Process for adding new moves

[RBG]

This topic is a spin off from an #is discussion a few days ago.

Currently, there is no process we have for approving event moves and adding them to Shoddy/The Site. Now, we know that in past gens, Nintendo hasn't been as upfront with what event Pokemon were being released with which moves. This has created problems, such as people wondering whether Tickle Wobbufett or Wish Blisseys are in fact "real" Pokemon that can be used on Shoddy. However, in this gen, Nintendo has been very open and good at publicizing when these Pokemon with "special" moves. Examples of this that aren't on Shoddy yet are Roar of Time, Spacial Rend, and Shadow Force Arceus, and Draco Meteor Jirachi. Nintendo has been very clean in their advertising in Japan that these are legit. At what point do we add these Pokemon the Shoddy and the site? On the first date that they are available? And how much proof do we need?

Those last question also apply to when a new game comes out with new Tutors. Platinum and HG/SS were done two different ways. In Platinum, we had people go to each tutor and test each Pokemon + Tutor combination. For HG/SS the info was ripped directly from the ROMs. Do we treat both of those methods the same?

So in a nutshell:
How do we approve and confirm new moves that Pokemon get from either events or New Games in a generation?

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Info ripped directly from the ROM is about as legit as it gets, as far as I'm concerned, so once that comes up I'd say that's easy.

Also, anything confirmed by either Nintendo itself or by a reputable user on Smogon with (preferably) a picture of the real deal should be listed as an event move.

As for when they should be listed, I'd say that as soon as it would be possible for someone to have a legitimate one, it should be allowed. The first day that they are available in real life should be the day they are available on Shoddy.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I don't know how I missed this thread last week, because I have been a big proponent of figuring out a formal process for this. But, I think we first need to establish our general philosophy regarding what changes we recognize in the metagame.

I believe we should adopt a "skeptical philosophy" when recognizing game changes. I think changes should be recognized if they satisfy the following basic criteria:

"The pokemon is distributed on a widespread basis and can be obtained by any reasonably avid Pokemon player."​

I am intentionally using some words that are left up for interpretation -- namely "widespread" and "reasonably avid". But the general purpose of this definition is to establish a basis that allows most members of the community to verify and test ingame any of the changes proposed to be adopted into the metagame.

If a pokemon cannot be obtained by reasonably avid pokemon players, then we have no way of knowing if there are any non-obvious restrictions that should be observed. Even if Nintendo directly advertises a certain pokemon in public literature, they do not release all the detailed implementation information regarding natures, IV's, EV's, etc. Basically, the only way we can trust that we are faithfully simulating the game properly, is through the collective empirical testing of the community at large. If a pokemon can not be obtained by a reasonably large cross-section of the community, then we should not recognize it.

We cannot trust basic Nintendo advertising. Not only is the information vague, but even Nintendo (GameFreak, Genius Sonority, etc.) makes mistakes. It was only through extensive community testing that the community discovered the legendary dogs from ADV had a bunch of 0 IV's. If that had been the only way to obtain the dogs in ADV, then the simulator might have reflected that limitation in the coding of those pokemon. That was not the case, but I'm just using it as an example of a case where even Nintendo was not aware of a competitive limitation it had created in "the real game".

We cannot trust an ambiguous number of "other sites", when it comes to this stuff. I use Serebii, Bulbapedia, etc. for all sorts of information. However, these sites have contained erroneous data in the past, particularly when it comes to very specific competitive ingame data. I'm not saying that Smogon is BETTER than those other sites, I'm just saying that I do not think we should assume that because some other site contains certain information, that it makes it true.

Basically, I think we should only recognize pokemon and moves that can be verified by any reasonably avid member of the Smogon community. If a pokemon or move is not sufficiently available for that kind of widespread verification -- then the pokemon should not be represented as a standard part of the metagame that Smogon plays and analyzes. I'm not saying that such pokemon DO NOT exist at all. I'm saying that all pokemon we play in our metagame, should be able to be verified to exist AND BE TESTED FOR ANY LIMITATIONS by any reasonably avid member of our community.

I think all new pokemon should be tested by the Smogon research team, which is comprised of the holders of the Research Badge. Research is traditionally conducted in one or more research threads. I suspect that all research would likely conclude with a general consensus. If not, then polls of the Research Team could be conducted to settle any disputes over the conclusions. The research team should set defined time periods for testing, and the pokemon would be implemented on the simulator after the completion of testing.

