The BBR: A failed experiment (or: why you should not join the BBR)

[Marc]

The staff call was made because every public MK thread in the past had to be watched 24/7 and degenerated into spam, flames and trolling before long. The scene at large is not mature enough to deal with this properly, nor is it mature enough to deal with several other issues. As a long time member of the community it saddens me, but that's how it is.

 

[Deleted member]

I just have one question concerning the MK issue; in the past, when voting to ban MK in the BBR, I heard from OS that a majority was reached to ban MK. But, because it wasn't a super majority, he was not banned. Is this true?

 

[Blacknight99923]

yo real talk (adressing the smash lab dissent)

your right most of us don't do jack and if we do we don't actually post it in the lab it generally goes straight to the boards, and a lot of people simply forget to enter the lab entirely imo.



the problem with the smash lab is the fundamental nature involved. People generally would rather play the game then analyze data which may never REALLY affect a match. That being said i hope the smash lab can eventually be more helpful.
Although we finally got a smashlab skype...hopefully people get somewhat involved

 

[AlphaZealot]

didn't pierce say a couple months ago that the BBR would dicuss banning MK again come march or april?

or at least releasing some form of information about him?

A lot of the things coming up seem to be about wanting to have an MK discussion again. Maybe there is some type of middle ground that can be found, because realistically the thread WILL be a nightmare for the staff (and will probably lead to a bunch of other threads for side-arguments). We could make a standard or something where the MK-ban is discussed in a thread for [insert set amount of time] once a year [or insert interval]. That way everyone gets to have their say. It could probably also include a poll to (if the numbers are super in MK's banning favor I'd bet the thread would even cause some change). Anyways, just food for thought.

Maybe quelling the discussion completely is not the best thing to do, maybe people want and need to talk about it at least a little bit.

However, it IS toxic to have an MK-ban thread open year round because it requires 24/7 moderation by the staff and it just spews flaming/hate/disagreements. It's been done what? 4 times. Every single time had the same outcome in terms of divisiveness and negativity within the community. People just could not control themselves.

he metagame data/discussion which matters (character dominance, player rankings, correlation character dominance/player dominance, etc.) is all either been shoved under a rug ("no talking about MK bans, but feel free to talk about and finally implement a ban on every stage which treats him better than Battlefield!") or is being dealt with by non-BBR sources (Ripple and co, doing wonderful work on the character dominance charts). On that note, I think it's fair to say that Ripple (and whoever is working with him, I don't follow the thread that well) have done more meaningful work on Brawl than the entire BBR has over the last few months.

Umm...this is simply not true.
-Ankoku's (BBR Head Director) list kept track of nearly every tournament and every winner until about April 2009. There are now talks to resurrect this as a BBR project.
-The Official Player rankings are still to this day maintained by Rajam (BBR member).
-Match up chart that was just produced
-Tier list's that are least every 6ish months.
-Until the creation of the BBR-RC there were rulesets every 9ish months that talked extensively about the development of rules.
-Stuff Marc already covered

Do you know what the Melee Backroom produced in 2006? 1 tier list. That was it. Before that? Only tier lists. The Backroom didn't get into doing ANYTHING else until 2007 with the "Recommended Ruleset". It was literally, for awhile, just a place to hang out and talk without random spam. More or less a social room. During the last...4 years that has changed, and during the last year and a half it has been changing even more so. The room is currently in a state of transition.

InferiorityComplex: Regarding the republic idea - The idea is interesting. The Smash community I think is of a size where that type of thing actually comes into play, because the scale of the community is pretty massive.

---

Regarding the BBR-RC: It is a group of TO's more or less working together in an official capacity of Smashboards. The reason the rule creation is restricted to TO's (rather active/experienced ones at that) is because they have the ability and capability to implement the rules agreed upon, therefore actually not only creating, but also setting, the standard for the community. The problem with the BBR "recommended" ruleset was that it could create the standard by had no ability to set it, and if no one follows the 'standard' you create then it isn't really a 'standard' is it (obviously the word used is recommended, but if no one follows a recommendation why bother giving it)? It ended up being almost counter productive, because people that attended tournaments simply laughed at what was produced, regardless of how solid the ideas or theories were.

 

[John12346]

I just have one question concerning the MK issue; in the past, when voting to ban MK in the BBR, I heard from OS that a majority was reached to ban MK. But, because it wasn't a super majority, he was not banned. Is this true?

This is true. All 4 ban votes were above 50% in favor of the ban, but none of them exceeded 55% iirc.
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And Marc, it's true that revisiting the poll over and over again is a bad idea, because given a theoretical infinite amount of tries, it will happen at some point or another, and that's just plain unfair.

But you have to remember that there's actually a factor that not only nullifies that argument, but actually kind of WARRANTS a re-vote. Do you remember how alt accounts were confirmed on all 4 ban votes? There were A LOT of them, iirc. What we need is a vote where we also have specific kind of filter that makes it impossible for people to mindlessly spam alternate accounts. A poll specially restricted to those with X+ amount of posts should suffice. Of course, we'd need the site developers to take care of that.

As proof of this vote being warranted, I submit the data from Ripple's thread, stating that MK is only 20% of the metagame right now. If the anti-ban truly consisted of only MK mains, the vote should've come a lot closer to 80% in favor of ban.

 

[Exdeath]

If the anti-ban truly consisted of only MK mains, the vote should've come a lot closer to 80% in favor of ban.

