Policy Review Topic Leadership

DougJustDoug

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CAP 4 was terrible from a topic leadership perspective.

That's a blunt statement, I know. I expect we'll talk a lot about whether I am making a reasonable overall assessment. But I want to lead off with that statement to be clear as to what triggered this PR thread.

I have had nagging concerns about topic leadership in CAP for quite some time, ever since we implemented the so-called "Strong TL Model" after DP CAP 8. Over time, there has been a disturbing undercurrent that has developed in CAP, where instead of the Topic Leader being expected to serve the community, the community is now expected to serve the Topic Leader. Most Topic Leaders have been very good and have not abused our trust in them, but I have been worried for a while that the project dynamics around Topic Leadership have been moving in a bad direction. BW CAP 4 brought all my concerns to a head, and myself and other moderators all noticed the problems and reacted to it to different degrees. As a consequence of that, I want to propose some radical changes to how we handle topic leadership, including possibly abolishing the position of Topic Leader entirely.


About this Policy Review

This is another very, very long PR post, because it's basically three long topics in a single post.
1) I cover CAP 4 in exacting detail. I'll present a lot of the behind-the-scenes discussions and thinking amongst myself and various CAP moderators, and I'll explain the problems with CAP 4 from a policy perspective.

2) I run through CAP history on Topic Leadership. Normally I wouldn't do this for a policy change. But, Topic Leadership is arguably the most important policy in CAP, and I want to try to give some of you newer members some historical perspective.

3) I propose a new Topic Leadership structure, and describe many of the pros and cons of the proposal.​
CAP 4: Bugmaniacbob's Topic Leadership

Clearly I am not happy with Bugmaniacbob and what he did as Topic Leader for CAP 4. Many other people share my dissatisfaction, and in some cases, outrage. I have had many discussions with CAP moderators during CAP 4, after CAP 4, and while writing this Policy Review. I know without a doubt that I am not alone amongst CAP leadership in feeling that Bugmaniacbob did a lousy job at leading the project, and I have cross-referenced my recollections with others to ensure I am not misrepresenting events. I will not be referring to any other moderators by name in this post, although I will often use phrases like "other moderators" in my retelling, when describing actions or conversations involving other CAP mods. Be aware that every moderator was not involved in every aspect of CAP 4, and there may be some mods that have very little awareness of what I will be describing here. I am intentionally leaving out individual mods' names, so they can represent themselves in this thread, even if their opinions and recollections contradict my own.

The problem, in a nutshell, was that Bugmaniacbob railroaded and manhandled CAP 4. Bob didn't follow the basic principle that we build a pokemon as a community. He regarded Topic Leader as a position that allowed him to create a pokemon that he wanted, according to his particular preferences and desires. In many cases, he bent the project process to his will, he ignored past precedents for Topic Leader behavior and influence, and in some cases, he outright manipulated polls to get what he personally wanted, even when he knew that the community majority did not agree with his actions, and even in the face of CAP moderator warnings. By the end of CAP 4, Bob was in full-on self-glorification mode, and he treated CAP 4 as if it was his personal creation. Bugmaniacbob completely lost the entire point of CAP by making it about HIM, not the community.

In retrospect, the reason Bob's Topic Leadership was so frustrating and difficult for me and other mods to grapple with, was because it was a problem that progressively grew over time. Bob started out CAP 4 terrifically and seemed to be doing a great job. Then a few minor issues surfaced that looked biased, possibly a little suspicious, but we brushed it off. A few later actions by Bob were fairly obviously unethical, but not against the rules, so we decided to let it go, but planned to tighten up the rules before the next CAP. By the middle of CAP 4 we were all certain that BMB was operating on his own personal agenda and was imposing his personal preferences on every step, even if that required him to manipulate polls and processes to suit his tastes. By the end of the project, Bob was openly flaunting his disregard for the CAP process and principles, and the mods stepped in and intervened to prevent further embarrassment. In the aftermath, we were left wondering how the hell we let things get so far off track, and questioned ourselves if we should have acted earlier to prevent it.

CAP 4: Behind-The-Scenes

To bring everyone up to speed, I guess the best place to start is at the beginning...

When CAP 4 started and I saw how BMB handled the first Concept discussion, I was giddy with excitement over the amazing amount of work and attention to detail he paid to every post and argument in the submission thread. I even chatted privately with one of the CAP mods during that first thread and I said, "I think Bob may be the best TL we have ever had in CAP."

When the typing poll came out, several of us raised our eyebrows because the typing slate appeared to be "stacked". That is what I call a slate that has been constructed by the TL to bias the community to pick something the TL personally favors, but is presented to the community as if it is an objective representative sampling of viable options that represent the intelligent community consensus. We have had issues with some stacked polls in past CAPs, but as long as it isn't too blatant, we don't worry about it too much.

When you give one person (the TL) total control over a slate, and ask them to sift through all the suggestions and evaluate all the community arguments -- it is inevitable that the TL is going to have some degree of subjective bias that influences their choice of options for the slate. Of course we expect all CAP leaders to be objective and act in the best interests of the community. But we understand that TL's are only human and are going to have personal leanings that impact their decisions, as long as they are acting in good faith and in general accordance with project goals.

The typing poll only had three legitimate options on it, and two of those typings were Bug types. It also had the odd inclusion of a fourth typing, Grass/Flying, which was never really discussed in the typing discussion and obviously had no prayer of being selected. I found it a little odd that the majority of viable options were Bug type, but I could easily pass that off since Bug typings were heavily discussed in the thread, and I think the community majority was probably rooting for a Bug typing anyway. But the slate was small to begin with, and the inclusion of Grass/Flying stood out almost as if Bob was intentionally including a fourth option for appearances sake, but he didn't want to include anything else that might actually get votes. While this may be harmless, it's a clear warning sign of a "stacked" slate, and it is NOT something we encourage from our Topic Leaders.

So when I saw the slate I immediately wondered, "Is Bob trying to ensure a win for a Bug type? You gotta be kidding me...", knowing of course that Bob is a bug enthusiast in real life, and his Smogon specialty is analysis writing for Bug-type pokemon. But my reaction was mild annoyance, if anything, and I didn't say anything to anyone else. After speaking to other mods much later, when things got worse -- they all brought up the same question, "Did you think anything was wrong with that first Typing slate? I thought it was suspicious, but I didn't want to say anything."

So the Typing slate was probably stacked a bit, but I figured he was a new TL, and new to forum leadership of any kind, and he was just establishing himself and his direction. It happens on many CAPs where TL's come out of the gate with a head of steam and make some leadership mistakes that are mostly a result of over-enthusiasm, not poor leadership skills. So I brushed off my concern over the typing poll -- heck I wanted a Bug typing too, and everyone else seemed to be on the same bandwagon.

The ability step was really the tipping point for Bob and his leadership of CAP 4. That's where I think he first started making moves to ensure he got what he wanted out of CAP 4. It's no secret that Bob did not want Weak Armor on CAP 4. He argued against Weak Armor on IRC and in the first ability and discussion thread, but he relented to community consensus and slated it anyway, like an objective Topic Leader should. My suspicion is that he figured his arguments against it would be sufficient to keep it from winning. But Weak Armor won pretty handily, despite his disapproval.

I think that was the point where everything changed for BMB. From then on, I think BMB made a conscious effort to ensure that no future decision would go against him on CAP 4. He started leaning hard on ability discussions and clearly vocalizing what options he favored in the very first post (more on that technique later). And the third ability was a joke in terms of fairness and objectivity. Despite the fact that many options were debated heavily in the third ability discussion, BMB created the poll with only two options -- No Guard (which was the option he had been favoring and arguing strongly for from the very beginning of the first ability thread) and No Ability. I saw it as a kind of "temper tantrum slate" -- pretty much Bob's way of saying, "Either pick my favorite option or you get nothing!". Once again, numerous other mods had the same read as I did, that Bob was turning the corner and trying to strong-arm the community.

Although I didn't like seeing how he handled the last ability poll, the stat spread step was the first step where I seriously considered if Bob was actually breaking rules as Topic Leader. First off, in the Stat Limits Discussion he decided on his own to not respect the limit ranges established in the CAP Process Guide. He felt the limits in the rules were "too lax" (whatever that means) and he unilaterally made up his own narrower limits. Bob didn't consult anyone else about his on-the-fly rules change, he just did it on his own and posted it as gospel for all stat spread submitters to follow. And why would he create such narrow restrictions? Because he knew exactly what stat spread he wanted and he didn't want to give anyone leeway to get too far away from exactly what he wanted. Then in the first post of the stat submission thread, he made the curious decision to openly post his own working spread. It was a clear statement to the field of submitters saying, "Match this if you want to be slated".

Bob also was very open that he wanted a 600 BST spread, and he stacked the slate with 600 BST submissions. This was when I started seriously questioning whether Bob's motivations on the CAP 4 project were driven by competitive bias or by some hidden fan agenda. In the stat threads, he initially described 600 BST as being "pleasing to the eye" or something along those lines and indicated he preferred it. But then later he started mentioning that it would be cool if CAP made a "pseudo-legendary pokemon".

I immediately reacted when I saw Bob establish that CAP 4 would be a "pseudo-legend" for a couple of reasons. First off, any time you start throwing the word "legendary" around, you bring connotations of ubers and all that, and the last thing CAP needs is to give even MORE influence to make overpowered Pokemon. On top of that, Bob was taking a very analytical competitive step (stats) with math formulas, BSR calculators and all that -- and injecting a fanboy concept like "legendary status" in the mix, as if it had any relevance. Then when he only slated "legendary spreads", it was clear this legendary thing was VERY relevant to Bob for some odd reason. I bristled because it is NOT within the Topic Leader's authority to arbitrarily establish a flavor mandate that we make a "pseudo-legend", just because the Topic Leader desires it. Sure, if a 600 BST spread just *happens to win* on a CAP, I think it makes sense for all of us to acknowledge that Pokemon canon has special significance on that BST number. But that is NOT what Bob did at all.

Remember that on the CAP project -- BST is almost completely irrelevant competitively. We use BSR to measure competitiveness of a spread, because BST is meaningless as a measure of stat power. On some past CAPs, we even banned listing the BST on the spread poll, specifically because we didn't want a meaningless number influencing voters. Bob not only considered BST relevant as a measurement, but he MANDATED an EXACT BST number as a condition of every submission on the slate. Technically, BMB did allow one 580 BST spread, which is also a well-known "legendary" BST in Pokemon lore, and that one spread had no prayer in the polls and predictably finished in dead last place in the poll. So this is where all the warning bells really started going off for me, because it was clear that our Topic Leader had some hidden fan agenda that was driving his direction of our competitive steps.

When I realized what Bob was doing, I was upset, but I rolled my eyes more than anything else. I lost some respect for Bob at that point, because I would not have predicted that Bob would really use the stage of Topic Leader for such a selfish goal. But I've been doing Create-A-Pokemon for a long time, so when it comes to users manipulating aspects of the CAP project for personal reasons, nothing surprises me any more. I just didn't expect to see that kind of thing from a Topic Leader, because it had never happened before. But even though I knew something was up, and I didn't like what Bob was doing, I still came to the conclusion that BMB was just "very biased" and was "heavily influencing" our decisions. But I didn't feel like he was explicitly controlling the project in a community-damaging way.

Then Bob made a huge leap that put all doubts to rest in my mind and raised concerns with every mod and even members of the CAP community at large -- Bob began blatantly imposing his subjective interpretation on CAP flavor steps and he outright manipulated flavor polls.

On the name poll, Bob openly disregarded the options favored by the community and made a slate of obscure options that appealed to his personal scientific tastes, AND he openly admitted that his personal tastes differed significantly from the community at large. He openly admitted to not slating the name that he KNEW was favored by the community at large, precisely BECAUSE he knew it would win and he didn't want to see that name permanently affixed on HIS CAP PROJECT.

This is really when we realized that Bob wasn't just capitalizing on opportunities to indulge his personal goals when the community gave him a chance, or taking liberties with TL power on a few steps and slates. BMB had openly taken the stance that HE OWNED THIS POKEMON. It wasn't "ours", the collective property of the CAP community of hundreds that all work to build the pokemon. It was Bugmanicbob's pokemon and he wanted to GUARANTEE we ended up with a creation where he personally favored every aspect of it.

Even on a flavor step that had no impact whatsoever on the competitive viability of the pokemon, and even in the face of a big divergence of his personal opinion from that of the rest of the community -- Bob openly chose to ignore the community, and he shoved a slate of mostly obscure science references down our throat and said, "Choose from my favorites". In the first name poll thread, where many CAP posters objected to how Bob handled the slate, you know what Bob did? He laughed. In fact, he openly admits that he still laughs when he reads the thread where the CAP community calls him out for abusing his position.

When that name step happened, even though it was just a flavor step, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bob felt entitled to impose his selfish desires on the project, and that he had probably been doing it from the very beginning of the project.

Bob is very lucky that the favored name submission that he refused to slate in that travesty of a name poll was my personal submission. Because if it had been anyone else's submission, I would have stepped in and forced him to re-slate the poll. Some other CAP mods suggested doing it themselves, and I didn't want that to happen.

For one, I really don't like public leadership drama in the middle of an ongoing CAP. It's bad for the CAP community to have open power struggles in the middle of a CAP. It confuses new project participants and it makes the project look bad in general. So I overwhelmingly prefer to stifle any leadership or policy troubles during a CAP project and save it all for Policy Review between CAP projects.

I also didn't want a re-slate clouded with entitlement issues. If that name poll would have been re-slated, it would be questionable as to whether it was being re-slated because it was unfair, or whether "Doug, the all-powerful admin, got pissed off that his option didn't make the poll and he's throwing his weight around to get his way." I questioned myself if I was truly mad as a result of what I believed to be a breach of authority by Bob, or whether I was just pissed over Bob snubbing my submission. I've had submissions not slated in the past, and it didn't bother me in the slightest. I also happen to have won several name competitions and other polls in the past, so it's not like I was pissed over missing out on a chance to win.

No, I was torqued that Bob seemed to think it was his right to shove crap down everyone's throat and then laugh when we said we didn't like it. When other CAP mods came to the exact same conclusion as I did, I knew it wasn't just a petty personal gripe on my part. But, like I said, we really didn't want any drama, so we did nothing at that point to curb BMB's increasingly subjective control over every aspect of what was supposed to be a community project.

We had to kick it up a notch on the Movepool steps. We gave Bob a stern "warning" when he indicated that he would use his personal preferences for movepool flavor as a criteria for slating movepools. That is completely unacceptable, and we warned Bob that if we had any reason to believe that he was imposing his flavor preferences on what is clearly a competitive step for CAP, that the CAP mods would force him to re-slate. By the way, that was the first time in CAP history that moderators have ever had to step in and issue such a warning to an active CAP Topic Leader.

Then, to top it all off, we had that ridiculous Pokedex thread. Bob decided he didn't give a shit about Pokedex entries, and he literally made a mockery of that step in front of the entire CAP community.

Don't get me wrong, I've never been a fan of Pokedex entries either, because they add absolutely nothing to the competitive pokemon, and they are not required to implement the pokemon on the simulator. But I know that many members of the community like to participate in Pokedex entries, and in the past, the Pokedex step was a convenient time-filler for the community while we did the programming to implement our newly finished CAP on the battle simulator immediately after the Sprite thread completes. So even though I usually don't actively participate in Pokedex submission threads, I acknowledge that it does serve a functional purpose in the CAP process, and flavor fans tend to really enjoy it.

Well, Bob doesn't exactly see it that way. He thinks Pokedex entries are stupid and a waste of time. And in typical fashion for BMB's leadership style throughout CAP4, he was perfectly comfortable taking his odd opinion that was not shared by the community at large, and tried to force it to be the opinion of the community at large. He wanted Pokedex entries that were jokes and mocked the game of Pokemon. When the community refused to play his ego-stroking game, and they wouldn't submit options that made a joke out of that step of the process, Bob openly instructed everyone that they either make him laugh or they wouldn't be slated. This was his final stroke of "My opinion is your opinion, because this is my pokemon, not yours" as the all-powerful Topic Leader of CAP 4. A few users then posted in the thread and directly accused Bob of abusing his position as TL.

