As promised, the yap session.
RMT's biggest issue is that we are not Smogon.
I won't bang on about this because I've done that before (and Anchor has continued that discussion above), but I think RMT and Smogon have much more in common than not.
It's hard to think up a team advice platform that isn't just Smogon-lite, or becomes so broad in its appeal that there is no appeal. We can try some of X's ideas or moving moveset rates into separate threads, but I don't think you can solve the fundamental issue of there being more people wanting advice than people who have the time and knowledge needed to give advice.
Do we chuck it in and allow playthrough advice, even though people will get mad when we tell them Lucario is super inefficient for DPPt playthroughs? Don't know.
our Q&A Movesets are...lackluster to say the least, and basically any moveset on this site is worse/a sidegrade to a Smogon alternative.
I used to have the same view of the moveset threads, but I would now describe this view as pessimistic. As the person most responsible for the direction of those threads, I like to focus on positive aspects.
No doubt there's more work to be done tidying up the older threads, but I think there's plenty our threads can offer which Smogon does not:
- As you mention, anybody can contribute. It's a more conducive environment to creativity and originality (even if our "creatives" can be a little bit SigmaTyrunt321).
- We have strategies for new Pokemon and new metas well before Smogon gets through its QC and other formalities.
- This platform allows discussion, i.e. people can scrutinise the strategies and give their opinions. There is a human face to the advice that Smogon's dex doesn't have.
- Everything has a date attached to it, so you know if the advice is outdated.
- There is more opportunity for people to flesh an idea in the context of a set, as opposed to Smogon which tends to Do / This / In Each / Set or condemn "other options" to a sentence at the bottom of the page.
Even if we aren't matching Smogon's level of detail and command of the metagame, there is a niche for those threads if we keep putting work into them. As I'm sure you know very well, we have people like Volt leading by example on that front anyway, and the more his (and other people's) level of care sets into those threads, the better they will be.
I should preach this more: remember to upvote sets that are good/effortful and downvote ones that are bad.
What all of this boils down to (basically the TLDR) is that we should capitalize on our conciseness and our community. If we are aiming to be distinct from other sites, competitive information serves as something different compared to Bulbapedia.
Hard agree with this whole para.
With that being said, I feel like the RMT Answer rules can be dropped a bit. They should still permit long essays like the ones I write, but it should also allow a suggestion feed of sorts (maybe in a seperate section away from the actual ratings).
Agree with this also. The rules aren't intended to discourage shorter answers, so if that's what you took from them then let me know. I think this would be a good focus for us, since it decreases the burden on raters to address every little detail, test their own suggestions, or whatever other rigour.
I think the only way to reverse this culture is using the rules (or similar) and having people lead by example. I'll change the rules later to spell things out and sound more encouraging of short advice.
Hosting more tournaments in DB.
We'll host them as often as people want them and are able to host them. Anchor's already touched on our current process. Maybe that needs to be simplified to reduce the burden on hosts.
We have a culture of doing fun/experimental tours from our suggestions thread, which we can keep leaning into to be welcoming of newer players.
There is a hall of fame but you're right it's a bit buried. As for badges... good luck trying to get custom features for our software added.
Making Competitive Pokemon more emphasized. If you scroll to the top of the screen, you'll see Pokemon Data, Game Mechanics, Pokemon Games, Community/Other, and the search bar. In my opinion, we should add a competitive section to it, along with all of our competitive guides.
I think we'd struggle convincing Pokemaster to make changes to the nav bar (and that's assuming we can make him talk to us in the first place). I'd also want guides to live on PokeBase, so we can edit them instead of letting them rot like this.
As usual, there'll be ways we can improvise. We can make a tag like this with our guides, then advertise it everywhere so people can find it. Maybe that can be the substitute for the "teambuilding 101" link you spoke about.
Fusing RMT with Q&A (or moveset threads).
I would never mix Q&A with RMT, though moving the questions there is something I've thought about before. Ultimately, I don't think it would work because activity on moveset threads alone absolutely overwhelms activity on RMT.
we can include an option in moveset threads to post a moveset about a Pokemon on their team, then have a link to go to their full team.
Again, good luck having new features added here. I do like the idea of adding integrations with RMT to the main section though. There will be ways we can achieve that without having specific features for it.
Feel free to discuss more.