It's ridiculous to expect only MK mains to be anti-ban or for MK mains to be anti-ban at all. Most of the MK players that I know in Florida are pro-ban, while many -- if not most -- non-MK players that I know in Florida are anti-ban.

 

[John12346]

Yes, like you say, there are MK mains who are pro ban and non-MK mains who are anti ban. That adds to the standard deviation of the vote, of course, but keep in mind that both entities would roughly be equivalent to each other and cancel each other out.

I just believe the vote would be entirely different if we had a way to filter out alt. accounts, is all.

And I also feel the vote is kind of necessary because of alt. account votes. Without anyone skewing the data around like the first 4 votes, it's a great opportunity to find out what the real value of pro ban vs anti ban is.

A chance to find out what the public wants.

 

[GOD!]

I have 8 other smash acounts. 3 have been banned.
Man I love having influence

 

[Exdeath]

keep in mind that both entities would roughly be equivalent to each other and cancel each other out.

What warrants this belief? If the very nature of this difference is confounding results, how would it differ once corrected (if the results aren't actually confounded, but rearranged in an equal manner like you suggest)?

 

[John12346]

Well, I can't say that for sure, but it seems like the most probable setup.

Proban MK mains want MK out of the game to ensure balance, but will use him to gain money anyway.
Antiban non-MK mains think MK isn't broken and that the game is balanced with him in it.

Or something. MK mains and non-MK mains don't have much reason to oppose their side, so it seems likely that both standings have a similar amount of supporters. Either way, the two entities, no matter which has a higher standing, probably don't influence the poll by too much.

But like I said, that's not even 100% true, so we'd have to attribute it to standard deviation. I just believe that the standard deviation will be relatively low, is all.

And I'm almost certain that the poll will shift further in the "MK ban" favor with the exclusion of alt. accounts.
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But if you have any ideas, feel free to throw them out. I want to examine this situation from all angles.

 

[Exdeath]

Well, I can't say that for sure, but it seems like the most probable setup.

Proban MK mains want MK out of the game to ensure balance, but will use him to gain money anyway.
Antiban non-MK mains think MK isn't broken and that the game is balanced with him in it.

That is really over-simplified.

 

[fkacyan]

Pierce's post is in response to Spelt's, not yours.

It might do the staff well to educate their fellow staff members on the quote function, then.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

I'm just gonna say a few things.

Yes the BBR isn't doing AMAZING things for the game...but we are like normal people. We don't have some super-special power at discovering ATs. Sure, we do that, but why would we post that in the BBR unless it is a sweeping change for EVERYBODY? When I discover new stuff with Pikachu (Uair footstool/d-throw uair footstool) I post it directly to the people it would influence the most: My character board.

If you are upset that the BBR isn't doing enough things for the metagame, how about you do something about it? If you choose not to, why? Do you not have enough of an influence? You forget that the BBR are full of players, just like you. Anything we do can be done by all of you as well.

An argument made would be to let people see the BBR but not post, yes?

That would never work. People would just look at it and complain somewhere that they could post. No matter what the BBR does it will always have scrutiny. If we show little to nothing of what we are doing (Like now) we get scrutiny for that. If we made it publicly viewable, we would get scrutiny for what we are discussing. People would view it, like/dislike it, and then bring discussions/criticisms of it in the boards they are allowed to partake in. Posts about the BBR would engulf the site, and would be impossible for the staff to control that if it were not allowed. If we released more information (Like people who worked on the MU charts), those specific people would get scrutiny for their opinions. If we release even more information (Like why each person thought X), they would get scrutiny by others who don't share the same opinion.

Honestly, what do you want from us? What you are asking is impossible. Most of the public aren't at the level of understanding about the game in its entirety to do anything productive for the community, such as create rulesets or ban MK. Do you really want scrub #18 voting to ban RC and Brinstar because they don't like it? Do you honestly believe that low, lower-mid, and mid players have a good enough understanding about the games and MK's options/characters' options against MK to fully understand the necessity, or lack thereof, to ban him?

"BUT WAIT, THERE ARE SMART PEOPLE THAT ARE LOW/MID LEVEL PLAYERS!"

Yeah, and there are a bunch of those in the BBR. Hell, most of the top top top level players aren't in the BBR due to their corrupt opinions based on their personal experience/character choice. A perfect example was ADHD. He was in the BBR, saw what we were discussing, and pointed out his views. Some of us argued against him, some of us agreed with him. He never argued back, he just flamed us that we were dumb/not top players so "Why would I listen to your opinion?" That kind of attitude is completely detrimental to ANY sort of ANYTHING that has positive implications, such as rulesets, tier lists, stage discussions, or ANYTHING we could discuss! If it were up to me to ban Brinstar, hell yeah I would ban it. My character is absolutely horrendous on it, and I would do so much better if I could actually ban levels pertaining to the specific MU, as opposed to getting scared that somebody is going to CP it + MK and give me a lot of trouble/beat me.

Now, onto the issue of rulesets.

The BBR did make rulesets until just recently, when the BBR-RC was formed. 85% of the BBR's discussion, when rulesets were being created, was on them. I remember a thread for literally every stage that could be thought as tournament viable, and there was serious discussion. People who knew about the stage challenged conventional views, such as "OMG D3 IS SO GOOD ON PIPES HE CAN CG EVERYBODY UP THE HILL AND CAMP AND WIN!" I believed that until (I think) Overswarm showed us a video that D3 can only CG like...6 people up the slope. Afterwards, people pro and con would get into the discussion, discuss completely valid points, and eventually vote.

