There were a lot of arguments posted in the thread, and it'd take too much time for me to answer them all. However, there are some things I'd like to adress. I recognize my tone was a bit patronizing and I believe some people took some of my suggestions (because yes, those were merely suggestions) the wrong way.
First of all, this thread was originally posted in the Tournament Policy subforum. I believe the "problem" I've been talking is only applicable to tournaments. It has been moved to OU (and they suggested Firebot first, of all places) because of the moderators thinking it didn't belong where I posted it.
Second thing, I would never try to decree some kind of policy against Team sharing. This is something everyone is entitled to do. My thread was, like I said, a suggestion. I also stand by the general sentiment behind it. If you're a top tier teambuilder, then I think you're better off not sharing your
strongest builds to everyone. This is said with a competitive point of view. If I want to be the best, especially in a game as variable as Pokemon, then I'd rather not streghten the competition through my hardwork. A pretty selfish take I reckon and I can totally understand why some people would be against it.
Dice made a good job at summarizing the intent behind my post in his
two messages in the thread, especially his
second one. However, I will add some context and personal ideas to give you a broader picture of where I stand on this whole thing.
So I've seen people making memes about sampleteams threads deletion, or me thinking I'm against all kind of helping and team sharing. This is such an exageration from what I was trying to convey. It doesn't help that the thread has been moved to OU instead of a tournament venue. Everyone who knows me and interacted with me knows I try to always take the time to respond to everyone, whatever their level or reputation is, and it's often about helping people to get into a tier or to get them better at the game in general. Part of it is rating their teams, giving teams to get a start into a given tier, and all sort of things. I really want everyone to improve and
find (even if guided) how to get better at this game.
Of course I also know that teambuilding with friends is a lot of fun and I'm not trying to turn everyone into a Pokemon Scrooge McDuck. Yes, I think having ressources available for everyone is amazing and should be encouraged. Yes, I love the idea of sample teams threads, as it allows everyone to enter into a tier with good teams so they can get their head around it. But like dice said:
"culture of mass team pilfering that many tournament players engage in [i.e. relying solely on others to build teams, having the builder/player dichotomy, artificially closing the skill gap wherein b-tier players can pilot solid teams, a focus on social capital instead of individual skill to accrue teams which contributes to site-wide “cliqueness” and toxicity, etc.]"; this is what I'm mainly against, and tried to echo through my thread and my ideas. This is purely from a competitive standpoint too. In a "I want the best to succeed at this game, and I believe taking this approach will reward the best and more hard-working Players more often".
Oh and by the way, most of the people here are actually getting the short end of the stick in tournaments with teamsharing. A lot of "consistent" players that get results just beat you because they have better building support than you. Some of them have the latest made anti-metagame teams directly given to them after their creation so they can beat the cookie-cutter stuff thrown around. It's actually funny how a single guy like ABR can have so much impact and auto-win matchups in such a vastly played tier like OU, because most people can't build for shit and just use the teams they see or get given; thus always being one step behind the top players.
Going another direction, I also totally recognize it's a lot easier and profitable to ask for teams, and for a lot of reason. Less risk of being counterteamed/styled, less work needed, especially in long tournaments runs, better results, especially if you only want them over a short period of time, etc etc you all mentionned them. All those points are valid and there isn't much that I can say about it. But I will say that I still stand by my last point. If you wanna be at the tip-top of the game, you're better off being a builder yourself.
Another point brought up in that thread is that we cruely miss good teambuilding guides. As a result, it's a lot easier to ask people for teams.
So to sum it up. No I'm not against ressource making and ressource sharing. I'm also not an anti-fun type of guy. But I believe hard work should be rewarded and a way to do so in this game is not giving your latest and best to everybody (
Charmflash post goes a bit more into depth about this).