Interesting idea, and I'm not perpetuating that we actually do this... it's just a thought. Still early for a list but at least a way to get some healthy discussion going...
Our conventional approach to competitive tier lists has been to rank every character at once based on viability. This is obviously what a tier list is intended to do, but I think we've kind of been going about it the wrong way. I'm a huge basketball fan, and I'm always interested in reading discussions on the greatest players across eras, how they rank against each other, etc. A website called RealGM creates a "Top 100" of the NBA/ABA's greatest every year, and their method is thought-provoking.
Generally, there is a panel that decides the four to six candidates that they think could/should be ranked #1. Usually the most knowledgeable, influential members of the community create the starter list. So, for our purposes, we would most likely start with Sheik, Diddy, Rosalina, ZSS, Pikachu, etc, however many we think are actually contenders for #1. The number is usually five or six to keep discussion diverse. They start at the top, and for a designated period in time they vote on who they think is #1. Votes don't count without an explanation. Simply voting ZSS for #1 without an accompanying descriptor is nullified in the final vote check. If two characters are tied at the end, a one day discussion/voting period is had to decide who is more deserving of the spot before moving on.
The interesting part... only the characters that are currently in the rotation can be voted upon. So, if the list starts with Sheik, Diddy, Rosalina, ZSS, and Pikachu, you can't vote for Wario but you can nominate him to be allowed to be voted upon in the next voting period. So, a typical post would appear as such:
Vote: Sheik
(Discussion, reasons why Sheik is #1, blah blah blah)
Nominate: Wario
At the end of the voting period, Sheik wins #1 with ten votes and Wario was nominated six times, so our new list looks like this:
1. Sheik
2. (Diddy, Rosalina, ZSS, Pikachu, Wario)
Discussion then begins on who is #2. The nomination system provides a way for us to present a fresh face (and maintain a character count) to the rankings.Generally, they don't exactly win the next voting period but are at least available to vote on. We would repeat this process a number of times until every single character is ranked. This would allow a vast amount of time for discussion, presenting evidence, discuss counters/checks to characters, etc. We would basically be building a compendium of knowledge which would allow every character to be given a fair shot and everyone to have their opinions heard.
The current
community tier list is definitely an appreciated effort and I like what they are doing, but it seems that discussion is sort of all over the place because any character can be voted on at any time (and without explanation). With the RealGM method, discussions are the groundwork of the threads they have, and very seldom do you see a post with less than multiple paragraphs. Seriously, it's bonkers how heated some of the discussions get. With five or six or seven characters to vote on rather than the entire roster, more in-depth discussion can be had and more accurate results can be procured from rankings.
Of course, no method is foolproof, and this does have limitations:
1. Patches are constantly changing characters and the metagame in general. Diddy was pretty unanimously one of the best characters in the game on release, but a discussion now would probably not see him at #1. A check or counter character to Diddy is no longer as valuable as they once were.
2. How many characters get voted upon per period? At RealGM they usually have five or six on the list at all times, but we may have to up that number because some feel their character may not have gotten a fair shake, or could have been voted to a higher spot if they were available to vote on earlier.
3. Customs on or off? How do we decide how this factors in?
needles be if they functioned like 