However, after MONTHS of deliberation about certain rules and stage-lists, we released it to the public. The response? "Lol pipes is terrible, D3 can CG everybody up the hill, **** listening to this, I'm gonna do what I want with my tournament." Basically, the naive arguments that the BBR would argue against were being slung into the mix and couldn't really be helped. The BBR contained a few TOs, yes, but they really had no power in it. Would I run PTAD, Pipes, or LM in my tournaments? Hell no! Are they competitively sound? Yes. that is the main problem, and THAT is the point of the BBR-RC.

Now, one might argue "The BBR-RC official ruleset is going to be jammed down our throats!" In a way, yes it is. However, people literally give us 0 other option. If we didn't have rules/staff enforcing said rules, people would just ignore it with zero consequence just like the BBR Recommended Rulesets. We want a unified country with the same rules so that people won't go to tournaments outside of their own region and be like "I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THE **** WAS HAPPENING ON PICTOCHAT, STUPID REGION, **** GOING TO THAT" we eliminate that by being TOs from EVERY region (I am for the Florida, Xyro is for Texas, Havok/T!mmy are for Pac West, Inferno/Chibo are for ATL North, and AZ/Radium are for MW) to agree on a ruleset that was/is being discussed at length (There is no social thread, there is no anything that doesn't pertain to rules, and we have something around 15-20 threads in there).

 

[Rizk18]

Rofllllllllllll^^^^^^

 

[Life]

tl;dr warning

An argument made would be to let people see the BBR but not post, yes?

That would never work. People would just look at it and complain somewhere that they could post. No matter what the BBR does it will always have scrutiny. If we show little to nothing of what we are doing (Like now) we get scrutiny for that. If we made it publicly viewable, we would get scrutiny for what we are discussing. People would view it, like/dislike it, and then bring discussions/criticisms of it in the boards they are allowed to partake in. Posts about the BBR would engulf the site, and would be impossible for the staff to control that if it were not allowed. If we released more information (Like people who worked on the MU charts), those specific people would get scrutiny for their opinions. If we release even more information (Like why each person thought X), they would get scrutiny by others who don't share the same opinion.

ESAM, I'm kind of a fan, but... Imma go ahead and call bull on this.
1. What makes you think posts about the BBR will "engulf" the site? Are we incapable of discussing things besides the BBR if it's transparent, but completely ignore the organization if it's opaque? Does not compute.
2. Even if BBR-based discussion were to "engulf" SWF--what's so bad about that? This place isn't exactly Crashboards anymore.
3. What's wrong with "scrutiny" of the BBR--or rather, since we have so much of it already, what about a transparent BBR would cause more/more negative scrutiny?

...while I'm here, might as well talk about the rest

Honestly, what do you want from us? What you are asking is impossible. Most of the public aren't at the level of understanding about the game in its entirety to do anything productive for the community, such as create rulesets or ban MK. Do you really want scrub #18 voting to ban RC and Brinstar because they don't like it? Do you honestly believe that low, lower-mid, and mid players have a good enough understanding about the games and MK's options/characters' options against MK to fully understand the necessity, or lack thereof, to ban him?

"BUT WAIT, THERE ARE SMART PEOPLE THAT ARE LOW/MID LEVEL PLAYERS!"

Yeah, and there are a bunch of those in the BBR. Hell, most of the top top top level players aren't in the BBR due to their corrupt opinions based on their personal experience/character choice. A perfect example was ADHD. He was in the BBR, saw what we were discussing, and pointed out his views. Some of us argued against him, some of us agreed with him. He never argued back, he just flamed us that we were dumb/not top players so "Why would I listen to your opinion?" That kind of attitude is completely detrimental to ANY sort of ANYTHING that has positive implications, such as rulesets, tier lists, stage discussions, or ANYTHING we could discuss! If it were up to me to ban Brinstar, hell yeah I would ban it. My character is absolutely horrendous on it, and I would do so much better if I could actually ban levels pertaining to the specific MU, as opposed to getting scared that somebody is going to CP it + MK and give me a lot of trouble/beat me.

And this is why we have a BBR. Difference between a democracy and a republic, do you know it? (then again, this paragraph probably wasn't directed at anything I said, but rather the MK poll thing)

Now, onto the issue of rulesets.

The BBR did make rulesets until just recently, when the BBR-RC was formed. 85% of the BBR's discussion, when rulesets were being created, was on them. I remember a thread for literally every stage that could be thought as tournament viable, and there was serious discussion. People who knew about the stage challenged conventional views, such as "OMG D3 IS SO GOOD ON PIPES HE CAN CG EVERYBODY UP THE HILL AND CAMP AND WIN!" I believed that until (I think) Overswarm showed us a video that D3 can only CG like...6 people up the slope. Afterwards, people pro and con would get into the discussion, discuss completely valid points, and eventually vote.

However, after MONTHS of deliberation about certain rules and stage-lists, we released it to the public. The response? "Lol pipes is terrible, D3 can CG everybody up the hill, **** listening to this, I'm gonna do what I want with my tournament." Basically, the naive arguments that the BBR would argue against were being slung into the mix and couldn't really be helped. The BBR contained a few TOs, yes, but they really had no power in it. Would I run PTAD, Pipes, or LM in my tournaments? Hell no! Are they competitively sound? Yes. that is the main problem, and THAT is the point of the BBR-RC.

