Rejected Regarding Suspect Voting in National Dex OU

[Solaros & Lunaris]

(Note: I am proxy posting for TheRainQueen)

Recently, the Natdex OU Tier held its second suspect test for Tera. Tera has been widely agreed upon by the playerbase to be very bad for the competitive nature of the tier. For detailed discussion and evidence, see this tera thread, this older tera thread, and this player survey.

However, the suspect test resulted in DNB, almost entirely due to an influx of brand-new smogon accounts from a single player on an external website calling for people to vote DNB, saying “all the pro banners are foreigners” and “ I don't really care about how tournament players feel”. These voters accounted for 50% of the DNB votes (28/55, give or take).

None of these actions are against the rules, but when an outcome like this occurs within the rules, it’s indicative of the rules needing fixing.

From the tiering policy framework:
“We cater to both ladder players (the higher end of the ladder) and tournament players.”

National dex has a notoriously weak ladder, and especially with the broken strategies afforded by Tera like Rain, reqs did not require much experience with the tier or competitive mons to obtain. The high variance of games from Tera further assists the approach of having large quantities of unskilled players and hinders experienced players. Taking this into account, we do not believe that the standard suspect process represents high ladder players for NDOU.

In terms of solutions, we’re open to ideas. One possibility that’s been discussed is requiring that voting smogon accounts exist prior to the test announcement. This would ensure that voters are actually invested users, which is the idea behind reqs in general.

Another option from one of our Council members: There is also another problem relating to majorities in this suspect test. 45% of the community wanted it to stay, while 55% of it did not think the same. If a majority consisting of more than 50% of all voters deem something to be banworthy or not banworthy, it should be decided as such, and should not have to fit thresholds such as a 60% supermajority. This is not suggesting majorities such as 50% + 1, moreso majorities such as 55%. If you have 61 people saying to not do something and 75 to do something, why would you not give favor to the 75?

Altering the supermajority requirements seems like a solid option, and especially makes sense in a tier as divorced from “cart purity” as Natdex. Considering the previous tera suspect was also a significant majority, one vote off the supermajority, reexamining this precedent seems merited.

TLDR; The recent Natdex OU Tera suspect test highlighted some flaws in the tiering system that we should discuss.

 

[ABR]

I don't care about NatDex itself, but I care about the suspect process and bad tiering attitudes. So, some points to be made to the general public, not the OP:

1) If Tera was widely agreed upon as broken, it would have been banned

2) No one's vote is "more important" solely because they had a smogon account for longer. This is just the self feeding insular loop kind of mentality that drives away new people

3) "These reqs weren't that legit because the thing we're testing is uncompetitive" = please read that out loud

4) Altering the supermajority that works for every tier on smogon ever (except ubers where it's an even higher threshold) because you weren't happy with the result is INSANE

The only problem here is some people's inability to accept results they didn't personally prefer. Maybe your overall life will improve when you learn how to deal with setbacks, instead of claiming things were unfair. Food for thought.

 

[Karxrida]

Another option from one of our Council members: There is also another problem relating to majorities in this suspect test. 45% of the community wanted it to stay, while 55% of it did not think the same. If a majority consisting of more than 50% of all voters deem something to be banworthy or not banworthy, it should be decided as such, and should not have to fit thresholds such as a 60% supermajority. This is not suggesting majorities such as 50% + 1, moreso majorities such as 55%. If you have 61 people saying to not do something and 75 to do something, why would you not give favor to the 75?

"We didn't like the outcome of the test so we're going to move the goalposts just enough to make it so we can ban Tera."

Yeah this isn't a PR disaster in the making.

 

[R8]

Speaking solely as myself here

However, the suspect test resulted in DNB, almost entirely due to an influx of brand-new smogon accounts from a single player on an external website calling for people to vote DNB, saying “all the pro banners are foreigners” and “ I don't really care about how tournament players feel”. These voters accounted for 50% of the DNB votes (28/55, give or take).

None of these actions are against the rules, but when an outcome like this occurs within the rules, it’s indicative of the rules needing fixing.

A few things:
- I don't think it would be a good idea to require the account to have a certain age before being able to vote : as long as someone is able to get reqs, whatever they are, they should be able to vote in my opinion, as it kinda is the main point of reqs in the first place: making sure the voters have an informed opinion on the topic - what else would you want from them? If anything people joining Smogon for the first time to participate in a suspect they care about is a good thing, imo.
- Even though we did see some suspicious things, I believe it is important to mention that because of the language barrier we can't really make sure we aren't misrepresenting the intentions of the DNB voters. Regardless though, you definitively cannot arbitrarily disqualify anyone for their reasons to vote, unless you want to get an other ORAS STag controversy.

I do not want to derail from the topic of the thread, but I want to mention that if there is anything to deplore about the natdex situation is how the language barrier can actively limit good tiering discussion. I don't think there is anyone to really blame about that, but could be an indication on something to work on in the future.


Personally, the only measure I'd really agree with in natdex's case is making reqs harder - either by making ladder reqs harder of finding an alternative to create lists - especially considering how atrocious the low-to-mid natdex ladder can be. That being said I do agree there isn't really a lot of satisfying alternatives, tour reqs in particular being too restrictive.

 

[Giagantic]

I am Co-TL of the permanent ladder Other Meta known as STABmons, and similarly to NDOU we will eventually be having a Tera Suspect. For better or worse, we will be accepting the result of said suspect which will be a black and white, ban or do not ban suspect test.

