Policy Review Policy Review - Bisecting the Process

[jagged_angel]

I do not fully understand this part. So far I know, this discussion IS about "When to do art?", right? I only raised a point about how art should influence competitive design.

Effectively, this PR thread does consider "When to do art" but the point behind it is that the Competitive and Flavour aspects should be split so that each can move at their own pace.

This is a great idea and is equally important from a practical angle by which the CAP project runs more smoothly AND gives a clearer message that Flavour should not influence the Competitive aspects.

In an ideal world, all Flavour aspects would be conducted after the Competitive Movepool Poll but this has been proposed before and is largely agreed to overly lengthen the process.
Given that CAP6 was half the length of CAP5, I would personally be quite happy to add another 3-4 weeks onto the process but I doubt that that is a popular view.

So, the only practical solution is running Flavour alongside Competitive aspects but making it perfectly clear that no Flavour aspects should influence competitive decisions.
This bifurcation would tie in nicely with the discussion in tennis' Regarding the CAP Server thread since there is a fairly strong antipathy toward people who vote in competitive polls and who have never been on the CAP Server before.
Splitting the process into Competitive and Flavour would make it easier to encourage those clueless about the CAP metagame to stick to voting in the Flavour threads, and only voting in the Competitive stream of the project if they can back up their decisions with server derived competitive reasoning.

This could all be viewed as ephemerata - the main thing is that darkie implemented this process in CAP6, it worked, he wants to make it official. This could lead to a clearer distinction in peoples' minds between how they should act or participate depending on whether the thread in question is competitive or flavour.

please keep the "Flavor vs. Competitive" philosophical stuff to a minimum. Yes, the OP is proposing that we split the process into two sections -- Flavor and Competitive. But, the proposal is not a question to wrangle with angst over how flavor aspects and competitive aspects interact with each other to produce a "good pokemon".

I apologise for mainly discussing Flavour vs Competitive stuff in my post but believe it's important for people to realise that this proposal does not only streamline the process and make it easier for the TL to keep the project moving, but it also makes it easier to exclude flavour based discussion and reasoning where this is necessary.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Perhaps we should renumber the flavor steps, to make it clear it is actually a separate "track":

Art Submissions
Flavor Part 1 (Art Poll)
Flavor Part 2 (Name Discussion)
Sprite Submissions
Flavor Part 3 (Name Poll)
Flavor Part 4 (Sprite Poll)

Then we would renumber the other steps appropriately, to account for the "removal" of these steps from the "main" process sequence.

I don't know if this would make it clearer that there are two separate tracks of the process, but it's something to consider.

 

[cyberzero]

I think that rather than have the flavor and competitive aspects run simultaneously, first the competitive and then flavor should be held. Although it would lengthen the process, if we all run at the same speed as (Scarf)Darkie, it should be done in around 7 weeks, which is an ideal time for a CAP project.

 

[Plus]

I think that rather than have the flavor and competitive aspects run simultaneously, first the competitive and then flavor should be held. Although it would lengthen the process, if we all run at the same speed as (Scarf)Darkie, it should be done in around 7 weeks, which is an ideal time for a CAP project.

I know some people who didn't necessarily like the speed of darkie running his project this fast. Sometimes people didn't get a chance to post in a discussion topic or vote in a poll. Although I did like darkie's speed this time around, I don't know if the others liked it just as much. You are correct in the fact that 7 weeks is a decent time to finish a CaP, but perhaps we might squish and rush the process a little too fast in certain areas, while still completing in a normal time. However, the quality of that CaP might not turn out as good due to the fact that we rushed. When we rush a project, there is always a probability that the community overlooked something in the project regarding movepool, ability, typing, stats, etc.

 

[Hyra]

I think they way Darkie ran CAP this time around. I also like the idea of putting the Assistant TL in charge of the flavor half of the deal.

No wall of words from me, I pretty much agree entirely.

 

[jagged_angel]

Perhaps we should renumber the flavor steps, to make it clear it is actually a separate "track":

Art Submissions
Flavor Part 1 (Art Poll)
Flavor Part 2 (Name Discussion)
Sprite Submissions
Flavor Part 3 (Name Poll)
Flavor Part 4 (Sprite Poll)

Then we would renumber the other steps appropriately, to account for the "removal" of these steps from the "main" process sequence.

I don't know if this would make it clearer that there are two separate tracks of the process, but it's something to consider.

Haha Doug I very nearly proposed exactly this when I made my first post but didn't want to be seen to be harping on about Flavour vs Competitive so I thought I'd wait and see how other people felt. Clearly you feel the same!
I think that what you propose would be very helpful in order to make it clear to people that the two 'tracks' are separate and proceed independently. It would also indicate the different rules/reasoning that would be required in each track.

cyber, I think you're underestimating the amount of time it would take to do all the flavour aspects. Say all the competitive aspects are done in 5-6 weeks (darkie did it about as fast as humanly possible so allow an extra week for future TLs not being as fast) and allow a week each for Art and Sprite submissions. 7-8 weeks. Then depending on the number of polls for each part, they'll last between 1 and 2 weeks. That's 9-10 weeks which is shorter than some previous CAPs but probably longer than some would like.

My personal view is that there is no time limit on CAPs so we should take however long is necessary but there are obligations to create a momentum so that people get interested and stay interested.
If Flavour was kept until after Competitive aspects, I fear some people would lose interest and maybe less people would remember to come on the server to playtest the pokemon.

 

[Darkflagrance]

The only way that flavor could not influence competitiveness is to have the flavor aspects be determined after the competitiveness is determined, but running into the time of the next CAP, so that the projects would overlap. Maybe it's not a good idea to be diverting people's attention like that. Or, given that speed is a concern, perhaps it would be a better idea to speed the process up in that way. I mean, it's not like people have to half their intellectual power between the processes, because one is just flavor anyway based on what has already gone.

 

[Atlas]

this was so far the best run cap process and although i dont agree with how the split is done (the ever conflicting flavour vs competitive), it is the best for this kind of project.

just make sure to leave a poll open for at least 24 hours :P a few times during this i would go to bed and while i had been sleeping a poll was put up and closed by the time i woke up.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Conclusion:

The CAP process will be split after typing is decided, in accordance with the details proposed in the OP.