Using simple majorities for tiering votes

[obi]

this is still a direct application of what i mean when i say "this is why we have stage three" even if the reasoning is more subtle. if latios had been voted ou by failure to reach a supermajority for banishment, then what? if it does "prove to be broken", at what point do we ban it again? and would this not require the same supermajority? and does this not ignore the entire purpose of stage three, to see whether latios or any suspect is correctly tiered in the "true" metagame, where we play everything out with suspects that may belong in ou like garchomp and skymin? instead of pretending that we can attribute any lasting meaning to any kind of "consensus" before stage three plays out, and pretending that latios breaking a metagame with just it and latias as suspects means anything?

I've been pretty outspoken in my disagreement with how the suspect test is. I much prefer the way we are doing things in UU.

The way I see it, suspect testing isn't a goal, it's a process. At no point can you say "OK, we're done testing!". If a Pokemon ever proves itself to be broken, it's banned. In other words, all Pokemon are potential suspects.

Even considering my disagreement with the OU suspect test methodology, I still feel it would be improved by changing from a simple majority to a supermajority to send a Pokemon to ubers.

When I say send a Pokemon to ubers, this includes "keeping" a Pokemon in ubers. When we test a Pokemon in OU, we're saying that the previous decision to put it in ubers may have been invalid. As such, why should we give its previous tier any weight? We're starting from the assumption that it might need to be in a new tier, so using its old tier as any justification for what tier it ends up in is counterproductive.

To the people saying that this would make things harder to ban; that's not a criticism. That's the whole point.

 

[QibingZero]

The "harm" to leaving a controversial pokemon in the game is less than the harm of pre-emptively banning something before there is a large consensus (i.e. a supermajority).

Why is this the case? I've seen absolutely no backing for this argument whatsoever. To use a recent example, UU with Froslass, Raikou, and Gallade around was a far worse metagame than it is now without them - both in balance and enjoyability. Where exactly is the harm? It becomes even worse when you realize that Gallade had 61% of the vote against it, and requiring 2/3 would have left it in UU despite the significant disagreement shown. The interesting thing about Gallade is that LonelyNess' original post describing why he thought Gallade should be BL is still far stronger than any argument for keeping it in UU has been. A thorough refutation would have to be made if we planned on living with Gallade being UU.


Anyway, I'm having a hard time viewing this as anything other than trying to impress the idea that 'bans are extreme measures that should rarely be taken' on the pokemon community. It's clear to me that bans are often necessary, even when they are controversial (as the bans of Garchomp, Wobbuffet, and DX-S still are), and we shouldn't disregard majority vote just because it wasn't a significant enough consensus for everyone's liking. After all, we still technically have 17 pokemon in Ubers and many clauses. It's not as if we are adverse to bans in order to improve the standard metagame. Honestly, I too would prefer we had larger majorities on many of the votes that have taken place so far, but we are dealing with popular vote here and we can't expect every vote to be infinitely well-informed, even with the failsafes of the suspect process in play.

 

[Cathy]

Why is this the case? I've seen absolutely no backing for this argument whatsoever. To use a recent example, UU with Froslass, Raikou, and Gallade around was a far worse metagame than it is now without them - both in balance and enjoyability. Where exactly is the harm?

You need to consider the long term. As Obi pointed out on the previous page, moving the pokemon to the higher tier prevents it from actively being played with in the metagame it is now banned from, which makes it difficult to revisit that decision in a fair way. It's important we are very sure we are doing the right thing when we ban a pokemon.

Anyway, I'm having a hard time viewing this as anything other than trying to impress the idea that 'bans are extreme measures that should rarely be taken' on the pokemon community.

Obviously the point of this topic is that bans are an extreme (serious) measure. No one has been secretive about it, because indeed it is the point, not a clandestine effort to "impress" something onto unsuspecting readers.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Why is this the case? I've seen absolutely no backing for this argument whatsoever. To use a recent example, UU with Froslass, Raikou, and Gallade around was a far worse metagame than it is now without them - both in balance and enjoyability. Where exactly is the harm? It becomes even worse when you realize that Gallade had 61% of the vote against it, and requiring 2/3 would have left it in UU despite the significant disagreement shown. The interesting thing about Gallade is that LonelyNess' original post describing why he thought Gallade should be BL is still far stronger than any argument for keeping it in UU has been. A thorough refutation would have to be made if we planned on living with Gallade being UU.

