Issues with the TD Team

Originally, I had planned to make a thread regarding the issues with the TD Team within the next few weeks/months (basically before WCOP starts), but the recent events sped up the process and led me to post earlier than anticipated. The purpose of this thread isn't to call out the current and former TDs, but to address the various concerns I, and more specifically the Smogon Community, have had over the past few years, because a lot of people feel like Smogon is slowly going downhill and the people in charge are the direct responsible of the current situation. Of course, the TDs aren't responsible for all the issues with Smogon, but being a tournament player, my main concerns are directly related to how tournaments are handled and all the decisions that are made about tournaments, and the TDs are the ones in charge for this. I will try my best to avoid falling into a tl;dr post.

First of all, I will obviously start with the Raiders drama that occurred a few days ago and which the final decision was posted earlier today. My opinion on the matter, and I'm convinced that a lot of people share it too, is that the decision made is a poor one and doesn't make much sense. Why would TDK be the only to take the blame here? Because he is the Head TD? How is that relevant in such a situation, let alone the fact that this role of Head TD is purely subjective, doesn't provide more powers than other TDs, and was created to inflate the ego of the person nominated. The other TDs involved in this situation, Jirachee and Pearl, are as much responsible as TDK in this one. TDK is a really good friend of mine on Smogon and I can't really defend him here, but I absolutely refuse he should be the only one to take the blame here. The 3 TDs involved should step down immediately. The Tournament Directors are supposed to represent fairness and sportsmanship, which was absolutely not the case here. I don't care whether they said it was bad or not, they decided to remain silent and took advantage of the leaked information in an Official Tournament to give themselves a better chance to win a very important game in order to make Playoffs. Such attitude from those whose job is to make the most important decisions about the Official Tournament issues is extremely concerning and ultimately leads the Smogon Community to think that the TDs are obviously biased and benefit from unfair advantages thanks to their position as TDs. This leads to thinking that whenever there was an issue with a TD involved, the decision made was to benefit the TD. This has to change, and for that to happen, I want the Smogon Staff or the future Head TD, or whoever can take such a decision, to demote Pearl and Jirachee from their TD positions.

The last part of the previous paragraph arouses the following issue: the impact of the Smogon Community over issues like these and the decisions taken. To me, this is a major issue and probably the biggest ones. Over the years, these little groups of people that were given some responsibilities, have turned into some kind of circlejerks in which only a few users have a chance to ever make it into, because they have the rights to nominate whoever they want and nothing can be made against that, and who use their powers to take whatever decision they want, without even consulting the community. Don't even try to tell me that the few discussion threads you posted ever had an impact on your decisions. The best example being the WCOP format thread where literally 95% of the community was against locking the format of Team Tournaments, but you did it anyway because you do the things you want. It is a real issue that a small group of people are given so much power and can decide the fate of Smogon Tournaments. I entirely agree that we need people to make big decisions and apply the rules, but I don't want them to think they are above everybody else and can control things the way they want. The community's opinion should matter more than anything else and you should make the decisions that satisfy the majority. Yes, you can't satisfy all parties, that's part of the game, but there is a difference between satisfying the majority of a community and satisfying a small group of people.

The issue I'm about to address is kind of linked to the one above, but I think it's better to separate both issue to make things clearer: how and by whom are Tournament Directors nominated. Since forever, the users who are nominated to become TDs have been picked by the TDs themselves, which is another huge issue to me. As stated in the previous paragraph, these small group of selected users (Councils / TDs) have become a group of friends with powers they can use to do pretty much whatever they want: suspect test a Pokémon or an Ability, nominate new TDs or Council Members, etc... Maybe this used to work back when the people in charge didn't fall into the circlejerking category, but this isn't the case anymore. Over the past few years, there have been countless of very questionnable nominations by the TD Team and nobody could go against these. I don't wanna call out anyone in particular, but I'm pretty sure you know who I'm talking about. Some of the current TDs fall into this category as well and I seriously hope they will recognize themselves. I'm obviously not bringing up this issue out of nowhere, I got evidence to backup what I'm stating, but as I said, I don't wanna call out anyone in this thread, I just want to make a general statement about what does not work with the TD Team and should change as quickly as possible if we want to move things positively and get Smogon back on its feet. It shouldn't be acceptable that the TDs get to pick their friends for next TDs because this makes their life easier and they won't have to deal with anyone that could go against their little shenanigans. Unfortunately, a lot of old-TDs, and some current ones, were nominated because they were friends with some TDs, despite being totally unqualified for the role, and this ultimately led to what Smogon is right now: a shithole. You don't have to be friends to do a good job is what I'm saying. The community should also be consulted on the matter. Don't get me wrong, I know there is a thread posted when a new user is nominated to become TD, but let's be honest, these threads are useless you barely pay attention to what is posted. I think the tournament players should be consulted because they are the ones who are directly concerned by this. Obviously you can't ask all the tournaments, but maybe consult the main figures of the Tournament Scene (All SPL Players for instance)?

Last but not least: the attitude of the Tournament Directors. What am I trying to say by this? It's pretty simple, the TDs are almost unreachable besides a few of them because they just consciously ignore you, acting like they are some kind of Presidents and that you aren't worth their time. This is also related to what I said above regarding users who were nominated despite being unqualified for the role and who went on hiatus as soon as they were promoted. The inactivity within the TD Team is a real issue and their arrogance causes all these tensions between the Community and the TD Team. You have to keep in mind that we are just playing Pokémon for fun, with no money on the line. Get back on Earth. It has always pissed me off how TDs care so much about all these policy stuff and rules, making threads about rules nobody actually reads, when all cases should be treated separately. A good example is the timer issues we have encountered in SPL. Because of an arbitrary rule the TDs set, a lot of bad decisions were made just because the TDs wanted to follow the said rule, which is just an absurdity. All issues should be treated case by case, and trust me the decisions will be a lot better, and there will be much less people trying to abuse the loopholes in these rules. Why do you absolutely want to set rules everywhere? Why can't you just analyze the different situations you face and make the most logical decisions? Another good example is the WCOP format and that decision taken to get rid of RBY when the RBY Community is one of the strongest and most active on Smogon. With the amount of players rising over the years, why don't you just increase the WCOP spots to 12? Why did you decide to lock the format when a new Generation comes out every 2 years and forces the format to be redefined? You have to accept that Pokémon is a game that keeps evolving and forces you to adapt your formats. You're just making your life easier by setting a rule, which is the issue I was talking about. Anyway this is kind of off topic so I'll end the post here, but you got my point.


    I have tried to address what I think are the most important issues right now with the TD Team, but obviously there are more issues, but with Smogon as a whole. It is certainly not easy to be a TD, but I think many things could have been done better. Thanks for reading me.