As for the definition of "widespread availability" -- if there is any dispute over whether a pokemon meets that criteria, then we could conduct a poll of certain community members. I'm open to suggestions as to who should be included in such a poll, but presumably they would be somewhat knowledgeable and logical. I don't envision such polls being open to the general public, if only to dissuade cheating and uninformed voting. I think it should be a larger group than merely admins or select forum staff, but smaller than the entire community at large.

My main goal is to eliminate any reliance on hearsay or claims that cannot be readily verified through hands-on testing by any member of the general Smogon community.

 

[RBG]

My only qualm with that is the fact of where most of these event Pokemon are given out. Japan. Some event Pokemon (Yawn Pikachu anyone?) have, and from the looks of thing, probably only will be given out in Japan. Now, I'm not sure how much of our userbase is from Japan, but by using your Philosophy, any event Pokemon that is given out at a Nintendo event in Japan that no one from Smogon goes to would not be able to be counted at all. Granted, if it was one of the better moves smogoners would get it (Read: IPL has a Draco Meteor Jirachi), but my point still stands. With our seemingly small user base, how would we account for Japan events that are not given out via Wi-fi?

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Having at least one user in Japan capable of cloning means that any amount is possible for reasonably avid Smogon users. (Read: IPL has a Draco Meteor Jirachi)

In addition to this, is there any doubt that the Arceus Movie is going to come out in the U.S.? If not, it's reasonable to think that said Arceus is going to be available in America, just like Movie Shaymin for whatever the Shaymin movie was.

That said, I agree that things need to be tested. I think something important would be to put a priority on finding out our userbase in Japan, and seeing how many of them would be willing to grab Event Pokemon for Smogon testing.

 

[RBG]

Just posting here cause I think this is an important issue that needs to be dealt with ASAP.

Currently, there are event pokemon (surf and fly pikachu from the pokewalker/draco meteor jirachi) that some of our members have currently obtained but have not beeen verified as legit by us. The pokemon were advertised by Nintendo, so we know that it is very likely they are legit. But who exactly needs to have the Pokemon to verify its legitness? Is there a small subset of users that we say "You are responsible for getting event Pokemon and proving to us the moves are legit?" or do we just except the word of any person who has been here a while? or in the most extreme, do we just trust the info given by other sites about Nintendo giveaways? These are all very important questions that more people than SDS, DJD, and I should discuss, so I would like to ask anyone else with views on the matter to post.

 

[Syberia]

I would say that anything advertised by Nintendo and confirmed by one or more reliable sites after it's happened is fair game. I don't think requiring any users here to actually have obtained the pokemon (for instance, if there's a Japanese event that is not done over Wi-Fi, nobody who's not in Japan at the time is going to be able to get one legally) is necessary or even a good idea, as it could take a long time to find someone who has one that will trade it, and someone could always just hack a pokemon as "proof" anyways.

The only time I can think of that serebii and other sites have been wrong was the "birthday surfing Pikachu" or whatever it was, where someone actually did broadcast a signal and people actually did download the event, it just wasn't Nintendo who put the signal out. So requiring proof in this case would have actually done nothing beneficial, since someone who went could have easily given it to you.

I don't agree with the whole "we need to know exact nature/IV restrictions before we can implement anything" idea that Doug seems to be proposing. These restrictions can be implemented when they are known, of course, but they aren't absolutely necessary for putting an event pokemon into Shoddy if the basic characteristics are known (and it's pretty easy to tell if it's a set nature or not). For instance, Wonder Card pokemon are still restricted by method 1 IVs on Shoddy, when in reality they can have any IV/nature combination they want, and this has been proven by multiple Wi-Fi users. In reality, this is a trivial issue that doesn't break anything. Put another way, it wouldn't hurt anyone to play with 31/31/31/31/31/31 dogs until someone figured out that they had to have 4 zeros, the worst it would do is annoy the hell out of a couple people when that's discovered. Anyone supporting Doug's proposal would have to support banning 3rd-gen event moves as well, since only a finite number of them were given out and it will never be possible to know what exact IV combinations they had.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I'm bumping this again, since the release of Nasty Plot Celebi has brought this issue to the forefront again. For all the people who missed or ignored this thread the last time it was brought up, the key question in the OP is:

How do we approve and confirm new moves that Pokemon get from either events or New Games in a generation?
​

Right now, we have no process whatsoever. We have no clear means for recognizing changes based on Nintendo Events. We have a bunch of people running around on Shoddy and IRC, asking "When is <x> going to be implemented on Shoddy?" And then they hammer me or Colin and insist that we implement a change. I actually have no qualms with implementing changes to our metagame, based on events. But, I don't think this community should rely on my judgement for what should be in the metagame, and what conditions should be met for changes to be considered "official".