I know it is frustrating, potentially off-turning for many in the competitive scene to have this sort of scenario come about but I think everyone is just gonna have to learn to live with it till there is enough time and community opinion to run another Tera Suspect. Adding restrictions such as those discussed in the OP is liable to creating an insular community that gates people from expressing opinions that deviate from the norm and segregates voting rights. This should be avoided above all else.

 

[Lily]

TLDR; The recent Natdex OU Tera suspect test highlighted some flaws in the tiering system that we should discuss.

This & the other comments in the OP are wild to make when you - both the OP and the person they are proxy posting for - did not get requirements to vote on the "notoriously weak ladder". The real issue here that nobody wants to admit is the laziness of the pro-ban side, not anything to do with the influx of Chinese players who got requirements in the same entirely valid way anybody else did.

 

[Wulfanator]

There is something ironic about posting on behalf of a 9-post user while trying to disqualify new accounts.

I dont think you meet the minimum post reqs to speak on this topic. We should ensure that posters are actually invested users.

 

[Finchinator]

It is sad that instead of participating in the process, people continue to go out of their way to complain about it.

There is nothing wrong with the processes that applied to the National Dex suspect.

However, the suspect test resulted in DNB, almost entirely due to an influx of brand-new smogon accounts from a single player on an external website calling for people to vote DNB, saying “all the pro banners are foreigners” and “ I don't really care about how tournament players feel”. These voters accounted for 50% of the DNB votes (28/55, give or take).

None of these actions are against the rules, but when an outcome like this occurs within the rules, it’s indicative of the rules needing fixing.

People coming from outside of our community to participate in community functions should be celebrated, not sanctioned.

Your conclusion that “it’s indicative of the rules needing fixing” feels either discriminatory or elitist. I don’t know you and I am going to assume you are neither of those, but just frustrated by the verdict and expressing it in the wrong way. I hope these responses at least open your eyes how you’re coming off.

 

[Dorron]

This & the other comments in the OP are wild to make when you - both the OP and the person they are proxy posting for - did not get requirements to vote on the "notoriously weak ladder". The real issue here that nobody wants to admit is the laziness of the pro-ban side, not anything to do with the influx of Chinese players who got requirements in the same entirely valid way anybody else did.

Interesting to see how half of your post is about attacking both the OP and the writer for not getting reqs for the suspect when you did like a post that was introduced by how ridiculous ad-hominem arguments less than two days ago, but whatever.

There is something ironic about posting on behalf of a 9-post user while trying to disqualify new accounts.

I dont think you meet the minimum post reqs to speak on this topic. We should ensure that posters are actually invested users.

They are a room mod, but keep on saying nothing useful for the topic.

I'll leave it clear that I hoped the result was Ban, even though I think a Tera restriction would have been much better but it would make reaching a consensus impossible. Wether you agree or not with me, the fact that Natdex voting reqs are ridiculously easy and there should be something done about it. I found myself getting reqs pretty easily years ago in Natdex while I barely couldn't make it past 1300s in OU. Probably making GXE reqs higher is the easiest way. Whatever is done, this suspect's result should remain untouched.

What I agree on, even it seems other people don't, is about having a way to ensure people are familiar with Smogon and its tiering system. B101 ( You, the tutee, should have at least 15 posts before signing up AND your account's age should be a minimum of at least 1 month old before signing up. already has this and I've never ever seen anyone complain, but it is brought in an area that literally defines how metagames shape and everyone loses their mind? It sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Last point. Calling all your friends to vote a specific option on sth they wouldn't be aware of its existence if you hadn't told them doesn't sound proper. I'm completely fine with telling your friends that a suspect test is up, but telling them to specifically vote an option, when I'm sure rigging votings is not allowed in any other Smogon area, isn't fine at all, ignoring the result of the suspect. There might be something to do about this in the future, I don't want small tiers having their suspect tests fucked up because an idiot told all their friends to rig the voting.

Once again I'll say that the suspect result should be unchanged no matter the result of this thread. But I strongly believe reqs for suspect tests should be higher in the tier (also in OMs, but I can understand it there due to the small playerbase). Thanks ABR, R8, Giagantic, and Finchinator for making meaningful posts, even if I don't agree with some points. And for the others, please don't post whatever crosses your mind.

 

[Lily]

Interesting to see how half of your post is about attacking both the OP and the writer for not getting reqs for the suspect when you did like a post that was introduced by how ridiculous ad-hominem arguments less than two days ago, but whatever.

From the post you linked:

Yeah, it's a polarizing mechanic for sure, but the kind of stuff I have to read borders on absurd. How much everyone preferring the other side sucks at this game (which is especially funny when the no-action side has people like Vertex, Nat, NJNP and blunder - all of which are really good at Gen 9 in their own right, some of the best), how much of an idiot you have to be to not see how broken Tera is, and some guy in the OU thread pushing his opinion of "we all know unrestricted Tera is broken, everyone should realize we need at least team preview" down my throat.

What I said, with different wording so it's easier to interpret: "if you have to power to effect change but choose not to take it, then calling issue with the system instead of your own decisions is illogical". I encourage you to do a little more research on what ad hominem is. Some examples:

This incendiary & infantalising comment you made in the Smogon Discord just a few days ago:

and this one you made in your post just now:

I don't want small tiers having their suspect tests fucked up because an idiot told all their friends to rig the voting.

So. What point are you trying to make here? You didn't vote ban, the OP/the person they're proxy posting for also didn't, and as such yours & their opinions were not counted. Those who proved their competence and got reqs had their votes counted. That is fair and that's how things should work. Is it too easy to get reqs? Maybe. That's certainly something worth talking about. But if it really was that easy, I think you'd see significantly more voters and wouldn't be in this position to begin with.