Your view of the UU metagame before and after suspect removal is your opinion, not fact. I've picked you up on this before, don't confuse the two.

As for your Gallade argument, let's put it a different way. If LonelyNess' argument was so much better than everyone else's, why were 39% of qualified voters (people who have proven themselves to be capable and responsible voters) not convinced by it? I for one thought that LonelyNess' argument was awful, focused on an outdated 'paper counters' mentality that was abandoned a long time ago. Now when you consider ~60% of votes to be a 'significant disagreement' of UU status, I conversely would consider ~40% of votes to be a significant enough disagreement of BL status, because as said many times already, banishment to BL eliminates any chance for the decision to be reconsidered through testing, and we've always wanted to make as few bans as possible. Where we end up placing the vote threshold will always be arbitrary, but as far as I'm concerned it is unacceptable to ban a Pokemon when anything even close to 50% of informed voters are against such a move.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Smogon attempts to avoid bans as much as possible - only when it becomes very apparent that a Pokemon is far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame is it banished permanently from the standard arena.

IE bans should be an extreme measure.

Have a nice day.

 

[Jumpman16]

I've been pretty outspoken in my disagreement with how the suspect test is. I much prefer the way we are doing things in UU.

Ok, let's be honest here, you really have not been as outspoken as you would have me and others believe. I've asked you at least once on IRC to actually voice your disagreement here in PR so it could be documented, and I distinctly remember you saying, to my latest request, something like:

Obi: Ok
Obi: It feels like a posting weekend anyway

I could dig up the #is log (as I would prefer to if I had all the time in the world) but I kind of don't feel like it or need to—you should remember saying that. That was about two months ago, and I have been waiting for you to post here in PR about your issues with the Suspect Test Process ever since then and even before that, since you haven't really been outspoken about it on the forums at all. I obviously wish you had been for the last year or so, if only to have altered the OU process before "it was to late", but that's okay I guess.

The way I see it, suspect testing isn't a goal, it's a process. At no point can you say "OK, we're done testing!". If a Pokemon ever proves itself to be broken, it's banned. In other words, all Pokemon are potential suspects.

I agree.

Even considering my disagreement with the OU suspect test methodology, I still feel it would be improved by changing from a simple majority to a supermajority to send a Pokemon to ubers.

I've already posted why we shouldn't be so sure to champion the success of the UU process (this one was easier to "dig up"). QZ shares my hesitance with declaring the UU process a success, and though I agree that the same problem I foresee with future UU Suspects like Shaymin or Typhlosion (or whatever) becoming more of a problem could be true of OU (Salamence), that has no bearing on whether a supermajority would fix that problem. I'll get into this more below.

When I say send a Pokemon to ubers, this includes "keeping" a Pokemon in ubers. When we test a Pokemon in OU, we're saying that the previous decision to put it in ubers may have been invalid. As such, why should we give its previous tier any weight? We're starting from the assumption that it might need to be in a new tier, so using its old tier as any justification for what tier it ends up in is counterproductive.

To the people saying that this would make things harder to ban; that's not a criticism. That's the whole point.

I agree with all of this as well...I would much rather you have directly answered any of the questions of mine that you quoted, because it is my understanding that both you and Colin do not fully understand the point and, more importantly, the necessity of Stage 3...

You need to consider the long term. As Obi pointed out on the previous page, moving the pokemon to the higher tier prevents it from actively being played with in the metagame it is now banned from, which makes it difficult to revisit that decision in a fair way. It's important we are very sure we are doing the right thing when we ban a pokemon.

...which is exactly why I ask you the same question: are you considering the long term? Do you know why Stage 3 is important? Do you realize that Stage 3, in essence, does everything you state here, in that it it does revisit decisions fairly, and it does make sure that we're doing the right thing when we ban or unban a pokemon? In that we will indeed revisit pokemon bans, but do so when it matters most, which is when we have a better idea of what the true metagame is like?

I repeat that because, regardless of enforcing any supermajority, the crux of this argument really hinges on whether or not you agree that Stage 3 is necessary regardless of what percentage to which we ascribe a "majority". And that, in this regard, everything is revisited and nothing is permanent.

Anyway, to address the Latios point, it's already been touched upon but if Latios had been placed in OU having gotten over 1/3 of the vote, this is every bit as "harmful" to competitive pokemon as not revisiting the decision to keep it banned, which we are doing anyway with Stage 3.

