Kiyo
the cowboy kid
So let the many be the ones to decide what an acceptable/exceptional circumstance is. Let the SMOGON community vote, not the few who play the tier. Seems like thats what people want to use PR for already. It's a cry for help from the rest of the site where issues go to die.I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the majority of the active playerbase wants the ability to make some changes, but that there’s still a strong sentiment from many that changes should only occur in exceptional circumstances.
Speaking specifically in terms of modern NU (something that suffers from small playerbase issues similar to oldgens) there are too many suspect threads that turn into echo chambers. We're really good at presenting one sided intros for suspect threads, people don't discuss, but instead reveal how they are going to be voting and why, arguments are misreprented or lazily researched, facts dont get checked, moderators and badged users opinions are defaulted to regardless of how good their argument is, using the right sprites, colors, and joke structure is more important than the content of your post.
Why does the community playing the tier need to be the one voting on the suspect? Certainly they should be the ones suggesting potential bans, discussing and presenting ideas about what problematic elements are, why they exist, justifying reasons for "x" to go/stay etc. But what if the people who have the most to gain/lose by voting should be the last ones to vote. A strong opinion from a user with 7 badges can easily sway a suspect in such a small community. I think the most pragmatic solution is not to look at how individual communities do things, but how the site functions as a whole.
A small community is still capable of presenting two reasonable sides of an argument and having intelligent discussion. What if we pulled people from other areas of the site to do the actual voting. Make the Tiering Council's job to nominate things for bans, provide logical arguments for and against said ban, then pass that slate onto 50 random voters. Make it like jury duty, if you vote in a suspect test you can expect to have your name put into a hat for the next old gen vote. Or pull from tournament results if we really want to keep this elitist culture. It would be a step in the right direction at least.
I suggest increasing the number of voters, improving the quality of and representation for dissenting opinions, and moving towards a more impartial voting base.