The idea of locking suspect tests behind aged accounts is fundamentally silly as it prevents us from gaining new users in one of the most accessible avenues we have. If you want the site to die because you're completely set on the idea of insular communities running everything, I feel sorry for you because that is never, ever going to happen. Adjustments to the suspect system can happen if that's desired but the entire thing is built on democracy and avoiding elitism, which is why it's really just a baseline competence test. Alternatives that do not meet this requirement are very unlikely to be considered.

And finally, since you put it well for me already, if you choose to reply:

please don't post whatever crosses your mind.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I've done plenty of suspect tests over the years, mostly UU but also other tiers, and I also did this latest NatDex suspect, and it didn't seem all that different to me re: difficulty. It was easier than OU yes, but it seemed about the same as other non-OU tiers. I don't think any changes are really needed to it - most of the complaining I see from the suspect results came from people who didn't even get reqs themselves, so I'm not really sure why they argue that it's "too easy" but then don't do it? Highlighting that point in this topic seems fair and I'm not sure why anyone would get attacked over bringing that up. If you want to participate in tiering, then participate in the tiering.

On a larger note, I don't think any suspect is "easy" in the sense that it is effortless. Every single suspect takes lots of effort and time. No matter how elite you are at the game, if you want to get reqs you have to hunker down and go play your 30-40+ games on the ladder. It takes time, patience, and dedication, nobody can just pick up the game and do it in 15 minutes. Some players do it more easily than others yes, but it's not an automatic thing for just anybody to do. If it was, then you wouldn't have hundred of reqs account (yes there's hundreds) that didn't get the reqs for this past NatDex suspect. For one reason or another, people had to give it up or move to a new account.

I love the current suspect process and I think it really rewards people who are willing to take the time to sit down and play the game for an extended period of time. It does not reward people who would rather not spend the time to do this, but would like to complain about the results afterwards if it was not the right result for them. If reqs are truly "too easy", and there's a general consensus on this, then changing the GXE requirement could be an option for the future, but I don't see that really addressing much of the concerns. It just makes it a bit more annoying to get the reqs, and the "new players" are still going to probably get them because, well, they want to and are willing to put it in the time. Bear in mind UU's GXE requirement the past couple of suspects was dropped to 78 GXE and it's worked just fine, surely 80 GXE in NatDex or anywhere else is fine.

With regard to telling your friends to vote in a suspect, this seems perfectly fine? I've asked friends to vote in a suspect before, and as long as they are getting reqs legitimately there's nothing wrong with doing that. Also, what basis is there that anyone is making anyone else vote in a certain way? From what I understand in the latest natdex suspect, it was just sort of a PSA that was announced for anyone in that particular group to get reqs if thy wanted to save tera. Seems perfectly fine - if the player wanted to save tera in natdex, they went onto Pokemon Showdown, got their reqs, and voted how they want. We need to stop lobbing accusations as it's quite honestly created a lot of racist posts within the NatDex Discussion thread (most that were thankfully deleted/edited by the mods) and this line of thinking only creates absurd negativity for the community.

So, please don't change the process, it's worked for a long time and doesn't need any modifications. If any change is happening, the only reasonable is to change GXE requirements, but I think that's probably a bad idea to raise it any higher than 80 GXE for any tier that has an active ladder.

 

[hidin]

I have no good introduction to put here so I'll just get into what I have to say about all of this.

(Note: I am proxy posting for TheRainQueen)

Recently, the Natdex OU Tier held its second suspect test for Tera. Tera has been widely agreed upon by the playerbase to be very bad for the competitive nature of the tier. For detailed discussion and evidence, see this tera thread, this older tera thread, and this player survey.

However, the suspect test resulted in DNB, almost entirely due to an influx of brand-new smogon accounts from a single player on an external website calling for people to vote DNB, saying “all the pro banners are foreigners” and “ I don't really care about how tournament players feel”. These voters accounted for 50% of the DNB votes (28/55, give or take).

None of these actions are against the rules, but when an outcome like this occurs within the rules, it’s indicative of the rules needing fixing.

From the tiering policy framework:
“We cater to both ladder players (the higher end of the ladder) and tournament players.”

National dex has a notoriously weak ladder, and especially with the broken strategies afforded by Tera like Rain, reqs did not require much experience with the tier or competitive mons to obtain. The high variance of games from Tera further assists the approach of having large quantities of unskilled players and hinders experienced players. Taking this into account, we do not believe that the standard suspect process represents high ladder players for NDOU.

In terms of solutions, we’re open to ideas. One possibility that’s been discussed is requiring that voting smogon accounts exist prior to the test announcement. This would ensure that voters are actually invested users, which is the idea behind reqs in general.

Another option from one of our Council members: There is also another problem relating to majorities in this suspect test. 45% of the community wanted it to stay, while 55% of it did not think the same. If a majority consisting of more than 50% of all voters deem something to be banworthy or not banworthy, it should be decided as such, and should not have to fit thresholds such as a 60% supermajority. This is not suggesting majorities such as 50% + 1, moreso majorities such as 55%. If you have 61 people saying to not do something and 75 to do something, why would you not give favor to the 75?

Altering the supermajority requirements seems like a solid option, and especially makes sense in a tier as divorced from “cart purity” as Natdex. Considering the previous tera suspect was also a significant majority, one vote off the supermajority, reexamining this precedent seems merited.

