Policy Review Idea: Best Discussion Nominations [Postponed]

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Deck Knight

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Approved by Elevator Music over irc.

This is a pretty simple idea I think will help juice up the main forum and get some good discussions going.

Basically at the end of each CAP (starting with Mollux obv.) we have nominations for the best discussion thread and then a poll. Whichever discussion wins gets moved out of the process archive back into the main forum with a permanent redirect in the archive.

This gives us three threads from each CAP that remain in the main forum: The Final Product, the Playtest thread, and the Best Discussion thread. I think it will help give people a sense of CAP's best discussions rather than starting from scratch each time, and boost morale by remembering the best parts of each CAP.

I don't know how far back we'd want to go with this, I'd say we apply it to Mollux, Necturna, and Tomohawk first since they're the most recent. Even then I think there might be value in going all the way back to Syclant to really see how our "best discussions" have evolved over the multiple years of the project.

What say ye?

Should we do this? How many CAPs should we go back if we do?

Final Language:

CAP will create a Discussion Assessment Thread to gather constructive feedback / criticism of all discussions in that CAP. The Discussion Assessment shall happen after each CAP's competitive phases are over. This Discussion Assessment would begin before the playtest (after the Movepool Poll is concluded), but run concurrently with it. Aurumoth's Discussion Assessment shall happen immediately after a vote is reached, if the affirmative is in the majority.

YES
NO

This Poll will close in 48 hours.
 
Doing this retroactively might be weird. The "best discussion" threads for BW CAP 3+ are inevitably going to be relative to the CAP community's mentality at the time, while the same threads for BW CAP 2- are going to be relative to our mentality now. The "best discussion" threads will themselves evolve over time, as we gain and lose participants and shift our thinking. I suppose going back to Tomohawk is fine, but further back we're talking about an entirely different gen.
 

DetroitLolcat

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I'm not super-sold on this specific idea, as I think it's rather unnecessary. I like the gist of this idea, and I would like to see more emphasis and analysis of previous (and future!) discussions, but, in my opinion, this isn't the way to go. Instead of nominating one discussion for "Best Discussion",why not just open up a "Discussion Assessment" thread after the competitive aspects of the CAP are decided upon? This would allow us to focus on both the negatives and the positives of the discussions instead of just the positives.

However, I do like your proposal to an extent. It's definitely a good idea to place more emphasis on evaluating the discussions that take place in the CAP forum, as discussion is the primary purpose of CAP. After some of the more heated discussions that took place in the recent CAP project, it's just important to outline the major "don't"s as it is to recognize the best discussions. That's what I don't like about the Best Discussion proposal; it only focuses on recognizing great discussions and doesn't hit the heart of the problem: identifying the warning signs of poor discussions and improving the faults of the project. A Discussion Assessment thread (which would open at the end of a project, the same time as the Final Product), however, would allow the community to express its opinions on every facet of the project as opposed to just the highlights.

If Deck_Knight's proposal passes, however, I support going back to Colossoil, aka the first CAP in which we had a strong TL model. The CAP project didn't change much between Voodoom and Tomohawk, so I don't see a reason to stop at Tomohawk. The most recent gigantic change to CAP, and in my opinion the beginning of the "modern" CAP project, is the revamping of the Topic Leader into the strong TL. Since all CAPs since and, at the moment, all future CAPs take place under strong Topic Leadership, we should only analyze discussions that took place under our current model. This also allows us to analyze what makes effective and ineffective leadership.

If I can propose anything, I propose having a Discussion Assessment thread after the completion of each CAP in which we analyze both the highlights and lowlights of each CAP. If we are to retroactively analyze any discussions (under anyone's proposal), I support going back to Colossoil because it is the most ancient CAP that was created under the current leadership model.
 

