Smogon Election (Campaign)

Introduction

Welcome to the Smogon election! In this game, you will be assigned to 1 of 2 teams (Green Team and Purple Team). Each team has to come up with a team platform (Smogon related), a slogan, mascot, and a leader that will represent the team and try to get their leader elected to the position of President of Smogon. After signups, there are two stages: Primary, and General Election.

Smogon Election Discord

https://discord.gg/BQXWpcY

Anyone is welcome to join, even people not in a party. People who are not a part of a team will play an important role in the General Election, as they are the majority of swing voters.

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Welcome to the general election stage! In this stage, the teams will campaign for your (anyone can participate) vote! Voting starts next week on Thursday 12:00 AM (GMT -4).

Green Team

CANDIDATE: shubaka17

Purple Team

CANDIDATE: Ditto

Candidates -- make your initial campaign statement ASAP. Also, pick a running mate from your team as well.
 
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Ditto

/me huggles
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I know what you're all probably thinking, "Why is Ditto posting here? He's not nominated." I want to open and honest with all of you. I regret to inform everyone that Myzozoa is stepping down as Purple Team's candidate. Now we shouldn't be upset with him or bare any negative feelings towards this. I don't want people thinking that this is because he doesn't care. While this seems bad, it is actually quite the opposite. After dedicating so much to this site, Myzozoa has realized that he cannot give the same quality of service that he believes the people of Smogon deserve. And that is commendable. The position of President of Smogon is not one that should be entered in lightly, and it takes a truly wise person to be that aware of themselves. And even if you disagreed with his policies, I don't think anyone can deny that he believed in all the greatness that Smogon could achieve. So I'd like to have everyone take a brief moment to thank Myzozoa for all he's done.

A couple of days ago, Myzozoa had approached me to be his running mate and I gladly accepted knowing that I would be supporting a great man. As such, it is now my time to step up. I will be the Purple Team's new candidate. I'm sure there are many out there that wish Myzozoa was still running, and I would certainly agree with them. It's big shoes that I am attempting to fill now. But I am ignited with a new sense of purpose and passion as I approach this crossroad. I thank you all for your time, and I look forward to having your support in the upcoming election.
 
Smogon Gazelle

"Where the hell has shubaka17 been", the writer grounddark from The Flying Press wrote in his newest article. People across Smogon have been wondering when shubaka17 is going to start campaigning, and they want to see more from both Ditto and shubaka17. People are confused and scared of a Smogon that they feel has left behind them, and the leadership from the two candidates does not inspire any confidence.
 

Da Letter El

Officially internet famous
is a Community Leader Alumnus
I feel as though the purple party has a candidate who really speaks to me as a person, while Green's platform is disjointed and unclear. I know with ditto as president there will be a plethora of /me huggles and quality shitposts. With shubaka I fear a world where he peddles Nothing But Thieves as "good music". I don't want a candidate who associates with such distasteful types, so my vote is all but sealed barring a strong campaign statement from the green party
 
Opening Statements? Friends, Romans, Countrymen. Smogon isn't in shambles, but it isn't as good as it could be. There's plenty to do better, and one of those things is openness with the community. I personally have had problems with this, as a PS moderator, as a Smogon visitor, and even now as a Smogon Candidate. There's so much going on behind the scenes, it can be scary to try and cross the curtain. However, once you can see behind it, you realize just how together we really are. These past few days, i and the best minds from the Green Team have been trying to get together a strong opening statement, that not only unified the people of smogon, but also promised nothing. And that isn't who we should be. We should be a party that is working with the people of smogon to get things done, one who not only makes promises but keeps them.

Recently, i had an enlightening discussion with some voters about the status of the Ubers tier, and the current ban on Baton Pass. I went into it relatively uninformed, but by communicating with members of the Ubers staff on PS, as well as the people, we came to the conclusion that Ubers is its own ladder, and should be afforded the same accommodations as the other tiers. The days of Ubers being treated as a Banlist are no more, with the advent of AnythingGoes. It is in this manner that i would like to begin to bring the rest of smogon into brighter days.

Immigration is an integral part of us at the Green Team, and was a hot topic during our primary debates. It was in my stance that i earned the Green Team's nomination, wherein i would enact policies to integrate our new visitors as best as possible, and utilize new viewpoints that we as a community would have otherwise ignored. A poll and competition would be put in place, both in the Lobby and Art rooms on PS, with appropriate links to the Announcements thread which would go up, to finally complete the legendary Smogon Makeover. This makeover has gone on for so long, that i don't even know what smogon used to look like. That is unacceptable, and should be a top priority. The makeover has been put on the backburner over and over, but no more.

I propose that for the makeover, we do it in gradual parts, so that we can receive feedback on each part equally. First of all, we would go after the Layout of the forum. What size font should the text be? In what order should the forums be laid out? Do we want the subforums to still be associated with their mainforums? Then we would go after the toolbar. How can we make the Alerts page better? Can we change the alerts so that it can give daily reminders on certain threads? The inbox recently experienced a crash, is there some archaic code which is holding it back? Finally, we would look at aesthetic choices. Should we keep the current emblem? What would the forum wide header be? Should we permit subforums their own header? Should we replace Koffing as our tab picture (this may be specific to Google Chrome, but is still a relevant question). All of these questions would be posed to You, the public, and any other questions that may come up during the process. Feedback along the way is allowed and encouraged, because we all share this site, so why should the process be decided by just a few?