TLDR; The recent Natdex OU Tera suspect test highlighted some flaws in the tiering system that we should discuss.

Firstly, while I respect both of the people involved in this post and appreciate the attempt of contribution, this message at its core is just gatekeeping towards newer players trying to engage in the National Dex community. Why do we want to try to make things harder for people who play the tier but don't own an account? It hinders motivation from new users who want to make their voices heard and targets a community of people already ostracized in some regards. The young accounts in question that came from an external website were already ladder players of National Dex and fans of Tera, so they were told by a well-known player in the Chinese community to participate in the suspect test and came here to vote what they wanted to vote, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that; even if it might be weird seeing a two day old account voting. I'd also like to say that there was reportedly a solid amount of pro-ban players in the Chinese community, but they were left in the dark when it came to this suspect, not to mention the Chinese competitive Pokemon forums posted the Tera suspect 2 days after its conclusion. Still we should leave this to being a generic case miscommunication instead of malicious intent as there were no bad intentions with the Chinese community’s action.

Post in question

While I will say the post that encouraged the Chinese users to vote was worded slightly biased towards do not ban, all its doing is letting a broad part of our playerbase take action on Tera and letting more players voice their opinions. The supermajority aspect is something I do not have much problems with generally and I'd be open to change it, but this is worded like we want to change it just because we didn't like how the vote turned out. Most of the hate towards this entire scenario is bias from people who didn't get the result they wanted in the suspect, and that's not a good mindset to have when it comes to debated topics in general. Being upset because a previously voiceless community participated in a tiering event is undeniably elitist and self serving, but I will touch on the topic more in the following paragraphs.

Now, onto the topic of how reqs should be handled. I've seen opinions thrown around such as just applying a game limit, increasing GXE, including tour reqs, or finding an alternative. Personally, from what this suspect has shown, I think having a game limit and higher GXE cap sounds like the best solution to this issue. Reqs help people understand the suspected mechanic/mon and shape of the meta, helping them form their opinion on what decision they want to make. With how easy it is to get reqs at the moment, I don't believe the requisite’s intended purpose is realized is achieved. Rather than just loading some HO and breezing through their run and learning near to nothing, players should be able to engage with ladder, which is where a higher GXE would help. Tour reqs sounds appealing as it targets a higher level of our playerbase, but then leaves a lot more people out and is generally restrictive, as R8 said in his post. Any alternatives could be nice, but in my opinion I feel like the most realistic change would be higher GXE requirements and applying a game limit.

We also can take from this situation to start being consistent on surveys aimed towards higher level players to make better tiering decisions from this point forward. Not saying this as we should exclusively listen to high-level players; the wider community will still be given the voice they've always had, but we should start taking in top players' opinions more to get solid confirmation on future tiering and as some general food for thought.

And finally, the finisher to this entire post; the main problem with this whole situation is the major lack of communication. The situation National Dex and its community faces right now would all be avoided if we managed to have a way of communication between us and the Chinese community. I and other National Dex staff are planning on eliminating language barriers to make sure everyone in the community is heard when it comes to stuff like this. When we can solve this problem, not only does it increase community involvement, but it also can prevent controversies like this, since you won't have any voiceless community left in the dark. I sound like a broken record, but you hopefully get the point here. Overall, this situation has shown us all a few things.
- We should consider increasing the reqs difficulty
- We should be more consistent on handing out surveys to the experienced section of our community
- We must focus on making National Dex accessible to its entire community as much as possible.

So yeah, hopefully I got my points through as thoroughly as possible to you all; wanted to do so as quickly as I could cause this thread has a decent chance of being locked. Shoutouts to Yes or no my dude, setset77, and sealoo for helping me with this response and all of the discussion we had about it :D

 

[Jho]

(rushed post as I am writing from works break room as my pot noodle cooks)

While going through with the process of conducting and planning this suspect test, we were very careful to ensure we followed absolutely everything by the books and were very transparent with how we were dealing with things such as the reports and allegations of cheating/ match fixing/ campaigning.

The outcome here just shows that we had a vocal minority and there isn't much else to it, dnb won fairly.

The main part of this post I would consider talking about is the gxe requirement, as that is something I have altered in National Dex suspects in the past. They used to be easier with the earliest tests only needing a min of 78 or 79 gxe.

The main argument for upping the gxe requirements is that National Dex OU has an exceptionally easy early ladder due to it being the most accessible tier for casual users who just want to use (almost) any Pokémon. Currently we use the same GXE requirements as OU, which probably has a harder early ladder especially during suspects where it's more likely to run into another test alt / tour players testing etc. I think it's fair to say the average skill of National Dex ladderers is lower than that of OUs, so the fact that we use the same reqs despite the discrepancy in how easily you can win the early games makes using the same reqs somewhat valid.

Capping the number of games allowed to be played has also been bought up a lot following the results as we had a couple reqs with 2-300 games and the argument was made they just threw time at it and supposedly "didn't earn reqs correctly", whatever that means. If people are willing to put in god knows how many hours that takes for reqs then I think they have earned their right to vote through dedication alone and probably have a better understanding of the tier than people who are brand new to the tier, load HO and go 30-0.

Overall I think the suspect process is perfectly fine and people are generally just looking for things to blame now that this one hasn't gone the way "it was supposed to". I'd be open to a discussion on increasing the gxe requirements for NDOU going forward but bear in mind, in order to play the minimum games you already have to go 27-3 at absolute worst already.

 

[shnowshner]

I've taken the liberty (and time) to look through the entirety of the Voting thread and document who was voting and what they voted.

