As most of you have already noticed, I have quitted my TD position after the events that happened yesterday.
1) Why I stopped the timer in the game vs Conflict:
One of the players had a nearly 100% winning chance (unless something ridic like doube freeze and staying frozen for 10+ turns) and DCd when he had 240 secs left in his timer. Because the dumb reconnect mechanics, the player only had 60 secs to reconnect. When I signed up, timer had only 5 secs left so I obv couldnt ask d0nut before the timeout. I also did not know if Conflict had submitted his team or no (fact: he submitted his team in the other 3 weeks, so I assumed he had done as well for this game).
If I stop the timer and I was wrong, it is as easy as assuming there has been a timeout. If I dont stop the timer there is drama and a likely recreation (if the player has submitted the team). I have stopped the timer multiple times in the past in similar situations and I would have done the same again.
2) About current community mentality:
It is amazing how community has changed in these 10 years since I joined Smogon, both positively and negatively. Smogon used to be a much smaller community, but people played to proof they were the good players, trying to beat the best players with their own teams. Nowadays it seems that the only things that matters is winning, it does not matter how. If you can steal a win, you will. If theres a small hole in the rules, there is people that will abuse it to try to cheat. We all want to win for sure, but some people would do absolutely anything to steal a win, and Im not talking about taking a DC win or a timeout win, something most people would do in a team tournament, and I do not really blame those players, I blame whoever allows that to happen.
3) About the DC rules:
I will start by saying that the 60 secs to reconnect after a DC is terrible. It is not normal that a player that has 240 secs left in his timer only has 60 secs to reconnect. A player should have min(60,current timer) secs to reconnect.
Another thing is the "100% win chance rule". And I will give 2 examples:
a) Wcop. Sw vs Asuya game. Asuya had already said gg, he only had a Volcarona vs a Sp Def Heatran with Toxic. Sw DCd and he didnt send his team, and Luck got the win because "there was a very small chance of Volca winning".
b) SPL. Conflict vs d0nut. Conflict had boom Egg + boom Forry + Curselax + ML Umbreon vs 20% Egg + 60% Curselax + 100% Nidoking with Spikes in his favor. Conflict had the game won by exploding Egg in the turn after he DCd. d0nut got he win because "there was a chance of a double freeze + staying 10 turns frozen without unfreezing"
Common sense should be applied here. This is like the triple scald burn case. But hey, apparently this is an old precedent from an old SPL and we shouldnt use it (real log from a TD).
People seem to forget that I created the original DC rule together with Aldaron in WCop, and that it was never created to award wins to players. It was created to prevent free wins to players by stopping the timer in case of DC to give the player enough time to reconnect and finish the game (game is played, no drama), and to give the players a backup in case they DCd and couldnt come back in time (waiting 2/3 mins before activating the timer again)
You shouldnt be awarded with a win because the other player couldnt reconnect in 1 min when he had 4 mins left in his timer. I think thats common sense, but I guess I am wrong.
Conflict should have sent his team? Yes, absolutely. Does that justify the decision of giving him the loss because he couldnt reconnect in 1 min when he had 4 mins left in his timer and the game won unless extremely unlikely luck? In my opinion, no.
4) Why I quitted my TD position.
I have been a TD for 4 years, and 4 years is a long time. In these 4 years I have made some good decisions and I have also made some bad decisions. I have made some friends, I have also made some "friends" and I have made a lot of enemies, but thats what being a TD means.
I have done a lot of things Im proud about, such as multi gen Wcop format that has given a lot of great games, revamping the Wcop elegibilities system, the idea of a new official tournament (Classic) to feature old gens, helping with the creation of anti ghosting rules, creating with Aldaron rules to protect players from DCs, the creation of a policy for tournament and forum bans, the creation of a ranking system for lower tiers, etc
I have always tried to be as fair as possible with my decisions as a TD, doing what I thought it was fair and what I considered that was the best for tournaments. I know I have made mistakes and that I have made some bad calls and some bad decisions, Im not in the possession of the truth.
The reason I am quitting my TD position after 4 years is that I cannot agree or support some of the decisions the TD is making. I have always thought that TDs should not be like machines (strictly following rules, instead of using common sense), and that is exactly what is happening nowadays. Being a TD used to be very different when I started.
I guess I can say it has been a... Pleasure