Policy surrounding "Backup Times" in Team Tournaments

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Giannis Antetokommo-o

Giannis Antetokommo-o

is a Top Tiering Contributoris the 12th Grand Slam Winneris a Former Smogon Metagame Tournament Circuit Champion
Situation:

Player A and Player B agree to a scheduled time.
Player A and Player B also establish a back up time in case the primary time doesn't end up working for whatever reason.
Player A shows up to the primary scheduled time while Player B doesn't.
Player B is awol and fails to notify Player A that they won't be able to make the primary time either before the game or within established team tournament rule guidelines following a tag by the appropriate parties.

As it stands right now, there appears to be a precedent where enforcing the back up time takes priority when discussing subs or activity calls, even if player B fails to notify player A of their inability to make the originally scheduled time within "reasonable" time frames.

Moving forward for the betterment of our tournaments and to avoid abuse of this "precedent," I believe it'd be wise to establish clear guidelines regarding communication, how much notice in advance a player should give their opponent if they are unable to make the original time, and what constitutes grounds for a sub or activity call when situations like this arise.

Thank you.
 
I believe that backup times should be void unless the original scheduled time is cancelled with prior notice, and if no prior notice is given, the party that can't make the initial scheduled time should be subbed out.

Seems rather hard to define a deadline for prior notice to be given, so I suppose "up until right before the scheduled time" should be fine, since thats sufficient for the other party to not wait for their opponent to no avail.
 
Speaking as a Policy TD, I feel strongly that we need a rule on this. We should only focus on the primary scheduled time unless a back-up time is called for clearly in advance. I hope we can make a rule on this in the immediate future.

I personally believe that if players establish a back-up time, then you should need to let your opponent know 24 hours in advance if it is needed. Otherwise, the original time is the default and should be treated as such for all activity proceedings.

The situation today thankfully will end with a game being played, but it still feels unfortunate and unfair to Ahy Wddicted to me. To brief the thread on it, he and Fogbound Lake had a scheduled time for earlier today and a back-up time for later today. He showed up and his team tagged, but Fogbound did not and assumed the back-up time would work. Even if it would work, which we cannot bank on without prior communication, this still wastes someone's time showing up and waiting 30 (or more) minutes. It is important we protect the time of our players.
 
From the tournament rules and guidelines:
"
To be eligible for favorable judgment in an activity decision:

Individuals
(...)

Teams
- If Player A and Player B agreed on a time, and Player B failed to show up, Player A or another authorized party must have notified their opponent's team and given them the chance to substitute at least 30 minutes before leaving."

If players agree on a time and one doesn't make it, you're elegible for act. If that's not the case, this should be updated (hint: it shouldn't)

At the very least If there's prior definitive notice of not being able to make the time, then there can be a valid case for backup times.
 
BigFatMantis said:
There should be no such thing as a “backup time”. Saying that that x time works, and “if not” then b time could work, simply means that x time is the scheduled time. The b time is simply there if both players want to agree to move it to there, it shouldn’t mean anything else.
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This is not a practical approach, people's lives are more complicated than binary yes/no situations particularly when scheduling across time zones. The purpose of a back up time is flexiblity in the event life circumstances intervene - for scheduling purposes these should be known beforehand by the player in question. It's relatively trivial to schedule in such a fashion as "let's aim for x time which is ideal for us both but y might get in the way and if so, z time is for sure good".

The issue cited in Finch's post is not a problem with the existence of a backup time but of the shoddy communication between the two players regarding the agreed upon time and associated constraints.

In the OPs scenario:

"Player A and Player B also establish a back up time in case the primary time doesn't end up working for whatever reason."

For the purpose of establishing a policy rule, the backup time set by the players should be done so because one of the players has foreknowledge of a reason that may interfere with an agreed upon time. An arbitrary backup time for "reasons" should not be allowed as valid scheduling in order to avoid the confusion between multiple agreed upon times.
 
Texas Cloverleaf said:
This is not a practical approach, people's lives are more complicated than binary yes/no situations particularly when scheduling across time zones. The purpose of a back up time is flexiblity in the event life circumstances intervene - for scheduling purposes these should be known beforehand by the player in question. It's relatively trivial to schedule in such a fashion as "let's aim for x time which is ideal for us both but y might get in the way and if so, z time is for sure good".
Click to expand...

Your example can easily be rephrased to "I can do z time (later time) for sure, but if I'm able to do y time I'll let you know." Then if you can do y time, you let them know! This doesn't have anything to do with backup times, it's just how you schedule if you're busy. You set the time for z time by default, and you can let your opp know if an earlier time can work. I've done this countless times if necessary - you don't need to have "backup times" and further bloat our already bloated rules, just be smart with how you schedule.
 