At that point, me and other mods had enough of Bob's shit. We weren't going to let him close out the CAP project by force-feeding his retarded outlier opinion on everyone else, and at the same time make a literal joke out of the project. So we sent Bob a PM and told him under no uncertain terms that he needed to reverse field in the Pokedex thread and make a fair slate of dex entries from the good submissions willingly provided by the community. So guess what Bob did, since we had the gall to ask him to stop abusing his position? He refused to finish the thread as Topic Leader. He made a pompous whiny post that it was beneath him to sully himself with drama over a stupid Pokedex thread, and he made the mods choose a slate and complete the step. Classy move from our intrepid Topic Leader.


CAP 4: The Aftermath

Of course we can't prove it, but it was apparent to me and others that Bob came into CAP 4 with a desire to make it his personal love letter to the Bug pokemon type. I contend that this is the main reason that CAP 4 never really centered in on any cohesive approach to the concept of Risk. During the project, there was not much focus or direction from Bob as to how he interpreted "Risk", and yet he always had very strong opinions about what he wanted on the polls. Even when people made comments lamenting the lack of clear goals in terms of defining "risk" for the project, it did not seem to have much effect on the direction of the project as it was unfolding. We were collectively pursuing Bob's personal agenda, and not the stated concept that was supposed to be our guide.

Don't get me wrong, ultimately the community did vote in everything that ended up on the pokemon. But instead of creating a clear definition of risk, Bob was pushing stuff like Illusion and No Guard (which are public relations problems), dictating a perfect 600 BST stat spread (nothing screams "risk" like an uber stat spread, right?), and pushing for this to be a "pseudo-legend" (Huh? Why?). And now in retrospect after looking at the completed product, it's very hard for anyone to decipher how it represents "Risk" at all. So, despite the fact that Risk was supposed to be the "concept" driving CAP, it is obvious that the primary concept driving CAP 4 was Bob's obsession with making what he now calls "the greatest Bug-type of them all".

Bugmaniacbob wanted to make an awesome Bug pokemon from the minute he was selected to be Topic Leader. And, as you can now see, we ended up with a 600 BST Legendary Bug pokemon with no defined threats or counters, a perfectly balanced stat spread, two game-defining Abilities, perfect coverage, and all the best boosting moves in the game. The 600 BST pseudo-legendary status is a distinction never given to a pokemon in CAP history. I find it hard to believe it was coincidental that unprecedented heights and gifts were given to a Bug pokemon and it all just so happened to fall on the project that was led by a Topic Leader named Bugmaniacbob who is an insect enthusiast in real life and obsessed with Bug-Type pokemon in the game and he has promoted and analyzed Bug pokemon across Smogon for his entire career. BMB wanted to make CAP 4 to be his personal trophy; his tribute to the pokemon type that he personally adores. And any time the CAP community veered from his personal wish-list for CAP 4, even on non-competitive steps, he used his position as TL to force his desires on the community.

That is the antithesis of what the CAP project is all about.

I am not saying BMB intentionally broke any rules. Quite the contrary. I think Bob stretched every implication of TL power to the absolute limit, without actually breaking any written rules. BMB acted within the defined boundaries of topic leadership that have been in place to date. But, he refused to acknowledge or follow what I previously considered to be "community principles" that have been observed by every previous TL I can recall. Those principles are hard to define in clear-cut terms, and mostly rely on adherence to the general idea of putting community interests before personal goals. Those principles have been so consistently observed in the past, that I never really thought we would ever need to enumerate specific rules to keep a Topic Leader from abusing their position. If someone else would have previously proposed we impose more defined rules on Topic Leaders, I probably would have rejected them with the comment, "If we have to stipulate this kind of thing to protect us from the TL, then the CAP project has much bigger problems to worry about." And that's exactly why I'm bringing up this PR thread. I think BMB's topic leadership has shown that we have bigger problems to worry about.

I do not think that Bob had malicious intent. Bob was trying to lead CAP4 to the best of his ability, and he is very smart and hard working. But his topic leadership was a disaster in terms of promoting the goals of Create-A-Pokemon and encouraging a good community project. I think this has to do with some fundamental flaws in how we have set up the position of Topic Leader -- flaws which became incredibly magnified by BMB's personal leadership style and the massive amount of effort he was willing to expend to make the project go in the direction he desired.

When Bob got negative feedback from others, I think his personality is such that he really didn't care much about what anyone else thought about his leadership or direction. I have no doubt he *heard* opinions contrary to his own, but I don't think he *listened* much at all. And when he started pouring his considerable work effort into the project, that was just gasoline on the fire. The more work he put into the project, the more he felt entitled to get his way on everything. It was like the pilot of a plane in a nosedive, who was accelerating as much as possible, even though the plane was headed straight towards the ground. And, like that plane, CAP 4 crashed and burned, from the perspective of it being a "community endeavor".

For anyone who may be misinterpreting my assessment of the failure of CAP4 leadership -- I am not making a comment on the pokemon as a competitive creation. I don't care too much if CAP4 is a good competitive pokemon or not. For all I know, BMB made a very good pokemon. We'll probably have great fun battling with it. Or maybe Bob made a terrible pokemon. I really don't know.

The problem is that BMB drove this thing to serve his own selfish indulgence. I said earlier that I didn't think Bob was being malicious, but I do think he was incredibly selfish. Being selfish is not against the rules of CAP, and there is no way we can make a rule against it. But it isn't admirable, and it isn't something we should applaud or condone.

What is shocking to me, and a big reason I don't think Bob had malicious intent, is that Bob was so incredibly open about the selfish things he was doing! I'm not just referring to "open" in terms of interpreting his actions -- Bob flat out admits it himself, and doesn't have any remorse about it. He actually takes pride in it! Look no further than what Bob said in his own Final Product thread:
"Yes, I haven't always been the most scrupulous, and some of you may take issue with my planning ahead and in some cases manipulating opinions to favour the options I preferred"
In that post he went to great lengths describing everything he did, and how perfect it all turned out for him. He broke his arm patting himself on the back for creating what he describes literally as "a masterpiece".

That Final Product thread was actually the final straw for us mods and arguably the most telling evidence that Bob had gone off the deep end in considering CAP4 to be his personal accomplishment and complete disregard for the CAP community. I am still shocked that Bob had the audacity to put his 2K post in the CAP 4 Final Product thread.

Some of you may not know this (but I am quite sure Bob does), but the Final Product thread is the only thread of a completed CAP that permanently remains in the main CAP forum to serve as a public reference thread for posterity. All the other threads for a given CAP are moved to the Archive subforum shortly after they are closed. Normally the Final Product thread is an opportunity for the Topic Leader to summarize the project, pass out some congrats to the community for a good effort, and then list out the final reference data for our pokemon creation. So what did Bob choose to do in the CAP 4 Final Product thread? He made a 14,000 word testament to his personal rise in Smogon, describing his entire history in the community, culminating with his crowning achievement of delivering to us the most amazing pokemon creation CAP has ever made.

Even if you were touched by Bob's triumphant self-congratulatory tale of "poor little fanboy rises to e-fame in Smogon" -- did he really need to embed all that personal bullshit in the ONE thread that will live forever in the CAP forum supposedly as a "reference thread" for the project? Of course not. He did it because he selfishly thinks HE is somehow THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of CAP 4, and not the effort of the CAP community at large.

A CAP mod had linked the Final Product thread from the front page news post announcing CAP 4, like we always do. But the mod really didn't think it was appropriate to force innocent newcomers to wade through 14,000 words and numerous bad artworks of grandstanding that had nothing to do with CAP 4 by our self-obsessed Topic Leader. So the mod created jump links at the top of the post, and linked to the jump that went straight to the actual CAP 4 final product information. Bob is not one to have the limelight stolen in his moment of glory, so he removed the jump links and posted in bold letters "READ THE ENTIRE POST, DON'T BE LAZY". The jump links have been restored, and Bob has been told he will be infracted if he edits it again in the future.

Bob just doesn't get it, and he probably never will get it. Bob literally has no clue that what he did throughout CAP 4 was selfish to the point of being offensive and was a contradiction to CAP community principles. Even in the face of community accusations of power abuse, in the face of the mods giving him direct warnings, and then later the mods outright intervening in his project, and threatening to infract him for his actions -- and yet Bob still reflects glowingly on his leadership of CAP 4 and he is proud of everything he did.

Well Bob, at least you are happy with yourself. Good for you.


So what is the job of the Topic Leader, and how does that differ from what BMB did on CAP 4?

The Topic Leader's job is to, well,... LEAD TOPICS. We do not call the position "Master Pokemon Designer" or "Smartest Person When It Comes To Building A Pokemon" or "Person Who Gets To Make His Personal Pet Pokemon This Time Around". Yes, we ask the topic leaders to do many things -- but first and foremost their job is to promote great discussions on every step of the project. That has always been the job, and that is the reason I changed the name of the position from "Mini-Mod" (which is what we called Cooper and Hyra on DP CAP 1 and 2) to "Topic Leader". As I have stated many times in many different ways, the purpose of CAP is not to build pokemon. The purpose is to provide a foundation for great discussions about competitive pokemon. The Topic Leader's job is to lead those discussions by encouraging good posts and submissions, by keeping discussion focused in a good direction, and to keep things moving along in a productive way.

In order to focus community discussion, the Topic Leader needs a clear direction. But having a "clear direction" is very different from forcing a "clear intended outcome". I have no doubt that just about every Topic Leader gets an idea in their head of how a pokemon will turn out the minute a concept is selected. The big test is how the Topic Leader adjusts their vision as a result of what the community gives them.

Prior to CAP4, it has been a fundamental dilemma for every previous Topic Leader. They come out of the gate with a great idea of how things will work out, and then the community starts pushing for something different than the exact picture the TL has in their head. And inevitably, the community throws a curve ball in terms of voting, that makes the Topic Leader rethink their entire approach. It happens every single time.

I know because I am often the one that has to bolster the TL as they agonize over slating an option, or when they are reeling over a poll outcome that they were hoping against. They struggle to figure out how to cope with wrangling a community with diverse opinions. In those cases, I usually have to remind them to not get so attached to their idea of the pokemon. That attachment actually works against an effective TL.

When a TL gets dead set on an outcome, it can't end well. Either the TL gets dejected, or the community gets shafted. The answer is to NOT get so attached to the pokemon. They need to focus on having a vibrant community process. Topic Leaders need to pride themselves not on their ability to predict future outcomes, or worse, manipulate outcomes -- they need to pride themselves on their ability to adapt midstream, the ability to synthesize new ideas and directions, and keep the project engaging and focused. Some past TL's have been better at it than others. But every TL, except BMB, have had to grapple with a community making unexpected decisions that the TL doesn't like.

Bob didn't do that. Bob changed the dynamic and effectively guaranteed he would never have to deal with any decisions not favored by him. Although BMB started out CAP4 great, when the community started picking options he didn't like, he changed his approach. After that, Bob walked into almost every step of the CAP process with a clear idea of what he wanted slated at the end. In most cases, he posted his favorites in the very first post of the thread and made it clear the things he liked. Bob didn't just note the "general direction" he wanted the community to explore -- he listed and described exactly what he wanted.

Let me clue you in on a not-so-secret secret about controlling CAP outcomes -- post first. This is straight from the playbook developed by Deck Knight during his famous "hijacking" of CAP 8 (which I'll cover more later). The tactic is for an influential CAP member to get out in front of the discussion with a specific proposal and everyone else tends to discuss the pros and cons of what is presented first. Basically, you are planting the seed and then everyone else nurtures and grows it throughout the discussion. By the end, the TL has no choice but to slate the option, and the community is basically wired to vote for it because it was mentioned so much in the discussion. New CAP members probably don't know about this tactic, but savvy CAP veterans do. Heck, Deck Knight even wrote a Smog article to describe this CAP manipulation strategy.

For regular members, "hijacking" was somewhat effective in the early days of CAP. But with the advent of the Strong TL model, it's not nearly as effective a tactic for regular posters, because the Topic Leader is supposed to set the tone of each thread at the beginning. Note that I said "tone", not "slate". Bob didn't just set the tone, he practically dictated the slate from the outset. Bob regularly gave very specific guidelines for submissions at the beginning of submission threads, and listed his specific preferred options in other threads.

This is not illegal by any means, and it might even be good leadership in some cases, depending on the situation. Remember, the job of the TL at the beginning of the thread, is to frame the discussion. The goal is to focus the community at the beginning, so the discussion doesn't wander all over the place. But the Topic Leader isn't supposed to have a slate in mind, they are supposed to be asking the community to suggest a slate that meets certain characteristics. I realize this is a very gray distinction, and I can't definitively tell you whether any particular style of Topic Leader posting is good or bad. But after looking back on much of CAP 4, it sure doesn't look like Bob was simply "framing the discussion". He was telegraphing exactly what he wanted on the slate before he had heard a single word from anyone in the community.

Shortly after CAP 4 got underway, during discussions BMB really didn't engage anyone in big disputes, nor did he spend much time trying to convince anyone of what he wanted. But he did an amazing job of giving the appearance that he was listening to everyone. He kept helpful charts, he posted running slates, he kept lists of all submissions, and he updated them dutifully with every post. I think most people interpreted this as a sign that Bob was considering everything very carefully. But he wasn't. Every project step ended up with a slate of options that fit almost exactly with the opinions Bob was endorsing personally at the beginning of the step. If Bob was listening to dissenting opinions, they sure weren't having any meaningful effect on the project!

But because of all the attention to detail BMB paid to every post, it gave the general impression that he was leading the discussions and assimilating the best direction for the project from the highest quality arguments and submissions from CAP participants. But he was doing nothing of the kind. Bob was hearing exactly what he wanted to hear. He was picking and choosing the things that he personally favored, and in most cases he favored those things before he even opened the discussion to the public.

Then by posting running slates, he ensured his favored options appeared regularly throughout the discussion and were discussed heavily. And just like textbook "CAP hijacking", you can significantly influence community opinion and voting in this way.

And no one really ever called him on it! I think most people were so impressed that he was doing all the busy work of collecting data from every thread, that they never bothered to realize that Bob was stacking almost every slate. Or maybe some people did notice, but they figured it was his right to do so, since he was the TL, so they kept quiet. I really don't know. Bugmaniacbob literally did whatever he wanted on CAP 4, and in most cases, the community didn't say a thing about it.

If Bob would have kept to the competitive threads for controlling slates to suit his personal tastes -- he probably would never have gotten on any moderators radar. Like I said, he was doing all the things we ask TL's to do. He was posting actively in every thread and people were mostly happy with the job he was doing. Almost every CAP has points where users bitch about the TL's choices, users complaining that the pokemon is going to be "broken", and users feeling like in one step or another that the TL was "unfair". So any complaints we see over slates or polls are typically ignored as background noise. Any problems with CAP 4 were likely to be passed off by CAP moderators as business-as-usual for a CAP project. But Bob got greedy and stupidly decided to lord his opinions over flavor too.

Keep in mind that Topic Leaders are chosen based on on their ability to lead competitive steps. We never, repeat NEVER, care two shits what the Topic Leader thinks about flavor. There is NO ONE that can do flavor any better than anyone else, so ultimately the only criteria for flavor of a CAP is community popularity. On the art steps, even though the process guide still technically says that the Topic Leader chooses the slate -- we expect the TL to slate every legal submission. On name slates, the TL is supposed to slate the most popular options, and the same goes for Pokedex entries. Movepool flavor is always completely up to the movepool submitter, and the TL is supposed to slate based on popularity and competitive concerns. These are long traditions on flavor steps and they rarely vary. We have had Topic Leaders slightly infringe on these expectations sometimes in the past, but nothing major. BMB came right out and openly admitted that he knew what he wanted out of names, move flavor, and dex entries -- and he ran the flavor steps like a total dictator with him issuing submission requirements verbatim and then slating options based on his personal whims.