And if the thread was transparent in the first place, people could go through the various arguments, D3 not being OP on Pipes would have some time to sink in, and perhaps the response would have been calmer. (Although people would still probably not legalize the stage over "it's gay"--BPC isn't kidding when he calls people scrubs <_<)

Also, at the last couple sentences. So you're saying that PTAD/Pipes/LM are competitively sound, but you wouldn't use them in your tournaments (presumably due to a negative reaction from attendees)... so you force (in theory--see below) all TOs, many of whom you may never meet IRL, to NOT use them, instead of allowing said other TOs to use "competitively sound" stages that happen to be unpopular? Er, what?

Now, one might argue "The BBR-RC official ruleset is going to be jammed down our throats!" In a way, yes it is. However, people literally give us 0 other option. If we didn't have rules/staff enforcing said rules, people would just ignore it with zero consequence just like the BBR Recommended Rulesets. We want a unified country with the same rules so that people won't go to tournaments outside of their own region and be like "I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THE **** WAS HAPPENING ON PICTOCHAT, STUPID REGION, **** GOING TO THAT" we eliminate that by being TOs from EVERY region (I am for the Florida, Xyro is for Texas, Havok/T!mmy are for Pac West, Inferno/Chibo are for ATL North, and AZ/Radium are for MW) to agree on a ruleset that was/is being discussed at length (There is no social thread, there is no anything that doesn't pertain to rules, and we have something around 15-20 threads in there).

1. See Apex. BRC enforcement mechanism is far too weak to cause any sort of unifying effect. I have an idea for a better one, but I'd like to see reforms before I introduce it.

2. Same transparency problems as the BBR. For example, why is Picto in, but not Japes? Japes is MUCH more sound as a competitive stage than Picto. Protip: if you're going to release a stagelist, you had best be able to back it up logically. (Semi-related: what ARE those 15-20 threads about? Got examples?)

3. There's, what, 8 of you (based on your post)? Maybe it's just me, but I have a too-much-power-in-too-few-hands reaction to that. Any random five of you could do whatever you want with the rules and (in theory) we'd have to follow it or face negative consequences (in practice, again, see Apex). Whereas with the BBR making rules, due to its larger size it'd take 20+ people before you can even begin to nudge them (more pending on how many inactives show up to vote). Although there's not a whole lot of TOs so IDK what to do about it. (To the BRC's credit, there was originally five people in it, which was a LOT worse.)

4. I'm curious exactly what the point of a unified ruleset is. This is really the only legitimate argument I've seen for it so far. (srsly, even AZ just threw out whatever you said about the BRC as irrelevant and said "it's just time for it". And AZ's normally a good poster--totally an alien response coming from him.) I'd argue that the game is more competitive overall with a variety of rulesets, however, by the same logic that the game is more competitive with more stages. Say one region has Raziek-style rules with tons of legal stages, and another has Japan-style rules with only FD/BF/SV legal (I'm aware Japan's not quite that restrictive, but that's beside the point). When you're fighting, say, Diddy Kong, you have to deal with his best stages under the Japan rules but you're going to get average-ish stages for him under Raziek rules. So in order to succeed in both regions, you have to be able to defeat Diddy on Smashville and FD(his CP)/BF(your CP) in Japan, AND you have to beat him on Smashville and (whatever neutral you strike to) and (whatever stage your character CPs to) in Raziekland. So instead of only having to know how to fight Diddy on 3 stages, you have to know how to fight him on 5 (compounded in finals sets where you play on more stages). Greater learning curve there.

5. If you go to another region with stages legal, and you don't know the new stages, guess whose responsibility it is? Hint: not the TO's.

 

[ShadowLink84]

It might do the staff well to educate their fellow staff members on the quote function, then.

You are just a *****y person in general quit your whining.

 

[John12346]

That is really over-simplified.

Which is why I said it wasn't 100% true, jeez... >___ >;

Obviously it's going to be weighted more heavily on one side, but I just believe it won't affect the polls too much. At WORST, it'll change the vote from the theoretical 80%-20% in favor to a theoretical range of 60%-40% in favor to 100%-0% in favor.

But enough about that. I want to hear everyone's opinions on the main point I'm trying to make, namely the fact that a re-vote may be warranted when we take into account all of the alternate account bull**** that went down during the first four votes. With a filter that makes almost all users capable of voting, while also excluding pretty much every alt. account(100 post requirement, maybe? More or less?), we can finally find the whole truth behind the matter.

Basically, I'm saying the first four votes were corrupted and deserve a re-evaluation with a filtered fifth vote. Especially now, a whole year later, where we've discovered even more troublesome information about the character since this past year.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

 

[ShadowLink84]

Which is why I said it wasn't 100% true, jeez... >___ >;

Obviously it's going to be weighted more heavily on one side, but I just believe it won't affect the polls too much. At WORST, it'll change the vote from the theoretical 80%-20% in favor to a theoretical range of 60%-40% in favor to 100%-0% in favor.

But enough about that. I want to hear everyone's opinions on the main point I'm trying to make, namely the fact that a re-vote may be warranted when we take into account all of the alternate account bull**** that went down during the first four votes. With a filter that makes almost all users capable of voting, while also excluding pretty much every alt. account(100 post requirement, maybe? More or less?), we can finally find the whole truth behind the matter.

Basically, I'm saying the first four votes were corrupted and deserve a re-evaluation with a filtered fifth vote. Especially now, a whole year later, where we've discovered even more troublesome information about the character since this past year.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

Unfortunately I myself would ahve to agree.
Previously in the last few attempts, MK really was nt ban worthy. Sre he was a dominant force which was acceptable because he was not causing overcentralizing to a great degree. We still saw diversity in the top 8, we still saw other characters winning from time to time and some upets.


