Policy Review

obi

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Now that the Policy Review sub-forum no longer exists, I'd like to ask that people post threads that would have been in Policy Review in Stark general, not in Inside Scoop. There is no reason to keep important discussion of that nature secret.
 

Firestorm

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Er, I must have missed it, but why was Policy Review removed? I thought the point of it was to keep policy discussion publicly viewable but not bogged down by unintelligent ranting.

I definitely oppose policy discussion being done in IS as that just makes it hard for people without access to know why decisions are being made (ie. the majority of people when Manaphy was banned at the beginning of DP).

I'm also not a fan of important decisions trying to be made in the mess of Stark Mountain, but it's a better alternative than IS. Both seem to be worse options than what was already in place though.
 

SoT

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I liked the Policy Review for a few reasons. It was public, so the outside people could still see what was going on, and the reasoning for our decisions. It was controlled, by that I mean who posted, you didn't have people go running around posting bloddy murder. With Stark you lose the controlled aspect that we had with Policy Review, so topics will most likely get really messy and really fast. With IS the general public losses all access to this forum, and can no longer see what and why we are doing something.

I think the PR was the best option, and really don't like either option here to be completely honest. But then again, that's just my two cents.
 

obi

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If people post something dumb in an important thread, be liberal with the infractions and deletions. Eventually, the 'idiots' will either get the hint or be banned. Either way, they won't be mucking up any discussions.
 

SoT

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Still seems inconvenient in a way, it seemed to me that the Policy Review forum was just fine, maybe I'm just being stubborn and resisting change though. I guess we could try it out in Stark first, if that fails IS is always an option.
 
Honestly, I liked Policy Review and think that getting rid of it just to make stark look cleaner (if that was the only reason) is kinda stupid. I wouldn't mind that extra sub forum being there, especially since no harm has come from it so far and there appears to be good discussion there. The main reason I don't want to have policy review threads in Stark is because that Ho-oh thread suggesting it should be suspect got far out of hand, which has been easily controlled by keeping the access controlled.
 
Infracting is not that inconvenient en mass, especially when you have other mods to help you out. They really seem to get it as a general group right away if you enforce the rules.

Though I do like the idea of everyone seeing the thought process without allowing them to 'shit all over it', sometimes you legitimately do get the odd nugget of goodness from the masses of idiots. I guess I'm naive that way. I'd like to try out posting it in Stark first and see how it goes before I condemn things one way or the other.
 

Firestorm

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I don't think it's possible to infract and delete posts fast enough to keep discussion coherent. Remember that if the post isn't deleted, then discussion will go off track because regular users can't see when a post has been infracted (I think). They will merely respond to it not realizing the user has already received a warning. And if posts are being deleted in a policy review topic, I think that it could lead to a slippery slope as far as what we think is delete-worthy and what isn't.
 

X-Act

np: Biffy Clyro - Shock Shock
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Yeah why exactly was Policy Review removed?

EDIT: As one of the relatively frequent thread-starters in that forum, I think that removing Policy Review isn't healthy. Imagine I posted the GLIXARE thing, or the OU list thing, in Stark. I shudder to even think about it.
 

Jumpman16

np: Michael Jackson - "Mon in the Mirror" (DW mix)
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i think a few of you are forgetting that we haven't had policy review since dppt started. there are several reasons to keep policy review where it was, one of them being a place to discuss complicated issues without worrying about having them derailed (which isn't just something you can infract). policy review was never a "secret" forum as referred to in the op. exclusive, yes, but never secret.

i dont know if you moved it obi (your posts itt don't really indicate one way or another and i can't remember what super moderators are capable of) but assuming you did, did you even ask any admins about it? removing policy review also has disappointed dozens of posters i have given access to, as they felt they had earned something when i personally pmed them to tell then they'd been granted access.

regardless of chaos or aeolus having done this on their own, it is certainly a decision that should have been posted about in this forum before just having been done, which is an "opinion" that's backed up by everyone who has posted here so far. i've made numerous threads here about unchartered territory and stark needing new mods here rather than just appointing them on my own, and i even made a thread about whether and how i should change how the forum's time will display. assuming chaos didn't do this, if super mods+ are just allowed to do things of this nature without posting in IS then okie dokie

in sum, who authorized this decision, why, and why weren't other admins like myself or x-act informed regardless? i am obviously not the only one surprised and disappointed here
 

Hipmonlee

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Supermods cant do that sort of thing.

The problem I have with this is I will probably miss important threads a lot more. Perhaps I should just be more willing to check Stark, which could be a positive outcome of this, but if I am being honest I expect that isnt actually something I will do regularly..