We have hidden our motives and our actions for too long smogon. Openness and communication are the most important parts of our forum, and the leadership is no exception. A candidate who is open to change is a candidate you can believe in. My ways may seem scary to those who want to remain in the dark, but for those of us who crave the light, it is Good. Please, if you have a question for me, pose it to me directly on Discord in the Smogon Election or here in this very thread. I want nobody to feel left out of the process.

Thank you, and have a great election.
 
I feel as though the purple party has a candidate who really speaks to me as a person, while Green's platform is disjointed and unclear. I know with ditto as president there will be a plethora of /me huggles and quality shitposts. With shubaka I fear a world where he peddles Nothing But Thieves as "good music". I don't want a candidate who associates with such distasteful types, so my vote is all but sealed barring a strong campaign statement from the green party
I understand, Ditto is a charismatic person. I have played many games with him, not only on smogon but also through skype. He's a fun, knowledgeable character who will certainly do a good job. However, 1) it is still my opinion that Nothing But Thieves' guitar work, emotional lyrics, and talented vocals make them my favorite band. 2) you've known me for how long? and you're still going to mess up my pronouns? i'm non binary (they/them), and i've been open about this since i joined PS back in 2015. from our time not only in circus, but also in the walrus and r/music_survivor discords, i expect more from you DLE.

Vote with your heart, vote with your mind, vote with RNG if you so choose. Just remember that i will respond to your concerns.
 

Ditto

/me huggles
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I will admit, I don't care much for opening statements. I've never been a fan of TL;DR posts. I've always been more of a conversation person. I don't want to just be talking and having you reading. I want to have you respond and question me, because that's way we should communicate with those with power. But alas, the format of this election is such that I must make this post. I encourage you to read, but even more I encourage you to message me over discord or Smogon's private messages to converse.

Now I respect shubaka a great deal, but they did say that Green Team had discussed making a post that didn't really answer any questions, and I do think they delivered on that. Basically all we got was, "I am now informed on Ubers" and "We'll vote on a redesign". I don't want to be negative towards the Green Team, because I don't think that's a good place to start from and I would truly like to work alongside them to enact changes to Smogon, but I do want to know what they propose so we can start an actual conversation on how to compromise and implement.

The topic that seems to have blown up recently is the state of the Ubers suspect tests. I will admit that I do not play much Pokemon (especially competitively well) nowadays, so I am no expert on what should or should not be banned in Ubers. I think instead what we need to discuss is the way we go about suspecting Ubers. We are almost approaching 3 years with Ubers being changed officially to a tier from a banlist and setting up criteria for the banning of suspected aspects from it, yet very little has been done with this. Our style of tiering is what has made Smogon the site it is today. It is what has drawn so many people to play our metagames and keeps them playing them even though they are in no way enforced (or even helped to be enforced) by Nintendo and TPCi.

As for the redesign, I do think this is more of a fluff topic, but I do still have some ideas on it. I believe we should reimplement some of the features of our old vbulletin days (if they are within our capabilities). shubaka mentioned this within their post that they believe we should vote on the order of the forums, but I think we should try to reimplement personalized forum ordering. That way each user can customize their forum experience to fit their individual needs. If you are mainly a social forums user, then they can be at the top for easy access. You'd no longer have to always scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the forums your frequent most. I think we need to offer a way for the individual to customize their personal forum experience to suit their needs.

As for openness, I have to say that I agree with shubaka there. As I said in my initial post, before any nominations were decided, I believe that we need to be more transparent with the average Smogon user. I say this as a user who has had access to Inside Scoop for about 7 years, had access to Smogmog from its inception, was part of the Tournament Directors' secret channel, and was part of a secret social channel on IRC that housed many previous admins/supermods. I know there has been a lot of stuff decided behind the backs of other users. That works fine and well in a game of Mafia, but not when running this website. If people are going to participate and contribute to this site, we need to include and inform them about the happenings of it.

I would also like to bring up one other thing that I feel has been barely touched on, Other Metagames within Official Tournaments. I was a Tournament Director for many years, and while I would considered myself lower on the totem pole for most of that time, I was always included in and contributed to conversations of Official Tournaments. My personal philosophy has always been that each Official Tournament should have its own purpose and highlight something different within the site. The reason we had a VGC tournament for years when we didn't have official UU specific tournaments (or other tiers for that matter) was because it was meant to show that we are giving reverence to TPCi's official metagame. I understand that OMs want to be included in more (or any) official tournaments, but the choosing of what to include and exclude becomes incredibly difficult. However, I do think I have a possible way to incorporate them more into the tournament scene. My proposal to this is to bring back the Smogon Battle Frontier, but reshape it from its initial design. In this new system each Brain of the Frontier would be a different OM for new players to experience or old players to conquer. We would have to figure out a way on deciding who to showcase and when, but I do think this is a step in the right direction.

