I am not quite sure what to make of this thread. I am no longer really involved with CAP or competitive Pokemon in general, but the PRC is something I am quite familiar with and I feel that I am obligated to share my two cents on the issues being discussed in this thread.
Since I see a lot of unfamiliar faces in here, I guess I should introduce myself, in case you don't know who I am. I was formerly a CAP Forum and Server Moderator as well as the director of mini tournaments. I was primarily active in the community between CAP 3 - 8, and as a mod, picking PRC members was one of my responsibilities.
Since the primary purpose of today's PRC is to select the Topic Leader (as their other two responsibilities seem to have been downplayed in my absence for reasons unknown to me), let me start off by giving a brief history of the TL selection process before we had the Policy Review Committee. Originally, TL selection was done solely by the previous TL. However by CAP 3, a newer and more organized method for TL selection proposed by Doug was used. Basically, TL selection was voted on in private by a handpicked selection panel consisting primarily of former TLs, forum mods, and other prominent community members. A more detailed explanation is provided in the original [thread=38366]Process Workshop[/thread] thread:
DougJustDoug said:
I would like to have a more democratic process than "The current topic leader chooses their successor". That was fine when Cooper picked Hyra, but I think the project has moved beyond that now. With that said, I don't think we should make it a free-for-all.
In the interests of an expedited process, there should be some level of subjectivity involved. I don't think we should go through a full-blown open cattle-call nomination and voting process. I don't think that yields the best leader for this sort of thing anyway.
I suggest a "selection panel" or a "selection committee" that is comprised of several senior members of the community. I think past Topic Leaders should be automatically placed on the panel. Then add several more from people that have been involved in CAP for a long time and appear to have the proper perspective and judgment to weigh in on a decision like this.
Make a stipulation that members of the selection committee cannot be chosen as a Topic Leader. That eliminates conflict-of-interest on the panel.
Have all Topic Leader candidates self-nominate in a nomination thread. They should make their "pitch" in a self-nomination post. Individual community members can express support for a given candidate by posting in that thread. Posts disparaging candidates should be discouraged. The selection panel can take all the input from that thread and hold a vote via PM in order to select the Topic Leader.
I could serve as the non-voting "chairman" of the selection panel. I would organize the nomination and voting threads and PM's, and possibly vote in the case of a tie. My interest is not really to participate as a functional member of the panel, but rather to ensure the panel proceeds to do it's job in a timely and efficient manner. I also could ensure there are no improprieties during the private voting.
A selection process like the one I am describing, would allow the community to have a voice, and yet could be an efficient process as well.
From there, the TL would self nominate with a "pitch" post, and other members of the community were free to comment, with the vote left up to the selection panel. For an example of this process at work, see the
TL Nomination thread for CAP 3. For all the talks about how "elitist" the PRC supposedly is, the TL selection process was considerably more so back then (and considerably
less than the one before it!). Needless to say, you can see that we have come a long way since CAP 3.
Fast forward to right after CAP 5. As Wyverii mentioned, tennisace, ironically enough, created a [thread=48165]PR thread[/thread] outlining how a "round table" of experienced members of the CAP community who should have the final say on policy, and for convenience, the TL as well. This led up to the PRC that is in place today. While this was still far from an outright public vote, the PRC was far more inclusive than the TL selection panel before it.
Honestly, I don't know what has happened in my time away from the CAP community to lead to the allegations of today's PRC being "elitist", "chosen by mod favoritism", or perhaps even "superfluous", but in my experience, none of these things were true. For example, let us consider the
PRC for CAP 8. When nominations were closed, Doug would ask us to share our opinions on the nominees, and pick out those who we thought were not qualified. Our standards were not that high, so a vast majority of the nominees made it on to the PRC. However, I was actually the most strict of the mods in this regard, and in each round of PRC nominations, including this one, I thoroughly analyzed the posting history of each of the nominees in order to make the best decision possible. Below is the PM I sent to Doug for the PRC in CAP 8:
Bass said:
Alright, to start off, I would just like to say that it was actually quite difficult to come to a decision on who to exclude from the Policy Committee. I tried to keep in mind that the committee was intended to be an open . I actually went through the CAP Forum posting history of many of the nominees AND the battling record to estimate how much they have contributed, but even then, I was a little torn on some of these decisions.
Before I list the exact list of candidates that I chose to reject, I will list my opinion on some of the ones that I thought were borderline.
The very first person that I want to mention is Hybrid99. He was one of the three people who got rejected from the last batch of PRC nominees because of the lackluster quality of his posts since then. However, since CAP 7, I think Hybrid has put a decent effort to be a better contributor through his forum posts. I won't say that all of his posts were the greatest, but he did actively contribute to most of the discussion threads in CAP 7. And, there is no question that he is active on the server. I am going to say that he deserves a spot on the committee this time around.
The next person I would like to talk about is Katherine. Like Hybrid, this user was rejected last time. However, this was because she (he?) did not really contribute anything to the CAP Project at that point. When I check, has that changed? Well, Katherine has certainly voted in most of the CAP 7 polls, but did not participate in that many of the discussion threads (the only one being secondary typing). However, Katherine has definitely been active on the server. I will say that she is active on the server, but I don't have much else to comment on. I won't say that I think she should be outright rejected like last time (I'll accept if you or darkie, I'll be fine with it), but I am pretty neutral about Katherine.
Finally, I would like to talk about is Leviathan. I have known him for quite a while, and I think he certainly has the maturity that Hybrid and Beef did not, he has no record of contributions to the CAP forum whatsoever. He did participate in the playtest, but I am not sure of the extent of his participation. I know he has been active on the server in the past but he hasn't been as active lately, unless it's just me. I would personally like to see a little more from him before putting him on the committee.
Now, these were the following people that I will reject to being on the PRC:
Leviathan (explained above)
TehPiplupMan
Myriad
Genesis of Oblivion
First, I would like to say TehPiplupMan, while somewhat active, has been a real headache for me, as a moderator. During the Concept Submissions stage, I deleted one of his concepts and he got really anal about it, calling me out on the forums and then when I finally asked everyone who complained to bring it to PM, he did so and then continued to come off to me as a dick. The rest of his posting history is also less than spectacular.
Myriad has some posts, but hardly any related to CAP 7. He is somewhat active on the server, but I don't think he has done enough to merit a spot on the comittee.
Finally, Genesis Oblivion, while he is somewhat active, is mostly a "noob poster". One of the requirements to make the committee is a history of intelligent posts, and I feel he is lacking in that regard. Check his posting history if you want to know what I mean.
Again, if you have questions about these objections or would like me to elaborate further, please let me know. I went through a lot of trouble to judge each user individually, and I might have been a bit strict.
So what are the important points to make from this PM? Well for one, I did not accept or reject any nominees based solely on how much I liked or disliked them. My goal was to be as objective as possible. As you may have read, some of the users mentioned were long time acquaintances (Hybrid, Beef 2.0) or perhaps even friends of mine (Leviathan), yet I still rejected their nominations at some point because I didn't feel they were qualified at the time. Some of these users would later attempt to improve, and eventually make it onto the PRC in the future. Not only was the PRC not elitist, everyone who would be on it had rightfully earned their spots.
Overall, if the criticisms about today's PRC are true, then the problem lies in the community, not the PRC's functions itself. I believe that its existence provides the best balance of providing enough members of the community a say in the process without being
too inclusive. I don't want to get into this too much, as it has been discussed in the past far too many times to count, but I think some effort should be made to ensure that the PRC is functioning as it originally intended.