After talking to Hogg about this topic, it was suggested that I post here. I was initially apprehensive because I thought it'd seem like I am calling for shiloh's head when I really don't have any issues with him, nor do I fault him for anything here. Rather, I aim to address the community's response and behavior in this situation and others. Note that I am only using this situation since it serves as a good example of many things I (and others) find wrong with the tournament community and cheating. I want it to be clear that I don't think people should continue to admonish his character due to past actions. I hope that explanation is sufficient and understandable... I provided so much exposition because I'm aware there are people who share this opinion who are afraid of being viewed as instigators.
With that out of the way, let me begin to address the issues by first using various facets of shiloh's (formerly known as rozes for the uninitiated) tournament ban and the events that followed as a "case study" indicative of greater issues in the tournaments community and Smogon at large:
1.) NUPL as an example for TD jurisdiction over unofficial tournaments:
NUPL suspiciously started two to three weeks later than all other comparable PLs, and this happens to line up with the shiloh's unban. If it had started with the other PLs, shiloh would not have been able to play unless the NU forum leaders decided to allow tournament banned users to play. This, however, would have looked more suspicious and blatantly out of touch with the other PLs, whereas starting later could be excused. Still, I think it is clear that there were some ulterior motives to starting this PL later, especially when you consider shiloh's very positive involvement in the NU community. This is problematic because, regardless of shiloh's importance in the NU community, rules are being bent to the benefit of a punished user. These punishments should be taken more seriously at a site-wide level.
I understand that the Tournament Directors do not have control over subforum PLs, but to prevent issues like this and other ruling issues moving forward, I believe there should be more cooperation between the TDs, SS, and the subforum moderators. In other words, tournament banned users should not be given clearly special treatment in such ways. Outside of the shiloh situation, I believe circuit tournaments and subforum PLs should more strictly follow official tournament rulings. This is not to say that TDs should have jurisdiction / responsibility over these tournaments: that would lead to even more work for TDs. Instead, the work should be delegated to subforum moderators and the hosts they choose as it currently is, but if an issue is brought to the TDs and they see that it is out of line with official rulings with no good excuse (ideally something that would be determined on a case-by-case basis), then they would have the ability to call for that to be undone.
For a more personal example here: I hosted OUPL last year with njnp. One team was advancing to playoffs over another due to BD, but they had the advantage here because another team had not played many of their games in a previous week. We almost called for a tiebreaker between the two teams in question. This would have clearly been the wrong call, and I admit that I almost approved of this call because of my own ignorance. If it weren't for the help of current and past TDs, we would have made an objectively unfair decision in a pretty important tournament. I am simply saying that this type of oversight that current and former TDs already provide should have some official status to prevent events like the two I have outlined.
2.) Seat at the NU council as an example of authority positions within a community:
While tournament banned, shiloh was given a seat on the NU council and other positions of less authority in the NU community. While I am not involved in the NU community, I have been told that shiloh's contributions here are invaluable. Be that as it may, I think there is a fundamental issue with giving tournament banned / recently unbanned users any authority position whatsoever. I understand someone cheating does not correlate to the leadership they provide in a community, but I think it gives Smogon and its communities a bad image when someone who is tournament banned / recently unbanned holds a position of authority. To further discourage cheating, especially by those respected members of the community, there should be a restriction on the authority a tournament banned / recently unbanned user can hold.
Let me be clear: this is not to say a user should never be an authority figure if they cheat! The only "nevers" in this situation would be within the tournaments community, such as becoming a TD again and managing teams in the future. I am very adamant about there being room for forgiveness for cheating (as you will see later); I simply think a user needs to prove they can be trusted as a leader for some time after their ban expires before being given leadership positions again. As for giving leadership positions to currently tournament banned users, I think this is absolutely absurd. We do not give leadership positions to ICBB members, so why should we give them to tournament banned members?
This all continues with the theme of a tournament ban holding greater weight in the community at large. Again, there should be room for forgiveness, which is why I think turning tournament bans into full on Smogon bans would be negative. Tournament banned users should ideally feel compelled to continue to contribute and prove their worth in the community. shiloh did this, albeit behind the scenes mostly. This is also why I personally think the tournament ban review process initiated by the TDs is very positive.
Again, this is not to admonish shiloh and other users who make the mistake of cheating. Rather, I hope for tournament bans to hold more weight to dissuade users (especially positive presences like shiloh, anti, etc.) from caving in and cheating. If a user is aware that they will be able to come back as if nothing happened relatively quickly, the incentive to not cheat is not large enough.
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I can provide more examples (relating to shiloh and not) if necessary, but I will now move on to where this all applies:
In short, I think tournament bans should hold more weight, but there should be less emphasis on shame and more emphasis on working to be forgiven. There was discussion in the past about making more of an incentive not to cheat, and this led to the red "Tournament Banned" CTs, tougher punishments, stricter rules, and a bigger crackdown on cheating. Still, with this shiloh case, it is clear that these things were not enough. The consequences of his action were essentially lessened due to his status in the community. A tournament was more or less scheduled around his return, he got his council slots back immediately, and he was even extensively involved in leading an SPL team behind the scenes. This boils down to him getting less of a punishment than other cheaters due to his connections (edit 2: by connections, I mean council / community leadership positions, recognition as a great player / presence, and past relationship to the tournaments community). I do not fault him personally for this at all: not taking advantage of these benefits would be foolish. Rather, I think the blame should be directed towards insufficient global recognition of a Tournament Ban.