Deck Knight

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I'm not super-sold on this specific idea, as I think it's rather unnecessary. I like the gist of this idea, and I would like to see more emphasis and analysis of previous (and future!) discussions, but, in my opinion, this isn't the way to go. Instead of nominating one discussion for "Best Discussion",why not just open up a "Discussion Assessment" thread after the competitive aspects of the CAP are decided upon? This would allow us to focus on both the negatives and the positives of the discussions instead of just the positives.
I say we discuss the merits of this. Discussions really are the bread and butter of CAP, and for years we griped about the quality of discussions, especially the Movepool threads, but we never did something proactive to talk about the problems from a policy perspective rather than "lol chumpthreads."

Discussion Assessment sounds like a good way to go, either as a public forum entry or here in the PRC Forum.
 

Birkal

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Honestly, I don't see a problem with doing this either way, with either Detroit or Deck's suggestion. This isn't something that is really going to get tacked on to the main CAP process. Rather, it's geared more as a discussion about CAP rather than a discussion that builds a CAP. From my experience in DST OU, this would be comparable to a discussion about the metagame. There is no real "goal" besides building community and bouncing ideas off of one another. It's a novelty thread, really.

So since this isn't really going to be added to the main process (at least I hope it wouldn't be), then why not just go for it? It sounds like an awesome discussion to be a part of when the time rolls around. It will definitely help give some users an avenue to reflect their thoughts and ideas for the betterment of CAP.
 

jas61292

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I think both Deck Knight and DetroitLolcat's ideas are good and worth pursuing. When reflecting back on a project, it is very important to look at both the positives and the negatives. A thread on how the past CAP went would be a great way to start discussion about it. Unfortunately, there will always be more to talk about on the negative side than the positive. Sure, we can always pat ourselves on the back and say "good job", but once we acknowledge what we did right, there is not much else to say to that end. The majority of discussion will come from talking about what was not great and how we can improve.

However, as I said, I think both positive and negatives are important, which is why I like Deck's idea. We might not really be able to have much of a discussion on what is good, but we can certainly recognize the best of the previous CAP, and show it off as an example of what we want for the future.

As for how far back we should go, I personally don't think we should go back at all anywhere farther than Mollux. The best discussions should be decided by the people of that CAP, not us in the present looking back on the past. However, if we really wanted, I would not object to going back to Necturna, or maybe Tomohawk.
 

Birkal

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Deck Knight, could we get some comments or resolution on this? Is this still something you'd like to go through with?
 

Deck Knight

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I think after going over it I like Detroitlolcat's proposal as the basis for the idea more. A "Discussion Assessment" should really be the meat of what we're going for to get commentary on what people thought of the process that just occurred. If we want t go forward from there and nominate a best discussion based on Thread Feedback that would be fine, but I think DLC summed up what I was actually looking for.

Thus the proposal would be:

CAP will create a Discussion Assessment (perhaps LABELED as "Best / Worst Discussions of CAP X") and use that as constructive feedback / criticism going forward after each CAP's competitive phases are over. This Discussion Assessment would begin before the playtest (after the Movepool Poll is concluded), but run concurrently with it.

Any Amendments to the text should occur over the next 48 hours.
 

DougJustDoug

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I like the idea of evaluating the discussions of a project soon after it completes. High-quality discussions are the main intended output of Create-A-Pokemon. Despite project's name, our primary goal is not to make a Pokemon. Our primary goal is to create a series of interesting and engaging discussions about competitive pokemon. The pokemon we are making is simply the theme that drives those discussions. So many CAP participants and CAP leaders fail to understand this point. So by making an explicit step to evaluate our discussions, I think it might do a lot to underscore the whole "It's about the journey, not the destination" goal of CAP.

The way this is currently proposed it feels more like a big bandwagon thread to heap praise on the most popular thread -- which I have a feeling will become a surrogate for voting for popular submitters or parts of the CAP process that are just popular in general.