We had a discussion on #stark yesterday, which I felt was terribly unproductive -- because most people seem to have a hard time understanding the dilemma here. So here's a few questions (some rhetorical) that I hope will help people understand why this is not nearly as simple as some people might think.

Should I implement changes every time someone sends me a PM and tells me that an event has happened? Obviously not. Hoaxes happen all the time. And, people lie about this sort of thing ALL THE TIME.

Should I implement changes if another site promotes that an event has occurred? No offense to Serebii, Bulbapedia, or whatever -- but they get stuff wrong sometimes. Smogon should do our own leg work and investigation to determine the veracity of events.

Should I implement changes because Nintendo supposedly is advertising it? Probably, but what is considered "official advertising"? National web ads only? Are TV shows considered official?

More importantly, who needs to witness and verify these ads or websites? If I don't see them personally (which will be the case most of the time), should I trust the opinions of others?

If some guy sends me a camera picture of a flyer advertising a Wonder Guard Spiritomb, and says he got it from the Nintendo store in New York -- should that be considered "official"? Obviously not. What if twenty people send it to me? How about 100? Does it even matter how many people supposedly "verify" an event, if the rest of the community can't verify it?

If someone sends me a pokemon through GTS, should that be considered "proof"? Obviously not. Hacks are easily passed. I only mention this because every time I talk about "verifying" event pokemon -- some retard pops up and says, "I can prove it, Doug. I have one. I'll send it to you, if you don't believe me." Unless the person that is vouching for the pokemon, and has it in possession, is recognized as an "official event pokemon verifier" or something like that, then it really doesn't matter if the pokemon physically exists on someone's game cart. If I can't get it on my cart personally, then you are basically just telling me "Trust me, Doug. I'm not lying about this." I think we all know what a waste of time that is.

What about event pokemon that are given out exclusively for participation in a Nintendo tournament? How do we verify those? Do we just trust random eyewitness reports?

What about giveaways at Gamestop, Toys-R-Us and movie premieres? There have already been instances of people hacking the trasmitters and distributing hacks to general customers. What if I was one of those customers? What if I unwittingly received a Wondertomb from an official Nintendo giveaway for Deoxys or whatever, because some asshole hacked the transmitter? What if it wasn't so blatant? What if my Deoxys just had Draco Meteor hacked onto it? Should that be recognized? I'm an admin of the community, I received the pokemon personally, and I could swear on a stack of bibles that I received it at an official giveaway event and I didn't hack it. Is that enough proof? Uh... no.

How do we verify past events? Even if there was a ton of advertising, proof and a widespread distribution of pokemon at some point in the past -- if it doesn't exist today, then how can we verify it? How are those situations differentiated as being anything other than just trusting X number of people who say "Yeah this really happened"?​

Ok, I'll stop there. I hope this gives people an idea of why this is not as straightforward as saying "Hey, Nasty Plot Celebi is out in Japan now. Put it on Shoddy ASAP, kthanksbye."

We need a process for verifying and recognizing these things. I don't really care what the process is -- just as long as we make some reasonable attempt to mitigate the risks of recognizing fakes, and that the process is transparent and verifiable by others. No such process exists today, and without it -- we really can't get anything done with any semblance of formality. Smogon is WAY too advanced to be flying by the seat of our pants on this sort of thing. Considering the level of research and detail we put into every meaningful area of the competitive metagame, I find it hard to believe that we consider it acceptable to recognize major changes to the metagame based on what essentially amounts to rumor and innuendo.