What I am proposing:
Again, I hope this does not come off as me attacking shiloh. Since the initial incident, he has done nothing but positively contribute to the community. My issue comes from the way a lot of this was handled, as the precedents it might set are concerning to say the least. With that said, I am not proposing any of this retroactively apply to shiloh! That would be absurd, and while I think it is obvious, I am just pointing it out to be safe.
edit: It was brought to my attention that NUPL was not moved to benefit shiloh. I was fed false information here, and I apologize for including it. I should have tried to get more people to confirm this, but I thought those that did were sufficient enough. Regardless, this information was mostly supplementary, so the core argument still stands.
With that out of the way, let me begin to address the issues by first using various facets of shiloh's (formerly known as rozes for the uninitiated) tournament ban and the events that followed as a "case study" indicative of greater issues in the tournaments community and Smogon at large:
1.) NUPL as an example for TD jurisdiction over unofficial tournaments:
I understand that the Tournament Directors do not have control over subforum PLs, but to prevent issues like this and other ruling issues moving forward, I believe there should be more cooperation between the TDs, SS, and the subforum moderators. In other words, tournament banned users should not be given clearly special treatment in such ways. Outside of the shiloh situation, I believe circuit tournaments and subforum PLs should more strictly follow official tournament rulings. This is not to say that TDs should have jurisdiction / responsibility over these tournaments: that would lead to even more work for TDs. Instead, the work should be delegated to subforum moderators and the hosts they choose as it currently is, but if an issue is brought to the TDs and they see that it is out of line with official rulings with no good excuse (ideally something that would be determined on a case-by-case basis), then they would have the ability to call for that to be undone.
For a more personal example here: I hosted OUPL last year with njnp. One team was advancing to playoffs over another due to BD, but they had the advantage here because another team had not played many of their games in a previous week. We almost called for a tiebreaker between the two teams in question. This would have clearly been the wrong call, and I admit that I almost approved of this call because of my own ignorance. If it weren't for the help of current and past TDs, we would have made an objectively unfair decision in a pretty important tournament. I am simply saying that this type of oversight that current and former TDs already provide should have some official status to prevent events like the two I have outlined.
2.) Seat at the NU council as an example of authority positions within a community:
While tournament banned, shiloh was given a seat on the NU council and other positions of less authority in the NU community. While I am not involved in the NU community, I have been told that shiloh's contributions here are invaluable. Be that as it may, I think there is a fundamental issue with giving tournament banned / recently unbanned users any authority position whatsoever. I understand someone cheating does not correlate to the leadership they provide in a community, but I think it gives Smogon and its communities a bad image when someone who is tournament banned / recently unbanned holds a position of authority. To further discourage cheating, especially by those respected members of the community, there should be a restriction on the authority a tournament banned / recently unbanned user can hold.
Let me be clear: this is not to say a user should never be an authority figure if they cheat! The only "nevers" in this situation would be within the tournaments community, such as becoming a TD again and managing teams in the future. I am very adamant about there being room for forgiveness for cheating (as you will see later); I simply think a user needs to prove they can be trusted as a leader for some time after their ban expires before being given leadership positions again. As for giving leadership positions to currently tournament banned users, I think this is absolutely absurd. We do not give leadership positions to ICBB members, so why should we give them to tournament banned members?
This all continues with the theme of a tournament ban holding greater weight in the community at large. Again, there should be room for forgiveness, which is why I think turning tournament bans into full on Smogon bans would be negative. Tournament banned users should ideally feel compelled to continue to contribute and prove their worth in the community. shiloh did this, albeit behind the scenes mostly. This is also why I personally think the tournament ban review process initiated by the TDs is very positive.
Again, this is not to admonish shiloh and other users who make the mistake of cheating. Rather, I hope for tournament bans to hold more weight to dissuade users (especially positive presences like shiloh, anti, etc.) from caving in and cheating. If a user is aware that they will be able to come back as if nothing happened relatively quickly, the incentive to not cheat is not large enough.
----------
I can provide more examples (relating to shiloh and not) if necessary, but I will now move on to where this all applies:
In short, I think tournament bans should hold more weight, but there should be less emphasis on shame and more emphasis on working to be forgiven. There was discussion in the past about making more of an incentive not to cheat, and this led to the red "Tournament Banned" CTs, tougher punishments, stricter rules, and a bigger crackdown on cheating. Still, with this shiloh case, it is clear that these things were not enough. The consequences of his action were essentially lessened due to his status in the community.
What I am proposing:
- Tournament bans should officially ban people from participating in ANY tournaments held on Smogon.
- Official tournament rulings should apply to ALL circuit tournaments and subforum PLs.
- Tournament Directors should have an overruling final say regarding ANY tournaments held on Smogon. This does not mean TDs are now responsible for these tournaments. Rather, when a controversial situation is brought to the TD team, they should be able to overrule the hosts and forum mods.
- Tournament bans should revoke users of ANY authority they hold on Smogon or Pokemon Showdown. Furthermore, a tournament banned user should not be able to gain any authority. Authority in this case would include moderator positions and council positions. Things like VR council, being a member of a QC team (not leader), being a voice in a PS! room, etc. should be allowed. They give the user a way to redeem themselves, allowing the TDs to make a case for shortening their ban.
Again, I hope this does not come off as me attacking shiloh. Since the initial incident, he has done nothing but positively contribute to the community. My issue comes from the way a lot of this was handled, as the precedents it might set are concerning to say the least. With that said, I am not proposing any of this retroactively apply to shiloh! That would be absurd, and while I think it is obvious, I am just pointing it out to be safe.
edit: It was brought to my attention that NUPL was not moved to benefit shiloh. I was fed false information here, and I apologize for including it. I should have tried to get more people to confirm this, but I thought those that did were sufficient enough. Regardless, this information was mostly supplementary, so the core argument still stands.
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