When he pulled that nonsense, we knew without a doubt that BMB had taken the concept of CAP4 being "his project" to an unprecedented level. We started looking back at everything he had done on previous steps, and we started watching him more closely for everything he did after that. It became very clear that Bob was railroading the project on a course not driven by the concept or community principles, and there was nothing we could do about it without making a very big, very public mess of CAP 4. The community wasn't complaining much, and Bob wasn't breaking any rules, so there was no reason to make a big stink and intervene.

Bugmaniacbob obviously just "didn't get it" when it comes to some basic principles of the CAP project. He was shining a bright light on how the position of Topic Leader has become a twisted caricature of what it was supposed to be, but he wasn't damaging anything other than his own credibility with me and other CAP mods. We decided to just ride out CAP 4, and ensure that BMB's obviously misguided outlook on Create-A-Pokemon couldn't do any more damage to other areas of the project. So we shut down his PR threads, we revoked his access to CAP site content, we stopped trusting him as a leader in CAP, and we hunkered down as moderators and just waited for CAP 4 to end.

We waited for Policy Review, and now we need to take a hard look at the position of Topic Leader and put in some new policies. At a minimum, to prevent another CAP 4 happening again in the future. But possibly to put us on a better path to support the Create-A-Pokemon mission and principles. With that in mind, let's look at the history of Topic Leadership policy up until now, to help guide a path forward.


CAP Topic Leadership History

On the first several CAP projects, most topic leaders tended to be mostly an "administrative assistant" for the project, rather than a strong leader. Some TL's had bolder leadership styles than others, but all of them kinda collected feedback from everyone in each thread and administered polls. They did the bookkeeping for the project, pretty much. There were definitely leadership aspects to being a TL, in that the TL selected certain slates and made other decisions. But even on those slate selections, the TL was really just counting feedback and slating the options that seemed to be favored by the community.

For the first CAP project (Syclant), we had no official project structure. We had Cooper who was the "mini-mod" that organized and led all the CAP project threads, During CAP 1, vocal community members stepped up and argued for certain aspects over others. Although it was very messy and we never formally stated any specific goal or concept, through the discussions, a general concept sorta emerged. Many people wanted to emulate Infernape, with different typing, because Infernape was a metagame favorite by being a glass-cannon with mixed attacking stats, great coverage moves, and the ability to boost and set up. There was also a camp that wanted to deal with Garchomp, who was easily the most hated Pokemon in OU. So we ended up with a great mixed attacking capability, weak defenses, the ability to outspeed everything that reasonably threatened it, resistance to Earthquake, and the ability to blow completely through Yache Garchomp with STAB Ice attacks. Don't argue with me on whether CAP 1 achieved the "concept" or not, because a concept didn't exist. I'm just filling you in on the general tenor of conversations in CAP 1, in case you've ever wondered how we ended up with Syclant.

For CAP 2 Revenankh, Hyra was hand-picked by Cooper to organize CAP threads. Once again, vocal community discussion participants shaped the direction of the project. On that project we centered on making a good Bulk-Up user that could take advantage of Ghost/Fighting typing. Ghost/Fighting was selected because it could hit every typing in the metagame unresisted. The metagame was full of special Calm Minders, but no Pokemon at that time could really utilize Bulk Up nearly as effectively on the physical side of the game. So we quickly focused in on making Revenankh a Bulk Up abuser. We also were fascinated to explore if ShedRest (Shed Skin with Rest) would be preferable to LockLight (Air Lock with Moonlight). So this was the first time CAP really "experimented with the metagame" in terms of intentionally putting competitive options on a CAP expressly for the purpose of seeing which would be better in playtesting (BTW, ShedRest dominated by a mile). Revenankh was beautiful in its simplicity and power. The standard Revenankh set with Bulk Up/Hammer Arm/Shadow Sneak/Rest is probably the most dominant and overused single set in CAP history, but was never accused of being overpowered. In retrospect, I can easily argue that Revenankh was one of the most focused CAP projects we have ever executed from a concept perspective -- and we didn't even HAVE a formal concept step, and there was no such thing as a Topic Leader!

Then CAP 3 came around, and it rocked CAP from a leadership perspective.

The CAP project had been formally organized at that point, and Gothic Togekiss was selected to be Topic Leader by a TL Selection Committee of Cooper, Hyra, me, and a couple other members proposed by Cooper and Hyra, iirc. Gothic Togekiss was respected within the CAP community and he had been active from the very beginning with Syclant. Shortly after the typing of Grass/Fire was chosen, the direction of the project unraveled completely. Some members of the community wanted to make a big offensive sweeper, but vocal members like Aldaron and Mekkah were arguing for a much more subtle pokemon that leveraged big defenses and could wear down opponents with a SubSeed strategy. The controversy came to a boiling point when it was proposed to make Pyroak a user of an auto-Sun weather ability (either Drought or a custom ability with non-permanent Sun). Auto-weather was considered by many to be off-limits because it was the defining characteristic that separated the OU metagame from Ubers in the DP generation. The whole project was a shitstorm of fighting and difficulty. People were constantly poll-jumping to argue about later steps and we had no clue where we were going from one step to the next. I think we ended up learning a lot about competitive pokemon during the Pyroak project, but the process was a disaster.

After CAP 3, we implemented one of the most important policy changes in CAP history -- a formally selected Concept at the beginning of each CAP project. The idea was that a public formal Concept would eliminate the need to poll jump and it would serve as a compass for the project from start to finish.

From CAP 4 onward, the topic leaders we selected were generally big, well-known personalities on the project. Leaders like Sunday (CAP 4 Fidgit), Tennisace (CAP 5 Strategem), Darkie (CAP 6 Arghonaut), and Magmortified (CAP 7 Kitsunoh) -- these guys were all CAP moderators and/or Smogon staff. So people tended to listen to the TL, and the TL certainly had a lot of influence. But from a policy perspective, there was an implicit separation between the selected TL making a post as just a regular participant voicing their opinion on what we should do, and posts by that person when they were acting in an official capacity as Topic Leader of the project. Most of the "official acts" by the TL were still administrative in nature, and the TL's opinions in discussion threads were pretty much just like the opinions of any other influential member of the community. We now refer to that period of CAP as having a "Weak TL Model" because we did not expect or encourage the TL to strongly impose their opinions on the direction of a CAP project as an explicit function of their job as Topic Leader.

But we had a problem with the direction some CAPs took, mainly because community consensus tends to wander and encourages all sorts of bad voting behaviors. The biggest problem was that different voices in the community would be stronger during different steps, which made every step of the project twist the project in new directions. Even though we had been overtly selecting a Concept for every CAP since DP CAP 4 (Fidgit), those early projects still lacked truly cohesive direction from step to step along the way. People that were interested and knowledgeable about stat spreads would participate heavily in the stat threads, for example. If the vocal participants in those threads collectively interpreted that a bulky defensive mon was required for the concept, they would put all their influence behind bulky spreads. Then later in the project, the vocal movepool aficionados might be a different group of participants from those that argued heavily in the earlier stat spreads. And if those movepool experts had interpreted the best way to achieve the concept was a swift attacker, they would give the pokemon the movepool of a fast sweeper. So at the end of many CAP projects we would end up with a "Frankenstein's Monster" to a certain extent, where every part of the pokemon was built for a different purpose.

It all came to a head on CAP 8 with the building of Cyclohm.

I feel bad for Cyberzero (the CAP 8 TL) on that one because he was a very nice guy who worked hard on the project, and yet his leadership on that project will forever be remembered as the project that was so bad that we redefined the role of Topic Leader when it was done. Cyberzero honestly was not to blame for the lack of direction on that CAP. Cyberzero was the innocent fall guy for a host of problems, including blatant manipulation of voter opinion by some of the most influential members of the project.

Deck Knight has openly admitted that he "hijacked" CAP 8 to get his personal vision fulfilled, even though his concept lost in the Concept stage. The winning concept for CAP 8 was Elevator Music's "Neglected Ability", although DK's concept of "Paralysis Abusing Tank" fared decently in the concept polls. EM and others pretty openly favored Shield Dust as the preferred "neglected ability", and many people wanted the pokemon to have an offensive build. With Dragon typing, you can imagine the push for that sort of thing. Deck Knight saw an opportunity to use the broad non-specific concept as a way to get his original "para-abusing tank" concept fulfilled anyway. DK used his considerable influence to shift community opinion in a direction he favored. And at that time, it was not Cyberzero's job to lead direction in any particular way, or to try and stop DK from pushing his own agenda. With different interpretations as to how the concept should be fulfilled, there was a big "influence battle" during CAP 8 in almost every thread, with Deck Knight leading the way using the "hijacking tactics" I mentioned earlier. Previous CAP's always had their fair share of arguing, but CAP 8 was different.

There were campaigns and directions organized behind the scenes of CAP 8 to sway certain polls along a few distinct conceptual lines. I didn't like the way it went down, but I had a certain level of respect for DK for pulling it off in the end. After all, he didn't cheat or force anything. Deck Knight was not a CAP mod or even a CAP server mod at the time. He was just a very effective communicator and he led by convincing the community of the merits of his ideas -- and he took advantage of the mechanics of the CAP discussion process (ie. "hijacking"), but even that was kinda clever, I must admit. Through the whole project, Cyberzero just assessed overall community opinions and set up polls, and if those polls included a bunch of divergent options and interpretations on the concept, so be it. In the end, Cyclohm was as a bit of a jumbled mess and it felt like a mob brawl, but Deck Knight's "para-tank" hidden agenda won out a bit more than the rest. Deck personally won both the Stats and the Movepool steps, and he impacted almost every discussion, creating a vague semblance of competitive cohesion, even if it required subterfuge to get there.

The community as a whole was very frustrated after CAP 8. But it really wasn't Cyberzero's fault at all. And it really wasn't Deck Knight's fault, or the fault of any of the people arguing and influencing votes and polls. It was the project's fault for not having a better process that encouraged better, more focused discussions.

So after CAP 8 we implemented a bold new policy for Topic Leadership, what is now called "The Strong TL Model", which is the topic leadership model that still exists today in the Create-A-Pokemon process. The basic gist of the strong TL model is that we encourage the Topic Leader to take an active role in guiding community opinion. We ask the Topic Leader to not just sit back and make slates of the options mentioned the most in competitive threads. We ask the TL to assess the quality of community arguments as they relate to the chosen Concept, and to encourage people to come up with creative ways to solve competitive problems. When the community wanders from the chosen path, we put it on the TL to corral the herd and keep us in line. We want the TL to not just hear opinions, but to motivate discussion and debate. We ask the TL to use their position and power as a mechanism to drive a better community effort and increase project focus.

The very next project was CAP 9 Colossoil, and Plus was our first "strong" Topic Leader. And, my goodness, was he strong. Too strong, in my opinion. I cringed at how Plus handled some of those threads in CAP 9. Some of that was because Plus was a brash personality with a rude "I don't give a fuck" attitude most of the time anyway. So selecting him as TL and asking him to be "strong"? -- let's just say that we didn't have to ask him twice. He took the reins and ran with it, and did not hesitate to tell project participants to fuck off if they disagreed with him. I didn't really approve of some of his actions, but at the time I figured Plus was probably just overreacting a bit to previous wandering projects, and was maybe trying a little too hard to be the strong leader we all said we wanted on the project. So I kept my reservations to myself. And since Plus was popular on the CAP server amongst hardcore CAP battlers, it's not like Plus didn't represent the opinions of a big influential chunk of the community. Plus was a loud dominating jerk at times, but I always felt like he was trying to act as the champion for the CAP server battling community, and Colossoil was very much a product of that group's overall influence, not Plus going off and making his own personal pokemon.

CAP 10 Krillowatt was a watershed project from a CAP process change perspective. It was lead by Beej, who was a CAP server mod and well-liked by everyone on the project. The concept was "Utility Counter" which had many interpretations and was intended to produce a very diverse pokemon in the end. That project struggled from the outset with difficulty over ability selection, because Multitype was put on the table. After backroom consultations with the mods and the PRC, Beej wisely decided to pull Multitype off the table. But then Magic Guard came in and Krillowatt's movepool was statistically the all-time most powerful in CAP history. So, immediately following CAP 10, some big process changes were imposed to limit overall CAP power. As a Topic Leader, opinions probably vary as to whether Beej was responsible for the problems with Krillowatt or whether he should be praised for preventing it from being worse than it was. But as a Topic Leader, Beej did a good job assimilating input from the community (like with the Multitype dilemma) but still pushed to keep the project on course with a very broad concept.

On CAP 11, topic leadership took an interesting twist. The selected TL (Fuzznip) stepped down in mid-project and we had to ask Deck Knight to take over to finish the project. But that wasn't the interesting part. No matter who was in official capacity as the named Topic Leader, there is no doubt in my mind that Rising Dusk was the "leader" of that creation project. RD used high activity, cogent arguments, good writing, and competitive battling knowledge to shape every competitive discussion on that project. Although I won three polls on CAP 11 including concept, art, and name -- I will forever think of Voodoom as "Rising Dusk's project", and I think of it with respect. Rising Dusk led that project as regular member the way I wish Topic Leaders led every project from their official position! He pursued an innovative direction, he built community consensus without having any official power to control slates or poll outcomes, and the discussions that he engendered were some of the best in CAP history.

The weird thing is that over a year later on BW CAP 2 (Necturna), when Rising Dusk was the officially selected Topic Leader, I don't think Rising Dusk did as good a job with leading the community as he did on Voodoom. I'm not saying he did a bad job on Necturna. Necturna was an interesting project that had many great discussions and we learned a lot. But I felt like RD used his position as Topic Leader and mod as a bit of a crutch to take the easy way out on some project decisions. He didn't seem to work as hard at leading discussions. He seemed to have much more of a personal attachment to the outcome of polling decisions, instead of his previous enthusiasm for interesting debates about competitive battling. Maybe that was because RD was older in his Smogon career and he didn't have the same fire to prove himself like he did a year and a half earlier on Voodoom.

I can't say much bad about Rising Dusk as a community leader, because of the many people that have been involved in CAP leadership over the years, I feel that Rising Dusk "got it" more than just about anyone else with regards to the real underlying mission of CAP, and what it really means to have a "successful CAP project". I know RD got fed up with Smogon, CAP, and other things, and his involvement with CAP ended on a very sour note. But when he was on his game as a CAP leader, he was about as good as they come.

The two other BW CAP Topic Leaders, Reachzero (Tomohawk) and Deck Knight (Mollux) both did very nice jobs as Topic Leaders. Reachzero had so much knowledge of the game and as a Smogon Supermod was very experienced with the difficulties of leading community projects. He was the perfect choice for TL for the first CAP project in the wild new BW generation. And with Mollux, DK had not only been around CAP from the very beginning, but he also had to serve as TL for CAP 11 when Fuzznip quit. So CAP principles are infused in Deck's DNA. He knew when to push the community and when to sit back and take what the community gave him. Mollux had a tough concept to pull off, and I'm not sure we could have done it without Deck Knight at the helm.


Assessing CAP History

So in looking at CAP History, you can see a repeating pattern. A string of good projects, then one "disaster project" which prompts sweeping policy changes to re-align how we pursue a focused community direction. Previously, CAP 3 and CAP 8 were our "disasters", and formal Concepts and the Strong TL Model were our sweeping policy changes. Now we have a new "disaster" in BW CAP 4, and I think we need to consider some sweeping policy changes to get us back on track.

I very much feel that the progression of CAP Topic Leader policies has led us directly to the travesty of CAP 4 topic leadership. I didn't expect it to be thrown in our face so bluntly by BMB this time, with his selfish pursuit of making a legendary Bug pokemon. But I'm not entirely surprised that we finally ended up with a TL that pretty much looked the community straight in the face and said, in effect, "This is MY pokemon, not OUR pokemon."

Ever since the advent of the Strong TL Model, we have been steadily asking the Topic Leader to make more and more subjective decisions and take greater and greater ownership of the CAP project they lead. We have asked Topic Leaders to take previously long but completely democratic polling steps, and to use their subjective authority to streamline the process.