I do, however, think that it may be waranted to go at things a 5th time with the issue of his planking, at the same time I do have some weariness onth e mater.
We do not know if it is capable of being done in a tournament setting due to the LGL.

 

[Deleted member]

What about the tournaments that don't have that?

Look what M2K did at School is in Session 4. He abused the hell out of planking because...well...he could!

 

[ShadowLink84]

What about the tournaments that don't have that?

Look what M2K did at School is in Session 4. He abused the hell out of planking because...well...he could!

To be honest, I want it to occur at a national tournament. Is it that much to ask? =(

 

[MechaWave]

To be honest, I want it to occur at a national tournament. Is it that much to ask? =(

Yeah... probably.

 

[Exdeath]

Which is why I said it wasn't 100% true, jeez... >___ >;

Obviously it's going to be weighted more heavily on one side, but I just believe it won't affect the polls too much. At WORST, it'll change the vote from the theoretical 80%-20% in favor to a theoretical range of 60%-40% in favor to 100%-0% in favor.

But enough about that. I want to hear everyone's opinions on the main point I'm trying to make, namely the fact that a re-vote may be warranted when we take into account all of the alternate account bull**** that went down during the first four votes. With a filter that makes almost all users capable of voting, while also excluding pretty much every alt. account(100 post requirement, maybe? More or less?), we can finally find the whole truth behind the matter.

Basically, I'm saying the first four votes were corrupted and deserve a re-evaluation with a filtered fifth vote. Especially now, a whole year later, where we've discovered even more troublesome information about the character since this past year.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

I'm not trying to repeat your disclaimers; it's just that your expectation for the vote to change so drastically in your favor comes across as naive. It seems like you're not considering that the alternate account votes are mainly from anti-ban, in which case another poll after that would be extremely unlikely to occur.

From an outcome stance, anti-ban players have nothing to lose from another vote; it can only come to a neutral position or to their favor, but it still just comes across as being an unrealistic expectation on your part, which then makes it seem less reasonable as a result.

 

[John12346]

I'm not trying to repeat your disclaimers; it's just that your expectation for the vote to change so drastically in your favor comes across as naive. It seems like you're not considering that the alternate account votes are mainly from anti-ban, in which case another poll after that would be extremely unlikely to occur.

From an outcome stance, anti-ban players have nothing to lose from another vote; it can only come to a neutral position or to their favor, but it still just comes across as being an unrealistic expectation on your part, which then makes it seem less reasonable as a result.

Oh, actually, I don't think I was being clear enough.

I am proban.
And I do believe that the vote will turn in the proban's favor.
And I am HOPING that it will do so.

But the main reason I want the poll is to see what the true results of the poll would be without alt. account influence, even if it does end up proving me wrong in the end. It's also the reason why I feel a community re-vote is actually warranted.

 

[Pierce7d]

tl;dr warning

ESAM, I'm kind of a fan, but... Imma go ahead and call bull on this.
1. What makes you think posts about the BBR will "engulf" the site? Are we incapable of discussing things besides the BBR if it's transparent, but completely ignore the organization if it's opaque? Does not compute.
2. Even if BBR-based discussion were to "engulf" SWF--what's so bad about that? This place isn't exactly Crashboards anymore.
3. What's wrong with "scrutiny" of the BBR--or rather, since we have so much of it already, what about a transparent BBR would cause more/more negative scrutiny?

I know you were asking ESAM, but I feel compelled to give you my own opinion, as ESAM's post largely spoke for myself as well.

Whether or not posts about stuff inside the BBR would engulf the site isn't even the main issue. I agree that this is a silly reason to keep the BBR transparent, but this isn't the reason.

The reason is because we want people in the BBR to make decisions using logic, instead of voting to be popular, and voting under pressure. If there was a vote to ban MK, I would want each and every member to discuss and vote with their true thoughts on the matter, and not just be like, "Well Gee, all my friends and people in my region think differently, so I might as well save face, and vote their way, because I'm going to hear it later if I don't." Being able to cast faceless votes and discuss things outside of scrutiny helps to keep external influences on the vote out of the mix.

And let's face it. Smashboards isn't kind. People get flamed here all the time, because many of the posters aren't mature enough to handle discussion. This allows us to escape those flames (mostly, I won't pretend that I don't get ashamed of our BBRoomers from time to time), and speak our minds without hesitation, amongst peers who are also experts.

...while I'm here, might as well talk about the rest And this is why we have a BBR. Difference between a democracy and a republic, do you know it? (then again, this paragraph probably wasn't directed at anything I said, but rather the MK poll thing)And if the thread was transparent in the first place, people could go through the various arguments, D3 not being OP on Pipes would have some time to sink in, and perhaps the response would have been calmer. (Although people would still probably not legalize the stage over "it's gay"--BPC isn't kidding when he calls people scrubs <_<)

A (true) Democracy are when decisions are made by the majority, typically through voting. A republic is when decisions are made by voting of representative bodies. America is a democratic republic, as we vote on our representatives and leaders, and they vote on various national issues.

