Old Mar 30th, 2012, 6:52:21 PM 	  #14
NixHex
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Originally Posted by Fat Tobes View Post
I'm willing to bet the number of users who play Dream World by mistake have far less of an impact than people attempting to use this argument would like to think.
^ Further in response to Fate's and SDS's point about people accidentally playing a DW match, most people notice it the first time when the deviation is +60 -40 and they see Manaphy and Keldeo etc., then they change the tier immediately. One battle has a negligible impact compared to the thousand of other battles played by everyone who actively plays the ladder. Also, if you want to get really nitpicky, let's look at the 1337 stats of the top 3 metas:

ou 1337 Total battles: 143869
dw 1337 Total battles: 28262
uu 1337 Total battles: 24106

I'm willing to bet that accidental players don't have that high of a rating!

edit: I'm aware that the value of 1337 can inflate and deflate over time but the point is to look at the number of players that are successful in comparison to UU, a metagame with no accidental battles.
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Unread Mar 30th, 2012, 7:08:56 PM 	  #15
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Originally Posted by Fat Birkal View Post
I'm sure you're wondering whether or not Dream World will ban any Pokemon that are currently available in OU. I am not sure what Tobes' plan on that for the tier is, but I am personally against it. Like you said, it'd be akin to banning another Pokemon during another Pokemon's suspect period. That is something that needs to be discussed. But from what I understand from my conversations with the DW Council, we're not considering banning OU Pokemon at the moment.
If the council is not planning on banning any Pokemon, then why is there a council? Why are they (eventually) getting tiering contributor for doing what amounts to nothing? This was the catch-22 I was alluding to in my previous post but apparently didn't convey well enough. If they ban OU Pokemon, Dream World is illegitimate, and if they don't, they shouldn't get TC, and there really shouldn't be a council in general. I'm ignoring the possibility that the DW council will unban even more Pokemon because, let's face it, there's nothing currently banned that could conceivably work in DW OU.

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Originally Posted by Fat Birkal View Post
Sorry, I deviated a bit. I agree with you on this second point that you've listed: there should be some sort of requirements for how much needs to be learned from a specific metagame in order to be "considered official" on Smogon. I'm sure that you'd agree with me that we're learning much more pertinent information from Dream World then we'd learn from Terrorist Cup. How to solidify that definition is a tricky matter that should be discussed within this topic. I personally think that popularity and how much information we can garner from the tier should both play heavily in this definition. I'll attempt to think of a proper definition and get back to you! Thanks for reading.
Ok, I'm looking forward to that post.

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Originally Posted by Fat Tobes View Post
Ok, since I'm the head of the metagame this OP seems to be chiefly aimed at, I suppose I'm obliged to respond.
This thread is not aimed at any metagame in particular, but aimed at achieving a global rule that would apply to every unofficial metagame. DW is just currently the most popular example of an unofficial metagame.

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Originally Posted by Fat Tobes View Post
You seem to be extremely concerned with having unofficial content on-site, and yet, I have not seen you give sufficient reason not to put this content on-site (and thus reward users for it under the same grounds as any other content put on-site)
I believe that this is a problem because, unlike official metagames, there is no limit on what we can call an unofficial metagame. Currently, the two most prominent ones play with Pokemon that do not exist, and badges are awarded for work related to these metagames. Is there a relevant distinction between playing with imaginary Pokemon and, say, playing with only NFEs? Playing with only Pokemon that are black or brown? Playing with the Mimic glitch allowed? The answer I have been given when asking this question has been "popularity", but I believe that this is an excessively vague and short-sighted solution and should not be taken seriously. There have been no qualifications given for "popularity", and the assumption that popular metagames will always be ones that Smogon wants to represent is naive. I believe that there is no relevant distinction between badging members of the Dream World council (just as an example, this thread is intended to be more broad than just one metagame) and badging members of a fictitious Terrorist Cup council.

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Originally Posted by Fat Tobes View Post
while there is more than sufficient reason to put it on-site in that a) The metagame is popular, people enjoy playing it, and people who want to play it will want some form of information about it, b) There is demand for these analyses and people want to write them, c) This interest is high enough that the project is self-sustaining, and d) the metagame is competitive. I don't see how a metagame being unofficial interferes with these points. Furthermore Dream World and CAP content are clearly partitioned from the strategy Pokedex. Neither are found in the same location on the main page, and the average user will not know how to find them without using the directories on the front page.
a) see OP
b) Also short-sighted for the similar reasons as the popularity argument. Smogon has no way of knowing if the next metagame that "people" will want to write about will be one it wants to support. It is a poor, short-sighted argument to argue that analyses with willing writers should be posted on the site.
c) similar repetition of the above points
d) If a metagame isn't competitive, then of course it should not get any reward. This does not mean that a metagame that is competitive should get the equivalent of official support.

I don't think you're seeing things on a broad scale and are just reacting to what you perceive as a "hate on dream world" topic. That mindset isn't helping anything.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tobes View Post
There is little danger of people mistaking the metagame as official (in fact I'm even worried that it's not easy enough to find the content), and even if you're still concerned I'd be fine with editing the main Dream World section to read, in bold, "Dream World is not an official metagame". I don't think you have sufficient right or reason to ask for more than that though.
The main focus of this thread is to come to an understanding on what it means to consider a metagame unofficial. If adding "x is not an official metagame" is your solution as to where the line should be drawn, then I like that we're at least making progress on this front, but it would certainly not be enough.

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Originally Posted by Fat Tobes View Post
The difference between Dream World / CAP and Terrorist Cup is that they focus on broad effects on the metagame, and not on one specific influence; CAP might give an appearance to this because of how it addresses influences in sequential order, but overall it has a far, far broader scope than Terrorist Cup could ever hope to achieve. Dream World is also far more complex in this regard. Furthermore, Dream World partitions itself off from most other potential unofficial metagames because we have a basis for it in the source code. It is not something we plucked out of thin air.
Ok, more progress. Am I correct in thinking that you're saying that unofficial tiers should be endorsed if they examine official metagames from more than one angle? I feel like I'm straw-manning here because your argument is pretty vague, so please correct me. I think that this kind of requirement would be a step in the right direction, but applies to far too many potential unofficial metagames to be the end-all requirement. DW being present in the source code doesn't distinguish it at all from any metagame mentioned in this thread except for CAP.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tobes View Post
As for concerns about popularity: I agree, narrowly using popularity as a baseline is not the best policy. However, I see no issue with using popularity to supplement a metagame's legitimacy, especially when there is keen interest in that metagame. If Balanced Hackmons was more popular than UU and people wanted to write for it I'd agree completely with allowing it, but Terrorist Cup under the same circumstances would be a much, much harder sell.
And why is that? This is the kind of arbitrary support that this thread is trying to prevent.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Tobes View Post
I just want to make sure people read this again.
That post was ignorant of my OP, committed multiple logical fallacies, and was completely counter-productive. There was a reason I ignored it, it should definitely not be read period yet alone read again.