In the early days of Create-A-Pokemon, we used to start every CAP with an open Typing Poll with almost every Type available to choose in the first poll. And after the Primary Type was selected, we started all over again with every type, and through community votes we winnowed down to a single Secondary type. Now we ask the TL to make a big subjective assessment of a few valid dual typings and the community only chooses from that short selective list of options in a single typing poll. We did that to make the process shorter, which is a good thing. But we also did it to presumably protect the project from dumb community decisions. The implicit message to the TL is, "You are so much smarter than us, oh almighty TL. Please protect us from our own stupidity and use your wisdom to give us the gift of the One Good Typing Slate".

We took what used to be an objective list of Very Good Moves that were derived from statistical analysis, that were imposed on the project as firm rules for movepools to abide by. Now we have replaced it with a list of moves subjectively chosen by supposed Pokemon experts (whatever the fuck that means), and we have added all sorts of exceptions and subjective calls for the Topic Leader to determine if they want to observe the rules for their project or not. Once again, we have placed our trust in the subjective opinion of the TL, on the assumption that they know better than us what is best for the pokemon we are building.

We also put a lot of pressure on Topic Leaders to have a "successful project". No matter how many times we try to clarify what that means, at some level every TL fears their project will churn out a "bad" pokemon (whatever the fuck that means). Many of the noobs in the community bow down at the TL's feet. Other participants issue gloom and doom statements that the pokemon will be broken, or even worse -- it will (gasp!) get killed in OU play. We ask the Topic Leader to be our all-purpose Swiss army knife for preventing all negative outcomes for the project.

With this steady progression of TL power, the underlying belief was that Topic Leaders would still remain true to the project community goals and be altruistic in the use of their TL power. But with all that control and implicit hero worship going on -- it's inevitable that the Topic Leaders will go on a bit of a power trip. And it's unavoidable that they are going to associate their personal reputation with the pokemon we produce. The community places all these expectations on Topic Leaders and the Topic Leaders fall prey to the pressure. It was just a matter of time before we got burned by the power creep of Topic Leaders.

Sooner or later, a guy like Bugmaniacbob was bound to end up in the TL seat. His sense of ownership over the pokemon, combined with a willingness to ignore tradition and "soft rules", combined with a selfish goal, combined with a big work ethic to get his way, combined with almost unlimited TL power, combined with an entire community catering to his whims -- it led to a "perfect storm" of problems for the project's topic leadership on CAP 4.

So what do we do now?



Proposal: Get rid of the position of Topic Leader and replace it with a Topic Leadership Team.

I realize this would be a bold change that goes against all CAP history from the very beginning with Syclant. But I have long wondered if it really makes sense to put complete responsibility for a CAP project on one person's shoulders.

When I originally created the position of Topic Leader for DP CAP 3, my primary intention was to make it clear that I was not declaring myself the almighty leader of each pokemon creation (some people assumed I would) just because I was the guy in charge of the newly organized CAP project. I wanted a nice way to create a semblance of leadership hierarchy on CAP, because the only official leadership position we had was my role as forum moderator. The way I set up Topic Leaders to be selected was by a "TL Selection Committee" comprised of past Topic Leaders. So I was hoping that Topic Leaders would be a sort of leadership council for CAP, in addition to CAP server mods.

Well it didn't really work out that way, did it? Have any of you ever bothered to look at how many past Topic Leaders are still actively involved in CAP? Shockingly, astoundingly FEW! In fact, selecting someone as Topic Leader is usually not a step into further CAP leadership involvement. If you look at history, Topic Leader is almost always a death warrant on that leader's CAP career. Most people quit involvement with CAP COMPLETELY shortly after serving as TL, rather than getting further engaged. This has been a big red flag for me for a long time with CAP.

The responsibilities, work, and after-effects of Topic Leadership seems to drive our best and brightest CAP talents away from CAP and ends all future active involvement from them. It could be sheer coincidence. But it also could be some form of cause and effect. I can't pinpoint the reasons, but I have some guesses.

One possible explanation is that by the time a person amasses enough experience and clout in the community to get selected as Topic Leader, they are close to the end of their normal "Smogon lifespan" anyway. Also, there is the possible "burnout explanation". Topic Leader is a shitload of work, and when people are done with the job, they get burned out on Create-A-Pokemon altogether. Another factor may be the "Alexander the Great Syndrome", ie. "No more worlds to conquer". Many people spend their early CAP careers pining for the opportunity to lead a project and get their way when creating a pokemon. When a person finally climbs that mountain, and they actually get the reins and lead a project from start to finish, everything afterwards is kinda hollow by comparison.

I'm not sure exactly what are the reasons, if any. But it is an undeniable trend that being selected Topic Leader is usually the kiss of death for active CAP participation in the future. So we have not ended up with most Topic Leaders serving any real leadership function in CAP, other than the functional role they play during a given CAP.

And that functional role they play has now devolved to the point where Topic Leaders aren't really serving the community. Our latest TL used the position to take a personal victory lap around the project and indulged himself however he wished. And with each TL taking greater and greater liberties with their influence, they simply serve as an example to future Topic Leaders to do more of the same. If you add in the tendency for Topic Leaders to one-up everything that has come before, it's an ugly destructive spiral for Create-A-Pokemon.

The position of Topic Leader is not supposed to be like this. Yes, it is a prestigious position. But at its core, it is supposed to serve the functional role of LEADING TOPICS.

I think a possible better way to functionally lead topics during a given CAP, would be to spread the work of Topic Leadership across a team of people. The question is how to share the work and responsibilities across the different members of the Topic Leadership Team (TLT).

I don't think it would be a good idea to have every task or decision shared across the team and have team votes and all that. I have a feeling that would be a nightmare and wouldn't work. On the other hand, Smogon has a Tournament Director council, Tiering Councils, and all sorts of other small teams that work effectively to lead aspects of Smogon. So perhaps there is a way to make that work for CAP. My gut feeling is that it would be a mess. I suspect our process would get mired in communication delays between the TLT and possible infighting between TLT members.

We could assemble the TLT by each major step of the process, assigning each step of the process to be led by a single member of the TLT. Within that step, the individual TLT member would actually be a lot like the current Topic Leader, in terms of power and responsibility. But they would pass the TL mantle to another person for the next step. This has several huge benefits:
1) There could be a near-seamless transition from the current process to the new process, because each step of a CAP would still have a single "Topic Leader". Everyone would still defer to a topic leader for guiding discussion, making slates, and managing polls. I think we should reconsider how we ask each step to be led, because as I mentioned earlier, if we have a very active topic leader who wants to railroad a step, the current policy allows that to happen. But whatever changes we decide to make, it will be a seamless transition, even with a move to a TLT.

2) The workload and burnout issue becomes a non-factor. People don't need to block out two months from their schedule like current Topic Leaders. A TLT member would handle their step of the process for several days typically, and then pass the torch. With the current process, almost every TL is tired by the end of the project and those last few steps typically suffer because the TL doesn't actively manage the threads. With the TLT model, every step would have a fresh, enthusiastic topic leader ready to jump in and do the job.

3) The people we select to lead each step would be based on each person's unique qualifications for that step. We would ask a stat spread junkie to lead the stat spread steps, we ask a movepool enthusiast to lead movepool threads, etc. While some CAP participants are generalists that post actively in every thread, we also know that some people tend to participate more heavily in certain steps over others. By separating topic leadership, we can promote leaders uniquely suited to the job. Possibly we could establish qualifications like, "You must have placed in the Top 3 on a CAP movepool poll in order to be considered to be the Movepool Topic Leader for a CAP project." I'm not literally suggesting that qualification, but you get the idea.

4) We would sharply curb the tendency for people to feel like the CAP pokemon is their personal creation. It makes it a lot harder for the project to fall victim to selfish indulgence, because a single person simply can't control any more than a single aspect of the creation.

5) It absolves any one person from feeling like they will be "blamed" if the project doesn't meet everyone's expectations. People will still point fingers, I'm sure. But during the project, no one person will feel like they have a target on their back.​
There will also be potential drawbacks.
1) We will not have a single guiding vision throughout the project. After seeing 15 CAP projects unfold over the past five years -- I think the benefit of a single person's vision is way overrated. We achieved far more benefit when we started overtly picking a Concept, than we did by implementing the Strong TL Model. I don't think the Strong TL Model did much at all for making significantly more cohesive pokemon than we were getting before. Before we had the Strong TL Model, the TL's weren't really pushing the community with their "vision" anyway. The biggest driver of community focus is a good Concept, not a good TL. Yes, a good TL can keep us on path even with a messy Concept. But CAP history shows that most of the time, the community can and will follow a relatively defined path, with or without a single individual's guiding vision.

We may even get more consistent leadership with the TLT, because we won't have a drop-off in TL activity at the end of the project. My point is that current projects tend to lack the benefit of "consistent vision", because at the end of a CAP, the project tends to be a bit rudderless most of the time anyway after the TL is worn out and inactive. So this drawback may actually turn out to be a benefit.

2) People may not work as hard to prove themselves in CAP, because we have removed one of the most prestigious achievements in CAP (ie. the singular title of Topic Leader). Perhaps, but I don't think so. There are plenty of reasons to prove yourself in CAP. With a TLT, we arguably INCREASE the motivation for more people to prove themselves, because we make the reward of leading a CAP project much more accessible by creating multiple leadership positions. Yes, the reward is diluted quite a bit. But I think many more people will see a position on the TLT as being within their grasp.​
At the end of the CAP project, we may want to create a poll for "Best Topic Leader". This dovetails with the "Best Discussion" Policy Review we had recently, but for different reasons. By having an implicit competition amongst the members of the TLT, we encourage all of them to do their best. This competition also will tend to limit the drive for leaders to indulge selfish goals, because they will hurt their chances to win in the end. Along those same lines, we could recommend that we use "Supporting the Concept" as a criteria for judging the best individual TL. This will discourage leaders to veer in weird directions with their sections of the project that isn't consistent with the Concept. If we don't think the community at large is the right audience to make this sort of judgement, we could restrict it to a smaller expert group. I'm open to suggestions on the best way to do it.

The Best Topic Leader would be listed on the Credits page for that CAP pokemon, in the slot where we currently list the Topic Leader. No, we should not list the entire TLT. This gives a meaningful carrot for all TLT members to work for. It also has a nice tie to CAP history and tradition of having a single person identified in the CAP dex for their leadership on a given CAP.


Wrap Up
I've presented a mountain of information in this Policy Review. I'll stop here, even though there are many details left to be determined if we choose to pursue this proposal. I'm sick of writing, and you are probably sick of reading by now. If not, I applaud your stamina!

Topic Leadership is one of the most important aspects of Create-A-Pokemon, so I could not cover this without a lot of explanation and detail. For everyone that has read the whole thing, I hope it is very clear that I have not considered this lightly. This is not a knee-jerk reaction to CAP 4, even though the train wreck of our most recent CAP did trigger this Policy Review. This has been building for a very long time, and there are many factors that have contributed to the problems we face today with Topic Leadership. It is time for us to deal with it head on.
 

Birkal

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Let's talk. DJD's summary of CAP4 is very accurate from my perspective. As the CAP moderator who probably interacted with bugmaniacbob the most throughout CAP4, I can safely confirm everything that has been said in terms of his role as a TL. Towards the end of the project, he started doing some terrifying things that aren't in line with what CAP is all about. I want to emphasize that bugmaniacbob is not a horrendous person who should be banned from the project. He's still a hardworking community member who has done great work in the past. The take away message is that CAP 4 was lead poorly, and much of that can largely be attributed to him. As DJD mentioned, many of the "unspoken rules" were crossed throughout the process, specifically in relation to the CAP philosophy.

DougJustDoug was worried that the past TL history bit of his post was long and unnecessary, but I encouraged him to post it because the background information will be vital in how we proceed from this point forward. I hope that everyone to read it (along with the entire thing), not only because it's interesting, but because we can learn volumes from our past experiences.

I am forever an optimist who enjoys looking ahead towards the future. I won't dwell on bmb's derailing of CAP4; you can re-read the above post and it will give you a good glimpse of what my thoughts are on the issue. What I'd like to focus on is discussing the new model of leadership that DJD has proposed. So, let's talk about the Topic Leadership Team.


Inherently, I like the system and think we should press forward with it. There's a lot of little logistics that would need to be sorted out, but we need to decide if we accept the idea in general. Once we are on that page, we can continue forward with the little details. That being said, I'd encourage everyone to talk about the idea in broad terms first. Once we all get on the same page to either reject or deny the TLT model, then we can dig into the nitty gritty.

Being a TL has been described at the crowning achievement of any "significant" CAP member. I know that giving up the position will be tough for many, because it will feel like no one can achieve what those past 15 TLs did: create a Pokemon. But when you think of it that way, look in the mirror. CAP is a community project, and the glory should go to the entire community, not one individual. Really dig down inside yourself and ask why you want the TL position to stay around. I'll be honest with you here, I had to do some soul searching. Yeah, it sounds like a dream to lead this great community to build a competitive viable Pokemon. But that is not what we are about; no single member of this forum is more important than the entire community. I think ultimately, the TL position is the embodiment of a selfish idea that is holding down this project's potential. Therefore, if we were to have a vote on it, I would vote yes towards reforming our process towards a TLT system.

The part of the TLT model that concerns me is that we could potentially revert back to the "Frankenstein" creation process that occurred in between CAP4 and CAP8. By having different leaders of different sections, things are disjointed, to a degree. However, I think this could be resolved through consistent communication between the TLT. The team should be asking each other questions consistently, especially the team members that fall later in the process. The Movepool TL should be asking the Concept TL and the Stats TL for clarification on the work that has already been done, for example. The system also works in that there is now accountability. If you have someone as a Concept TL, they can follow through the project and constantly remind the community with, "Does x decision fall in line with the concept?" The TLT model effectively creates specialists for each facet of a CAP, which offers many benefits.

If I need to go into more detail about why I feel the benefits of a TLT system outweigh a TL system, let me know and I can provide more examples. At the end of the day, it comes down to our philosophy. "The Create-A-Pokémon project is a community dedicated to exploring and understanding the competitive Pokémon metagame by designing, creating, and playtesting new Pokémon concepts." Does having switching to a TLT system enable us to fulfill this better? I feel that it undoubtedly does, but I am interested in your thoughts as a PRC.
 
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Before I start, as I'm writing this:

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 10 (10 members and 0 guests) capefeather, Aldaron*, Birkal*, CBMeadow, JabbaTheGriffin*, Matthew, Misty**, Prawns, PureQuestion, Rediamond

holy shit

I was very unfortunate during this project to have had to duck out at important times (typically before midnight EST/EDT), and I feel I have missed out on a great deal of the discussions between other mods and bugmaniacbob. Although I suspected that everyone had a bit of an issue with how bugmaniacbob was doing things, I really must have missed out on a lot because the intensity of the OP was very surprising to me. As for myself, because maybe people don't know much about what I really think about this whole thing:

Throughout the project I wanted to look on the bright side of things and go with what bugmaniacbob was doing, because it at least seemed to make some amount of sense. Nonetheless, I definitely felt like I had to do things that I didn't think were necessarily conducive to the concept in order to win the competitive polls. With stats, I felt that a special attacker would be much easier to work with than a physical attacker, but there were people other than bugmaniacbob who really wanted physical attacks for various reasons, so I figured it would be suicide not to try to satisfy everybody in this regard. With the movepool, on the other hand, because of the whole controversy with Quiver Dance, I felt I could afford to take a bit of a stand and skimp on the special coverage moves other than Focus Blast, which I still think was by far the best coverage move to give CAP 4. I felt that other coverage moves were excessive, though with No Guard not serving the role I had initially intended (I wanted it to be the only ability, to serve as a "control"... but my opinions on the ability stage are best left to the appropriate thread), I ended up including Thunderbolt and Thunder as well. Of course, my stance on coverage moves apparently cost me the win and almost cost me the slate. So even with my efforts to soften the blows on bugmaniacbob, I have to admit I did feel strong-armed at various points in the project.

