Imanalt
I'm the coolest girl you'll ever meet
(approved by jas)
There are problems with CAP, and there have been for a while. While in the past, CAP has been a place for intelligent, informed discussion and debate about pokemon, it has been continually moving away from that over time. One main symptom (and a major cause) is the fact that our retention and recruitment of actually good players is quite poor, resulting in worse discussions. I’m going to focus more on the retention side, because it doesn’t really do any good to recruit if we can’t retain good players. The other major symptom I want to discuss is the burnout rate we have amongst a lot of CAP regulars. The CAP process as it stands now is often intensely frustrating for a lot of people, and I think Pwnemon and Ginganinja’s quitting makes this pretty plain. These are both users who have contributed a lot to the CAP project, and its really painful to see them deciding that CAP is no longer worth it to them.
So I think we need to open the floor to diagnosing this problem, and coming up with solutions. Why is it that we can’t keep good players, and why is our burnout rate right now so high? I would say that a large part of it is the quality of discussion threads, and their, perceived at least, lack of impact on the polls. But fixing this is hard, and so proposals for ways to fix this would be very much welcomed.
Since I do like solutions though, I’m going to lay out my thoughts on the issue. I’m not at all happy with them, so if people have other solutions and diagnoses I really want to hear them, but this should at least give us something to work off of. To me, I feel like there is one pretty unifying problem. A lot of our posters in any thread are, to put it politely, relatively uninformed. Building off an analogy used in the mission statement,
So now the question is, how do we fix it? This is where I really am unhappy, because to me the only way to fix it is some pretty significant changes to our mission statement. Building off the end of last paragraph, we have to narrow the band of skill levels down, which either says alienating the bottom part of the spectrum, or the top. I think by now it should be pretty clear that to me, the solution is catering more towards the top players. How we do this is hard though. One of the big standards of the CAP project has always been that we are very accepting and open to anyone, regardless of skill level. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is possible, because if we do continue to be as accepting of anyone regardless of how low their skill level, we alienate those people who are more high leveled. Basically, there is no way to be fully accepting of all. To this end, I think we have two major solutions:
1) More aggressively moderating posts in competitive discussion for content rather than tone.
One example in a quick look through is from plasmanta’s primary ability thread:
Another example, same thread:
2) Some form of requirement in order to vote.
I really hate doing this, but there is definitely a problem. The results of polls do not really reflect the results of the discussion threads a lot of the time, and this isn’t surprising when we have way more people posting in the poll than the discussion thread (to the point that the two threads often have roughly the same number of posts, such as plasmanta’s ability discussion generating only two more posts than the poll). One good example of votes that really aren’t helpful is malaconda’s nonattacking moves poll.
So yeah, that’s about it. We have had these problems at some level since I’ve joined cap back before necturna, but it’s gotten worse and worse, and that makes sense. With my proposed problem, it would be expected that the problem causes itself to get worse, as chasing away good players will lower the quality of discussion more, and it spirals. So I think we need to review whether at this point some of our stated goals are in opposition to each other, particularly
There are problems with CAP, and there have been for a while. While in the past, CAP has been a place for intelligent, informed discussion and debate about pokemon, it has been continually moving away from that over time. One main symptom (and a major cause) is the fact that our retention and recruitment of actually good players is quite poor, resulting in worse discussions. I’m going to focus more on the retention side, because it doesn’t really do any good to recruit if we can’t retain good players. The other major symptom I want to discuss is the burnout rate we have amongst a lot of CAP regulars. The CAP process as it stands now is often intensely frustrating for a lot of people, and I think Pwnemon and Ginganinja’s quitting makes this pretty plain. These are both users who have contributed a lot to the CAP project, and its really painful to see them deciding that CAP is no longer worth it to them.
So I think we need to open the floor to diagnosing this problem, and coming up with solutions. Why is it that we can’t keep good players, and why is our burnout rate right now so high? I would say that a large part of it is the quality of discussion threads, and their, perceived at least, lack of impact on the polls. But fixing this is hard, and so proposals for ways to fix this would be very much welcomed.
Since I do like solutions though, I’m going to lay out my thoughts on the issue. I’m not at all happy with them, so if people have other solutions and diagnoses I really want to hear them, but this should at least give us something to work off of. To me, I feel like there is one pretty unifying problem. A lot of our posters in any thread are, to put it politely, relatively uninformed. Building off an analogy used in the mission statement,
I think our inherent problem is that we’re like a group of liberal arts students trying to build a car. We have a couple people who mostly know how a car works, and a bunch of people with no clue, and we’re trying to crowdsource ideas on how to go fastest. Obviously if you don’t have the requisite knowledge, your car doesn’t really work, and all you learn is one way not to build a car. You need some amount of understanding ahead of time to actually be able to be in a position where the problems you encounter are solvable, and its working through solvable problems that we learn the most. The lack of knowledge also means that a high percentage of discussers can’t even distinguish between things that any good player would tell you is obviously true, such as greninja being a good pokemon, and things the lower ladder would tell you is true, such as ambipom being a good pokemon. This very quickly leads to burnout of good players, as you end up spending most of your time being more of a tutor than someone who is actually participating in the discussion fully. Interesting discussions can really only be had between people who can agree on basic facts, and that says people must be somewhat closer in skill level to each other than they currently are.Mission Statement said:To pose an analogy: "Who knows more about cars—a driver or a mechanic?" Actually, they both know a lot, and they both know different things because of their perspective. A driver knows how to drive cars, and a mechanic knows how to build and fix cars. This project is focused on the knowledge set analogous to the mechanic.