[sheet removed by mods]

A quick explanation of what you'll see:

Vote Order refers to the Post #, and should align with the row # on the left side.

Account Creation, Posts, Ban/Do Not Ban are exactly what you think they are.

The so-called "Chinese" Account is legitimately just me labeling people based off information I could gather from their account, and from what I've seen said around the thread. It is as arbitrary as one would expect. There are four categories:

• No means the user isn't Chinese
• Yes means the user is Chinese
• "No" means I cannot discern nationality, but lean towards not Chinese
• "Yes" means I cannot discern nationality, but lean towards Chinese

Badge(s) is what you expect, and has them abbreviated. A + refers to Top (as in Top Tiering Contributor) and an (A) refers to alumnus. If there were too many I just put Scroller.

The greyed out area at the bottom are votes after the test results were finalized.

Is any of this information actually relevant? Up to you to decide. The categories I added were done based off what I found people to care about.


Now, some commentary:

I can say with certainty that the outcome of this Suspect Test was 100% influenced by Chinese players banding together to get DNB through. Of the 55 DNB votes, 43 were users that fell under the Yes category, though only 19 of these I am certain about. A lot of the "Yes" users only had 2 posts, both of which were for the suspect, and had recent signup dates. Many haven't logged in since voting. And in case you are wondering, all of these accounts voted DNB. The only user I assume is from China that voted Ban, voted after the fact.

So what does this all mean? Well, truth is, the pro-Ban side failed. The reason that this Chinese community of players "stole the vote" is because pro-Ban users did nothing to stop them. Yes, indeed, if you make no effort to prevent something from happening, it is likely to happen. In such a scenario like this, was anything really stolen? I would argue no. In reality, these people were just better at committing to their beliefs than many of you were. How unfortunate that people were able to brigade a community to vote a certain way, and some of you couldn't even convince yourself to care!

If you did not vote in the suspect you have no right to complain about the vote not going your way. Is the ladder too easy to climb and get reqs for? Then why didn't you? Did someone influence people to vote a certain way to get their desired outcome? Then why couldn't you? I don't mean to encourage amassing a troupe of voters to do your bidding, but realistically we all have the ability to share our opinions on such matters, and if the vocal pro-Ban voters were unable to change peoples minds or inspire them to vote Ban, then they simply failed to do what the DNB side accomplished.

The idea that we need to limit who can participate in a suspect tour outside of ability to meet playing requirements is asinine and reeks of entitlement. Showdown and Smogon are intertwined, but not the same entity. There are many players, good ones in fact, that rarely use their Smogon account, or don't even have one, but still remain involved in the metagame in their own way. One such player I know is currently competing in WCoP, after having only signed up last year despite being on Showdown since the 2010s. I agree with the sentiment of "if you have the time to knock out getting reqs, you deserve to vote." Sure, you can argue that some of the voters here only participated because they were asked and don't really care about developing or improving the metagame, but that's not different from people who do this just to get Tiering Contributor.

Ultimately, while the outcome was reportedly determined by a single user encouraging others to vote a certain way in a tier they may or may not have much stake in, this group was still able to meet the requirements to vote, a task the apparently larger, more vocal, and more involved pro-Ban group was unable to do. This is not a result of cheating or brigading on the side of Chinese players, but apathy from the side of Smogon NatDex players. If you wanted Tera to be banned and did not vote Ban or muster support from others to vote Ban, then you are the reason Tera remains legal.

 

[Melbelle]

In terms of solutions, we’re open to ideas. One possibility that’s been discussed is requiring that voting smogon accounts exist prior to the test announcement. This would ensure that voters are actually invested users, which is the idea behind reqs in general.

I don't like this because suspect tests, especially big ones like the fate of the Terastal phenomenon, often can attract new players to even start participating in the wider Smogon community, and all suspect tests test for is approximate skill level through GXE, not if you've been on Smogon long enough. This would actively harm Smogon's growth and genuinely give some merit to the "Smogon is elitist" thing.

If a majority consisting of more than 50% of all voters deem something to be banworthy or not banworthy, it should be decided as such, and should not have to fit thresholds such as a 60% supermajority.

This is not suggesting majorities such as 50% + 1, moreso majorities such as 55%. If you have 61 people saying to not do something and 75 to do something, why would you not give favor to the 75?

So, the majority should be listened to and should not have to fit thresholds, but actually, we should just use a different threshold that doesn't always listen to the majority? This is literally contradictory and I could start complaining about Zamazenta-Hero's 54.95% ban majority. Why not listen to the 61 over the 50? The threshold should be 53% instead! There has to be a reason to change a threshold that has garnered little complaints for years instead of just saying the majority should be listened to and then move goalposts.

The only non-arbitrary choice is 50% + 1, but you can't make decisions with this much weight with that kind of percentage. Of course because it's subjective it'd be unfair to shut down the idea of debating what it should be. However, again, 60% hasn't gotten much complaints for years and it seems a little disingenuous to say now that it's an issue, especially when changing the threshold has absolutely nothing to do with this specific suspect test nor the idea that foreign players getting reqs and voting dnb is somehow "unfair", which based on the opener to this post, seems like it's about the foreign voters rather than anything about the percentage being too high.

However, the suspect test resulted in DNB, almost entirely due to an influx of brand-new smogon accounts from a single player on an external website calling for people to vote DNB, saying “all the pro banners are foreigners” and “ I don't really care about how tournament players feel”. These voters accounted for 50% of the DNB votes (28/55, give or take).