If you aren't okay with a backup time just don't agree to set one.

I set hard times in stone for when I schedule and don't really like setting something like a "backup time", but if you set one in scheduling I think you should be obligated to go through with it if needed. If you end up being busy at a "backup time" just tell your opponent in advance as you would if you can no longer make the original scheduled time. If you schedule saying lets do x time but if something comes up lets play at y time you should be held accountable for that and be expected to follow through with it if stuff comes up. Obviously, it should be expected that you tell your opponent a reasonable amount of time in advance if you either can't make the original scheduled time or a theoretical "backup time"

The primary goals should be for players time to be respected, and for the game to be played. This covers both well and isn't even something that would be complicated to put into the rules.
 
Pre-planning for a failure to meet at a scheduled time has always introduced annoying ambiguity into activity decisions. It also feels like a strange practice to me, I've always felt like games should be treated like a meeting at work, you set a time and block it off and then play. If you can't, that's what substitutes are for. While it's nice to say "just communicate better" the lived reality is that this isn't happening and there's constantly very awful communication between players for one reason or another. I'd honestly prefer we standardize scheduling a lot more and just make it ultra clear what to do and when, but that'd mean giving up a part of Smogon culture which'll always ruffle feathers
 
Echoing the above, backup times are just useless in team tournaments; we have substitutes for a reason. If you are not able to make the time you scheduled for, one of the substitutes covers for you. Instead of trying to standardize and police backup times just ignore them altogether and stick to subs in a team tournament setting.
 
I don’t know about that. Like, I’m a big proponent of make the scheduled times, but in this case the alternative might be worse. If someone might be able to play at 8 pm my time and can definitely play at 1 AM my time, I don’t want a precedent that says they have to schedule for 1 am or risk an act loss. I’d rather a chance of playing at a better time for me, and also to know that if we have to reschedule it’s to a time I am also available. Implemented well, it means more games get played at a reasonable hour for both players.

There 100% should be a warning requirement though. I don't have a strong opinion on a day before versus "several hours" before, but it shouldn't be an excuse to make people wait online.
 
Im generally not a major tours player (I don't strive to be in as many tours as possible, and I consider myself more of a for fun player rather than for winning it all), but I did find this debate interesting, so here's my two cents on this:

I obviously get people have lives outside of Smogon, and things come up that causes stuff to change. Nevertheless, the idea of backup times always has seemed a bit counterintuitive to me. If you need to set up 2 times (a primary and a backup), would that not mean you set yourself up for failure? If you are so busy you can't preplan an hour or so of availability to play (or have an unforeseen event happen where you cant play at all), why did you not sub yourself out? You should be there at the scheduled time, and if you can't make it, subs exist for a reason.

At the very least, I do think team tours should have an outright ban on backup times (or make a site wide standard on when rescheduling / backup times can take place before the game, since thats never rly been set in stone and can make rescheduling and deciding on the right call an absolute pain on both the organizers and the players side), since it's a lot easier to have a game played at the time its supposed to be played. I'm a bit more mixed on removing backups for solos, but in general I think a bit more standardization and updating on that department would be overall beneficial too.
 
I believe this shouldn't be too controversial.

Backup times are gentleman's agreement of preemptively having a reschedule time in case the original time doesn't work for one of the players. The backup time should not become relevant till both players actually agree on it after properly communicating about the original time not working out for one of them.

If I'm playing Dave and I miss the original time without informing Dave, I'm not entitled to expect Dave to be there on the backup time without getting confirmation from him first.
 
It may just be best to just not recognize backup times officially at all and enforce the primary time like Sparks said.

It solves this mess without having to implement a whole new set of rules, that will naturally be pushed to the extreme like everything else we have seen. It would have forced Fogbound to show up or get subbed to play Ahy at the originally agreed upon time and also would have resolved the Fusien situation some weeks back.
teal6 said:
Pre-planning for a failure to meet at a scheduled time has always introduced annoying ambiguity into activity decisions. It also feels like a strange practice to me, I've always felt like games should be treated like a meeting at work, you set a time and block it off and then play. If you can't, that's what substitutes are for.
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I think the way Teal phrased it here was pretty perfect and should be a model for how we view things going forward.

Having every situation covered within our rules is good, but it feels like this does that while being the most considerate for the time/planning of our players.
 
We are not going to recognize back up times. The primary / initial time will be the default for hosts to go off of for any activity or substitute decisions. Like gentlemen’s agreements in metagames, a back-up time will not be codified or treated as a formal time in scheduling.

This eliminates the gray area from a couple of decisions from SPL and avoids the potential for wasting the time of people scheduling in good faith. If you miss the time (by more than the grace window, which we are still discussing internally), expect to lose or be substituted out.

Thanks so much to everyone who weighed in here.
 
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