 

[Caelum]

I don't want to speak for Obi or Colin but, I believe, Jump, what Colin and Obi are saying that in the time leading up to the eventual Stage 3 we aren't actively playing with the banned Pokemon. I guess, I can understand the point of if a ban is questionable in the "suspect-free" metagame that it potentially needs more testing leading up to Stage 3. The testing of Latios, for now, is off until Stage 3 though. I believe Obi and Colin are suggesting that if the decision wasn't obvious in stage 2 it is necessary to continue further testing of it even leading up to Stage 3.

At least that's how I read it.

On the note of the UU process, it was (and is) a completely different situation; is was never viable to individually test each potential suspect (30+ would have been labeled by me as being "questionable bans") due to time constraints. I think it will ultimately be a success (hopefully lol); but it's obviously difficult to say whatever method is better / more efficient (if indeed either is objectively "better") until all is said and done (well, not "done" since it's a process; but until the metagame is stable and there is no serious contentions of the tiering status of certain Pokemon) so there is no point in debating that for now I believe. Anyway, I'm going off topic.

While I voted for a super-majority after further thought I realize that wasn't what I exactly wanted (not that it matters but if someone wants to remove my vote from the poll that would be fine since it doesn't really capture my position; but whatever it doesn't matter lol). I think more what I wanted was that if a super-majority wasn't met (or if it was incredibly close a la Shaymin-S for Uber or Froslass for BL) that an additional re-examination of that Pokemon would occur. I look at things like Deoxys-S and Garchomp (although the former I personally voted for OU) and it took them some time to become "clearly broken". I think an additional "stage 2" would be a nice way to set it up when the vote wasn't overwhelmingly in one direction.

 

[Cathy]

I repeat that because, regardless of enforcing any supermajority, the crux of this argument really hinges on whether or not you agree that Stage 3 is necessary regardless of what percentage to which we ascribe a "majority". And that, in this regard, everything is revisited and nothing is permanent.

If a pokemon that was unbanned with a close vote during an earlier stage is then banned in stage 3, or the reverse, is this the result of some change in opinion or metagame development--or is simply because the people who decided to complete the requirements to vote were slightly different, so it was enough to shift the vote a bit? Requiring a larger majority can also be thought of just ensuring a higher confidence level that a simple majority agrees with the proposal. This is a side thought though. My main point is as follows.

Stage 3 and this proposal are not mutually exclusive. This proposal is about using a supermajority for all votes that ban a pokemon, not just ones at any particular stage; it would apply during stage 3 as well. In fact I would say that supermajorities are even more important in stage 3 since the results there are in some sense more final. Even if stage 3 is as good as this proposal for the current tests (I disagree that it is, but let's suppose for the sake argument) it would not solve the problems that simple majority votes present within stage 3 itself.

Also, regardless of the merits of stage 3, banning a pokemon before there is widespread consensus--even with a promise to later review it--biases the eventual review by preventing that pokemon from being actively used in the intervening period, when there was no reason to ban it on account of lack of clear consensus. As I said above, this is the harm in banning 'suspects' which lack a clear consensus. However, as I said, this is not a proposal to replace 3; in fact it is even more important during stage 3.

 

[QibingZero]

Your view of the UU metagame before and after suspect removal is your opinion, not fact. I've picked you up on this before, don't confuse the two.

As for your Gallade argument, let's put it a different way. If LonelyNess' argument was so much better than everyone else's, why were 39% of qualified voters (people who have proven themselves to be capable and responsible voters) not convinced by it? I for one thought that LonelyNess' argument was awful, focused on an outdated 'paper counters' mentality that was abandoned a long time ago. Now when you consider ~60% of votes to be a 'significant disagreement' of UU status, I conversely would consider ~40% of votes to be a significant enough disagreement of BL status, because as said many times already, banishment to BL eliminates any chance for the decision to be reconsidered through testing, and we've always wanted to make as few bans as possible. Where we end up placing the vote threshold will always be arbitrary, but as far as I'm concerned it is unacceptable to ban a Pokemon when anything even close to 50% of informed voters are against such a move.