Earlier in this thread, I suggested an approach for this. But, we really didn't get much feedback on it or alternative suggestions. And no one stepped up to plate and offered to actually do the work, and/or organize the effort. Without a meaningful community effort, then this will likely remain like it is today -- all talk, no action.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

I see what you're saying, and I agree that it's an issue that needs to be addressed. No matter what, we have to trust someone at some point of the process. We either trust an outside source or we trust an inside source. These sources can be more than one person, too, preferably multiple, preferably staff members if we're talking about an inside source. As much as I'm remiss to suggest it, there should probably be a small squad of dedicated and reliable staff members that investigate this sort of thing and cross-reference different websites, including Nintendo's own, and decide which events really are legitimate and which are not. (Or aren't clear or legitimate enough to verify) I, as a user of smogon, would feel much more comfortable trusting the judgment of the site's staff than arbitrary websites that may get exact details incorrect. (Despite the fact that these sites will likely be sources for our own staff to cite)

I don't think there really needs to be more to it than that, though. I can't imagine this needing to be a complicated or even immensely time-consuming process. It just needs to get done is all.

 

[cim]

A solution I thought up which could work with some effort would be to make a Policy Review style (limited posting) forum in Wi-Fi. Each new event move would have its own thread, where the event could be analyzed by trustworthy users. Wondercard events would be analyzed with Action Replay or whatever to determine the natures and other restrictions by 2 independent users. Non Wondercard event moves would have all of their spreads posted by the trustworthy users who received them, and if there is more than one or two natures we can just assume it's "every nature legal". All event moves would need to be accompanied with either a source (flyer, handout, etc), multiple firsthand reports, or stuff on Nintendo's website to be added.

 

[Chou Toshio]

In regards to the availability of usable event pokemon, I think you need look no further than the our own wifi forum to find that the process of bringing pokemon from the theatre to the cartridge is very simple.

Celebi was recently released for the first time in a widely-accessible form with the event move Nasty Plot during the most recent movie July 10th, just 5 days ago.

Simply by trading around the forum, I now have Calm, Modest, Bold and Timid Celebis with Hidden Power Fire and near-perfect IVs. This should be demonstrative of the accessibility of event pokemon. With Wifi and the ease of access to wonder cards of even foreign events (albeit by hacking the wonder cards), getting event pokemon has never been easier. Even without hacking the wonder cards, in Gen 4, GF and Nintendo have been extremely dependable and consistent about bringing Japan events to the International community, with repeat events of almost every event that has happened in Japan.

I would also like to point out that, while we are an English-Speaking community, Smogon is already, to a wide degree, an International community, and pokemon is an international phenomenon. I see little reason why international events should not take precedence.

Besides, it is not like we do not have members in Japan. A good amount of the time I've been here on smogon, I was living in Japan-- and will be moving back there at the end of the month (and picking up that event Celebi myself I might add).

In closing, I agree completely with Seven Deadly Sins that ideally, given proper announcement by Nintendo, event moves should be made available on the day the even t is released.


@Process-- Doug, Nintendo has a number of means through which they officially advertise events (and right now, are extremely active advertising B&W). If you choose not to view these materials, I think it best that we appoint someone who will keep up with them and we can judge as a trustworthy (though frankly speaking, these materials are so public and so openly tracked that I doubt lying about their contents is really a problem).

Whether it's Nintendo's Official websites, CoroCoro Magazine, or Pokemon Sunday, I think we can count on these advertising avenues directly related to GF and Nintendo as proof of "legitness".

それでは皆様、ごゆっくり考えてください。

 

[Rising_Dusk]

I don't think it should be an automatic process. I would like there to exist a non-finite number of users who are approved by their general trustworthiness on the site (Generally this means badgeholders) and are added to a group. Then, if say, 2 of them confirm any event Pokemon, it's considered "legit." I don't think we need to complicate this process with added forums or a ton of overhead, but it definitely should not be automated based on advertisements. I would like to see some trusted user interaction here.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I just want to have a clear, logical, and formal process for this. Right now, there is no process.

Let me make a comparison to movesets on the Smogon site --

Right now, if we want to add a set to a pokemon's analysis, there is a very clear formal process for it.

• There is a process for assigning the writing duties
• There are clear guidelines as to what is acceptable and what is not
• Proposals are posted in a public forum, that is dedicated for the purpose of evaluating analyses
• The set is verified with playtesting and oversight by knowledgeable and trustworthy members
• The writing and HTML is checked for quality and corrections are applied
• The set is uploaded to the site
• Site Staff caches the analyses on the site for public consumption
• If anyone has questions or concerns about how the set came to be, or why it was done -- there is a clear, public trail of the work that led to its creation.

This is the process that is followed just for TALKING ABOUT a pokemon's movesets. But when it comes to actually putting a new competitive element on the pokemon for actual play in Smogon ladders and tournaments -- we have no process whatsoever. I find that very... odd, to put it nicely.