Also, please understand that the discussions we have really could not exist in the public, because people aren't capable of having the types of discussion we have back there. I moderate Tactical, because I come to tactical, so I know first hand the difference between discussion in tactical, and discussion in the BBR. The BBR is usually very thorough. For example, when discussing the limits on infinites, we talked about so many different things, down to "What happens if Ike gets a grab release infinite on Wario in which case he can infinitely detain him without increasing percentage?" We decided that that's covered under the stalling clause, but then we realized, "but what if it's castle siege, so the Ike player has a tactical reason not to let Wario go during a certain transformation? What if it's a D3 player who has a wall lock on Stadium, but doesn't like the MU on that section of the transformation, and would rather keep the infinite going until the stage transformed. These characters are granted these tactical benefits, is it right to restrict them? There are so many variables that we analyze, and have to make decisions based upon subjective material.

In the end, we have expanded our practices to explain things as much as is practical, but giving an explanation for everything is rather tedious, and most people don't care as much as they like to put off that they do. They like to go "LOL, that's broken, ban" but they really have no idea what they're talking about.

We DO care about educating the masses though, and I have a new project coming up, just for that purpose.

Also, at the last couple sentences. So you're saying that PTAD/Pipes/LM are competitively sound, but you wouldn't use them in your tournaments (presumably due to a negative reaction from attendees)... so you force (in theory--see below) all TOs, many of whom you may never meet IRL, to NOT use them, instead of allowing said other TOs to use "competitively sound" stages that happen to be unpopular? Er, what?

This is why were were so defensive about the BBR Recommended Ruleset. We DEEPLY analyzed those stages and rules, and gave you the best opinions we could come up with. This ruleset was constructed with more study, discussion, and effort than most people ever put into their entire schooling in a full year. Yet this same uninformed, uneducated public bashes our ruleset with no hesitation. I'm not saying people on Smashboards are stupid. Far from it, there are many bright minds here. But there's a difference between being smart, and knowing what you are talking about. Fact is, most people just don't know what they're talking about.

Unfortunately, we couldn't exactly make people play on our stages, and TOs are going to maximize their attendance, even if their ruleset conflicts with the stages that are deemed "fair or unfair". In the end, the BBR decided that this was okay, because as long as the rulesets being used were competitively sound (and by that I mean, generate non-degenerative competition) then it's okay how the players choose to play, which is one of the reasons we stuck to a recommendation.

Still, we did want to be the standard, and instead we became the laughing stock, despite best (ignored) efforts to bring logical rules to the forefront. So now, you have the BBR-RC. This organization was formed with the purpose of actually creating a ruleset that would be followed. Who can implement rules? TOs. So TOs are selected for this organization. Nevermind their understanding of the game, just create a ruleset that will be fair and popular, so everyone will want to use it, and then we'll have a standard. Why is it so important to have a standard? Credibility for the community. If everyone in the US is playing by the same rules, it makes the community seem far more credible. This will boost how far we can take the game, and how prestigious we can make our competitions, which ultimately grows the community.

So I kinda agree that the BBR did fail in the sense that we were unable to create an acceptable ruleset and have it become the standard, but only because in the face of subjectivity, we were unable to please everyone when trying to arrive at the best possible objective conclusions.

All that to say that ESAM as a BBR Member who is not subject to scrutiny might feel in his heart of hearts, that when logic is applied, Pipes is a competitively healthy stage. However, as a BBR-RC member, and as a tournament organizer, he needs to stick to stages that will be both fair and popular. Since the community is not educated on Pipes to the extend that he is, and initial view of the stage might lead to beliefs that the stage is not fair, then that is the majority view, and hence the stage is unpopular. Therefore, it's a bad pick for ESAM and the BBR-RC to put on the stage list, lest they want to deal with unending flames and backlash, which is obviously counter-productive to their purpose.

The best thing that the BBR can do now that we don't have control of the recommended ruleset anymore is to try to educate people why stages are good or bad, and this is our next project: the Stage Analysis Project.

1. See Apex. BRC enforcement mechanism is far too weak to cause any sort of unifying effect. I have an idea for a better one, but I'd like to see reforms before I introduce it.

There is a limit to how much power we have in achieving a goal, or at least, how much we're willing to use. Basically you're first saying that we're forcing everyone into making a decision, but here you're saying we're not forcing them because our pressure is too weak. That's inconsistent and contradictory.

2. Same transparency problems as the BBR. For example, why is Picto in, but not Japes? Japes is MUCH more sound as a competitive stage than Picto. Protip: if you're going to release a stagelist, you had best be able to back it up logically. (Semi-related: what ARE those 15-20 threads about? Got examples?)

See above. Picto is more accepted than Japes. The BBR-RC doesn't have to back up anything, because the TOs control the rules, and they control the tournament. That's not to say they're unwilling, but basically they are spitting out what most people want to hear anyway, so it's not exactly like they're sitting under fire.

3. There's, what, 8 of you (based on your post)? Maybe it's just me, but I have a too-much-power-in-too-few-hands reaction to that. Any random five of you could do whatever you want with the rules and (in theory) we'd have to follow it or face negative consequences (in practice, again, see Apex). Whereas with the BBR making rules, due to its larger size it'd take 20+ people before you can even begin to nudge them (more pending on how many inactives show up to vote). Although there's not a whole lot of TOs so IDK what to do about it. (To the BRC's credit, there was originally five people in it, which was a LOT worse.)

As you've pointed out, the BBR-RC is recruiting. Whether or not you think they have too much power is opinion, so I can't debate it.

