I haven't really had the chance to voice my opinion on this situation yet, probably for the best, but hopefully this post will do. I'm not attempting to paint anyone in this picture as a villain (unless I make it extremely clear that this is the case) or push the blame onto anyone else, but I'll try my best to get my side of the situation across.
For those of you who aren't aware yet, an user known as
Miguelmart (note: how ironic is it that the person who started it all shares their name with me?) decided that it was a good idea to reveal information about Znain's team to my player. Gondra, unaware of the consequences this could have, told us about what happened in our team chat and asked us for guidance. I was torn apart between my responsibilities as a manager and my duty as a tournament director, and while in hindsight I'm fully aware that I should've let people know, I was worried of the repercussions this could have on my team (i.e. people non-ironically wanting to see Gondra punished for information he clearly never asked for), so I decided to tell my player to report it if he wanted to and moved on. Our ORAS team for the week was already finished aside from a couple of details, and while the first batch of logs is a poor rat's attempt at making me seem worse than I already am, I can safely say that no one acted upon the information we received from the leak. Unfortunately (and I'm saying this because people have let out their concerns with this situation in ways I don't fully agree with), I don't regret the way I have acted and believe that as far as juggling both of my roles goes, I couldn't have done a better job.
This leads me to my next point: me stepping down from my Tournament Director position. Throughout this whole ordeal, I've come to the realization that this role just wasn't meant for me. I've known this for a while now, but my sense of responsibility towards my friends and fellow tournament directors kept me from peacefully stepping down (especially after the last incident I was involved in
). However, after witnessing the events from the past couple of days and reading multiple people's points of view, I've decided that maybe it's time to let someone more competent take over. Not because TD armchairs want me to, but because it's easier for the other TDs to regain everyone else's trust this way, since at the end of the day, what I did just wasn't suitable for someone with this position and I have no way of denying it.
Last but not least, I'd like to say that I do plan on sticking around as a player/manager, as I still love this game and a lot of people in this community (although sometimes I find myself wondering what it is devolving into). I'm also using this chance to thank the tournament directors for their commitment to the people on Smogon, even if the end result doesn't always satisfy everyone.
Luigi, as a lot of other people have done, I also used to give you a lot of shit for some of your opinions/interactions with people when you first became a tournament director. However, I can now safely say that you have a wonderful work ethic and commitment to the tournaments forum, and if this task doesn't burn you out soon enough, I'm definitely expecting you to carry everyone on your back.
I'll post more thoughts on this and some of the people involved on my end-of-season post, but this is it for now. If anyone wants to reach out to me about this feel free to drop by on Discord
