Speaking on why slightly stricter reqs are at the forefront of discussions: To put it bluntly, there have been dozens of complaints raised to me firsthand about the quality of voter pool; I have counted 9 alone since the start of the Kyurem suspect before this thread. This has been a thing since the start of the generation, but grew exponentially over the last couple of suspects.
I am not going to throw specific people under the bus, but these complaints range from users pointing out certain voters spreading misinformation or very questionable opinions while qualifying for reqs to others taking a large amount of games against mid-ladder to barely qualify. I think these are fair perspectives, I think elitism is always going to be interchanged with quality control in these discussions, and I think it is impossible to find an ideal degree of inclusion without engaging in difficult discussions like this (which is why having this thread is so important).
A slight raise in quality in return for a slight decrease in turnout isn’t really a bad thing for me given this, but it may take some trial-and-error and it mandates discussions like these, so let’s remember this discussion is all being done in good faith, not as a power grab — implying that it is done as a power grab feels disingenuous.
This is an excellent reason to consider GXE to be a poor proxy for knowledge, and a weak reason to raise the floor.
There is no way to directly measure a player's knowledge of the meta (and the one time it was tried led to the Shadow Tag suspect disaster), so skill is used as a proxy, which is reasonable; I certainly don't have any better options to suggest. The selection of GXE is fatally flawed for two reasons, though:
1) It rests on the assumption that you'll be up against players who are at their true level, which isn't the case with so many suspect alts on the ladder, and losing against another suspect account early on means starting over.
2) The fact that "Start over if you lose a game in your first 15/20" is standard practice means that the intended goal of GXE - measuring consistently good play - doesn't apply, even without the first problem.
COIL mitigates those problems by allowing an account to simply play more games, bringing consistency back in the mix; it doesn't much matter if you drop one game to another suspect account at 1100 ELO when you can play extra games when finding yourself just shy of reqs. It also allows slightly weaker players to make reqs if they're willing to put in the time, and since the entire system is meant to serve as a proxy for knowledge and playing more games will teach the player more, I regard that as a benefit.
ELO mitigates those problems because you don't get unduly punished for an early loss, and it requires every player to put in a significant number of games to climb the ladder, thus ensuring they are voting from current experience.
I didn't address this topic before because I was in a hurry, and I consider it a good change. Very marginal players riding a winning streak would need that winning streak to come toward the end of their run, and anyone who is riding a winning streak at 1600+ has proven they aren't actually a marginal player, so as long as we're using skill as a proxy for knowledge, COIL and ELO work to fix the problems where simply raising the floor fails.
When the way we are measuring skill is so fatally flawed, then the answer isn't to raise the minimum measurement, it's to replace it.
Your response is…holding specific other poster’s beliefs and the people who like their posts against me despite me not agreeing with them? I don’t give a shit what posts ABR likes — I promise this isn’t helping us make a determination lol
And you didn’t even acknowledge the core of my post about entertaining discussion. This feels like you should be dissecting their posts and logic rather than going after me…
Nobody is saying they are worse though!!! I agree and love that these communities exist. This whole bit is twisting and reaching when I never said anything on the contrary in my post. Come on now
You're right, I was in a rush and phrased my point poorly.
My point is that top players are reflexively tossing out numbers that are, in and of themselves, unreasonably high, and that such a view isn't a one-off. THAT is why I suggested that this topic seemed largely driven by elitism - it wasn't a criticism of you, it was explaining my view.
Also, I genuinely do not understand the point you were trying to make about why you don't regard "top 1%" numbers to be meaningful. 90% of Showdown players may not know or care about OU tiering policy, but...so what? I don't see where you're going with this, if not to dismiss those players entirely. Was the intent just to cast shade on using GXE?
