RU (Jedi) Council - The Return Of

[Rakan]

I've been reading through this and thinking about it for awhile, and so I'm going to post my thoughts. I don't really know how to say this, but I think this constant changing of the way RU tiering is done is incredibly inefficient and does not really benefit anyone. For one, every other tier adheres to the perma-senate / council format. The format has worked well so far, and transitioning back to the rotating council format doesn't really bring any incentive to play RU. Perhaps you'll get a few people really wanting to get on council, but that's pretty much all you'll get. People like to play Pokemon for fun, and for tournaments. A rotating council does not determine the amount of players RU has. The forum has remained largely devoid of good discussion, with the exception of a few great posters like DittoCrow. While I realize that forum discussion doesn't directly relate to ladder activity, it definitely is some indication that either the tier is not fun at all (which is completely untrue), or there's something wrong with the way the metagame is handled.

This brings me to another point. I am aware that Texas recently became the co-tiering leader with Oglemi, and I am, to be completely honest, pretty shocked. I don't have anything against Texas, but I hardly believe he should be leading RU, especially when he doesn't really do much for the metagame. All he has done is post a few threads a few months ago that garnered little to no discussion, copied Research Week from other people (which, incidentally, takes too much time for him and he asked Kokoloko to take over for him... in his own tier... which he's "leading"), and... that's pretty much it. I don't understand why someone who hardly does anything for the tier he "leads" should be eligible for RU council, let alone receive a permanent spot without being held to the same standards that all the other candidates are. If Texas wants his council spot, he needs to earn it like everyone else. You say that tiering leaders automatically receive the TC badge, but this doesn't come without some form of work or at least leadership. Kokoloko, the leader of the UU Senate, has been a driving force in the UU metagame, regularly posting in discussion threads, posting Research Weeks, and sparking discussion both on the forums and IRC. He's the prime example of how a tiering leader should act. I'm not going to point out any specific things, but in all hopes of fairness, as the tiering "leader," Texas really needs to contribute more to the tier. Otherwise, I don't think he deserves to be a leader at all.

In fact, Texas can even take a look at someone like SilentVerse, who is another great example of leadership material. He always makes excellent posts in the RU forum, he's an amazing battler with a great knowledge of the metagame, he has voted a few times for RU, I mean, what else could you want in a tiering leader? Disregarding this tangent, my point is, RU needs to have some serious leadership, not just screwing around with things and screwing people over. I really like DittoCrow's proposition of dealing with RU tiering and the TC badge, it really makes a lot of sense. Suddenly changing the format doesn't benefit anyone, and quite frankly, made a lot of people really frustrated and disappointed that something they've worked so hard for has simply disappeared thanks to 2 people.

 

[-Tsunami-]

So after many months of this, I am finally going to say it: Texas Cloverleaf should not be an RU mod. I was fine with it in the beginning, however, because he did not actually do anything that messed up the tier. Then, one tragic event happened: he became the leader of RU. Right there, I wanted to quit RU, but I decided to wait it out to see what happened. Right away, however, I knew things were going to be for the worst. He removed my halfops in #rarelyused based on the concept that I didn’t talk enough. In reality, I had twice as many lines as he did. He also removed Molk's halfops in #rarelyused for no apparent reason, even though Molk is one of the most active people in the channel and the main reason why the channel is even active. The tyrant was going on a rampage, and it had only just begun. Some people are too corrupted by power, and Texas Cloverleaf is one of them. For the better, Texas should not be a moderator and should be replaced by Silentverse as head of RU. Someone like Dittocrow, who is actually good at the tier and seriously helps it out (you even nominated him for Community Contributor, Oglemi), should be the other moderator of the RU tier. There are several reasons why this should be the case. For one, Silentverse is not corrupted by power, as you can tell by how he’s been acting exactly the same ever since he got moderator.

