’t know a single voting system that would let you walk into the polling area a day after the vote and cast a vote after the deadline, and allow it to affect the ultimate outcome.
Again, I want to reiterate that I am posting this as someone who is confused at what is going on, and would like some explanation for this. I have no ill-will toward anyone, and while I did not think Genesect or Mega Metagross should have been banned, I am self-aware enough to recognize that these were controversial elements in the metagame, and they always have been. If these decisions were made out of a desire to protect the health of the metagame or the public perception of the tier as a whole then yes, I do understand that. That is why I kept my mouth shut after noticing this in February, and did not post this at that time. Sometimes you do not get what you want, that’s life. However, this is the second time that I feel the process has broken down due to dissatisfaction with the ultimate result produced by the system. I would rather not have been the person to post this, because this is did not feel good to write, but I think something needs to be addressed here.
edit: I put this in hide tags since it is getting addressed elsewhere.
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