If LN's arguments were so awful, why did no one take the time to attempt to refute them? Instead of that, all we got to hear was 'Gallade is too slow, and can be revenge killed'. Great. I've ranted my share on why revenge killing is not an argument in and of itself, but the real problem is the lack of perspective shown. Very very few pokemon will ever fully sweep a well prepared team. You could suspect test nearly any Uber in OU, and people will find a way to deal with it to the point where it will usually not sweep. This in no way makes a pokemon not worthy of being Uber, though. The real test is gauging what lengths you have to go to in order to deal with said pokemon. If you are using pokemon which are much worse when their 'rival' is not seen (see: Camerupt - hp ice Raikou), that's the first sign that there may be a problem. The usual response is 'but Raikou is so common that it's worth it', which is precisely part of the problem.

Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes 'broken', and the characterstics are vague for partially that reason. However, I don't see how this kind of argumentation can hold weight while we retain the tiering system we have in place. If bannings are truly as harsh as suggested, and the arguments I'm disagreeing with here are valid, why would we even have a standard tier in the first place? But just a simple glance at the usage statistics for Ubers should make it clear that we need a significant amount of bans to forge a healthy standard tier. We can shy away from 'overcentralization' all we want, but we can't deny that the tiering system we have in place is built upon it. If we were okay with a heavily centralized metagame with limited teambuilding choices, we'd play the metagame with the least bans possible - Ubers.


What I find further troublesome is that quite a few people are willing to complain when pokemon bans go the opposite way than they had hoped, but not as many are willing to actually take the time and try to persuade other players - when it matters - of a pokemon's rightful tiering. The UU process has been a great example of that. You merge the entirity of BL into UU, and yet people expected for there to be no suspects whatsoever, or maybe just one or two. Sure, it amazed us all how stable the metagame seemed, but to only have to ban 5 pokemon to BL at this point is such a huge change from the past that it's almost hard to believe. I'm not saying that there's a problem with that (there are only a few pokemon you could even argue for being suspect right now), it's just that when people bash suspect nominations as they did after the 6 suspects were announced, it seems ridiculous. Can we really expect for there to be no BL tier whatsoever? Some people certainly argued to that effect, and even Staraptor and Abomasnow received a few UU votes when all was said and done.

This leads into what Jump was talking about, I think. The UU suspect process doesn't have a stage 3 to fall back on, and in some respects it may seem like the pokemon banned to BL are gone forever. But ask yourself this: What is stopping me from arguing that Froslass should actually be in UU?

There's nothing. Argue it well enough and you may change some minds. It's not going to be easy, but neither is arguing for a pokemon to be suspect in the first place.

 

[RBG]

Now when you consider ~60% of votes to be a 'significant disagreement' of UU status, I conversely would consider ~40% of votes to be a significant enough disagreement of BL status, because as said many times already, banishment to BL eliminates any chance for the decision to be reconsidered through testing, and we've always wanted to make as few bans as possible.

I would just like to go off topic for one post to say that we have talked about allowing pokemon that were voted BL by a very small margin to be voted on and possibly allowed back into UU if the arguments made for in favor of this pokemon being tiered wrong were strong enough.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

But ask yourself this: What is stopping me from arguing that Froslass should actually be in UU?

Nothing obviously, but this is a strange question given that you are the one who is currently opposed to re-testing Froslass at this moment in time. The majority of us, including me, are clearly in favor of re-testing Froslass, Gallade and Raikou because the level of opposition for each suspect's banning is considered too high.

If you mean that you don't think a Pokemon should be immediately re-tested if it receives more than 50% of the vote, but instead their status should be debated between Smogon members, I have a couple of issues with that. First of all, any given person's opinion is rarely if ever changed as a result of another person's arguments and leads to an ultimately futile loop of tos and fros, which you have already alluded to. And secondly, there is currently no official plan for dealing with this issue with regards to the current UU suspect process outlined. There has been plenty of talk, but no official action as of yet. Obviously when this becomes a reality then this idea has some merit, but is still likely to come down to a vote in some form or another.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I voted for 50/50 (aka the model we're using now) because I haven't seen any real reason to do 2/3...what makes it better than 3/4? or 6/10? I might ask to have my vote changed if someone can convince me otherwise, but as of now I don't really see any advantages. A majority is just as convincing to me as....a slightly larger majority.

 

[Jumpman16]

If a pokemon that was unbanned with a close vote during an earlier stage is then banned in stage 3, or the reverse, is this the result of some change in opinion or metagame development--or is simply because the people who decided to complete the requirements to vote were slightly different, so it was enough to shift the vote a bit? Requiring a larger majority can also be thought of just ensuring a higher confidence level that a simple majority agrees with the proposal. This is a side thought though. My main point is as follows.