None of these actions are against the rules, but when an outcome like this occurs within the rules, it’s indicative of the rules needing fixing.

(what does this have to do with the 60% threshold? why is it only an issue now?)

In terms of solutions, we’re open to ideas.

tldr very few people actually think there's an issue

the real issue we should be talking about

tatsugiri backsprite

 

[BigFatMantis]

I've taken the liberty (and time) to look through the entirety of the Voting thread and document who was voting and what they voted.
A quick explanation of what you'll see:

Vote Order refers to the Post #, and should align with the row # on the left side.

Account Creation, Posts, Ban/Do Not Ban are exactly what you think they are.

The so-called "Chinese" Account is legitimately just me labeling people based off information I could gather from their account, and from what I've seen said around the thread. It is as arbitrary as one would expect. There are four categories:

• No means the user isn't Chinese
• Yes means the user is Chinese
• "No" means I cannot discern nationality, but lean towards not Chinese
• "Yes" means I cannot discern nationality, but lean towards Chinese

Badge(s) is what you expect, and has them abbreviated. A + refers to Top (as in Top Tiering Contributor) and an (A) refers to alumnus. If there were too many I just put Scroller.

The greyed out area at the bottom are votes after the test results were finalized.

Is any of this information actually relevant? Up to you to decide. The categories I added were done based off what I found people to care about.


Now, some commentary:

I can say with certainty that the outcome of this Suspect Test was 100% influenced by Chinese players banding together to get DNB through. Of the 55 DNB votes, 43 were users that fell under the Yes category, though only 19 of these I am certain about. A lot of the "Yes" users only had 2 posts, both of which were for the suspect, and had recent signup dates. Many haven't logged in since voting. And in case you are wondering, all of these accounts voted DNB. The only user I assume is from China that voted Ban, voted after the fact.

So what does this all mean? Well, truth is, the pro-Ban side failed. The reason that this Chinese community of players "stole the vote" is because pro-Ban users did nothing to stop them. Yes, indeed, if you make no effort to prevent something from happening, it is likely to happen. In such a scenario like this, was anything really stolen? I would argue no. In reality, these people were just better at committing to their beliefs than many of you were. How unfortunate that people were able to brigade a community to vote a certain way, and some of you couldn't even convince yourself to care!

If you did not vote in the suspect you have no right to complain about the vote not going your way. Is the ladder too easy to climb and get reqs for? Then why didn't you? Did someone influence people to vote a certain way to get their desired outcome? Then why couldn't you? I don't mean to encourage amassing a troupe of voters to do your bidding, but realistically we all have the ability to share our opinions on such matters, and if the vocal pro-Ban voters were unable to change peoples minds or inspire them to vote Ban, then they simply failed to do what the DNB side accomplished.

The idea that we need to limit who can participate in a suspect tour outside of ability to meet playing requirements is asinine and reeks of entitlement. Showdown and Smogon are intertwined, but not the same entity. There are many players, good ones in fact, that rarely use their Smogon account, or don't even have one, but still remain involved in the metagame in their own way. One such player I know is currently competing in WCoP, after having only signed up last year despite being on Showdown since the 2010s. I agree with the sentiment of "if you have the time to knock out getting reqs, you deserve to vote." Sure, you can argue that some of the voters here only participated because they were asked and don't really care about developing or improving the metagame, but that's not different from people who do this just to get Tiering Contributor.

Ultimately, while the outcome was reportedly determined by a single user encouraging others to vote a certain way in a tier they may or may not have much stake in, this group was still able to meet the requirements to vote, a task the apparently larger, more vocal, and more involved pro-Ban group was unable to do. This is not a result of cheating or brigading on the side of Chinese players, but apathy from the side of Smogon NatDex players. If you wanted Tera to be banned and did not vote Ban or muster support from others to vote Ban, then you are the reason Tera remains legal.

This is me:

But I have a TC+, not TC.

But to avoid a one-liner response:

I looked carefully at this sheet because it was intriguing, and I believe your overall general point that apathy led to the result has some merit. But I'd be careful about putting much stock into the sheet in general as these statistics carry a lot of assumptions with them, particularly there's no way to track which users have been on PS for a long period of time and only recently created a Smog account, compared to those who just now created one. I'd also just generally avoid labeling any group of accounts "Chinese" because it's just not that helpful to the discussion. A group of farmers in Wisconsin (sorry Wisconsin natives don't mean to be offensive) could have done the same thing and banded together to ladder and save tera and made their Smog accounts for the first time to do it. It just so happens that this particular group of players was in China.

Also, after reading through some of these posts, I think there's a lot of flawed logic in some of the statements made in favor of changing reqs thresholds. First, there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that, if you raise it to 81 GXE or 82 GXE, these "new" players wouldn't be able to get those same reqs. Do you think they are bad at the game? I think they are probably decent, decent enough to ladder and get reqs anyhow (again, not as easy as some people are making it out to be here). I would bet that, if you did actually increase the GXE requirement, most of these "new players" would get the reqs anyways, and, while you were attempting to shut them out, you actually probably end up shutting out a lot of the not-new players because they probably have less patience to deal with a stupidly high GXE requirement and have better things to do on Smogon like post in discussion threads. Another thing that I think is very flawed is suggesting a "game cap" for people getting reqs. Are you suggesting that, as you play more games, you know less about the meta? This doesn't really make any sense to me. Take note that many people who get reqs burn through several reqs accounts before finally getting them (will you cap the number of alts you can register too?) Nothing more really needs to be said about the "join date" suggestions since others have made it clear why that's an awful idea.