But that's not the real point of this thread...

So, the TLT. Initially, I was a bit worried that the TL position would be abolished entirely and we'd be discussing tennisace's model of mods being assigned specific positions. I really did not like the specific assignment part. I also feared that it would be a kneejerk reaction to CAP 4, and I didn't want the spirit of the TL system to die because of CAP 4. With that said, I think that the TLT is a fantastic idea. It's a lot better than having mods form a static leadership team, and it gets rid of the problems that we've had with the current model. The thing I really like about the TLT is that it would be a set of positions that one could get into in the near future, rather than months or even years in the future while existing veterans each get their turn. Plus, it would still be a prestigious position worth striving for. Finally, it gives more people the opportunity to lead the project to begin with. Right after the TL nominations, I sorely regretted applying as I realized I'd underestimated the amount of real-life adjustment I have had to do in the past few months, and I was relieved that I hadn't won. Now, I don't quite have to worry about any of that, plus I think I won't feel so bad if I applied repeatedly. I was definitely planning on not applying for TL of CAP 5.
 
I feel that the way the TLT has been explained all of the people in a group (let's say seven people) would have to be on the same page constantly and that's very difficult for obvious reasons. We can't really afford to have a project running along nicely and then one of the group takes it in a completely different direction.

That being said I'd rather have a team than one person dictating everything.
 

Deck Knight

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I'll probably be making a few posts in this thread as it moves along. I want to start by linking to the Smog article Doug mentioned because I think it gives a good idea of my thought process and the mood in the forum at the time.

Having sat in that Topic Leader's chair, and having been Cyclohm's chief instigator for lack of a better word, as well as a kind of muse for CAP's history as a living lightningrod elsewhere in Smogon, I think I have at least a valid perspective on some of the pressures and an insight into some of the concerns.

I'm not going to defend bob here, he made a mockery of the project almost from the word go, and although I'm not nearly as active as I used to be and arguably less active than I should have been, even a casual observer can look at the slates and the attitude in everything from competitive to flavor threads and see there was a serious problem. I had considered replacing my Dex entries in that thread with ones that openly mocked the hubris of it but due to a lack of time mostly and perhaps a shred of common sense, just kept with what I had.

It is a very stressful position, and I'll admit I may have let the support movepool lapse at the very end of Mollux and just approved hazards/spinning/light support to see where it went, but I think that also had some valid competitive merit. In any case I've marched through that marathon and I've been with this project a long time, and while I think there are serious drawbacks to the strong TL model (and the weak as well), the main problem with all the disaster projects has always had one key factor: poor concept selection.

By this I mean concepts which are vague and have no capacity for competitive direction, and are therefore useless to a competitive project.
Neglected Ability was obviously one of these, because it's not even really a concept so much as it is a characteristic. Give Chansey Poison Heal. I guarantee you Toxic Spikes is never going to see the light of day again, because poisoned Eviolite Chansey never dies (See: Hackmons).

The same can be said of Risky Business. Throughout that entire discussion about the only thing in common between posts of different contributors was that their sentences contained a subject, a verb, and some variant of the word "risk."

We have had more nebulous concepts before - reachzero did a fabulous job with "Momentum" because one of the first things he did was formulate the concept on making momentum rather than keeping it, thus de-emphasizing U-turn and Volt Switch and allowing us to focus on moves that actually change the game rather than maintain the gamestate. There really wasn't that kind of out with "Risky Business" because you can't really pin down and isolate risk. My initial thought is we were going to make a Rampardos-like Pokemon finessed in a Haxorus direction - a Pokemon that had a lot of innate drawbacks, but if it got in the one boost it needed, it could easily take 2-3 opponents down if not sweep outright. But that wasn't the only conception of risk out there, and the problem is that either bob intended to use that confusion to get his way, or he was incapable of isolating the focus on one particular element of risk and specifically testing that.

If it were just the latter, I wouldn't really have a problem, but lets get real: We have a Pokemon whose concept is supposed to be risk toting Base 600 stats and three of the most unique abilities in the game, one whose potential could easily be harnessed (ala Shield Dust with Cyclohm) and two whose implications were already clear. There is absolutely nothing risky about this creation, because it shares no element of risk outside the universal risk of a bad switch or a bad type match-up. Maybe I'm going too long on and on about the competitive implications here, but the point is this: Another disaster project was created because we had a poorly defined concept that either through deliberation or incompetence could not come anywhere close to its goal, and we're discussing it in large part because it was brought to that logical conclusion in a way entirely antithetical to the principles of CAP.

So while I'm willing to discuss the notion of a TLT instead of a TL, I think the assessment of the OP is right in that it is concepts, not leadership where we are led astray. To the extent the TLT prevents a single person from taking a nebulous concept down a one way freight train to Fanboy Land that is good in and of itself, and it would also help to have the TLT be a kind of executive board on the endgame of the concept, and have them slate it together. This causes a lot of problems with polljumping, but honestly, I think at concept your really do need to polljump to an endgame, and seriously ask yourself "how do we isolate this concept down to a specific test, and how hard will that be." For a concept like Momentum it can be difficult, but not impossible by focusing on a long-term element. For Risky Business I don't think you could cull it down to something specific, and it should be rejected on the basis it has no forseeable endgame of any kind.

Now I could be wrong, I'm hardly a hardcore battler anymore and probably peaked in ADV or early DP, but I think unless we empower whoever leads the project to be severely more discretionary in our concept selection, we're going to change, do a few projects, and then realize that six people can shift blame six ways for making another PR disaster like a BST 600 Bug/Psychic Pokemon with Illusion/No Guard and Quiver Dance/Tail Glow. So while I respect the notion we shouldn't focus on the nitty gritty, the problem isn't so much with the navigator, it's with the planned destination.
 
As the proud and unashamed submitter of CAP 4's concept, I have to disagree completely with Deck Knight pointing at the concept as the biggest problem, and moreso with the claim that it should be "fixed" to restrict it to specific flavours of concepts that are known to "work". A big theme in the CAP Leadership Compendium (and the reason for this thread's existence, even) has been that we shouldn't be afraid of failure. A project's failure is not a bad thing in the grand scheme of things, and it is certainly not an indication that a certain risk that we took should never be taken again. Abstract concepts like Momentum and Risky Business should not be shunned; they should be embraced for having so much potential for us to learn about the metagame in a way that we often talk about, but have never really pinned down. I see it as the responsibility of the topic leadership to take that and run with it in an engaging way.

Quite frankly, I have believed for a long time that we should expect more out of the topic leadership than we do currently as far as engaging the concept and the community goes - being an organizer rather than being a "visionary". This is a big part of why I really like the TLT idea for spreading out that load. I may be disagreeing with a lot of other people here in saying that I consider Rising_Dusk my favourite Generation V TL, and a huge part of that is because of how he handled polls. Every option had a well-explained reason for being there, and from there the vote came down to preference. I just really loved that about CAP 2 and I lament that that method hasn't been taken even further in subsequent CAP projects.

I'd like to thank Doug for his word choice because I was really afraid that it would justify what I think is a terrible attitude toward how to fix problems in CAP. Even though Doug said "broken", it was crystal clear that he meant "looks broken", making it about appearances. Appearances matter, as was established before, but I find it supremely important to distinguish appearances from actual competitive aspects. So I am adamantly against using CAP 4 as an excuse to move toward what I see as crippling CAP's potential for interesting discussion on competitive Pokémon, while not actually solving the problems facing us. I was going to postpone the bulk of this for the next PR thread, but considering Deck Knight's post and the IRC responses to it, I really feel that I need to make this stand now.

Not just that, but Doug, for all the harshness he put into his tone, ultimately looked at CAP 4's problems in a non-judgmental way. Being perhaps selfish does not make the TL "evil", nor does it invalidate every single decision that he made. The focus has to be on improving the process honestly, not on blaming people and complaining, which can only lead to MORE bad decisions and sledgehammer solutions. So while I can understand using this thread as a platform for complaining about various things, I think it would be wise not to expect Doug to agree with you.
 
Coincidentally, I was thinking about the role of Topic Leader and possible reforms earlier today; this thread could not have been made at a better time.

Upon reflection, the expressed concerns about CAP 4's leadership are legitimate if not completely validated. I feel, however, that the idea of TLT is a step too far in the other direction. As mentioned previously, I had been mulling over a few ideas earlier today and something akin to this was the first in my mind. There are a few problems with the idea.

Birkal said:
The part of the TLT model that concerns me is that we could potentially revert back to the "Frankenstein" creation process
This basically sums up the primary problem. Whereas a single, strong TL can be to 'specific' in their guiding of the project, multiple leaders will most likely lean towards individual biases making for a more broad and unfocused pokemon.

The other problem that came to my mind is the problem of image. From my limited experience, the TL almost feels like a 'divine' being, guiding the community in the 'right' direction. They become a figure head for the project; someone those outside the community can easily distinguish as a leader, and lest we forget "Appearances Matter." Speaking from experience it is very reassuring among new members to have somebody above you who can correct your mistakes and not be contested. Discord among authority figures is very bad for morale. A TLT model could easily begin to have internal conflicts which could drive away recruits.

I have an alternative idea to this but we should probably discuss and analyze this more before anything new is brought to the table. (available upon request)
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
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I don't want this to spin too far out of control so I think I'll do some retraction and clarification. I told you all I'd have a few posts lol.

Here's my starting point from mIRC today:


mIRC said:
[22:03] <~DougJustDoug> <&Deck_Knight> A lot of it comes down to the fact we've really let TL's BECOME the "Mini-Mod." This is almost literal: We make them project mods and the actual mods defer to them during a project. Bonus points for irony.
[22:03] <~DougJustDoug> ^missed this
[22:03] <~DougJustDoug> Great point
[22:03] <~DougJustDoug> Never realized that one
[22:03] <~DougJustDoug> Incredible irony
[22:04] <~DougJustDoug> Damn, I wish I would have thought of that one!
The general feedback I've been getting is that we're essentially trying to solve a problem matrix.

For the purposes of the following assume "Simple Concept" means well understood and executable and "Difficult Concept" means more vague and nebulous. Under this logic "Sketch Artist" would be a Simple Concept because it's pretty clear what needs to be done to execute it. "Momentum" would be a "Difficult Concept" because it requires a lot of interpretation and finesse to reach its aims.

As for "Good TL" and "Bad TL" I won't name names, but essentially Good TLs understand CAP principles and apply them well and can handle their concept, whereas Bad TLs cannot understand or do those things. These are not meant to be completely binary distinctions but serve as a general guide.

The matrix is as follows:

Simple Concept, Good TL: This is pretty much a breeze and while there can be some contention, everyone usually leaves this one feeling they accomplished something concrete. It has a fairly low risk potential and a decent reward. An example of this would be Sketch Artist with Dusk.

Difficult Concept, Good TL: This is more contentious and demands a lot more from the Topic Leader in terms of leadership, direction, and comprehending the concept and molding it into a successful product. It has a lot of risk, but very high rewards, much more than Simple Concept, Good TL. An example of this would be Momentum with reachzero.

Simple Concept, Bad TL: This results in a project that doesn't really meet everyone's expectations but quickly passes over. It can have some long term consequences on project policy but ultimately people just get excited for the next CAP and move on. Without naming names, this happened more often under the weak TL model because there really wasn't much direction, it was direct democracy and everything that goes with it it per CAP's dichotomy that design-by-committee sucks. In this case though, everyone knows the design because it's a simple pattern.

Difficult Concept, Bad TL: This is BW CAP 4 in a nutshell. Take a nebulous concept and give it to a person who is not in tune with CAP principles and you can have a serious problem on your hand where you can barely get any effective data out of the project at all, other than "this is the worst things need to change."

We've just experienced the last one for the first time, and now we're ambling to change things.

I think we should not be so hasty though, and we should really examine four key things:


1. What is the role of the Topic Leader?

Per the IRC blurb, the Strong TL of today is arguably even more of a mini-Mod than Cooper and Hyra were. Ever more power has been ceded to them by the moderators and the community, resulting in an extremely high pressure position exacerbated by non-interventionist policy on behalf of people in charge of administering the forum. I'm obviously including myself in this, this is how I see it with my moderator hat on.

2. What is the role of the Moderators?

Here is where I think things get hairy. On the one hand I think based on the above the moderators are essentially what the weak TL used to be - largely bystanders making sure to cull stupid, offensive, or irrelevant posts that distract from the project. When it comes to the actual leadership and slating elements though, moderators defer to the TL to a fault, and that tendency may be worth examining.

3. One-upsmanship in Topic Leading:

Let's be very clear here. Smogon is a competitive community. Our entire userbase is dedicated to being the next, the greatest, the best player, better than whoever preceded us, and this spirit is not dampened by CAP at all. The forum's highly competitive nature in fact probably exacerbates this problem as each TL seeks a newer and more ambitious project than the last. Again pointing to myself here, I literally said exactly that in the concept thread of CAP 3, that I would entertain very ambitious and bold ideas and try and bring them to fruition, almost to the fury of my fellow moderators when I intended to allow a Concept that would create a dual-CAP project - one that I had intended to use as a very clever way to test states of play.

Then Extreme Makeover: Typing Edition was selected and I set about trying to nail down exactly what constituted "bad" typing, and slowed Concept Assessment to a crawl since I knew that Typing was first on the block, and I wanted to be damn sure if someone looked at CAP 3 they'd say "wow, that's a terrible typing, how is that OU?" Pretty sure Fire/Poison qualifies but that's enough horn tooting.

What I'm trying to get at is we now have TL's that pine for ever more Difficult concepts to one-up the previous TL, and that impulse isn't going to change with a TLT. In fact having six or however many heads together may even exacerbate the problem by having an "all your powers combined!" effect. So perhaps I spoke inaccurately when I called Risky Business a "poor" concept - it is unquestionably a difficult one though.

4. The Quest for Novelty:

This dovetails into the above, but basically there is also a massive drive to make each CAP unique, and this feeds into appearance problems A LOT. Most of our CAPs have had unique typings for their time, in fact ALL of our BW CAPs thus far have a completely unique typing. How about abilities? Prankster, Intimidate, Dry Skin, Weak Armor, Illusion, No Guard - with the exception of the throwaway Forewarn on Necturna, these are all fairly powerful and metagame-relevant abilities (however much they may fulfill their concept). Combine this with difficult concepts and you have an entire community that goes way beyond thinking outside the box to a Nietzschean proclamation that "The Box is Dead!" Every CAP tries to reinvent the wheel by getting the community excited when a better alternative might be to play it safe, and we rely on the TL too much for that too when moderators and influential community members should also work against that impulse.

Before we go about changing how we lead topics, I think we should really address some of these underlying problems. Six people are no less likely to want to push the envelope and discard appearances for novelty than one person, and the ability to shift blame as a committee actually decreases accountability. We can all have a good row at BMB for CAP 4, but if we have a disaster the the TLT how exactly do we tell people that six of CAPs greatest contributors combined to form Arceus 2.0? I do not know what Doug's final decision will be, but I would prefer to examine the root causes of the CAP's failure beyond the leadership, because even the OP itself has stated we got more out of concrete concepts than we did changing the TL model. Before altering the leadership structure, we should examine exactly what we want them to be leading.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
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As I have finals approaching in a few days and I have already spent way too much time reading through the very enlightening posts before me, I can't post very much.

First off, I don't think the issues with the TL model are the "string of good CAPs followed by 1 disaster." I wasn't thrilled with Deck's work as the TL on Mollux at all. We very nearly had the Drought debacle that would have come off equally as bad as our abilities this time did, among other issues. To be clear, these are my personal beliefs and I'm sure I'm being biased on how Mollux turned out. I trust DJD's opinion when he has a general positive outlook on Deck's leadership on CAP 3.

That slight disagreement aside, yes, it is an undeniable fact that CAP 4's TLing was a debacle. I didn't read into everything quite the same way as it happened, but ex post facto I fully agree with the opinions DJD expressed.