It is the equivalent of me piping up on #stark and saying, "Hey, someone told me that Choice Band Blissey is a badass set." And then the entire community sits idly by while I cache a CB Blissey set straight through to the Smogon main site, complete with spelling errors and HTML problems, just because I happen to be an admin that has access to the public site dirs.

There is no possible way that scenario could occur today with the C&C process we have in place. And it's not just the process, it's the people that support the process. We have designated teams of people that do the work for maintaining site content.

We need a formal process for managing event moves and event pokemon, and a formal team that implements and oversees that process. I am not going to be a main mover and shaker on that team. At best, I will be analogous to Site Staff in the C&C process -- I will simply "cache" the changes at the end of the process.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Hrm, perhaps following a bit closer in C&C's footsteps is actually not a bad idea, then. Consider this:

• We make a forum under Policy Review for this (Therefore only posters in PR can post there)
• New move additions to Pokemon are submitted there in their own post with the following format:
  • Pokemon (Move Name #1, Move Name #2, Move Name #3)
  • This post must cite some references for the move, including, but not limited to, websites, Nintendo advertisements, and even saying "I have this Pokemon myself"
• At least 3 other members with posting privileges (that are, thus, knowledgeable) must confirm said additions with some citations of their own
• If said confirmations are made within a reasonable period of time, then it gets approved and Doug pushes the changes through to SB. The thread gets locked.

In this manner, it's basically the same as C&C and we can come to some quick conclusions on the matter of event moves. The badgeholders of the site are generally respected for their opinion and reliability, so I think any badgeholder should be able to confirm (or deny!) an event Pokemon. This method would also hopefully be pretty quick, since, presumably, there's not much discussion involved (ie. QC, GP, etc) unless it is a contested event Pokemon. If a Pokemon is contested enough times, it can be denied just as it could be approved.

I suggested "3" approvals as a kind of arbitrary number. I'd be open to that number being whatever everyone else is comfortable with having, such as 3, 5, 7, 9, whatever. I recommend it be around 5, though, to keep it from requiring so many confirmations that it actually becomes unwieldy. "Reasonable amount of time" above is arbitrary as well. I imagine whoever moderates that forum (Doug) could just bump/close a thread that hasn't been responded to in awhile. Then, if it was legit, it could be reposted and done again, etc.

 

[RBG]

The only problem I have is with those very limited event pokemon that we see advertised in Bulbapedia that are not very widely distributed, i.e. Howl + Quick Attack Charmander or Yawn Pikachu. Do we allow these pokemon to be distributed as well, even though the majority of our user base is unable to get them (do those two even exist in wifi from someone actually GOING to the event?)? I would prefer to allow only Pokemon that have distributed via a method that most people can get (Toys R Us or Nintendo Wifi), but those clearly may not be the views of everyone else here.

And another point, do we retroactively apply this to Event Moves, or only apply to future ones? i.e. Tickle Wynaut was released in 2005 at Poke Park in Japan as an egg which hatched and had Tickle. Since this was over a period of less than two months, not many people would have gotten it. Would such an event move pass new standards? If it doesn't then should we still allow it's use?

Source for the previous paragraph

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

As long as at least one person on this site has them, it's entirely possible for as many of them to get out as possible. I mean, there's obviously a limit to this, but anyone can clone an event Pokemon and have it spread like wildfire.

That said, I've never thought of "availability" as an argument against including event moves. It is entirely feasible for people to get a hold of them, and part of the difference between the WiFi metagame and the Shoddy metagame is that everyone on Shoddy has access to perfect EVs, all the egg moves, all the event moves, all without any effort. Shoddy is essentially the game in its purest form- Anything that is possible, no matter how farfetched, is available on Shoddy.

 

[lati0s]

That said, I've never thought of "availability" as an argument against including event moves. It is entirely feasible for people to get a hold of them, and part of the difference between the WiFi metagame and the Shoddy metagame is that everyone on Shoddy has access to perfect EVs, all the egg moves, all the event moves, all without any effort. Shoddy is essentially the game in its purest form- Anything that is possible, no matter how farfetched, is available on Shoddy.

Some of the things that we allow on shoddy actually aren't possible. like a perfectly IV'd wishbliss. There was a point in time when obtaining this was possible but improbable, now however it is absolutely impossible as the event is over and all the wish blissey's have thier IV's set and none of them have 31/31/31/31/31/31

I would like there to exist a non-finite number of users who are approved by their general trustworthiness on the site (Generally this means badgeholders) and are added to a group.