That's all I will say for now. If anyone has any questions about my stance on any particular issue or just wants to chat, I encourage you to contact me. I'm bolding that, because I do think it's the most important part of this whole post. I thank you all for your time.
 
I agree, we should have conversations as opposed to repeatedly launching wallposts. every time i sit down to write one, i end up researching a single point too much, and never writing everything that i need to. Is there a specific time to have a Town Hall between you and I before this thursday? I work tomorrow from noon til 5 EDT, but all of wednesday is available for me.
 
Alright guys, the election has started.

The candidates are:

Ditto / Hitmonleet (vice candidate)
shubaka17 / Granny Pie (vice candidate)

To vote, send a pm to DTC with the title being the name of the candidate you're voting for (example: if atomicllamas was the candidate for yellow team, the title of your PM would be atomicllamas -- don't include the vice candidate). I'm not reading the actual content of the PM.

Anyone with a Smogon account that has 15 or more posts can vote in this election! Voting ends at Sunday 12:00 AM GMT-5.
 

Ditto

/me huggles
is a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Hello again Smogon. It's almost time for the election to begin. Now I respect shubaka a great deal and we agree on a vast number of points, but I want you to know exactly what a vote for Ditto means. I've been a part of the community for over 10 years and have been involved in a great many of its varying aspects. I was never an amazing battler in any regard, but I was someone who always put the interest of the community first. And that's what makes a good leader. I always said that directing a tournament is an incredibly easy thing to do and many people do it, but to be a Tournament Director is not about how many tournaments you've hosted. It's about being able to make tough decisions that will make certain members of this community alienate you. It's about putting the tournament community ahead of yourself. And that's what I'll do for Smogon. I want to give each community the power and support they need to flourish on Smogon. A lot of that has to do with how we deal with our suspect testing and tiering, but an overlooked part is the representation of certain tiers within Tournament gameplay.

This leads to me to my flagship proposal. An updated Battle Frontier tournament whose design philosophy is to introduce Other Metagames into the Official Tournament Circuit. Other Metagames will be chosen by the community to be a part of this new system which allows people to try to master as many of these metas that they might not otherwise get exposed to. Like the ingame battle island that shares the name, this tournament will not force anyone to play every single one of these tiers, but will reward the hungriest and most adaptive players that Smogon has to offer. Do you think you have what it takes to conquer every Brain of the Battle Frontier? But this is just one tournament. I think we need to find ways to strengthen metagames such as PU within our current tournament system and give those communities the support they need to grow. Yes OU will always be the most played tier we have, but that shouldn't limit the other tiers that we've created. The best way for a tier to grow and gain committed membership is for us to show the playerbase that we are behind it. I can think of no other way to do that and to diversify Smogon's Tournament Circuit than to be as inclusive as we can possibly get.

Thank you all for your time. And whether you vote for myself or shubaka, the most important thing is that you vote. Help shape this community and become more active in it, we all welcome it.
 
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This has been a long campaign, although i must admit the time seems to have slipped right past me. There were many concerns brought to my attention, and through many discussions with you the voters, as well as the Purple candidate Ditto , we found some of the best ways to combat the deterioration of Smogon. We are both in support of a rotating Tier Council, which would require that council members actually play the tier that they preside over to maintain their spot. We are both in support of the transition of Ubers from a banlist to a competitive tier, through suspect testing and more bans beyond just Mega-Rayquaza. These are issues that you, the people, thought were relevant of us, and we feel that there are clear answers that will be put into action should either of us win.

However, this election is not about what both of us will do, it's about what I specifically will do. I haven't been a part of smogon very long, as my account information will readily tell you, however i feel as though i can empathize with you more, since i have never been an elite member of the community. I've been next to you, as a player and a lurker, my entire career. What I will do, is I will update the official tournament standards from their current state. My opponent brings up the Battle Frontier as the latest format for our Official Tournaments. I feel that this is an unsustainable strategy, and prevents people from having an opportunity at winning the Frontier, if they are stuck as a Brain. Instead, i want to focus on the sustainable tiers, those that have thrived throughout the generations, even without official recognition. Specifically, the incorporation of PU and Monotype into the official tournaments, as these two are the most played and the most Competition Ready tiers. They have been neglected, shunned, and ignored by the officials, but these tiers persevere throughout all trials. I think that sort of effort is deserving of a reward. This does open the door for many other metagames, as Monotype until recently fell under the umbrella term "OMs." That's an important dialogue to have for the future, and i wish we had more time to talk about such things.

Remember, though this is a competition, Ditto and I both want what's best for Smogon. We simply see different paths to achieve that greater Smogon. Get out, vote, and tell your friends too! Green, Purple, they're arbitrary colors. We're all united in one goal, so let's achieve that goal.
 
Can I be the Secretary of treasury
Even though I was in the Green team, I feel it is important that our party is represented in some way, and making me secretary of treasury is the best way to do that c:
 

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