"If you really want to learn about cars, then build one.
If you really want to learn about competitive Pokémon—then build one.”
So now the question is, how do we fix it? This is where I really am unhappy, because to me the only way to fix it is some pretty significant changes to our mission statement. Building off the end of last paragraph, we have to narrow the band of skill levels down, which either says alienating the bottom part of the spectrum, or the top. I think by now it should be pretty clear that to me, the solution is catering more towards the top players. How we do this is hard though. One of the big standards of the CAP project has always been that we are very accepting and open to anyone, regardless of skill level. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is possible, because if we do continue to be as accepting of anyone regardless of how low their skill level, we alienate those people who are more high leveled. Basically, there is no way to be fully accepting of all. To this end, I think we have two major solutions:
1) More aggressively moderating posts in competitive discussion for content rather than tone.
One example in a quick look through is from plasmanta’s primary ability thread:
There are a couple things wrong with this. First off, he mentions sash excadrill which is most definitely not a set seen in the metagame. Secondly, he demonstrates a fundamental lack of knowledge of the mechanics he is discussing, as aftermath would not damage gengar, given it does not use contact moves. Finally, he implies that breloom will be defeating plasmanta more than very rarely, which given a typing that resists all of breloom’s moves other than rock tomb, is pretty much wrong.aftermath is a nice ability as it breaks excadrill, gengar, and brelooms sash so it could open up opportunity for gyarados to gain a moxie boost from the weakened pokemon then mega evolve and have a free +1 boost to it's attack. It could also add even more recoil to talonflame's brave bird. (assuming that talon would kill Cap 19 in a weakened state.
Another example, same thread:
Posts like these are quite frankly demonstrating a lack of understanding. One inherent way offensive teams work is by using offensive pokemon to wear down checks and counters of other offensive things, and this was even covered briefly in the threat list, where it was said thatWhat we do NOT want is something like Tinted Lens, or any offensive ability really. Gyarados is the sweeper, CAP should provide support by dealing with his threats primarily. For this respect, I'm a big fan of Static. It does a better job of discouraging U-turners than Gooey, Mummy, or Iron Barbs, because the effect, while not always activated, inflicts a permanent and hugely crippling status upon the victim. Slower things can get wrecked by our partner far more easily.
This pretty clearly implies that plasmanta should be striving to have offensive abilities that help it weaken walls for gyarados, and as such this is a post that just adds almost nothing to any competitive discussion, as it is pretty much factually wrong.threat list last post said:As for what CAP19 should threaten—it should threaten defensive Pokemon and pivots which Gyarados has trouble handling
2) Some form of requirement in order to vote.
I really hate doing this, but there is definitely a problem. The results of polls do not really reflect the results of the discussion threads a lot of the time, and this isn’t surprising when we have way more people posting in the poll than the discussion thread (to the point that the two threads often have roughly the same number of posts, such as plasmanta’s ability discussion generating only two more posts than the poll). One good example of votes that really aren’t helpful is malaconda’s nonattacking moves poll.
This philosophy was not rare, as by my rough count 13 posts in this thread allowed glare, but disallowed stun spore, which is a pretty competitively indefensible position. This is why we need some form of vote management, so we ensure that votes are being placed not because “that sounds cool” or because “is a snake,” but rather for reasons discussed in the discussion thread. How to regulate votes is a very hard question. I do not think it should be too strict, and anyone who participates in the discussion thread reasonably should have a vote. This is where this ties into part 1. If we are moderating for content as I’d like, then almost any allowed post should be sufficient (although a post of just “i agree with x, it helps us beat y” is probably not enough). Also I would say that anyone who is considered a “respected user” could be expected to take the time to pay attention to the discussion and what is going on, even if they don’t contribute to it actively. As such I would allow any badged user to vote.Allow Glare
Allow Spikes
Disallow Stun Spore
Disallow Thunder Wave
Malaconda is a snake. Hiss…..
So yeah, that’s about it. We have had these problems at some level since I’ve joined cap back before necturna, but it’s gotten worse and worse, and that makes sense. With my proposed problem, it would be expected that the problem causes itself to get worse, as chasing away good players will lower the quality of discussion more, and it spirals. So I think we need to review whether at this point some of our stated goals are in opposition to each other, particularly
I think, while these are both excellent goals in a vacuum, and while they used to work fine, in the current state of smogon and CAP they can not co-exist fully. I’d love to hear other factors in our problems to what I focused on, and I’d especially love other solutions that don’t suck as much as mine, but I haven’t found them yet, so please suggest some. The one thing I’m concerned about however is that we do have a major problem right now, and so the solution can not be small unless we are absolutely sure it is enough. Major problems are hard to fix.Mission Statement said:-The CAP project inspires various interesting discussions about Pokémon, the spirit and mechanics of the game, and most importantly, in-depth analysis of the current competitive metagame.
-The CAP project is open to anyone interested in learning more about the underlying fundamentals of competitive Pokémon.