Unfortunately this is not possible. The set of smogon users is itself finite so it cannot contain any non-finite subsets of users for this group.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Unfortunately this is not possible. The set of smogon users is itself finite so it cannot contain any non-finite subsets of users for this group.

Non-finite in no way implies infinite. Non-finite simply means that however many users we have on it does not have a cap, and thus we can keep adding them as new, qualified members pop up.

And another point, do we retroactively apply this to Event Moves, or only apply to future ones? i.e. Tickle Wynaut was released in 2005 at Poke Park in Japan as an egg which hatched and had Tickle. Since this was over a period of less than two months, not many people would have gotten it. Would such an event move pass new standards? If it doesn't then should we still allow it's use?

Definitely apply it retroactively. If we use something similar to the process I outlined above, then we could easily allow older event moves to be qualified for existence. I'm not sure that I agree with availability being a concern, I feel - like SDS - that we make Shoddy with the intent to make as much (that's legitimate) available as possible to the users within the confines of what exists in-cartridge. I think, outside of the validity of certain event moves, that we should allow any that can be proven to be legitimate.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Some of the things that we allow on shoddy actually aren't possible. like a perfectly IV'd wishbliss. There was a point in time when obtaining this was possible but improbable, now however it is absolutely impossible as the event is over and all the wish blissey's have thier IV's set and none of them have 31/31/31/31/31/31

"Prove it."

I could be hoarding a flawless WishBliss right now and just not letting anyone know. The fact that it "can exist" is what's important, not whether or not it "does exist". The only way to exclude things at this point is to prove that it cannot exist. In this case, we know the limitations placed on Legendary EVs, and those limitations are hard-coded into the engine. For WishBliss, this may be the case, but unless you can gather every single WishBliss in existence and then submit a definitive list of what exists (this is impossible), we can't rule something out because it "doesn't exist". We can't know whether or not it exists, but we can know whether or not it is capable of existing.

Again, this is the difference between the WiFi metagame and the Shoddy metagame. WiFi is based on what players actually have, whereas Shoddy is based on what players "could have".

 

[RBG]

Note my previous question was a hypothetical. It is not something I disagree with, it is merely something that I feel should be looked at.

That being said, I have no problem with Rising Dusk's idea. As long as we make sure we know about any and all limitations before submitting it (i.e. Quiet Eruption Heatran) I would have no problem adding moves that way. In addition, I have no problem with allowing any move released at a Nintendo event anywhere, since nowadays, pokemon get spread fast when events happen.

 

[jumpluff]

I see what you're saying, and I agree that it's an issue that needs to be addressed. No matter what, we have to trust someone at some point of the process. We either trust an outside source or we trust an inside source. These sources can be more than one person, too, preferably multiple, preferably staff members if we're talking about an inside source. As much as I'm remiss to suggest it, there should probably be a small squad of dedicated and reliable staff members that investigate this sort of thing and cross-reference different websites, including Nintendo's own, and decide which events really are legitimate and which are not. (Or aren't clear or legitimate enough to verify) I, as a user of smogon, would feel much more comfortable trusting the judgment of the site's staff than arbitrary websites that may get exact details incorrect. (Despite the fact that these sites will likely be sources for our own staff to cite)

I don't think there really needs to be more to it than that, though. I can't imagine this needing to be a complicated or even immensely time-consuming process. It just needs to get done is all.

Retroactively, this would be a very time-consuming process, since the events aren't active anymore and details on some old events (such as WishBliss) are fairly vague / inconclusive. (See lati0s's posts.) However, events nowadays are much better advertised, and people can access them more, so I can see this working.

 

[lati0s]

"Prove it."

I could be hoarding a flawless WishBliss right now and just not letting anyone know. The fact that it "can exist" is what's important, not whether or not it "does exist". The only way to exclude things at this point is to prove that it cannot exist. In this case, we know the limitations placed on Legendary EVs, and those limitations are hard-coded into the engine. For WishBliss, this may be the case, but unless you can gather every single WishBliss in existence and then submit a definitive list of what exists (this is impossible), we can't rule something out because it "doesn't exist". We can't know whether or not it exists, but we can know whether or not it is capable of existing.

