I've actually been really on the fence about the State of the RMT. I do really think it needs more organization and needs some kind of change to really flourish. MrKijani raised a number of good points I agreed with about having crap teams. I've made suggestions before, but have come up with a more refined plan. Most people I talk to on this site, whether it be an older user or a new one, really don't seem to like the RMT...it just seems like it's on life support, really.
On one hand, the responsibility rests in part on the user making the post to do basic research using the site here to at least know basic dos and don'ts of moveset building, hence why I shouldn't see a special Rampardos set on a suggestion for an Ubers team. Anyone who's looked up how stats work on this site should know why running a special moveset on a Rampardos is a poor choice. There comes a point where a team can be so poor that to suggest things for it requires a complete overhaul of what the person posted, meaning the person answering is making the team more than the one asking.
On the other hand, we still are a site and the RMT is there specifically to help people improve, so it's not as simple as turning people away because they aren't up to snuff. They're still making posts, and simply telling them to do more research clearly hasn't been very effective, not to mention a lot of these posts don't break any of the rules, but simply aren't very good teams. We can't just say "make sure your team isn't crappy" because that is extremely subjective even though we all know crappy teams when we see them, and it leads to inconsistencies in hiding. so I think a new strategy is in order.
I think my suggestion can address both the needs of more advanced players that are tired of seeing the RMT flooded with mediocre posts as well as the newer users tired of getting turned away from feedback and getting better.
I suggest we implement a method similar to the flagging system that lets us denote posts (not users, but individual posts) by skills of "beginner," "intermediate," or "advanced." If you want, you can even change them to "trainer," "gym leader," and "elite four" as a nod to the Pokemon Academy from Pokemon Stadium 2. :P That way, when people are on the RMT, they can filter out posts that are outside of their interested skill level.
One of the biggest issues I've seen on the RMT is that people are of different skill levels asking and answering, so we can use this to cut the searching down dramatically. All the posts still have to meet the rules to be approved, of course. All three of the below examples are in different "improve my Ubers" posts I just made up.
Beginner:
These are posts are the "barely legal" posts. It could have something like:
Shedinja @ Focus Sash
Ability: Wonder Guard
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Gentle Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Shadow Sneak
- X-Scissor
- Toxic
If I had 5 other sets like this with reasoning, this technically doesn't break any of our site's rules. That said, this is still a really poor set, but nothing that can't be corrected with a simple explanation of what makes it so poor.
Intermediate:
Groudon @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 HP
Adamant Nature
Ability: Drought
- Hammer Arm
- Fire Punch
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
In this set, the moves are kind of viable. Nothing violates basic teambuilding logic, although this set could be way better. Someone could bring up the fact that Ho-oh (barring a roost) shuts down this set and can capitalize on Groudon's drought to try and force a burn on it with Sacred Fire if not outright kill it from STAB and weather boost. Someone might say "change up your EVs" or something similar.
Advanced
Yveltal @ Life Orb
Ability: Dark Aura
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Taunt
- Dark Pulse
- Oblivion Wing
On a competitive team, this moveset holds up fine. Someone might say something to the effect of "you need to change EVs to 2HKO [pokemon]," "need a counter to Arceus-Poison," or "change life orb to [item]" or something.
Any user Editor or higher would be able to shift the difficulty of the post, since it wouldn't make as much sense to judge their own quality if they were a beginner. It would look like the image below so that people searching can quickly filter the posts down. I figure the simplest way to do this is to make tags for users and retag improperly tagged posts and then add in a few more labels that run an instant search by tag and can also add in more for specific teams (Ubers, OU, etc) but we'd also want a way that's simple and looks appealing just for good UI and make sure this method actually gets used. I don't know many people that actually use the tags, after all. I wouldn't think the spoiler tag system you used to fade out certain posts would be good because we'll need that for new game posts as new games are released. Do it that way, and we can include a sort= prompt.
In short:
Unanswered Posts would be hidden after 30 days (or whatever acceptable time). to cut down on stagnant posts. There's nothing stopping you from reposting the same team. When a team is hidden for this reason, it will be pasted to the person's wall if they still need it. Exceptions go to posts with X amount of upvotes for others to try and build off of.
A person can have no more than X amount of unanswered posts (make an exception for posts that have answers on them or have more than X amount of upvotes) at a time. Set whatever number you feel works well. Perhaps set a smaller amount for new users or something to cut down on people just here to make a team and expect it to be handled by every user on the site. I'm not completely as acquainted with what this site uses, but I don't recall if the users can have posting restrictions set by number of questions.
Sort out posts by "Beginner," "Intermediate," or "advanced." Anyone Editor or higher can manually change the posts to different level.
Create (or allow other users to create and upload) a series of teambuilding basics to get new people up to snuff, drive up more site viewership, and strengthen our online presence. Currently, Smogon obviously dominates a lot of the competitive play, but I still feel there are a lot of people willing to improve that also don't want to deal with Smogon's community that we can capitalize on and still have them making sets that aren't piles of crap.