It would be the result of a Suspect squaring off against other Suspects that may or may not belong in the Standard metagame. It's not "opinion" as much as it is a drastic, fundamental, but necessary step in the Suspect Test Process as we know it. It therefore is a gigantic metagame development—all Suspects together at once in the same metagame would be nothing short of a development.

I think the *reason* you thought this was a "side thought" is because you do not seem to recognize that key part of Stage 3, as I suspected.

Stage 3 and this proposal are not mutually exclusive. This proposal is about using a supermajority for all votes that ban a pokemon, not just ones at any particular stage; it would apply during stage 3 as well. In fact I would say that supermajorities are even more important in stage 3 since the results there are in some sense more final. Even if stage 3 is as good as this proposal for the current tests (I disagree that it is, but let's suppose for the sake argument) it would not solve the problems that simple majority votes present within stage 3 itself.

As I've posted, I did have the idea for utilizing majority in some way during Stage 3 but saw no sense in posting it any time soon, so we're on the same page there. I don't understand how you think that finality is a bad thing until we get to stage three, though. I again refer to the Latios vote—assuming the voting is the same (which isn't the fairest assumption since the voters would know a superminority is needed to unban Latios, but I'm sure you realize that's neither here nor there), Latios would be in OU, if I'm understanding your "1/3 for currently banned Suspects" idea correctly. The vote is still 54.55%, meaning that, instead of the 45.45% of responsible Tiering Contributors (the only people's opinion's we should care about) that currently are disappointed, 54.55% of our representation of are going to be disappointed instead.

Further, seriously, what happens next? My questions in this thread have not really been rhetorical and I wish people would stop ignoring them. When Latios is put in OU, and the majority of people stand to find it uber fron the very beginning, what happens? Do we do nothing and assume people will get used to it? If not, and we have to revote (who would be voting is a separate issue altogether, if still tricky), do we still honor a supermajority of people who have to think Latios is uber? I mean I could keep going but I actually want these questions answered and I'm not just going to keep rattling them off because I think you catch my drift.

Also, regardless of the merits of stage 3, banning a pokemon before there is widespread consensus--even with a promise to later review it--biases the eventual review by preventing that pokemon from being actively used in the intervening period, when there was no reason to ban it on account of lack of clear consensus. As I said above, this is the harm in banning 'suspects' which lack a clear consensus. However, as I said, this is not a proposal to replace 3; in fact it is even more important during stage 3.

Suspects are Suspects in the first place because they may be suited for a different tier. By extension, there is therefore no logical reason to believe that there should ever, ever be "wide consensus" on any Suspect. We infact remove pokemon from Suspect consideration the less likely it seems, as we go through metagame shifts etc., that they are actually still Suspect, as it was with Darkrai (Nasty Plot) and Mew (Trick). We do though appear to agree that honoring a majority is very important in Stage 3.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Further, seriously, what happens next? My questions in this thread have not really been rhetorical and I wish people would stop ignoring them. When Latios is put in OU, and the majority of people stand to find it uber fron the very beginning, what happens? Do we do nothing and assume people will get used to it? If not, and we have to revote (who would be voting is a separate issue altogether, if still tricky), do we still honor a supermajority of people who have to think Latios is uber? I mean I could keep going but I actually want these questions answered and I'm not just going to keep rattling them off because I think you catch my drift.

I think we have a revote, and if it is voted uber by a two thirds majority it is made uber?

I dont know what the intended process for revisiting decisions after stage 3 is completed, but if there isnt one I suggest there should be.

I would recommend something like, every 4 months allow people to make suggestions to change the ruleset, and if they are deemed popular enough, we suspect test those changes and have another supermajority vote.

The other option is just to have another suspect test whenever the public opinion is seen as being strong enough.. Or the PR opinion is strong enough..

It seems to me that having a revisiting process is just as important whatever sized majority we require. You may find that in stage 3, the people who lost their votes by a small margin will be extra motivated to qualify, and those who won by a small margin will be complacent. At least with the default being OU like obi says, the suspect will remain in sight and in mind.

Have a nice day.