Again, this is the difference between the WiFi metagame and the Shoddy metagame. WiFi is based on what players actually have, whereas Shoddy is based on what players "could have".

The executives of Nintendo came to my house yesterday and activated a special event on my game to give me a legit spiritomb with wonderguard, so we should implement it on shoddy. Think I'm lying? "Prove it."

If we implement everything that is capable of existing then we would have to implement wondertomb, flareblitz flareon, extremespeed heracross, and everything else you can think of because it is possible that nintendo is holding secret events to release these pokemon. We should not implement everything that could possibly exist we should implement everything that we have good reason to believe could be legally obtained.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Shoddy is not an amalgam of everything that is possible to legally exist in the real world. If that were the case, then we would allow all the movesets made possible by stuff like the Pomeg Glitch, Japanese Ditto Glitch, and Mimic Glitch. I realize this thread is not a discussion about recognizing glitches, so it is more a tangential comment. We are not religiously recognizing every single pokemon that is possible to exist. We recognize the pokemon that we subjectively evaluate as being reasonable and "legal" -- whatever that means...

I do have some serious questions about availability of certain past pokemon. For example, to the best of my knowledge, there is not one single confirmed Wish Blissey in existence here at Smogon. Even if one were produced, it can't realistically be "verified" at all. We don't have a pokemon, we don't have any ads, we don't have anything really to differentiate the claim that Wish Blissey was anything more than a big hoax. We have some secondary references by Bulbapedia, etc -- but no real proof at all. Yet, here we have the most popular set on one of the most used pokemon in the entire metagame -- and not a single person in the entire community can actually get their hands on one.

That strikes me as incredibly inconsistent. If we are so fanatical about completely allowing every possible combination of species and move that can remotely be theorized to exist in the real world -- then how can we ignore stuff like the glitches above?

I think there needs to be some level of "reasonable doubt" applied to recognizing obscure event pokemon. I think we should only recognize pokemon that can be reasonably argued to have been "widely distributed". I don't know which exact definition and wording should be applied to the term "widely distributed" -- but if most avid players can't get their hands on an original pokemon, then it's not widely distributed IMO. And when I say "original pokemon", I'm not talking about a clone or a trade, I'm talking about receiving the actual pokemon or wonder card by attending/connecting to the event.

Maybe we end up having a "grandfather clause" that keeps stuff like Wish Blissey in the metagame, since it is bedrock of the metagame, even though it does not exist in real life. But for all the stuff that is not yet in the metagame, and all the stuff that may come in the future -- I think we should take distribution into account.

BTW, I have heard rumors that Nintendo has given out special pokemon to businessmen and employees at certain private company events, as special "collectors items". I have no idea if that is the internet rumor mill, or if it really happens. But, if such a thing were true, if a pokemon was given out to a small, private group of people -- would that constitute an "Event"? My answer would be "No". If we are prepared to recognize obscure events that are difficult to verify on a widespread basis -- then we open the door to all sorts of weird hoaxes and claims. By making a rule that says, "Only widely distributed event pokemon will be recognized" -- we have a clearly stated (albeit subjectively interpreted) rule that gives us just cause to ignore any obscure pokemon that come later.

But, whatever standards are to be followed by the researchers tasked with verifying event pokemon -- I think the standards need to written down and posted for public review. Even if there is a significant subjective element to it -- the standards should still be formally written up.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

In terms of Japanese Ditto and Mimic, if I recall correctly, we don't ignore them. We acknowledge that they exist, but we chose to reject them purely for "balance" reasons, simply because allowing the Mimic glitch causes a whoooooole lot of problems. (also because implementing it would be a waste of time if it's just going to get banned or ignored anyway) I'm going to bring in the ambiguity of Developer Intent, because while we're unsure if this was "meant" to happen, we can guarantee that things like Wish Blissey are "meant" to exist, because they're provided directly by Nintendo.

I also happen to agree with the whole "private release" thing in that they do not constitute "events" and are nearly impossible to verify.

Also, lati0s... you might want to read these.

 

[lati0s]

I don't think that I am the one that needs to be watching out for fallacies. First, you committed a fallacy by trying to put the burden of proof on me to show that flawless wishbliss does not exist. I exposed this fallacy by sarcastically giving an insane example and placing the burden of proof on you. You then went on to make the claim that shoddy should contain anything that a player "could have" I disputed this by arguing that anything that a player "could have" contains more than we could reasonably implement.