Have a nice day.
 

Caelum

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@Jump: IIRC, it was done by Misty last night when he was moving around a bunch of the forums (forgive me if I'm wrong about that Misty). And supermods can't move / create forums. The only difference between moderators and supermods is that supermods can auto-ban and hard delete (and mod everywhere but that goes without saying).

I too am a bit disappointed to see policy review go. As Jump pointed out, it's difficult to keep discussion on track in Stark even if you liberally infract / delete since we likely won't catch all the posts before the discussion is already derailed. I just don't see the benefits behind removing it; a "look but can't touch" forum was a good way to keep the public informed while still keeping the discussion coherent.

Edit: I also think Pokemon-policy should be publicly viewable. I understand IS being "private" since mostly internal stuff goes on here and it isn't really relevant to the community as a whole; but things that effect the entire Pokemon community (even sites not affiliated with Smogon often go by what we do) should be kept publicly viewable in my opinion. I don't feel its quite as easy to liberally infract / delete as some would suggest. CAP makes it work with Policy Review threads, but CAP also has less of a userbase and less of a scope as a whole so it's easier to moderate.
 

chaos

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Nobody told me about any of this. There should have been a discussion on the forums (or at least some sort of notice) before the forum was removed. What else was removed?
 

Havak

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Project: Revamp Old Articles and Protect: Clear Backlog of Articles.. At least I think that's what they were called. They seemed to have been removed from Contributions & Corrections, but I'm not really opposed to that since they were rather inactive. However, Article Workshop seems to have gone as well.

I did like Policy Review as it was, for the record.
 

Misty

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only one forum was removed.

Last night, I told Aeolus and a few people in IS that there were far too many subforums in C&C and Stark Mountain, so we moved a few of them around. You'll notice that a number of "Archive" forums are now under Thread Cryonics, as well as The Policy Review (seriously, can you people not scroll down?). The only other moves we made are that we shut off the "Project:" forums (they're under Cryonics but invisible) - they can be restored if anyone is willing to revive these projects; and we re-merged Article Workshop into the C&C generally because it no longer served a special purpose and it only had 8 topics anyway.

If you guys don't like these moves, they can all be undone fairly quickly.
 

Caelum

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I think the objection is that people can't post in Policy Review anymore since they won't have access.

For example, I couldn't create a thread there if I wanted. I don't care about the location (nor does anyone else I think).

Edit: I do agree there were too many sub-forums in parts though, so thanks for moving those around Misty ^__^
 

DougJustDoug

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I like Policy Review, and I think we should keep it.

I don't think it should be a sub-forum of Stark Mountain any longer. It should be a forum of its own, and can be used to address Smogon policies as a whole. Since Smogon is a competitive pokemon community, and DPP is the primary generation being played right now -- I suspect most of the policy discussions will pertain to competitive DP issues anyway. But, by making it a standalone forum, I think it will increase the visibility of the forum (many people did not know it existed under Stark) and allow for the possibility of other policy issues to be discussed.
 

Aeolus

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First, nothing was removed in the sense of being deleted. Policy Review was relocated in an effort to obtain a superior organizational structure of the forums.

Doug, I think that is a good idea too. We'll let everyone weigh in with their two cents before we do anything though... let's see when something happens.

Also, moving Policy Review wasn't "100% my decision" lol. We discussed the disorganized nature of Stark in #insidescoop, and that relocating Policy Review in favor of using Stark general for those discussions was accepted as the best fix in that chat. I also recall chaos vigorously objecting to the existence of The Policy Review in general when he realized it had been created several months after its inception. I don't appreciate being thrown under the bus for this.

As far as DM's comment that "one shouldn't make decisions for the many"... I'm afraid that is the only way anything has ever been accomplished anywhere. That is true at Smogon especially... whether it is chaos, me, jump, or justin of the past... nothing happens until someone makes a decision. It's called leadership.

I'm not going to apologize for attempting to improve the forum based on a consensus of several staff members. I've restored it as a sub-forum of Stark for now.
 

matty

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Ya no reason to point fingers here, especiall over an issue that can easily be restored. Let's move on

That said, though I didn't post in policy review I did like to read what was happening. A forum for itself seems appropriate so I'm in agreement with Doug's proposal
 

SoT

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A whole forum for PR sounds like the best idea we have. It's a whole hell of a lot better than having it in Stark or IS, so I really can't complain there. Supporting that as well.
 
Compelling arguements against my support for trying it in Stark, but I still think that the everyday posters may have something to contribute. Intellectual inbreeding is something that should be avoided if at all possible.
 

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