 

[Cathy]

Latios would be in OU, if I'm understanding your "1/3 for currently banned Suspects" idea correctly. The vote is still 54.55%, meaning that, instead of the 45.45% of responsible Tiering Contributors (the only people's opinion's we should care about) that currently are disappointed, 54.55% of our representation of are going to be disappointed instead.

Further, seriously, what happens next? My questions in this thread have not really been rhetorical and I wish people would stop ignoring them. When Latios is put in OU, and the majority of people stand to find it uber fron the very beginning, what happens? Do we do nothing and assume people will get used to it? If not, and we have to revote (who would be voting is a separate issue altogether, if still tricky), do we still honor a supermajority of people who have to think Latios is uber? I mean I could keep going but I actually want these questions answered and I'm not just going to keep rattling them off because I think you catch my drift.

I already answered this question: it is not a problem if a pokemon that a simple majority of people believe is uber roams free in the standard game, if you agree with my proposal, since the whole point is that a simple majority is insignificant for these purposes.

At any later date, another vote can be held--with the same supermajority required to ban.

Yes, more people will be disappointed, but anybody who thinks the point of this process is to satisfy a majority, as opposed to come up with the best ban lists, is not going to agree with my proposal fundamentally.

Suspects are Suspects in the first place because they may be suited for a different tier. By extension, there is therefore no logical reason to believe that there should ever, ever be "wide consensus" on any Suspect.

Precisely the point of this proposal is that if there isn't widespread consensus, the pokemon should not be banned; that should be the resolution, not satisfying the simple majority.

We do though appear to agree that honoring a majority is very important in Stage 3.

For greater clarity: I meant that requiring a supermajority to ban--not a simple majority--is even more important during stage 3.

 

[RBG]

Yes, more people will be disappointed, but anybody who thinks the point of this process is to satisfy a majority, as opposed to come up with the best ban lists, is not going to agree with my proposal fundamentally.

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but isn't the reason we have the paragraph submissions and the rating requirements and the hidden requirements so that it wasn't the majority that makes the decision, but the better players so that it would be a decision made with much more thought and solid footing than just allowing anyone to vote? That was the whole problem we had with shaymin-s test, and we fixed that, so I don't see why we need to raise the bar higher to make a pokemon Uber/BL/ect

 

[Cathy]

This proposal is not replacing existing measures to ensure the voters are qualified, and I said nothing to insinuate that it was. What I meant above was "anybody who thinks the point of this process is to satisfy a majority of eligible voters, as opposed to come up with the best ban lists, is not going to agree with my proposal fundamentally." but I apologise for not stating that explicitly, although it was evident in context (n.b. Jumpman used an unqualified "majority" in the same sense). In fact, all throughout this topic, "majority" has been used to mean a majority of the people who qualified to vote.

 

[RBG]

I was not stating that it would replace an existing measure, I just was stating my hesitance to adding yet another bar in order to make a pokemon Uber, or even make a vote count. If you proposal is actually excepted, it would make every vote for OU count Double an Uber vote, which is something I have a problem with.

I fail to see how 2/3 makes it "better" when we already have mechanisms in place to make sure that the votes that are placed are high quality votes.

 

[Cathy]

Measures designed to filter voters do not make it harder to make the pokemon uber, unless we assume that the people likely to be excluded by them are predominantly likely to vote for uber, which I find a dubious claim to say the least. And even if this dubious claim is true, it would only be a side effect of the filtering mechanism, not its point. This proposal on the other hand is designed precisely to make it harder to make a pokemon uber (or BL) and to recognise that a simple majority of qualified voters is just not significant when it comes to something extreme like banning a pokemon.

I am only re-iterating these basic points because the nature of this proposal seems to be subject to much uncertainty.

 

[Jumpman16]

I already answered this question: it is not a problem if a pokemon that a simple majority of people believe is uber roams free in the standard game, if you agree with my proposal, since the whole point is that a simple majority is insignificant for these purposes.

I disagree strongly with this. The real whole point is as you stated on the first page, when I asked about Latios and what would happen if it were in OU now as it would be if this proposal had been in place:

If there isn't widespread agreement to ban it, my premise is that we err on the side of leaving it in the lower tier for futher analysis. The "harm" to leaving a controversial pokemon in the game is less than the harm of pre-emptively banning something before there is a large consensus

To now directly address this, the reasoning behind wanting to require a mere "superminority" or greater (33% or more) votes of OU to give a Suspect a Stage 2 tag of OU (and at once move it to the Standard metagame) is to gain more information about the Suspect, as you and Obi have stated. And you continue:

At any later date, another vote can be held--with the same supermajority required to ban.