The second point I’m about to make is only glorified by the new revamping of the RU Senate, and the creation of the RU rotating council. The only member with a permanent spot is Texas Cloverleaf, the tyrant who knows nothing about RU. People like Silentverse, who know the metagame inside and out, now have lost Tiering Contributor with barely any hope of getting it back due to the tyrant known as Texas Cloverleaf. It will take him months to earn it back, and even then he could lose it due to activity (going by the post you made regarding Tiering Contributor, anyway). The second point I’m making goes hand-in-hand with this, in that Texas Cloverleaf is one of the worst Rarelyused players I have ever seen. All he uses is bog-standard Pokemon, and that’s fine, but when you’re the head of the tier and you can barely win with bog-standard Pokemon, we have a problem. Silentverse uses things like Butterfree and Mothim and destroys opponents in games, unlike Texas. For evidence of how bad he is, you can look at his ladder ratings; he did not manage to get 1350 in the RU Council challenge, whereas Silentverse dominated the ladder. Not to mention, when there was a rotating council before this, he barely even scratched 1300, and most of the time, just had a couple of alts hovering around 1250, which personally, I could do in about 1 and a half hours maximum.

There is also a third reason why he should not be mod, and that is because he barely even does anything in the Rarelyused subforumb when compared to others. All he does is steal things that other people have posted in other tiers and modifies it for RU. It is nothing but a complete joke. There are many examples of this; I remember one time, he even asked me to help him write something for the tier, and showed me a thread topic which he had stolen from another subforum. The only real work he does for Rarelyused is in Smog articles and analyses, but that should not have much weight in being a Rarelyused Moderator, let alone Tier Leader. Even I have written about 15 analyses, and Omicron has written about 25, as well as analyses. That has to do with Smog Media / Contributions and Corrections, respectively, so that should not have much weight in him getting Rarelyused mods. Overall, Texas Cloverleaf is nothing but a useless and awful tier leader that should be replaced immediately by the most qualified person for the job: Silentverse.

 

[alexwolf]

I also like DittoCrow's idea. Giving to the top x players the right to vote on the status of the suspects that the council has chosen seems as a very good way to motivate more people to ladder in RU. And RU needs all the help it can get, because it has been disappointingly inactive, unlike PO's LU.

 

[Pocket]

I really like DittoCrow's suggestions for tiering - I hope other tiers adapt something similar as well. Extra input outside of council members is desirable, imo, especially for controversial suspects.

 

[Jukain]

ShakeItUp.... Calm down. There's no reason to be putting someone in the wrong for every mistake they made.

EDIT: I support DittoCrow's tiering ideas. Having the community and the council could be a great compromise between suspect testing and the council system. I think like the top 5 or something exclusive like that would be ideal.

EDIT2: But at the same time, I also think that the permanent senate is way better for the tier, mainly for the reasons that Omicron outlined.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

I come to RU to get away from some of the drama in UU and this ?_?

Also, I'm not sure what merits DittoCrow's suggestion has versus a rotating council. I mean, it seems DittoCrow's proposal gives a symbolic vote solely for the purpose of getting a TC badge, but these votes have no official power. That means we give a badge for contribution to a tier to people who technically had no say in the tiering decisions. I don't see any possible way of managing the RU tier while making Tiering Contributor accessible better than Oglemi's idea posted earlier:

In order to make it "easier" to get the 4 votes for a single tier, I can make it so every seat is repeatable, but make it harder to repeat a seat. For example, if I were to earn a seat in one round, and I did the same amount of work next round, but Molk did about the exact same as I did, Molk would be considered before me for the seat. However, if I put in more work then I would get the seat.

This seems to be the ideal method, as it's both competitive and meritocratic, accessible and restrictive, and etc. I don't see a point in RU Council term limits as long as the individual stays active in the forum, ladder, and IRC discussions. Furthermore, this method improves accessibility by forcing the RU veterans not only to contribute to the community, but to contribute more than the newcomers. This prevents long-standing veterans from resting on their laurels because if a newcomer does an equal amount of work, then the veteran can kiss his council spot goodbye.

Also, I would recommend doing away with permanent council spots. That, as demonstrated with the posts above, can only lead to trouble because it encourages people contributing furiously for a rather short period of time and then falling back on an irrevocable council spot. There should, at least in a presumed active community, be healthy competition for the council spots, and permanent spots only jeopardize the integrity of the system by not holding councilmen accountable and make it more difficult for newcomers and veterans close to Tiering Contributor status from obtaining the badge.

Also, irrevocable council spots lead to debacles such as what is occurring in this thread.