Many of these suggestions, to me, seem like veiled attempts to gatekeep that, in practice, actually don't do anything to achieve that end result anyways (and that's good since it's not something we should be trying to do). The only one that actually does this is the join date requirement, which is the worst suggestion out of all of them for reasons mentioned by others (in sum we don't gatekeep new members from participating in the community). So, once again, nothing really needs to change with the reqs process. It's fine and, if a large consensus does in fact think it's way too easy, then simply a slight increase in GXE may be ok but is probably not worth the trouble.

 

[shnowshner]

This is me:

View attachment 535850

But I have a TC+, not TC.

But to avoid a one-liner response:

I looked carefully at this sheet because it was intriguing, and I believe your overall general point that apathy led to the result has some merit. But I'd be careful about putting much stock into the sheet in general as these statistics carry a lot of assumptions with them, particularly there's no way to track which users have been on PS for a long period of time and only recently created a Smog account, compared to those who just now created one. I'd also just generally avoid labeling any group of accounts "Chinese" because it's just not that helpful to the discussion. A group of farmers in Wisconsin (sorry Wisconsin natives don't mean to be offensive) could have done the same thing and banded together to ladder and save tera and made their Smog accounts for the first time to do it. It just so happens that this particular group of players was in China.

Also, after reading through some of these posts, I think there's a lot of flawed logic in some of the statements made in favor of changing reqs thresholds. First, there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that, if you raise it to 81 GXE or 82 GXE, these "new" players wouldn't be able to get those same reqs. Do you think they are bad at the game? I think they are probably decent, decent enough to ladder and get reqs anyhow (again, not as easy as some people are making it out to be here). I would bet that, if you did actually increase the GXE requirement, most of these "new players" would get the reqs anyways, and, while you were attempting to shut them out, you actually probably end up shutting out a lot of the not-new players because they probably have less patience to deal with a stupidly high GXE requirement and have better things to do on Smogon like post in discussion threads. Another thing that I think is very flawed is suggesting a "game cap" for people getting reqs. Are you suggesting that, as you play more games, you know less about the meta? This doesn't really make any sense to me. Take note that many people who get reqs burn through several reqs accounts before finally getting them (will you cap the number of alts you can register too?) Nothing more really needs to be said about the "join date" suggestions since others have made it clear why that's an awful idea.

Many of these suggestions, to me, seem like veiled attempts to gatekeep that, in practice, actually don't do anything to achieve that end result anyways (and that's good since it's not something we should be trying to do). The only one that actually does this is the join date requirement, which is the worst suggestion out of all of them for reasons mentioned by others (in sum we don't gatekeep new members from participating in the community). So, once again, nothing really needs to change with the reqs process. It's fine and, if a large consensus does in fact think it's way too easy, then simply a slight increase in GXE may be ok but is probably not worth the trouble.

I'll note that the labelling was done that way intentionally to reflect how a lot of users were approaching the situation, hence why I had put parentheses around the word in the sheet. It's done mockingly because the nationality doesn't matter. Same with signup date really, I talked about how join date here and time spent on PS don't correlate, so these "new" users may not be new at all. The data is flawed because the arguments are flawed, how convienent!

 

[Sabelette]

I have a very hard time believing this big an issue would have been made of it if this was done by a French or German community, regardless of whose side they were on. Honestly, I have a hard time believing it would have been an issue at all. I also think if the Chinese community had been on the opposite side of the vote, nobody would have made an issue of this. Say what you will about the ladder being easy or GXE req being too low, but none of this gets brought up without the covert, sometimes subconscious “they aren’t like us” othering and racism. Some of the pro-ban people literally sound like Fox News pundits talking about “illegal votes” except this is even dumber because it’s a children’s video game. Please find some perspective and think about how absurd this is.

 

[Ren]

What I agree on, even it seems other people don't, is about having a way to ensure people are familiar with Smogon and its tiering system. B101 ( You, the tutee, should have at least 15 posts before signing up AND your account's age should be a minimum of at least 1 month old before signing up. already has this and I've never ever seen anyone complain, but it is brought in an area that literally defines how metagames shape and everyone loses their mind? It sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Last point. Calling all your friends to vote a specific option on sth they wouldn't be aware of its existence if you hadn't told them doesn't sound proper. I'm completely fine with telling your friends that a suspect test is up, but telling them to specifically vote an option, when I'm sure rigging votings is not allowed in any other Smogon area, isn't fine at all, ignoring the result of the suspect. There might be something to do about this in the future, I don't want small tiers having their suspect tests fucked up because an idiot told all their friends to rig the voting.

hot take (apparently) but people creating an account to vote on something they heard and care about promotes website growth and encourages diversity in opinions and if someone wants to get reqs to vote and does get reqs to vote then they should be allowed to vote. some people just don't do forums. this post unnecessarily adds fuel to a fire burning solely on a sense of elitism and gatekeeping which isn't at all what smogon is about. the goal is to create a community where people can chip in on a topic they care about regardless of where they come from (which you, as a moderator, rly should be upholding because inclusivity is a mod's responsibility to maintain before anyone else's). there is no invalid way to hear about a suspect. if someone hears about a suspect bc one of their friends told them about it, that's just as valid as hearing it because of a room announcement. who gives a fuck if their friend was like "oh pls get reqs and vote dnb?" if they didn't care about reqs then they wouldn't have gotten them.

last thing I'll say is if you didn't take the time to get reqs to vote, then you should be dissatisfied with yourself and nobody else. you directly had the opportunity to influence the outcome of the vote. your opinion isnt any more important than a 1 poster who got reqs - that's the entire point of a democratic voting process. I understand that life gets in the way of getting reqs but if the natdex ladder is as easy as people claim it is, Lily absolutely has every right to call out the people who didn't even vote on parroting a gatekeepy ideology that's very thinly rooted in elitism and racism. also, if the ladder really is that easy then the reqs shouldve been more challenging in the first place if you want to ensure that it's a challenge to attain reqs.

ijbol

 

[shnowshner]

Hey

I'm coming forward to apologize for a lot of things I said and did.