As far as Apex goes, I think Alex Strife is playing it smart. He's trying to attract an international audience. When he asked my opinion, I told him that having as conservative of a ruleset as possible would be easier for an international crowd. People are much more likely to say, "What?! [insert objectionable stage here] is legal!? Screw this, I'm not going," than to say, "Wow, [insert stage here] is banned? I'm not going." A stage you don't like being legal may force you to play on it, and it certainly encourages you to practice on it. A stage you do like not being there is okay, because there are still other stages. When trying to cater to people from many different places used to many different things, it's easier for everyone if everyone has to learn less, and is comfortable on all available stages. That is why Alex Strife's ruleset is well built in my eyes.

However, that still doesn't negate what the BBR-RC is trying to do, and if America finally does become unified, then we can move to the next step and try to go international. Then there would be little need for cases like Apex, because everyone is playing the same game with the same rules, and everyone is on even ground.

4. I'm curious exactly what the point of a unified ruleset is. This is really the only legitimate argument I've seen for it so far. (srsly, even AZ just threw out whatever you said about the BRC as irrelevant and said "it's just time for it". And AZ's normally a good poster--totally an alien response coming from him.) I'd argue that the game is more competitive overall with a variety of rulesets, however, by the same logic that the game is more competitive with more stages. Say one region has Raziek-style rules with tons of legal stages, and another has Japan-style rules with only FD/BF/SV legal (I'm aware Japan's not quite that restrictive, but that's beside the point). When you're fighting, say, Diddy Kong, you have to deal with his best stages under the Japan rules but you're going to get average-ish stages for him under Raziek rules. So in order to succeed in both regions, you have to be able to defeat Diddy on Smashville and FD(his CP)/BF(your CP) in Japan, AND you have to beat him on Smashville and (whatever neutral you strike to) and (whatever stage your character CPs to) in Raziekland. So instead of only having to know how to fight Diddy on 3 stages, you have to know how to fight him on 5 (compounded in finals sets where you play on more stages). Greater learning curve there.

See above.

5. If you go to another region with stages legal, and you don't know the new stages, guess whose responsibility it is? Hint: not the TO's.

See above.

You are just a *****y person in general quit your whining.

Thanks for trying to defend me, but please don't flame people to do it.

It might do the staff well to educate their fellow staff members on the quote function, then.

Implying that PIERCE doesn't know how to use the Quote button is a new level of blasphemy that I've never witnessed before. Congratulations on achieving a unseen stage of ridiculousness.

I clearly got ninjaed. I don't always quote posts if they are the MOST RECENT post, and I have no idea why you're being so silly as to try and call me out on it, LOL. Stop being so salty over your own simple mistake, which was quickly forgotten.

Which is why I said it wasn't 100% true, jeez... >___ >;

Obviously it's going to be weighted more heavily on one side, but I just believe it won't affect the polls too much. At WORST, it'll change the vote from the theoretical 80%-20% in favor to a theoretical range of 60%-40% in favor to 100%-0% in favor.

But enough about that. I want to hear everyone's opinions on the main point I'm trying to make, namely the fact that a re-vote may be warranted when we take into account all of the alternate account bull**** that went down during the first four votes. With a filter that makes almost all users capable of voting, while also excluding pretty much every alt. account(100 post requirement, maybe? More or less?), we can finally find the whole truth behind the matter.

Basically, I'm saying the first four votes were corrupted and deserve a re-evaluation with a filtered fifth vote. Especially now, a whole year later, where we've discovered even more troublesome information about the character since this past year.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

Your methods are not very scientific. As for thoughts on MK: as we just said, the topic is taboo by rulings of the Smashboards Staff.

 

[z00ted]

Feel free to quote my PMs if needed, BPC.

================================

When something is a problem, there are three ways to cope:

1. Ignore or tolerate the problem. This is the course we are on now.

2. Destroy the problem. Want to know how well this works out? Ask an anarchist. (Okay, VERY extreme example, but the point remains--unless you ARE the power, don't waste time trying to FIGHT TEH POWAH--at least, not directly--unless it's your only option--which is rare--I like hyphens)

3. Change the problem into a positive. This is the ideal route in most cases, provided the following:
a. There's something worth salvaging/the option is actually possible: The BBR can be a force for good, as it was in the past, and not a laughingstock. Sometimes there's nothing to salvage, in which case go to option 2 if the problem is serious enough, or 1 if it isn't.
b. It's not cost-prohibitive to do so. SWF is free unless you buy premium--the only cost to do anything is time and reputation, things that, respectively, the BBR has as much as needed and hardly any to lose.
(As a side note, this is the route we've taken with MK. We could let him run free, we could ban him, but instead we have LGLs, IDC banned, etc.)

Our problem, of course, is the BBR and the way it has slowly become irrelevant. Option 1 and Option 2 are basically the same here. The only difference is, Option 1 lets the BBR die slowly.

I propose Option 3. The BBR can be a great thing again. Here's what I recommend doing to revive it again.

1
Declassify​

You are probably going to hate me for bringing this up, as I can't possibly be the first to suggest it. However, after the release of the matchup chart I'm prompted to bring it up again. Someone remind me what the point of the matchup chart was again? It was to "spur discussion" about matchups, right? So why can't we see the logic behind the matchup decisions? Why can't we see what information was used to decide each ratio? Ultimately, a lot of the reason people have no respect for the BBR is that they can't see what's going on so they assume nothing is going on (and are rarely given reason to believe otherwise) or that the BBR members rely too much on outdated info. And if the BBR were turned into a read-only forum (like DH) instead of a private one, it would do a lot to alleviate those concerns.