 

[Oglemi]

So after talking with everyone about their qualms and about DC's proposal, I've decided to do the following:

SilentVerse is the co-leader of RU with myself. Texas has been gracious enough to relinquish this position for the betterment of the tier, and a very mature move on his part. So congrats to SilentVerse are in order!

Next, we'll be implementing DC's proposal in the following way. There will be a two-party system set up, one of a permanent senate, another of ladderers. The ladderers will be chosen simply on rank on the ladder. The senate members have been chosen on their merits for dedication to the tier, metagame knowledge, and skill.

The senate is as follows:

Senate leader: SilentVerse
seat 2: ShakeItUp
seat 3: Honko
seat 4: Texas Cloverleaf
seat 5: DittoCrow
seat 6: Molk
seat 7: Omicron

Congrats to DC, Molk, and Omi for making it on the senate!

The ladderers will consist of the top 8 players on the ladder. At the end of the round, I'll post an alt Identification thread, where the top 8 will then identify themselves and vote. If the senate members hold a spot in the top 8, then we'll simply choose the top 8 non-senate members to vote.

Ciele will have one of the seats for the upcoming round for winning the council challenge.

The senate members will receive TC after the first vote so that I can get it done in one fell swoop.

Non-senate voters will receive TC after they have reached 8 total tier-related votes across all tiers and generations. The non-senate seats are repeatable each round.

The senate will be the body to decide the suspects for a round.

If a majority of the senate disagrees with a majority of the non-senate voters (for example, if a majority of the non senate voters vote to ban Omastar, but a majority of the senate members vote to not ban Omastar, Omastar will not be banned that round).

I'll post when the round ends in the np: thread in a bit.

Hopefully now we can all gather around the campfire, hold hands, and sing Kumbaya once again :)

 

[jake]

This seems to be the ideal method, as it's both competitive and meritocratic, accessible and restrictive, and etc. I don't see a point in RU Council term limits as long as the individual stays active in the forum, ladder, and IRC discussions. Furthermore, this method improves accessibility by forcing the RU veterans not only to contribute to the community, but to contribute more than the newcomers. This prevents long-standing veterans from resting on their laurels because if a newcomer does an equal amount of work, then the veteran can kiss his council spot goodbye.

Also, I would recommend doing away with permanent council spots. That, as demonstrated with the posts above, can only lead to trouble because it encourages people contributing furiously for a rather short period of time and then falling back on an irrevocable council spot. There should, at least in a presumed active community, be healthy competition for the council spots, and permanent spots only jeopardize the integrity of the system by not holding councilmen accountable and make it more difficult for newcomers and veterans close to Tiering Contributor status from obtaining the badge.

Also, irrevocable council spots lead to debacles such as what is occurring in this thread.

I'm not responding to the beginning part since the "voting for the sake of it" seems to have been addressed with Oglemi's post. I do strongly agree that the Senate members' votes should hold more weight than the members from the rotating council.

I don't really agree that Senate members can simply rest on their laurels, especially if Oglemi firmly keeps track of who's doing what on the Senate and makes the appropriate changes. I don't know if anyone else shares the same view as me, but in my opinion, Senate members should be the most active and involved members in their respective tiers, simply by definition. If one or more of them starts falling behind without prior reasoning or simply shows no further interest in the tier, they should be warned and then later removed from the council if no effort to retain their spot has been made. A Senate member should be doing just as much work as a newcomer, and if not then their spot should be taken away in favour of someone who is more active and/or proficient. I don't think we need to solely rely on a rotating council to do something like that; a well-maintained Senate can accomplish just the same thing.

From this point on, it should be made clear that Senate spots aren't irrevocable, and that if you're failing to keep up you are in danger of losing your spot.

 

[Pocket]

Kumbaya! I'd like to address some issues, though...

If a majority of the senate disagrees with a majority of the non-senate voters (for example, if a majority of the non senate voters vote to ban Omastar, but a majority of the senate members vote to not ban Omastar, Omastar will not be banned that round).

Not to sound rude, but basically the non-senators pretty much have one option - to agree with the senators. Because if the two decisions contradict each other, the senator's decision is always chosen.