I'm not confident that a TLT will work any better than a good singular TL. I think that a TLT will probably turn out on average less effective than a singular TL, provided s/he is a good. However, it will do much to avoid the issues of a tyrannical TL. I guess the question to consider is whether CAP should be taking that chance.

Furthermore, if concept is the most important aspect, as it sets the tone for the rest of the project, how do we fairly spread around the TLT's responsibilities? I fear that, given a TLT rotation, each member will in fact be even more imposing, since they only have one step to make their mark.

I'm much more in favor of a TLT set-up with maybe a more collaborative TLT to avoid that worry. Maybe a TLT of 3. All 3 work together during the concept and typing stages, one each then handles alone movepool, stats, and abilities. Flavor sections can be distributed equally as well, though obviously are hardly CAP-defining. If the other two firmly believe some option should/should not be slated that is/isn't being slated, they can override the TLT member actually running that step. This should be rare, to be clear, but it could be an important check to TL overlording. Something along those lines.

And now I'll read all the things I've missed in the meantime of writing this.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
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Alright, so we had a major brainstorming in #cap (if you are a PRC member and have never been there, try popping in sometime). Essentially, we came up with a resolution to this problem that we feel is largely agreeable and practical. The prime contributors were DougJustDoug, Deck Knight, jas61292, and myself, but we had plenty of help from other users like Bass, Vader, Zt, and others. What I'm going to do is post the log and then a summary. If you'd like to see how the proposal evolved, read the IRC log. If you're more interested in the proposal itself, skip the log and check out what comes after; the log is not required reading.

00:16 Forte yeah
00:16 Forte i haven't read doug's proposal yet
00:16 Forte but i have always considered the very existense of the TL as something that made the CAP process special
00:16 Birkal ^
00:17 jas61292 Agreed
00:17 Forte the idea of a random making himself heard over time
00:17 Deck_Knight The problem with making everyone a leader is then no one is really a leader. Or at least they percieve it that way.
00:17 v i agree with bass
00:17 Forte and then rising to prominence to lead his own project
00:17 Forte that was a big draw
00:17 Birkal I mean, that feeling can still exist in the form of getting CC or mods for CAP
00:17 Birkal those are definitely things to aspire for
00:18 Forte that is why the mods cannot replace them
00:18 Birkal but yes, the TL model is basically ingrained in our mindset since we've worked with it for so long
00:18 DougJustDoug Bass, I agree with that. It was a huge part of the CAP counter-culture to Smogon. In that we had guys without badges, who were "king for a project" and then passed the torch.
00:18 v it's different
00:18 v i would value being tl way more than a crappy badge
00:18 Zt DJD - back to those 2 points in your proposal then - if the community can be convinced that being a TLT is a prestige in and of itself, and that having multiple visions would not significantly impact the end results, I'm backing it.
00:18 v and i dont think im alone
00:19 Zt I do too, v, but the workload. Eurgh.
00:19 Deck_Knight Well, there wouldn't really be multiple visions, I imagine done properly you'd have a consensus vision.
00:19 Birkal but that's it, Zt
00:19 Zt Deck - it'd still be rather loose, granted. But yeah, I'm leaning towards DJD.
00:19 Birkal the people who apply to TL aren't afraid of the workload
00:19 Deck_Knight The problem there is the problem we face now: what happens when it isn't done properly, and in fact deliberately sabotaged.
00:20 Birkal they aren't afraid of anything; they are convinced they are TL material and ready for the challenge (so they think)
00:20 Deck_Knight You want to see a really nasty fight? Expand it from 2 people to 3 or 4.
00:20 DougJustDoug Vader, you are right that Topic Leader has been arguably more important than badges. And I have always stoked those notions. I wanted CAP TL to be a BIG DEAL (referring to my compendium post).
00:20 Zt Can we truly say that Birkal? Or that they are not aware of the true idea of what TL entails?
00:21 v it's more stress than people expect, zt
00:21 Deck_Knight TL is pretty rough, and you get the personality that comes with the person.
00:22 Zt Honestly, I still don't see being a TL is any different with being a TLT - sharing the limelight isn't that big of a deal, and you are still leading - or co-leading a CAP.
00:22 Forte also
00:22 Forte "But, like I said, we really didn't want any drama, so we did nothing at that point to curb BMB's increasingly subjective control over every aspect of what was supposed to be a community project."
00:23 Forte to quote Aragorn in LOTR
00:23 Forte "Open war is upon you whether you would risk it or not."
00:23 Zt Deck - if the TLT comes to a bitchfight, then I think that's where the mods come in.
00:23 Birkal Here's the point I want to make about ditching the TL. I couldn't find any reason to keep the position around other than "it's prestigious and it's something I could picture myself doing someday." But the problem that arose was that that statement is dependent on me, not the CAP community.
00:24 Birkal When you have a TL, it staples that CAP to an individual, rather than the community.
00:24 Deck_Knight If we're not going to break up the bad actions of one person, why would we suddenly change and break up the bad actions between two or three?
00:24 Zt TLTs are supposed to be buddies for that one CAP - if there exists a rift, then they need someone on the outside to lay bare the problem and attempt patching.
00:25 DougJustDoug I also don't think any of you understand the burnout factor. Very few TL's have ever really finished a CAP. Most are checked out somewhere in the mess of stat spreads. And ALL are checked out by the movepool stage -- which is a MASSIVE reason I did all that movepool limits stuff, because we just could not count on TL's to be paying attention. That's why CAP movepools have been perenially fucked.
00:25 Zt And I think should something bad happens, there need be no finger-pointing - everyone shares the blame.
00:25 DougJustDoug There is no "consistent vision" on any CAP. Because by the end, we have no leader at all.
00:25 DougJustDoug That is a fact.
00:25 DougJustDoug Every time.
00:25 Zt Leading a part of a CAP process doesn't mean a TLT can't post or voice out in another.
00:27 DougJustDoug I challenge any of you to claim that we have engaged, active Topic Leaders throughout an entire CAP.
00:29 Kadew Geez guys stop having such a riveting discussion, I want to sleep but i don't want to miss a word of all these opinions and ideas flying about
00:29 Kadew (don't stop)
00:29 DougJustDoug And btw, the very nature of movepools is such that it is the WORST step to be left to community discussion.
00:29 Deck_Knight Can't count me cause I'm nuts. That said TL's go in expecting a high workload, what's the stop members of the TLT from slacking off because they thought it was all about sharing the load? People are people. But the topic is still young so I can wait for a few more concrete posts.
00:31 jas61292 Deck really is saying what I think best. I believe it is folly to think having multiple people will fix the majority of problems.
00:31 Zt Deck - to go in the details part, Slacking TLTs are probably removed from the Final Product... And I'd like to think having a smaller workload encourages attention to detail and relieves TL superstress. People are people, again.
00:32 Zt jas - it doesn't fix it totally, but I think it'd be a good step towards fixing.
00:33 jas61292 I just see it causing different problems. Not necessarily more or less. fix some, add some new ones, and take a lot of others and keep them but just for different reasons
00:33 Zt Well, nothing is perfect, we can't expect and address every contingency here and now.
00:33 Deck_Knight In any case these are all hypothetical problems, I'm much more concerned with the problems I identified earlier with the matrix and oneupsmanship/power creep.
00:34 Zt But I think we can all see this problem -
00:34 DougJustDoug I will say this -- I am not married to the idea of a TLT. I am married to the idea of trying to improve the quality of topic leadership in CAP, and removing some of our biggest problems. So I am completely open to alternative proposals.
00:34 Zt That TLs have large workloads and even larger power, which unhinges them sooner or later.
00:34 Zt So what can we do to lessen workloads, limit power, and make our TLs sane again?
00:35 jas61292 TLs will never be sane
00:35 Zt Yeah jas, if you say so.
00:36 Zt Strike the third, then - 2 outta 3 is better than half.
00:36 Deck_Knight We actually tried to do that by making the mods open/close threads, but that was pretty much the extent of it.
00:36 Zt Deck - that didn't help, at all.
00:37 Deck_Knight Not disagreeing there.
00:37 Zt Maybe not allowing TLs to "hijack" legitimately?
00:37 Birkal what do those definitions even mean?
00:38 Birkal not trying to be pessimistic, but those are very broad terms
00:38 Birkal at one point do you discover that the project is "legitimately hijacked"
00:38 Zt Basically, TLs "open" discussion by setting the tone and direction on the first post.
00:38 Birkal ugh, it is such a gray area though
00:38 Zt Bob abused this by setting the tone /very/ specifically.
00:38 Birkal and that's something we as CAP mods struggled with throughout CAP4
00:38 Zt So what if TLs no longer post first?
00:38 Birkal it is very easy to identify in retrospect
00:40 Zt TLs would then have to contend with faster hijackers (Hullo there Deck) but they still retain the right to summarise, to give opinions, and debate, shaping the community voice using their talents instead of inherent power.
00:40 Zt "You can hog, TL - you just can't post first if you ain't fast enough"
00:40 jas61292 That is something I have thought about before. I know that often times I would rather hear what others are thinking before restricting the direction
00:40 Deck_Knight The problem is you can't really identify the red flag until you're halfway through ability and they've made multiple dubious slates.
00:40 Forte finally done with the first part of the thread
00:40 Deck_Knight We COULD have called him out on the Grass/Flying weirdness, but there'd be a convincing excuse for it.
00:41 Forte especially at the end
00:41 Forte when i see this
00:41 Forte i cant help but cringe a bit whenever someone gets vetoed a nom for a badge in the future on the basis of maturity
00:41 Birkal well, you can change a TL's mind. bmb was against dragon in his OP of typing discussion, but I turned that around fast
00:42 Birkal but yes, perhaps posting first isn't the best way to go about it
00:42 Forte when we have someone right here with 5 being such a poor example
00:42 Forte but that's also hilarious
00:42 Deck_Knight Either that or he was faking you out Birkal. He wanted a psuedo-legend and wouldn't have been satisfied with Bug/Dragon?
00:42 Forte i actually laughted when doug described the cap 4 final product post as a "testament"
00:43 Birkal right deck
00:43 Forte i have some reading to do
00:43 Birkal when I suggested dragon competitively, the ringers went off for "bug dragon"
00:43 Zt Rather than debating the past, why not think what the future can do?
00:43 Birkal so yes, it was immediately reconsidered
00:43 v bug dragon tinted lens
00:43 uwnim That was something we decided would not happen
00:44 Zt Anyway, gotta go meet Haytham Kenway.
00:44 DougJustDoug Intervening in an ongoing CAP is so much harder than you might think. CAP moves really fast. Most threads are open for a day or so. So when problems come up, it takes a while for mods to communicate and figure out if there is a legit problem and what to do about it.
00:44 DougJustDoug By that time, people have posted or votes are cast and to a certain extent, you are kinda locked in.
00:44 DougJustDoug And if you want to change things, everything gets fucked up. Polls are tainted, or dicussions derailed, and it is always accompanied with people protesting and cheering, just adding to the drama.
00:44 DougJustDoug It is practically impossible to intervene
00:45 DougJustDoug Without making a total shitstorm
00:46 Deck_Knight Hmmmm
00:46 Birkal I can definitely attest to that
00:46 Deck_Knight Let me run this thought by you.
00:47 Deck_Knight What if we had sectional TLs and a "directing" TL that did a co-slate by vote of the section TL and the directing TL? It would still allow there to be someone with responsibility, without allowing them to railroad everything.