For example, I think after every CAP most users would vote that the Art Submissions thread is the "best thread". I realize the art thread isn't really a discussion, so it's kinda silly to mention it in terms of the "best discussion" -- BUT THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINT. Most users will not regard this as an opportunity to evaluate discussion quality on merits or criteria -- they will simply vote for their "favorite part of Create-A-Pokemon". And for many users, I doubt their favorite part of CAP ever changes. People that are into movepools will always vote for the movepool thread, stat spread junkies will always vote for stat spreads, and so on. Since art is by far the most popular part of CAP, I have a hard time believing any other aspect of CAP could possibly beat it. The only way to solve that is to disallow art from the poll. Which is fine, but it kinda sidesteps the real problem.

The problem is that we want to evaluate discussions, and underscore the importance of good discussions in CAP, not pile on yet another bandwagon popularity vote at the end of CAP.

I'm not sure exactly how to achieve the right effect on this. I love the general idea here, and I think it could be a wonderful way to emphasize the real mission of Create-A-Pokemon. But this proposal does not yet hit the mark. Even with the "Discussion Assessment", I'm not sure we'll get anything more than thinly veiled "votes" anyway. I think the problem is how we try to target the right audience. I think most drive-by posters will be worthless in this proposed thread. Yes, casual posters are a problem in all threads. But at the end of a CAP, the community takes on this wistful "Good job everybody" mentality, that will not help any critical assessment. I think we need to figure out a way to combat that and get something meaningful out of the assessment.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
the obvious answer to Doug's poll dilemma is that we don't need a poll - i mean what, are we gonna pin a little medal on the thread that says "voted best discussion for CAP4?" all we need out of this thread is a discussion about the merits and vices of the CAP process in general, perhaps pointing to specific threads as we go. I don't think that determining an objective "best discussion" is necessary in the slightest.
 

Deck Knight

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The Amendment Period has long passed with no changes to the language, however discussion on IRC has led me to take out any notion of a ranking system, this should be strictly about "what went right/wrong" not "what was best."

Final Language:

CAP will create a Discussion Assessment Thread to gather constructive feedback / criticism of all discussions in that CAP. The Discussion Assessment shall happen after each CAP's competitive phases are over. This Discussion Assessment would begin before the playtest (after the Movepool Poll is concluded), but run concurrently with it. Aurumoth's Discussion Assessment shall happen immediately after a vote is reached, if the affirmative is in the majority.
 

bugmaniacbob

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NO

Not necessary and little to be learned from it. What went "right or wrong" is subjective to the highest degree and only matters to a following Topic Leader, who generally will have their way of orchestrating a discussion ready to go irrespective of said thread. It doesn't seem to be anything more than a waste of time really. But I suppose there's no harm in that.
 

Birkal

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Yes.

Feedback is always valuable. It would give us a great chance to synthesize some information and get a public consensus on things. We already do this on IRC; I don't see why having a similar experience on the forums would be a bad thing.
 
Yes

I'm a little estranged on the idea of evaluating some of the older CAPs, especially considering that many of our recent contributors didn't exist until late Gen. IV - early Gen. V, but we otherwise have nothing to lose from this. If any subject matter ends up overlapping with an older CAP, we'll have more to learn from. Besides that, we really have nothing to lose considering that all competitive aspects of the CAP are over with once the movepoll stage is done.
 

jas61292

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Yes
Discussion about discussion is something we don't get much of, and we really should. I don't know if this will be the best way of doing it, but it is certainly not bad.
 

DarkSlay

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YES

It's a start to something that can be very useful for the process overall. I also echo Birkal's sentiments in that this kind of thing happens on the IRC chats all of the time, so a thread merely provides outlet to either those who cannot access the chats or to those who want their opinions to reach the entire project.
 

DougJustDoug

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I'm putting the conclusion of this on hold pending the outcome of several other PR threads that are coming up. Those PR threads may fundamentally alter how we execute this proposal and possibly obviate the need for this entirely.

To be clear: This isn't saying yes or no to this proposal. We're just tabling it for a while.
 
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