Basically this new method opens an avenue for non-senators to gain the TC badge, but they don't actually make any of the important tiering decisions, cuz the senators decision is absolute.

Here are some solutions so that non-senate Tier contributors actually get to contribute in the tier they play:

1) Count the senate + non-senate votes together - don't separate them. This will give you one decision.

The senators still have notable influence by being a permanent fixture in the tiering of RU as long as they are active. They will also be the ones selecting the suspects for them and the non-senate members to vote on.

2) If you still want to separate the votes between the two parties, at least raise the senator's requirement to overrule the non-senator's decision to keep a suspect in the tier to supermajority. So this is a scenario when non-senator's majority vote for a suspect to be RU, but the senator's majority voted for a suspect to be BL 2. In this scenario, the suspect would be kept in RU unless the senator's decision was a super-majority.

This 2nd scenario gives limited power to the non-senators - they can prevent the senator's from banning a suspect (but they cannot prevent the senator's from keeping a suspect).

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The 2 suggestions above leads me to another issue - the requirement for a ban should be raised to supermajority in the first suggestion, and 2 majorities / 1 senator supermajority in the 2nd suggestion.

If in the first scenario there was only a simple majority for a ban, then keep the suspect in RU for another test period. If the suspect receives simple majority the second time, it gets sacked.

For the second scenario, if the non-senators decided DO NOT BAN and simple majority of senators decided BAN, then the suspect should be kept for another phase. If the same voting results are repeated, the suspect is banned.

I don't know why we made banning easier when we stopped suspect testing and moved to council systems. The only thing that changed between the transition is that people who are making the decisions know the metagame much better - so if there's a divisive vote of 5 ban and 3 no ban, why would we choose to hastily ban when nearly half of the experts disagree with the decision?

Sorry for imposing this on you guys, but please give my suggestion a thought. Thanks.

PS: Ugh sorry RU and BL2, forgot which tier I was posting this in :x Fixed

 

[alexwolf]

Very good ideas from Pocket as usual!

I believe that his first solution seems the best. By counting all votes together, you give to all parts (senators and best ladderers) equal voting rights, while the senate members still have far greater power, because they are the ones that decide the suspects in the first place.

I also agree with Pocket about the super majority thing. We still should have a super majority to ban a suspect, because otherwise the ban will look very forced and controversial.

 

[Oglemi]

Will address Pocket's post more later, but yes, a super majority is required to ban anything, I just forgot to include that in my last post.

Also yes, the senate positions are not irrevocable, if me and SilentVerse decide someone is inactive, we'll remove said person.

The part where the senate can overrule the non-senators was where I was wary when talking over the proposition. I actually agree more with the combined vote.

 

[Oglemi]

What I'm planning on doing is making it so that there are 6 non-senate members that vote. This way if the senate members do disagree with the non-senate members, the senate members can simply outvote them.

The votes will take place as a combined vote. So, in order for something to be banned, a suspect would need a 9 out of 13 votes.

I think this is best, as the non-senate members won't feel completely useless, but the senate would still have majority control, plus the senate is the body to nominate suspects in the first place.

 

[Pocket]

Thanks for weighing in my input, Oglemi - it really means a lot :)

 

[alexwolf]

Sounds good!

 

[Thatsjustpeachy]

Holy crap RU actually developed for the better! All these BW tiers have been so crappy lately but I might actually start playing RU again. And congrats to the new senate members.

Edit: Also loved the disputes/infighting, I always miss the good stuff

 

[DittoCrow]

Kumbaya! I'd like to address some issues, though...

1) Count the senate + non-senate votes together - don't separate them. This will give you one decision.

The senators still have notable influence by being a permanent fixture in the tiering of RU as long as they are active. They will also be the ones selecting the suspects for them and the non-senate members to vote on.

Yeah it is a combined vote :s. However, if the senators feel that the votes of the ladderers are extremely ridiculous, they could overrule the ladderers' decision. Over half of the senate would have to go against this, which is unlikely. I wouldn't expect it to come down to this, as there would be plenty of discussion in the forum, irc, etc. before the vote takes place. It's basically a safety net. The reason for having more ladder spots is to give more people a better chance to get to vote, thus increasing activity, a major problem in the lower tiers.