00:48 Deck_Knight Granted this came off the top of my head.
00:48 Deck_Knight And it's quarter of two here.
00:48 Birkal so you're suggestiong
00:48 jas61292 I was actually thinking of something similar.
00:48 Birkal you have a TLT with a TL residing over them?
00:48 DougJustDoug DK, you are on a similar tack that I was thinking
00:48 Birkal haha that is quaint
00:48 Birkal it is like, a king with advisors
00:49 Birkal kind of gig
00:49 Deck_Knight Without necessarily those titles, but I think we'd have the "Concept TL" be that person, and have them be elected by the other TLs on the TLT.
00:49 jas61292 lol that is exactly the analogy I had thought of
00:49 Birkal you have a specific advisor for a specific area, but you have an overarching figure that guides it all
00:49 DougJustDoug Birkal, rememeber our chat about having Mods "approve" the TL's slate, just to make sure it was composed fairly and in accordance with CAP principles?
00:49 Birkal yes deck, I absolutely agree
00:50 Birkal concept is essentially what drives it
00:50 Birkal and yes DJD
00:50 jas61292 I feel like something to that effect would keep a lot of the good that comes from having a TL, while adding in support to fix problems
00:50 Deck_Knight I think in the haste for how bad bob did we forgot how good reach did, taking a concept and really shaping it into something effective.
00:51 jas61292 ^
00:51 DougJustDoug Maybe we could have the TL do that, as the executive leader of the CAP like Deck suggests.
00:51 Birkal well what Deck is suggesting is that the Concept TL essentially be the TL
00:51 Deck_Knight And even though I got a lot of flack for dragging the Concept Assessment out, I think it really did let us crystalize what would constitute a "bad" typing before the typing poll.
00:51 Birkal which I agree with, since concept is such a driving force
00:52 Birkal but DJD, where this varies is that the council isn't the moderators, but rather the TLT that you've suggested
00:52 Birkal a group of people who have chosen to lead in some capacity
00:52 Deck_Knight Along with the executive decision to basically say "No WG/MG/MB - the type is the type, the hazard weakness the hazard weakness, and immunity abilities are still up for discussion because of Heatran/Rotom etc."
00:53 DougJustDoug I have no problem if we make the TL the owner of the concept interpretation and vision. But I think we need to take away their ability to directly make all slates. So DK suggestion works pretty well for that.
00:53 Birkal The immediate problem that I see with the system is this: who wears the pants? If an executive decision needs to be made, does the Concept TL or the specific TL have the authority?
00:54 Birkal it's true that those kinds of things could be solved with bringing the specific case to the CAP moderators
00:54 jas61292 That would be something that would need to have a definite answer
00:54 Birkal If you went with it, you need a TLT that is strong and not willing to cave into the Concept TL
00:54 Birkal because if they cave, then CAP4 could happen and we've solved nothing
00:55 Deck_Knight Slating would have to be a unanimous vote from both TLs, but if you wanted to change something like poll order I imagine it wouldn't be that difficult to get the TLTeam to agree.
00:55 DougJustDoug And we can still have some direct language in our process guide that puts responsibility on CAP mods to intervene at any sign of unethical behavior -- basically giving mods clear domain to interpret bad stuff and act on it, which was a big problem for us when Bob was pulling his shenanigans.
00:57 Birkal it is a tough question, but I think those disputes could be handled when brought forth to the CAP mods.
00:57 Birkal it's also easier for a moderator to approach two people
00:57 Birkal and ask what's going on with a certain stage if things are looking sketchy
00:57 DougJustDoug I think it is huge to give a person the power to make a slate. And if we make it clear that the TLT makes slates for their step -- but concept is interpreted by the TL, and the TL has the power to veto a slate and ask for a re-slate. That gives classic executive-legislative check and balance.
00:57 Birkal because then you have less biased views
00:58 DougJustDoug And if they can't get their shit together -- the mods intervene.
00:58 Birkal I like that, DJD
00:58 DougJustDoug And if the mods can't get their shit together -- I intervene.
00:58 SgtWoodsy and if you can't get your shit together
00:58 SgtWoodsy we're all fucked
00:58 Birkal it works well, because you have the specialist making the slates, but you have the TL serving as a sort of QC to make sure the "frankenstein effect" isn't occuring
00:58 Deck_Knight Then CHAOS shall reign
00:59 DougJustDoug And if I can't get my shit together, we all laugh and play pokemon.
00:59 Deck_Knight If you can pull him from Princeton.
00:59 jas61292 lol
00:59 Birkal I like this system a lot
00:59 jas61292 So do I
00:59 Birkal I feel like it has a good harmony between the TLT system and the current TL system
00:59 SgtWoodsy actually if doug can't get his shit together
00:59 SgtWoodsy defer to his kids
01:00 Birkal defer to cornmon
01:00 Birkal imo
01:00 Deck_Knight It also gives people something to strive for, to be selected by their peers for the Concept/Directing TL.
01:00 Birkal goodness, I think placing people in each of these spots is something we need to work out though
01:00 Birkal I don't think both TL and TLT should be a public vote
01:00 Birkal or that the TL picks their TLT
01:01 Birkal I don't know a good way of going about that, perhaps involve PRC or mods?
01:01 Deck_Knight No, the public would pick the TLT, and the TLTs would vote among their members to select a TL.
01:01 Birkal oh
01:01 Birkal that works, heh
01:01 Deck_Knight Kind of like how the House and Senate was before the 17th Amendment.
01:02 Birkal but think about this, what if you wanted to be on the TLT, but your sole interest was just to be the Movepool TL
01:02 jas61292 The only real pro...yeah that
01:03 Birkal is there a way that you can tell the TLT group that information and get it worked out logistically?
01:04 DougJustDoug I would like to see TLT viewed as a much more accessible position than TL
01:04 jas61292 That is one reason I am not really in love with the who specific part leader thing. Ideally, I would want all TLT members to be able to do all parts, and while they end up with just one, they will be able to do it no matter what. However, that would require TL level credentials, and I doubt we will consistantly get enough people who think they can do that
01:04 Deck_Knight Ideally we'd have people nominate themselves for the position they wanted, and then have the TLTs choose one of the nominees that didn't win (or have one of them move up and have the runner up take their place) to fill the Concept TL slot.
01:05 DougJustDoug I don't see this as a president-cabinet thing. I see it as President-Congress thing
01:05 DougJustDoug I think the selections are different
01:06 DougJustDoug I don't know how to pull it off
01:06 jas61292 The only easy way to do it is to have the TL select the TLT, but that is not really a good way to do it, imo.
01:07 Yilx holy shit great wall of text
01:07 jas61292 Personally, I think the best way would to have them all be popular vote, but choosing the TL first
01:07 Yilx cower in fear
01:07 DougJustDoug But I'd rather the TLT to respect the position of TL and understands they are in a more powerful position -- but the TL needs to feel they have a mandate to execute their step to the best of their ability. Not a lackey for the TL.
01:07 Deck_Knight I still like nominating for everything but concept for a public vote, then a vote of the winning members from any of the candidates for concept TL, and have a runner-up fill in any vacancy caused by that vote.
01:07 DougJustDoug *whoops
01:07 DougJustDoug *but the TLT needs to feel they have a mandate to execute their step to the best of their ability. Not a lackey for the TL.
01:08 Deck_Knight Right, that's why I wanted the TL to be elected by the TLT (either from their ranks or a runner up that showed interest) rather than the general public.
01:08 Birkal hmm
01:08 Deck_Knight So general public votes for TLT, TLT elects TL.
01:08 Birkal I like that, Deck
01:09 Birkal the TL is not one of their ranks
01:09 DougJustDoug I agree with that Deck
01:09 Birkal so you have the TLT cemented before that point
01:09 Birkal and then they look at who they think would mesh well with all of them and the CAP community
01:09 DougJustDoug The TLT serves the electing role the PRC served in the past
01:09 Birkal yes, but they are much more intimately related to the TL
01:10 DougJustDoug Yeah, that's kinda cool.
01:10 jas61292 The problem I see with that is what people who want to be TL do. Do they apply for a TLT position or what?
01:10 uwnim That does sound good. Anyways, going to sleep.
01:10 Birkal alright Deck question: when applying for TLT, do you get to pick which category you preside over? or is that worked out after the vote?
01:10 Birkal (the question is open to anyone, haha)
01:11 Deck_Knight I'd say you nominate yourself for one of the non-concept slots. You all get voted in on a slate for each office.
01:11 DougJustDoug jas, we could play that like we did with the PRC
01:11 jas61292 Ideally, I'd like the former, but functionally, that might not work as well as the ladder
01:11 jas61292 *latter
01:11 Birkal how so, DJD?
01:12 jas61292 Yeah, I'm not sure I get that
01:15 DougJustDoug We basically allow a single nomination post, but they can apply for multiple positions -- just TL, just TLT step <X>, or both.
01:16 DougJustDoug Like in the past, we just assumed all TL nominees wanted to be on the PRC too. So the one nom counted for both.
01:16 jas61292 Oh, that could work
01:17 Birkal oh yeah, that works
01:18 Deck_Knight Yup, that's how it's supposed to work.
01:18 Birkal well, I feel that this system is really solid
01:18 Birkal or at least is good for us to start working with, or at least bring up on the forums
01:18 Deck_Knight I think this keeps the best of both worlds, increasing participation, maintaining accountability, and avoiding a one-person hijacking.



New Proposal: TL + TLT Model

This system strives to preserve the good aspects of the TL system, and yet fix many of the current problems by adding a TLT (topic leader team) model. When discussing the Topic Leadership Team, some of the CAP veterans pushed hard for maintaining the prestige of the TL position. That is certainly validated; the TL position has served as an inspiration for serious CAP posters. However, that position essentially has unbridled power at the moment. If you install a TLT into the previously existing TL system, however, you create a system of checks and balances that smooths out a surprising amount of creases. Check it out:

Each CAP would be run by a TL and a TLT. As Deck suggested in the above log, the TL in this new model is the suggested "Concept TL" of the TLT model. In English: the Topic Leader has control over the concept and makes sure that its presence resounds throughout the entire CAP. This user is the one interacting with the members and making sure that everyone is considering the concept at each stage.

In this system, the TLT holds the power to make slates. I suggested in the log that this system is like a king with his advisors. The TL has the overarching vision, but the advisors get the work done and have great responsibility. When it comes to leading CAP, slating is essentially the greatest power one can have. In this proposed system, the TLT members make the slate. As DJD stated in his proposal, each TLT is a "specialist" in their area, meaning that the Movepool TLT will make the slate for movepools, etc.

The TL holds the right to veto a TLT member's slate. This is where things get interesting. If the TLT member of a thread makes a slate that does not match the concept, the overarching TL has the ability to call for a re-slate. At that point, the TLT member in question and the TL can communicate to reach a reasonable slate. If they can't work it out, they will go to the CAP moderators, who will resolve the situation.​


That is the system in a very brief nutshell. Applying for the positions is easy; you post in the CAP X Nominations thread whether you want to be the TL, Movepool TLT, Ability TLT, or what have yee. The TLT is decided first by public vote. Once the TLT is selected, they will vote as a group who they would like to be the TL (aka the Concept TLT).

Man, we need to retool this to have less abbreviations. If you're a kinesthetic learner (like me), you are probably completely lost. Although I can't help too much in that area, let me provide a simulation of how this would run (this isn't required reading either).


CAP6 is beginning! CAP 6 Topic Leader Nominations are now open!

> Jim runs for TL
> Susie runs for TL
> Jethro runs for Movepool TLT
> Hank runs for Movepool TLT and TL
> Gustov runs for Movepool TLT
> Samantha runs for Typing TLT
> Another guy runs for Typing TLT
> This goes on for all TLT members

The CAP community votes on the TLT.

> Jethro is promoted to CAP6 Movepool TLT.
> Samantha is promoted to CAP6 Typing TLT.
> Until all the slots are filled.

At this point, the TLT meets to discuss who they would like to be the TL. Of the users I listed above, they can consider Jim, Susie, and Hank.

> Hank is selected as the CAP 6 TL, and what a fine TL he will make. Nicely done, Hank.

CAP 6 Begins!

> Concept submissions go up. Hank is the driving force who makes the slate.

> Typing discussion goes up. Samantha now holds the reigns and makes the slate. Hank does his best to make sure the concept is upheld by posting in the thread.

> Many more steps take place.

> Movepool discussion goes up. Jethro tries, but he ends up making a slate that Hank doesn't think fits the concept. Hank requests a re-slate.

> Jethro and Hank can't work it out; Shell Smash is too darn tempting. The case is brought before the CAP mods, where Deck Knight will predictably disallow it because it doesn't really fit any CAP concept ever.

> The new slate is made and CAP6 continues.



I hope that accurately explains what this new TL + TLT model is all about. Again, there are little logistical things that would need to be addressed. Overall, I feel that this is a much stronger model than either of the previously suggested ones. Let us know what you think; if you guys like it as much as we do, let's pursue it.
 

ginganinja

It's all coming back to me now
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Having to redo my post as of birkals newest post so its 150% shorter than it was :(

On CAP 4


I won't dwell on this too much, since its not entirely relevant to this thread, but suffix to say, it was exceptionally obvious that bmb's goal was "ultimate bug pokemon" and it was discouraging for me as a submitter, since it was generally like "why bother" when the TL was going to pick whatever he wanted, ignoring the community input. I don't want to linger on this however, since enough has already been said on the topic and I feel like I am ignoring the entire point of the thread which is...

The TLT + TL concept

Personally, I think its a good concept, although I am just wondering how much power the TL has over the TLT (mostly in light of CAP 4 having a TL who ignored the warnings the moderation staff, as well as several members of the community). I think the TLT having input into the selection of the TL is a good thing, since I would imagine someone the TLT can communicate with (and a TL who can perhaps listen to the TLT would be a strong TL, which then removes the problems that we had in CAP 4). Anyway, I do like having a dedicated TL since it gives clear direction for the concept (the most important part of the CAP process), so I guess its the best of both worlds and overall, I think its a good idea we should look at.
 

Bull of Heaven

Guest
I have always thought of the TL as the sort of "administrative assistant" Doug described, and remember being uneasy about the "Strong TL Model" when it was first introduced because I didn't like the power it granted to one individual. Given my doubts, and the community-oriented nature of the CAP project, I interepreted the role of the "Strong TL" to be quality control: to eliminate "bad" options without steering the CAP too strongly. While this thread has mentioned the distinction between a TL guiding a CAP according to some "vision," and a TL steering the CAP toward his own selfish interests, I have always taken discussion of the former to be a warning sign of the latter. That's not to say I wasn't surprised by BMB's leadership. He took what I had always been concerned about to a level I had never expected, by not only selfishly steering the project, but also being so open about what he was doing. As others have said, it was clearly not done maliciously. By the "final product" thread, it was clear that BMB just didn't "get it;" he explained the Dex entries by restating that he has no interest in them, ignoring the actual problem of what a TL can and should reasonably do with his power. This, I think, demonstrates the need for leadership reform better than a "malicious" TL would have, as we need to address the leadership model that allowed such a respected contributor to lose his way without ever seeming to realize that it was lost.

The problem with my way of looking at this is that it comes from a simpler time that CAP has left behind. However uncomfortable I am with the TL having a clear "vision" for the project, today's concepts demand that some sort of vision exist. My initial thought before reading this thread was to hold a vote after concept assessment, choosing from a list of "guiding principles" or something that had come up in discussion. I wasn't entirely happy with this idea, though, as this would not necessarily make a concept any less vague or open-ended, and "guiding principles" that were not perfectly clear could be easily lost if they were divorced from the powerful figure of the TL. A TLT looked promising, and I am not so concerned about going back to the "Frankenstein" creation process, but it does not necessarily solve the problem of providing a vision. I had also not considered the "prestige" of the TL, and its relevance to CAP participation.

Given those thoughts, I think that the TL + TLT model addresses my concerns quite well, and is worth trying in future projects. While I will never be perfectly comfortable with one person being assigned to guide according to the concept, it is simply not practical to try to proceed without someone's vision, and the community vote I mentioned above would risk simply creating a mess. Taking the power of slating away from the TL should be an excellent check on this vision, as the community was so easily steered in CAP 4 by its collective concern about the TL's slate. It would also seem to help with the problem of TL burnout; while I'm not connected enough to confirm this, it seems to me that slating is the main source of stress for the TL. While I'd still like to read more arguments, I strongly support this proposal as things stand now.

I have not yet read the IRC log, and hope that I am not just restating things from there.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
The TL + TLT team set-up is not all that far off from what I proposed in my post above and I hadn't been in the irc chat. I think something along those lines is absolutely viable and very reasonable. It provides clear framework for it to operate under normal circumstances, while also clearly articulating when Mods have the power to step in.

Also, I love it because it enables more users to assume leadership positions without them having to fear the stress of being a strong-TL or the CAP community having to fear them screwing up.




Oh, and one last thing. In our scenario, since Hank didn't win Movepool TLT, he is still eligible for TL, for which he must have been best for the job, since he won that vote by the TLT. If the TLT elections are first, what happens when Hank wins Movepool TLT? Is he denied eligibility for TL? I think one detail to consider is that Hank should remain eligible for TL, and should he win, then Movepool TLT is taken over by the runner-up in that poll.
 
The proposed TL+TLT model fixes every problem I had brought up previously. It is strikingly similar to the model I had planned on bringing up adding only a system of vetoing, that the TLT appoints the TL, and a different name; I had been calling mine TLnA, TL 'n Assembly, which I think has a nice ring to it. I feel the proposed model, TL+TLT, is superior to my own and far superior to he TLT model, which I was against.

I don't exactly like the idea of moderators having the final say on the project if negotiations go to shit; I think of moderators as the users who enforce the rules, not those whose voice counts for more or those with a perfect sense of what's right and wrong in the project. I guess the main reason I don't like this is because, in a community project, each position with influence should have been selected by the community. Maybe during the TL and TLT nominations we also have users apply for a position on this back up committee, which moderators could run for if they wish. I don't mean I don't want moderators in power, I mean I don't want them to have power just because they're moderators. That would sort my only issue.


Other than that I have only positive things to say about the TL+TLT model. It provides the figure head that looks appealing to those outside of the community, it allows for sub-leadership positions that could be used to 'test' the leadership skills of some members before giving them more powerful positions, and it allows for consistency due to the main TL overseeing the entire process.

Also, as I didn't know how to fit this in, I agree with srk's idea regarding Hank.

Edit: Considering it would be rather arbitrary to have another elected position when most, including me, would simply vote for the mods, they being the current most qualified, anyway I will withdraw my complaint, though in the future if users who aren't mods seem better fit to have that authority then I will bring this up again, assuming this model passes.
 
^Hopefully we won't have to have moderators step in, but considering such a scenario is possible, somebody has to be there to step in.

Alright, so we had a major brainstorming in #cap (if you are a PRC member and have never been there, try popping in sometime).
Can we please stop doing this at ungodly hours? I feel left out D:

So now I have to digest this new proposal. Right now I'm okay with having a head of the team, but I'm not sure about the details yet. The way I've been seeing this system working is that the team would act in a similar manner to Weak TLs, while the head would kind of serve as a "moderator" for the team. So the entire team overall would figure out a vision or a set of possible directions together, and thus have the collective power of a Strong TL. IMO it shouldn't be the vision of one person, but it should be something that's agreed upon by the entire team, though I suppose the "one" could end up enforcing his/her vision if there is some kind of unresolvable disagreement. Yesterday, I was against the idea of people signing up for specific stages, but I can see the problems of not specifying the stage, and I like the fact that people can apply for multiple stages. The main logistical problem is how to order the TL polls, though.

In the end, what I'd like to have in any topic leadership is the ability to consider multiple directions at every step, and thus have an initially general vision narrow down into specifics. Concept assessment simply should not end at the concept assessment stage (similarly, threat assessment should not end at the threat assessment stage). If the TL+TLT model can facilitate this better than other models, then I am fully on board.
 

Bull of Heaven

Guest
I don't exactly like the idea of moderators having the final say on the project if negotiations go to shit; I think of moderators as the users who enforce the rules, not those whose voice counts for more or those with a perfect sense of what's right and wrong in the project. I guess the main reason I don't like this is because, in a community project, each position with influence should have been selected by the community. Maybe during the TL and TLT nominations we also have users apply for a position on this back up committee, which moderators could run for if they wish. I don't mean I don't want moderators in power, I mean I don't want them to have power just because they're moderators. That would sort my only issue.
Their voices would only "count for more" if the representatives chosen by the community were actually unable to make a decision, which could very well never happen, and they are only in a position to make that decision because they have proven that their leadership can be trusted to serve the interests of the community. Their job is not solely to enforce rules, and they were not chosen to be moderators arbitrarily. One of the strengths of the CAP project is that its leadership structure allows for most decisions to be made democratically, but includes powerful figures that can bring a quick and final end to a dispute on the rare occasion that they choose to do so. With the TL + TLT model, they would presumably only settle the most heated and divided of debates, as I would hope that other leaders could handle all other circumstances.