I felt like sharing more of my motivations on the subject in private threads and there was considerable backlash against me after the fact, as it was shown that not only was there inaccurate data in the Spreadsheet that heavily construed the results and conclusions I had come to, but also that the whole approach I was taking was hypocritical to the message I wanted to convey. This is not the first time I've had my head up my own ass like this and it surely won't be the last: I get too impassioned about stuff I don't need to involve myself in because I feel some need to try and help out or add insight.

hi.naming is hard KarpeSan both of you were mentioned as prominent Chinese contributors/leaders on Smogon or PS only for me to incorrectly assume nationality. It's as if I don't know 99% of the people involved here and shouldn't have rushed through to get this out. It's inexcusable on my end. There was a part of me trying to go through this with the deliberate bias of "Okay, which of these users fit the criteria a lot of people are using against those who voted DNB," because I must have felt that would lead to more authenticity when collecting results? It's hard for me to say really because I pushed the whole thing through not long after waking up.

Really I'm not sure how else I come up with the idea that going through and labelling every voter a certain way was appropriate other than I'm just as guilty of racist tendencies as the people I argued against, with the difference being that I'm too dense to realize until people tell me how much of a piece of shit I was being.

I've added a disclaimer to the front of the sheet addressing all this and fixed my mistakes.

EDIT: Did it again, peap should have been included as well.

 

[Camden]

Hey

I'm coming forward to apologize for a lot of things I said and did.

I felt like sharing more of my motivations on the subject in private threads and there was considerable backlash against me after the fact, as it was shown that not only was there inaccurate data in the Spreadsheet that heavily construed the results and conclusions I had come to, but also that the whole approach I was taking was hypocritical to the message I wanted to convey. This is not the first time I've had my head up my own ass like this and it surely won't be the last: I get too impassioned about stuff I don't need to involve myself in because I feel some need to try and help out or add insight.

hi.naming is hard KarpeSan both of you were mentioned as prominent Chinese contributors/leaders on Smogon or PS only for me to incorrectly assume nationality. It's as if I don't know 99% of the people involved here and shouldn't have rushed through to get this out. It's inexcusable on my end. There was a part of me trying to go through this with the deliberate bias of "Okay, which of these users fit the criteria a lot of people are using against those who voted DNB," because I must have felt that would lead to more authenticity when collecting results? It's hard for me to say really because I pushed the whole thing through not long after waking up.

Really I'm not sure how else I come up with the idea that going through and labelling every voter a certain way was appropriate other than I'm just as guilty of racist tendencies as the people I argued against, with the difference being that I'm too dense to realize until people tell me how much of a piece of shit I was being.

I've added a disclaimer to the front of the sheet addressing all this and fixed my mistakes.

EDIT: Did it again, peap should have been included as well.

Or...delete the sheet? If you wanna keep ban/dnb records that's fine but I still don't see the purpose of keeping records on user ethnicity as if that's going to produce anything other than targeted harassment, even if you think you're doing something positive.

 

[Bughouse]

Outside of spam cleaning/alt checking and confirmation of world cup eligibility (all only doable by senior staff, to my knowledge), there is just no reason that anyone on Smogon, even senior staff, needs to know anyone's IP/location. If a user volunteers it, and does so truthfully, great. If they don't volunteer that information, assume they would rather it be private.

 

[shiloh]

Hi I think this thread has run its course and there isn't a lot more to say that isn't just dogpiling / regurgitating previous points.

I'll start by saying there is absolutely nothing wrong w/ what happened in the nat dex tera suspect process, anyone who gets reqs and posts is allowed to vote (as long as they arent cheating of course). Whether they have 1 post on the forum or 1 thousand, everyones vote is equal when it comes to a public suspect test. We accept anyone and everyone who obtains reqs and is able to post on our forums, and any attempt to drive out players / playerbases just based on how they voted / where they came from should be reported as it is completely unacceptable to leadership / how we tier.

Lowering ban thresholds for tiers is also something that is not being considered, nor should it be considered. Lower tiers / tiers that rely on others to determine their banlist use 50% simple majority already (UU / RU / NU etc) due to the volatility of their tiers with shifts due to usage. Requiring just a simple majority allows them to react more quickly / be more fluid when it comes to suspecting potentially broken elements of their metagames when they have less time to reach stability. However, for OU based tiers (NatDex / Doubles / LC etc) we use a supermajority as that volatility does not exist, there are much longer periods of dormancy where the tier does not change its ban list, and therefore can afford to have a higher standard / threshold when it comes to removing those elements. If an element does not receive that super majority, then there is enough of a population of the tier that believes it to be healthy that it should remain, or at least be given more time. In this situation NatDex has suspected tera twice, the first time it stayed, and when given more time it stayed again. This shows that a sizable population of the playerbase views it as healthy, and any attempt to overturn that is just misguided.

This thread is being closed to prevent it from going completely off topic, but there should be further resolution at some point from NatDex leadership on how they wish to continue.