And even if you completely disagree with everything I said above -- it STILL doesn't change the fact that the idea of evasion, OHKO's, and all the other supposedly "hax" mechanics is WITHOUT A DOUBT one of the most divisive and constantly-argued topics in all of Smogon competitive policy. And THAT is the main reason I listed those abilities to be banned from CAP. Not because of my personal feelings on the matter, but simply because I KNOW that Smogon in general has proven that the mechanics represented by those abilities are deeply controversial, and present almost no productive gain for CAP, if we allow them to be included in our competitive discussions.
OK, yes, I agree with most of this. There is no doubt at all that hax realted things are controversial. However, I would disagree that they present no productive gain for CAP. The reason why I love CAP so much is because of the intelligent discussion it allows me to have. Outside of CAP however, it is in discussions about things like evasion where I have had the best discussions. Now, I have no doubt that threads such as these are also home to some of the worst posts in existance, but to say the lack the ability to provide productive gain to competitive discussion is false. To say the the overall quality was lacking is fine, but there is plenty in there that is worthwhile.
I do not want to argue in CAP about whether it is good or bad to intentionally attempt to abuse critical hits by making a CAP pokemon with Sniper. I don't want to even go down the road of dealing with an inane discussion about gender selection during team-building as a result of CAP making a Cute Charm pokemon and discussing the viability of an Attract-abuse gimmick set. Are either of these abilities honestly worth the time of day on our pokemon? No. Are either of those discussions something you would consider remotely valuable from a competitiveness or optics standpoint? No. So why the fuck should we allow them to be proposed by some random noob in our ability discussions?
The main problem I have with the whole hax thing overall though, outside my personal views of Smogon philosophy, is what this quote above is essentially saying. Every CAP there will be abilities that are bad and make no sense. These abilities are no different. They are not discussion centralizing, nor are they competitively useless. Cute Charm, for example, is essentially a lesser version of Static. Both are hax abilitites (which, as an aside, is an important point. Plenty of competitive abilities are hax reliant. We just like to arbitrarily say some are fine and others are not), and both have the effect of causing the Pokemon not to move when it works. However, Static works on more Pokemon in exchange for activating less once the Pokemon is effected. It also is harded to get rid of and has additional effects on speed. Yes, gender mechanics are wierd, and might not be worth having a long discussion on, but the discussion would not be project derailing, and it doesn't even need to be about gender at all. Do we want to give it a way to disrupt guys who try to attack it physically? Boom. Cute Charm. Its not about gender, its about having a annoying effect on those who chose to attack.
However, if you want to go the other way, Static is an ability that relies on luck to use. Do we want a Pokemon that relies on luck to paralyze? Does that provide valuable discussion? Nope. Not at all. No more or less than cute charm. We like to pretend it does because Paralysis is such an ingrained part of our metagame, but in reality, discussion of Static is no more valuable than discussion of Cute Charm. Same goes for Flame Body or Poison Point.
If we allow an ability to be proposed, that means we are willing to entertain the discussion that could result from the suggestion. In this case -- no, I really don't think any of us want to have those discussions, and none of us can claim it would yield any valuable competitive learning. It would just derail the discussion into the typical Smogon "Is hax good or bad" drama debate that has been going on for a bazillion years here. Honestly, do we really want CAP to have those discussions too? No. So let's ban the abilities and remove the possibility entirely.
While I agree with the above in theory, the fact is that the anti-hax mindset has poisoned our view on this. This ill-defined group of "hax abilities" is no more or less project derailing than a wide number of other abilities that exist in the game of Pokemon. Someone bringing up Tangled Feet and getting ignored is no more disruptive than someone bringing up Intimidate and getting ignored.
Just because the latter is a better ability does not mean it inherently fosters good discussion. As was brought up in the previous thread, Intimidate is suggested every single CAP regardless of whether or not it fits the concept, and when it doesn't fit the concept, these discussions are just as bad if not worse. It is bad discussions we want to eliminate, and Tangled Feet and the like are no more likely to cause these discussions than any other ability.
Basically, the approach I think we should take with this is a simmilar approach to what we take when it comes to banning things in our metagames. In OU, we ban things that are broken. We don't ban things that annoy people (Jirachi). We don't ban things with high use (Scizor). And at the same time, low use will not detract us from banning something if it is broken (UU Wobbuffet). The same thing should be applied here. We should ban things that derail discussion. How often it is brought up should not be a factor. People's personal opinion on the ability should not be a factor. How much a problem for the project they are should be the only factor.
Multitype is a problem for the project. Wonder Guard is a problem for the project. Shadow Tag is a problem for a project. Cute Charm is
NOT a problem for the project. It is an annoying little ability that will
almost never be useful for the project, but it is also not a problem. The same applies to all the other hax abilities. And yes, I put emphasis on "almost." None of them are so useless that it is inconcieveable for them ever to be useful. The only exceptions are Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, which are outright banned in OU, making any decision on them irrelivant.
What is all comes down to though is this:
This is not about determining what is overpowered or not. We are removing abilities that will derail discussions if they come up or abilities that simply don't work with the CAP process.
We all agree on this. I just cannot see how using this definition how one can believe that this arbitrary group of "hax abilities" are any worse than anything else.