I don't really have a problem with this "backup committee," except that I just don't see any need for it.
 

paintseagull

pink wingull
is a Top Artistis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
[Sorry I do not have much time to fully read everything at the moment, but here are my thoughts]

I think we are headed in the right direction here, but to me it still needs some work. The initlal TLT proposal didn't seem quite right to me - too much discontinuity. The new TL+TLT proposal could work but it seems a bit overcomplicated. The analogy that makes sense to me is that of parliamentary democracy, which I think TL+TLT is representing fairly well at this point. I wonder if a group of 3 or so people running for joint leadership of the project (with one overall leader and each person having a different specialty being an asset but not a requirement) would work, or if we would never get more than 1 (or not even that) groups running on that model. For example, there were only 3 TL nominees for CAP4 if I recall correctly.

Anyway I think there are lots of potential pitfalls here and we should take the time to think carefully and brainstorm. I am concerned that we may not get enough applicants for any of these models, but on the other hand, it opens the possibility of people like me applying for flavour specialist TLT (if that was deemed to be important enough, which maybe it's not), when I would have never considered EVER applying for TL.
 
From ghosting the IRC and deliberation over it myself, I support the TL+TLT model, as it retains unity without putting too much focus or stress on one person. I'm not entirely sold on a 5-TLT system for every part of the project, though- it works, and I think it definitely works better than the current system, but it seems potentially disjointed to me. What I envision when I see "TLT" is a group of three or so. If 6 people (5 TLTs + TL) all work on a CAP, they're more likely to have arguments over what the CAP needs to be or why this movepool or that typing doesn't work, even if that isn't their specialty. There are going to be some disagreements and this happens with any "group" system. I tentatively rest on supporting a 3-TLT system for a little more unity overall.

What I'm saying is this: In a 3-TLT system, people applying for TLT can (choose to say they are/get chosen as, I'm not sure how that part works) the Movepool TLT, or the Typing TLT, or Movepool+Typing TLT. If the same person oversees two parts of the process, those two parts together are more likely to mesh well. Say another person gets Threats+Stats, and one just wants/gets picked to focus on Ability. The stats will be done to mesh well with the threats because the same person is overseeing it. I think it is easier to bring the CAP together as a whole if your puzzle pieces are for example (Movepool+Typing) + (Threats+Stats) + Ability rather than all at once. Four people trying to agree on the focus of the CAP and its concept is less likely to get into major arguments than six. I just think it's easier to make sure that your stages are all together when there are the same people reappearing at different parts of the process. I also see the other TLTs casually discussing each part of the process together.

In summation:

In a 3-TLT system, each TLT member would specialize in one or two fields of the process. Because the same person would be involved in two different, often widely separated parts of the process, instead of just once, they have a second chance to reevaluate the CAP and fit its concept. For example, if Apple_Butter selects Ability and Movepool, those are separated by a lot of other steps. By the time Apple gets to Movepool he will have a better grasp of the CAP.


I do know that a 5-TLT system doesn't work the same way. As I understand it, it's one shot only that you get with the TL, and then are for the most part functionally a normal CAPer- you still are on the TLT and you can talk with everybody, but you don't get another shot. I just think that 3-TLT might be a way to not have a ton of leadership while still having enough to work. I am not so adamant on the idea that I won't listen, though, and there is likely something I'm not seeing. I do hope that what I'm saying at least makes sense, I feel incoherent. :P

(Oh, it seems paintseagull also suggested 3.)
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Ho boy, this is going to be a long one. I might repeat what a few people say but that's fine: this needs to be emphasized.

The TL/TLT or perhaps even just the TLT system is absolutely, 100% required. The current TL system has been working, yes, but at what price? As doug said; We're basically asking strong, respected, smart contributers of the community to climb up a hill with their teeth, and then shoot themselves in the head after doing so. The TL position is not the most illusive and desired position; It is a bloody death sentence, one that even fails at times (See CAP4). For all the so-called direction that it brings, it comes at a extremely heavy cost and isn't even always successful!

The TL position has always been one person trying to job of five. That's simply unsustainable. At some point, we are going to run out of people who are capable of, and are willing to, do so much work for practically nothing in return. And we can't just say "You want to help guide CAP? Great! Join the Policy Review? What's that? Want a bit more responsibility? TOO BAD YOU HAVE TO LEAD THE WHOLE DAMN THING IF YOU WANT TO HELP MORE." It's not only daunting, it's also quite frankly greedy to demand so much from a single person. And as we've seen, it utterly burns out whoever we give the job to.

The TL/TLT system, in effect, would split up the work between multiple people, thus reducing the chance of someone getting burned out as a result. It would also drive more people to take the initiative, since, holy shit, you don't need to know absolutely everything about every part of CAP, and can instead decide to specialize, thus leading to a potential higher quality in CAPs overall as each stage will be led by someone who is a specialist within that field, rather then the generalist nature that is required by the TL.

All in all, this really seems like a nessescary change to CAP. It cleanly fixes TL burnout as well as removes the possibility of anyone going renegade on us ever again.

Some say that if it's not broke, don't fix it - I disagree. You can work with subpar tools, sure, but you'll do more with better tools. Same here - this model will allow CAP to shine on and work better then ever before. Not to mention, once again, reducing burnout and increasing productivity vis a vis people getting more ambitious.

In closing, we have to remember that CAP has been, and always be a community project. We need someone at the helm to give us a strong focus, sure, but that job's sheer, overwhelming difficulty as well as the potential for said person to utterly steer the CAP away from the community's wishes leaves it inefficient, dangerous, and all in all a bad idea compared to the TL/TLT model, which gives us the best of both worlds. A strong, democratic, focused group that would ensure everything goes according to plan. Or rather, seeing how as we often rip up our plans and throw them to the wind, making sure that the CAP succeeds in spite of any turbulence that might occur.

Fears of over-complication, I feel, are unfounded. It's simple - we have five leaders, each in charge of a specific part of the project, and one chief leader who keeps a watchful eye over everything, handles the flavor aspects, and has the power to veto something if they feel it isn't optimal. Far from complicated - in fact, it's really just a expansion of the current system.

As are fears of under-participation - really, the current system I'd wager is more unsustainable in this regard. Sure, on paper, we need more people, but in practice, with people being allowed to specialize, more will volunteer as they will be able to contribute and help guide CAP without being forced to be a master of every aspect. This will make people think "Golly jee, my desire to focus will pay off!" In turn, this will lead to a larger pool of people who we can select to lead, thus making under participation a non-issue.

I also think that we have no reason to fear falling back to the franken-CAP approach. That's why it's important to keep the TL position on board - he/she/it will make sure that we keep focused and on track, never swaying from what our goals and concepts are. That's also why the veto power is important - without it, we have a toothless leader who has no say over anything.

Don't forget, this confers massive public relations benefits! We've always been saying that CAP is a community project (well, aside from Doug's benevolent tyrancy) - this would help drive that point home, showing that we're working together even in leadership. Putting our money where our mouth is, so to speak.

I would, however, like to propose a majority override; that is, the ability for the TLT to override the TL's veto, assuming almost all or all of the TLT decides to vote in favor. This would be a contingency to check the possibility of a TL snapping and trying to veto everything to make sure the CAP goes their way. Much like how in a congressional democracy it is possible for a president to be override by the house and senate by a two-thirds majority vote.

We should definitely make a announcement about this if it does go through, though. One explaining the situation, why we made this change, and how it will work. People not in the loop will probably be confused about these changes, and it's important that we keep every CAPer in the know, even those who don't browse the PR forums. Arceus knows we already have enough on our hands public relations wise, we don't need this 'suddenly' happening out of the blue. We need to let people know far in advance.

Finally, we should probably make a usergroup and IRC channel for the TLT and TL to communicate in, so that they can keep open lines of communication easily. Not a subforums though, that'd just clutter the CAP forums.

On a unrelated note, I think we should also have the moderators be more proactive about these kinds of things. Right now, by the time they step in, it is far too late for anything to be actually done. As doug said, they basically waited until beyond the last possible minute to sort bob out, and by then all they could do was pick up the pieces.

That's all, nyt out.

ps holy shit I think this has been my longest post to date.

pps I will be sorely disappointed if it doesn't work like this
 

v

protected by a silver spoon
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I like the TL + TLT system because it keeps the prestige of the TL position, while not only opening the position to more applicants who might prove themselves worthy of concept tl for a future cap, but helps curb potential corruption. Of course, if we get a TL with the TLT in his pocket, the same problems we have right now could potentially arise.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
I don't think we'll have to worry about a TL getting a TLT in his/her/it's pocket, Vader. For the most part, the power players of CAP are quite, well, selfish. I think it's highly unlikely they'd collaborate like that, especially given how often opinions clash among them. Plus there's always the rest of the TLT and the mods to check them if it's egregious.
 

v

protected by a silver spoon
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You can say that, but collaboration between bitter rivals used to be commonplace in CaP once they recognized they could all get what they wanted if they worked as one. That's the reason we have the strong TL model in the first place. The mods as a check could work, but (no offense to them, since I doubt I would have handled it better) they were ineffectual at curbing what happened with CaP 4. In this case, the mod intervention seems to rely on the TL/TLT coming to the mods and asking for a resolution to an insurmountable problem. When we made the strong TL model, people dismissed the idea of a TL going postal and deciding to manipulate the process to make the CaP they wanted.

I am not saying it is likely, just that it is possible and that supporters of the proposal should be aware of potential drawbacks.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
True, it's possible, but it also means that the TL will have to get all of the TLT in their pocket which is nigh-on impossible, compared to the current system, where they can just go postal from the word go since they have all the power. So I wouldn't really consider that a drawback, more a benefit, since that means it's even harder for one person to control the entire thing thanks to power being shared by multiple people.
 

DarkSlay

Guess who's back? Na na na! *breakdances*
is a CAP Contributor Alumnus
On CAP4:

Yeah, you're absolutely right Doug. There were people, including myself, who saw what was going on but chose to stay out of an argument due to the TL's actual (or perceived) power in the process. I personally took issue with the handling of the stat limits, where the community was outright "locked out" from coming up with creative, useful, and balanced spreads for the process. That was unfair, and many people felt that they were shut out from contributing to CAP4 as a result. I myself felt discouraged to contribute after stat submissions, feeling that there was no point in submitting different ideas, ideas that take a great deal of time to create and establish, if the end result was essentially decided already. I didn't just "not agree" with the way CAP4 was going, I hated it. That wasn't a real CAP experience to me, the experience I felt in the Gen IV projects and even the early Gen V projects. It didn't even feel like a community effort. Submissions were forced to revolve around what line was already drawn. I didn't ask myself "What would be the best decision for this concept?". I had to ask myself "Would this even get slated? Would the TL like it?" That should never happen, and I can see why outside members of Smogon, and even potential CAP contributors, were turned off from the project. Since I began contributing to CAP, I understood that the project was all about learning how the Overused environment worked. It's a learning process. Did we learn anything about CAP4? At all? I'm not even talking about end goals, I'm talking about during the process. I didn't learn anything about Gen V. I didn't come out understanding anything about the threats of the metagame, the trends of the metagame, nothing (well, except that Genesect is ridiculous, but we could have figured that one out on our own). Whether or not this was BMB's fault is irrelevant, as I felt like the process has been vulnerable to these things for quite some time (BMB was just the most prevalent user of these vulnerabilities). Who would want to work in an environment where everything was already decided for you? No one.

On the TLT Proposal:

I have mixed feelings about this process. On one hand, this process sorely needs a greater communication between the Topic Leader and the community, and a shifting council that could communicate with the Topic Leader could be very beneficial. On the other hand, to be frank, what looks good on paper more often than not is never what actually happens, and I have a lot of trepidation with a pure TLT model.

One, the process will become much more convoluted. You're going to be assigning different people to man different tasks, essentially including multiple time zones or schedules into one project. Some contributors write a lot, some don't. Some are fast, some are slow, some are busy, some are impatient. That's a lot of variables to consider, especially since a pure TLT runs entirely off of this often convoluted process. The current CAP process is pretty slow as it is. Now imagine adding five or six completely different schedules and approaches into the leadership of the project. If you choose long-standing members, you run the risk of "cherry picking" elite members of the project, alienating the community as a whole. If you include everyone, the process becomes so convoluted that it may completely lose focus and direction.

Two, speaking of members of the TLT, I have a lot of reservations as to how a "strong" TLT model would work. From just having experience in working in leadership groups, whether it was for CAP or CAP ASB, giving the same power to individuals on a collective council only runs the risk of having individual opinions dominating the discussion rather than true cooperation. It then often becomes a shouting match as to who can yell out their argument the loudest, or even worse, who has "more influence" on Smogon so that they can forcefully push their agenda past the other members. That's petty, and either nothing gets accomplished or one person gets their way while the community suffers. Even if roles are assigned, there will still be a lot of individualist thinking that will lead to massive differences as to how the project should be run. That may even be more dangerous. The project will easily derail itself if this happens.

With this said, there definitely needs to be a happy medium between the strong TL model, which we see has massive flaws as a result of CAP4, and a pure TLT model, which is entirely convoluted and messy. Therefore, I suggest that the TLT should play a pure advisory role, so that the TL is grounded based off of the community's perception of the process. The TLT becomes less about running individual parts of the CAP and more about directing the TL and the project as a whole. You create a broad spectrum in which the TLT can work in while preventing the TLT from having the power to completely derail the project. The TL would remain the guiding force of the project, but must effectively communicate with the TLT in order to continue with the project. If the TL does a bad job of this, goes off the edge and starts derailing the process, or outright ignores the TLT, the TLT should then have the power to oust the TL and replace him/her with a TLT member. Having the TLT play an advisory role for the entire project will also allow TLT members to learn about the process as a whole, effectively filling in for a TL (if need be) with great knowledge of what the project's direction is. You could also give the TLT the power to veto TL decisions, although this might be a bit too strong of a "check and balance", so I'd rather leave that up to discussion. An advisory council is not useless: we really need some way for the TL to communicate with the community, and having an elected council that essentially fulfills the "political" aspect of representation will ground the TL into what needs to be accomplished to better the project. If you think this is not needed, see: CAP4.

I'd like some discussion on these kinds of ideas, where the community can create a check and balance to the leader while still having a capable leader to run the project. Giving power through representation, I believe, is a much better solution than changing the role of a potentially selfish TL to a potentially selfish, disjunctive TLT.

EDIT: Seems like my post coincides a bit with Birkal's new proposal. The idea of the TLT choosing the slate is an okay one, but I feel like that still isolates the TLT from the TL a lot, and the "veto power" of the other TLT members isn't really a tool of cooperation, but rather a tool of balance that could result in factions within the TLT. I'd still rather see the TLT in more of an advisory role rather than an individual contributing role.

EDIT 2: Talked to Birkal a bit, looks like his idea and my idea are more similar than I first thought. I support most of that proposal then.
 
I support the idea of the TL+TLT. Out of the ideas I have seen, this one seems like it will work out the best. TLT is too unfocussed, there likely wouldn't be a shared idea of what the concept means so each step would be following a different vision. The other suggestions still give the TL too much to do.

Corruption cannot be completely eliminated, but this should make it harder for anyone to make a CAP theirs due to how slating would work. This should also reduce burn out due to the divided workload so we are less likely to have a shortage of knowledgeable contributors.

Filling the additional positions shouldn't be difficult. The time investment needed to be on the TLT is much less than the one needed to TL and a lack of time is one of the reasons that otherwise qualified people don't apply.
 

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