Apologies for the delayed response:
To be clear, the fact of the matter is that you guys were simply unaware of the policy so the fact this suspect was 60% unban threshold was entirely from a mistake. The choice to double down is also a mistake in my eyes and I know I'm not alone on this; realistically all it did was make the situation worse and make you guys look bad. I don't think anybody would've actually complained that you fixed the reasoning before the voting slate to be more in accordance with tiering policy; especially considering the support it has to adopt 50%+1 at the moment is near unanimous and that the ban threshold wasn't actually in the OP to begin with.
The Roaring Moon suspect from awhile back could've been labeled as a mistake, but calling an intentional double down with Deo-S a mistake is untrue because it paints it as if we again forgot that this official SV OU policy existed and made the same mistake as Roaring Moon when ... we intentionally set it to this number knowing the SV OU policy. It was understood that with the minimal backlash from the Roaring Moon suspect and inconsistent handling of it and the prior Ash-Greninja suspect in Gen 8 (it appears that the Roaring Moon suspect this gen is where the divergence occurs), we could solve this inconsistency by making the Deo-S suspect the new precedent going forward. I said the term "double down" for Deo-S but it's more a clean slate in order to remove the inconsistency, and with it being a clean slate it meant that we could choose our pathway. Which of course led to the discussion among Natdex Leaders. I don't know where you're seeing this "near unanimous" support for 50% +1 but genuinely it would be helpful to us if you showed it because it seems neutral or split in my eyes. Regarding the fact that the ban threshold wasn't in the OP, this feels largely irrelevant when it's not something that has been done for unban suspects in NatDex to begin with.
Additionally, the reasoning that sealoo mentioned (seemingly only between the 3 ND heads, which is even worse that council was uninvolved in my eyes but that's another conversation), is questionable at best. The reasoning was almost purely on vibes that Deo-s didn't feel like a mon they had been freed before; despite the fact that it both was unbanned before and was only banned with reasoning of a quick fix to make HO less comically ridiculous in the same slate they banned Kyurem-Black.
Sealoo is using Deoxys-S as an example of possible circumstances for when a 60% threshold would be warranted. My own personal take on Deo-S in the post above can also justify this albiet with a different mindset but overall NatDex Leaders' consensus was that we preferred to solve the tiering inconsistency by favoring the status quo rather than mimicking SV OU stance. I'm not gonna pick apart sealoo's argument outside of this because again I feel the discussion of Deoxys-S in a vacuum misses the purpose of this thread and our justifications for making said test 60%, which was to solve a tiering inconsistency. Deoxys-S remaining banned was a side effect not the goal.
Given the information above, I think it would be best to put the discussion to Deo-S to bed because for it to be unbanned you have to call leaders actions throughout the suspect test either a mistake or malicious when it was neither. I understand that factors such as not including council in the discussion and all 3 leaders voting against Deo-S in the suspect looks bad in a vacuum, but the context provided should show that this wasn't a mistake or some malicious attempt by council to keep it banned because we hated it or something. We even helped a pro-Deoxys-S user fix an issue with his account so he could actually vote even when not doing so would've sealed the result even faster. This is ultimately a legitimate vote in my eyes.
Re: Some Discord callouts because they made me annoyed
Bobsican said:
I'm aware that some are just like "NatDex is a Pet Mod/unofficial tier and can do whatever they want independently of tiering policy", but the truth is that deviating from such standard practices can obviously compromise the allowance such tiers have gotten for proper Tiering Contributor recognition and other stuff in other sections, and given this has been attempted to be kept as the status quo ideally to the best capability of the respective councils in two Pokemon generations by now, I would think it'd be best to at least have some change here than to try to act like ND can just do whatever and dismiss it, unless there's a desire to change what was officially decided for regular OU, but that's its own can of worms
bumboclaat said:
Just re: deoxys-s suspect stuff. It is in our best interest to have the same suspect requirements as official tiers even if we are not required to do so. ND in general already suffers from the undeserved stigmatization of being unserious or a petmod and things like this only serve to further or legitamize that viewpoint. It'd be great if ND could integrate with the rest of the site to some degree rather than be squirreled away in isolation. Should that be a possibility in the future deviating from official tiering practices just creates an unnecessary roadblock that people can legitimately point to as a reason against doing so.
There's no amount of policy that we can implement that removes the petmod/unserious label people put on NatDex. Two separate official tiers and an OM literally offered to sell a tiering action slot via the likeshop and yet they aren't brandished with the unserious label or at least it's not permanently attached. Meanwhile a lot of things that are done in NatDex get used as a black mark against the format for a long time regardless of the context, outcome, or execution. The isolation we receive from other sections is essentially by design because of the disconnect with the concept itself not the administration. The creation of Natdex wasn't simple and we've had to evolve our identity overtime in order to answer questions that official tiers never have to ask realistically. I don't think there is any gap that can be bridged regarding that matter because any choice NatDex makes there is arbitrary vs an official tier's iron clad cartridge legalities.
Official tiers have fine policies that can be emulated with support but conforming solely because it's what official tiers do has no realistic gain since the chances of being given additional opportunities to integrate seem absurdly low (idt NatDex would ever earn a spot in a tour like SPL or SCL, or get a trophy within Smogon's lifetime). The only other chances that I realistically foresee is additional communication and team tour inclusion from our respective counterparts, but this is achievable and has been achieved at times without the need of strict conformity (see Gen 8 AGPLs before Crown Tundra, an RUSD, UUbersPL).
As a section the awards we already receive (top level subforum, 2 CAs, banners, community leaders, tiering contributor badge, etc) are fine considering a lot of other opportunities are very out of reach. In general the opportunities we have to break away from official policy on things (such as Tera and Sleep) are not explicitly punishable given prior Upper Staff's behavior towards NatDex actions throughout the year was apathetic and distant instead of a direct denial. There are people, even in NatDex circles, that still don't understand this especially with the Tera suspect regarding people claiming that we supposedly ignored admins to start it. They didn't give a shit if it happened or not, they just didn't want their name attached to it, that was the real issue. This apathy from Upper Staff can be a benefit so long as there is transparency and support from the playerbase, so currently there is no drawback to deviating unless the community says otherwise.
If there were other pressing arguments made on Discord then I can try to address them if someone points them out.
I'm very conflicted right now:
I say all this in support of keeping Deo-S banned and 60% in place but at the same time I will still be fine if the community wants 50% +1. I do have a concern however about the general lack of motivation to actually support this cause and as a result I'm a bit hesitant to jump to a conclusion despite it delaying future suspects.
Just moving to 50% +1 because that's the SV OU standard is an easy way out yes but it's not a good justification. I also don't really agree with stuff about council corruption highlighted in the original SS OU thread because it feels like a realistically pointless safe guard. Transparency and community support is a norm leaders and councils try to follow already so any fear of corruption regarding issues like this would more point to a systemic lack of trust in respective councils, which isn't going to be erraticatated with a simple rule change. Worse so that the theoretical corruption again isn't removed, only lessened. A truely malicious council/leader can still create negative impacts to tiering with the 50% +1 rule and breach the community's trust.
Any reasoning for making it 50% +1 is irrelevant though, I only care about what the community wants. I urge people to consider the benefits each voting threshold provides and decide from that.
For Deo-S I will continue to fight any attempt to unban it.