Again, I'm not even remotely being rhetorical or playing devil's advocate when I ask: what next? "Any later date" has all the importance in the world, and I realize that you likely didn't focus on the question of when here, but nonetheless "when" is a big question. Any later date could be four, five, six months after our battlers realize how uber Latios really is. Why isn't it every bit as harmful to potentially keep what could be (and is, under our current system), for all intents and purposes, an uber pokemon in standard play, where the Smogon ladder, tournaments and tours are played, for months and months? Especially when you remember that I stated months ago that I am willing to revisit the status of any Suspect given a Stage 2 OU tag if the Suspect allegedly appears considerably more "uber" than it was originally voted?

Yes, more people will be disappointed, but anybody who thinks the point of this process is to satisfy a majority, as opposed to come up with the best ban lists, is not going to agree with my proposal fundamentally.

"Disappointment" has been thrown around here kind of incorrectly—more accurately what is meant is opposition. For example, if Darkrai were in OU right now, there'd likely be around 80% opposition to its presence. Mew, maybe 70%, whatever. Inclusions like these would certainly harm the standard metagame for as long as they are included in it, and the solution isn't as simple as polling their respective Suspect Testers as to how they feel it is playing out in Standard because there's no guaranteed any one Suspect Tester would have the experience in Standard with a Darkrai or a Mew necessary to sound off on it again, which means we would have to only ask those with the pertinent "Suspect EXP" It must be appreciated what effect a Suspect's inclusion in the standard metagame has on the landscape of competitive pokemon in general (at least on Smogon, though I'm sure you haven't forgotten where you're posting or what server we're talking about).

Precisely the point of this proposal is that if there isn't widespread consensus, the pokemon should not be banned; that should be the resolution, not satisfying the simple majority.

And you would likely go on to argue that the pokemon should not be banned so we can gain further information about it, which is exactly why "when" becomes a big question. Please clarify if this is an unfair or at least inaccurate extension of your argument.

For greater clarity: I meant that requiring a supermajority to ban--not a simple majority--is even more important during stage 3.

Yeah that's what I meant to say, I just misspoke. As I stated in that part, we're in full agreement.

Anyway, as you also stated on the first page:

These controversies could all be avoided with a higher bar to ban a pokemon, while simultaneously making the choice to ban a pokemon more legitimate.

As pointed out by DP-C, that is exactly why Doug, Aeolus and myself (and DPC, Tangerine, and Caelum to a slightly lesser extent) have reimplemented bold voting and evaluated hundreds of submissions, worked up the best definition of uber we can arrive at, and implemented a Hidden Requirement to ensure that the pool of eligible voters is as pure as possible. If this pool is 34% full of OU Manaphy voters, it stands to as much reason as we have at our disposal that Manaphy shouldn't be in OU until Stage 3. Yet with a supermajority rule in effect, this pokemon would be in the Standard metagame in order to gain more information about it (since we agree that Stage 3 means nothing is "permanent") until at least some unspecified later date, where it would still have to be voted uber by a supermajority. If the information gained about a "66% uber Suspect" doesn't outweigh the harm it could do to the Standard metagame, and if that information doesn't matter very much since all Suspects need to be tested together in Stage 3 regardless, why wouldn't 66% of our best Manaphy Suspect Testers be enough to dictate where a Suspect should be until Stage 3?

 

[Hipmonlee]

If this pool is 34% full of OU Manaphy voters, it stands to as much reason as we have at our disposal that Manaphy shouldn't be in OU until Stage 3. Yet with a supermajority rule in effect, this pokemon would be in the Standard metagame in order to gain more information about it (since we agree that Stage 3 means nothing is "permanent") until at least some unspecified later date, where it would still have to be voted uber by a supermajority. If the information gained about a "66% uber Suspect" doesn't outweigh the harm it could do to the Standard metagame, and if that information doesn't matter very much since all Suspects need to be tested together in Stage 3 regardless, why wouldn't 66% of our best Manaphy Suspect Testers be enough to dictate where a Suspect should be until Stage 3?

I think the point here isn't 66% must be right, but how come if manaphy is so broken, and the pool of players is so pure, did 34% of them disagree with the decision.

Going back to the philosophy of smogon, things should be banned "when it is very apparent that a pokemon is far to powerful to be inline with a balanced metagame". If 49% or 40% or even 34% of voters are unconvinced about a pokemons uberness then I dont think you could really say you have fulfilled this criteria.

The cut off point also is going to be arbitrary. To whichever side we err there will be complaints in the event of a close vote that we have erred to far in one direction, but I think at the moment our number really is way off.

Have a nice day.

 

[Syberia]

Hip, there is always going to be disagreement. If the community could reach a reasonable consensus on the tiering of every suspect, there would be no need for the suspect test process.

 

[Cathy]

Again, I'm not even remotely being rhetorical or playing devil's advocate when I ask: what next? "Any later date" has all the importance in the world, and I realize that you likely didn't focus on the question of when here, but nonetheless "when" is a big question. Any later date could be four, five, six months after our battlers realize how uber Latios really is.

Ideally, the decision of when to re-vote would be based on whether there would be likely to have been a shift in support; if the vote was close to the 2/3 margin we might set a re-vote for one month later for example.

However, I do not view a vote between 50% and 66.6% for uber as evidence that the pokemon is particularly likely to be uber; nor should we expect people to agree it is uber eventually (as you seem to imply when you say "after our battlers realize how uber Latios really is"). If the votes continue to be between 50% and 66.6% this would be the same as if they were below 50% under the current system: i.e. the pokemon is not considered to be uber; the machinery for follow ups is precisely the same as would be in place for a vote below 50% under the current system, unless it happens to be close to the cut off, in which case I would argue for a re-visit in the near future under any cut off.

Essentially, the issue of when to allow a re-vote is exactly the same as it is under the current system, which is why I did not focus on it in this topic. I think maybe you were under the impression that a vote between 50% and 66.6% would place a pokemon into a "limbo" state, but that is not the case; it would be the same in all respects as if the vote had simply been below 50% under the current system. With this proposal in place, the number 50% would not be significant.

 

[Jumpman16]

The issue of when to allow a re-vote isn't quite the same as it is currently, because it may turn out that 65% of our community oppose having Latios or Manaphy in our metagame, compared to at most 49%. Remember, this is one of the main reasons we conduct the suspect Test Process on a separate ladder, as not to disrupt the fabric of competitive pokemon, or "harm" it, to reuse the term. And yes, the implication was intentional. I think that you are still ignoring that the point is that players will have time to use and experience Latios, which is your only reason for wanting as little as 33% to move a currently uber Suspect into Standard for at the very least one month.

You may not view a vote of 66% as "evidence that the pokemon is particularly likely to be uber" at first, but at what point, after enough information is gained about the Suspect (the real point), are you willing to accept that a constant 60-65% uber belief is indication that the pokemon is uber (until Stage 3)?

 

[Cathy]

I don't see a need to ever take 60-65% uber as a decision for uber. If the pokemon is uber, there shouldn't be that much disagreement about it. If the numbers aren't going up then obviously more people are not being convinced it's uber, so there's still too much disagreement to ban it. More than half the voters might oppose it, but if it's actually uber, the agreement should be by at least 2/3 of the voters; if they don't come around with more time, it's an indication the pokemon is just not 'clearly uber', so it should not be banned. Persistent votes in the same 60-65% range do not indicate an increased support to ban; they indicate the same, inconclusive, level of support. Nonetheless I find it pretty unlikely that a vote would actually be right near the margin twice in a row, for the simple reason that a close vote would motivate more people to participate in the revisitation, and having a larger voter pool already decreases the chance of the vote being razor thin.

From the start, there has been an implication in this proposal--which perhaps I have not stated explicitly--that it is acceptable to leave a pokemon unbanned indefinitely that more than half the relevant people believe is uber, because if it is truly uber, a supermajority should agree on it, not just a simple majority, even after a delay. I do not believe there is a point after which we can say "okay, we have all the information we will ever have; let's just try to satisfy a simple majority".

Certainly, when stage 3 arises, the pokemon could potentially stay unbanned despite being desired to be banned by 65% of the relevant voters. You said you agreed with that much, and an implication of that is that it is satisfactory to leave a unpopular pokemon unbanned indefinitely. Are you worried about disrupting the play between now and the end of stage 3, but you are fine with letting these 60-66% uber pokemon be OU after stage 3? Or did we have a misunderstanding somewhere?