2
Elections​

If a significant chunk of the BBR is directly elected by poll, then the community as a whole has barely any right to complain as it's effectively the best of them making the decisions. Therefore, I suggest at least one-half (preferably more) of all BBR members must get there by a public election, held every six months to one year. It should still be possible to get there the traditional way, if only because popular opinion isn't perfect and certainly unpopular people with good ideas exist (you all know who I mean), but too much popular opinion >>>>>>>>>>>>> no popular opinion. And if you are selected for BBR membership, you should still be subject to a referendum of some sort.

tl;dr Republics work because the public knows what the officials are doing and can throw them out. Therefore, since the public has control over the officials, the public also respects the decisions of said officials. The BBR doesn't work because we know nothing about it (other than its membership, who are selected by other BBR members, only prolonging the problem), we can do nothing about it, and therefore we ignore it.

================================

The question I must ask, however, is "How do we get there from here?" And this is the incomplete part of the plan--I have no clue how to implement this. I'm just one user in a sea of trolls elite Smashers.

================================

On the BRC: Same exact problems as the BBR except instead of a fewscore people making a logically-backed ruleset that's flexible for all stage opinions and not even trying to enforce it, BRC is less than a dozen people who make a ruleset that's arbitrary (as far as we know, anyway), practically set in stone (look at the people in it and tell me anything is going to change in that ruleset--I'd be excited if they just added Japes), blatantly disregard a significant portion of the community (open-list advocates), and then tries to enforce it and fails spectacularly (Apex).

================================

I also have an idea for an enforcement mechanism that'll be far more effective than the one the BRC uses, but I'd like to see reforms first before I introduce it. (Hint: it's less "enforcement" against deviating tournaments and more "incentive" to follow the rules outlined.)

And for the record, I've been working on this post since the thread opened--meaning all, like, ten posts above me are ninjas (cough, Mr.-0). Grats.

bringing this back up, because this man is super smart.

 

[fkacyan]

Pierce

You missed an obvious joke

Please don't do it again

Also I gotta make it to a tourney, it's been way too long. You still go right?

You are just a *****y person in general quit your whining.

Get back on the Prozac my friend.

 

[Pierce7d]

Pierce

You missed an obvious joke

Please don't do it again

Also I gotta make it to a tourney, it's been way too long. You still go right?



Get back on the Prozac my friend.

Yeah, I go to most tourneys. I figured that you were joking, which is why I replied in such an exaggerated fashion. Obviously no lost love.

 

[The Real Inferno]

Even at the cost of potentially disrupting how the metagame should be going? I find that to be silly. If BBR (or BBR-RC now I guess), needs to discuss something because they feel a need to have a rule related to that, they should be allowed to do so.

Everyone should tell their boss' that a decision they make is silly and expect that to work in changing their mind. I'm sure it will go over very well with absolutely no repercussions whatsoever.

 

[John12346]

Your methods are not very scientific.

>.<;

I was just making a rough, halfassed estimation there, tbh. I understand there's no real way to tell what the poll results would be unless we actually did it. Which is also the kind of point I was trying to make in the second half of my post.

I'm just saying it might be only fair that we get a final shot at this, but with the proper voter filters in place. I cannot stress filtering hard enough in this case. With some kind of limitation on who can vote, in order to subsequently exclude all(or almost all) alternate accounts, we can finally see what the long lost truth of the vote was.

Anyway, I was informed a while back that, if I actually had a legitimate case to bring up, I could start a community poll up with the backing of the BBR(or BBRRC?) as long as I actually had something to show. What I want to know is who I should be informing when and if that time actually comes.

As for thoughts on MK: as we just said, the topic is taboo by rulings of the Smashboards Staff.

Well, if it means anything, we have been able to talk about it for a while in here without drawing too many flames, if any...

 

[Excellence]

I found this to be one of the most important things in BPC's post:

If the BBR was sponsoring major nationals left and right at all, if it was giving incentive to use its rulesets, if it was uncovering game-breaking ATs, if it was doing anything that makes the organization worth being in, then I would apply.

The BBR really has been a joke for a very long time. No one really seems to realize it even exists but only people who are actually in it or have been made aware of what it does are or were in it or took part in what they did in some way. That in itself should spell a problem because what you basically have is a government that doesn't govern it's people.

If the BBR actually started to implement what it was supposed to then it wouldn't seem so useless. It needs to actually host a tournament under some title which directly links it to that tournament so that people are aware of it and attract a lot of ****ing attention so that people pay attention to it and what it means.

It also seems to me that the individuals who put forth the most to the community are those who aren't really the professionals winning the tournaments and playing things at the top levels but the people who just dabble or experiment with certain things. I feel like as the BBR, the government of the Brawl community, they should be orchestrating a lot of what goes on and pushing forward the community instead of making excuses why things don't work, why they can't get people to cooperate, or why plans stuff just shouldn't be shared with in the general community.

Their needs to be some public overhaul of the current system of doing things to make people aware that **** is going down and to rattle some boots so that people actually start doing what they should be doing.

 

[Onomanic]

On voting, and I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but what about some kind of federalist system, in which both users and BBR members have a say. I believe taking from a tried and true form of government may be a greater solution. If regional rule sets are disputed, article 4 go. The constitution is probably worth a read for this whole voting thing.

Yay gov't and law class.

 

[Excellence]

The problem with voting is that the vast majority of people do not know what they're talking about when they discuss competitive play, there is also the problem of multiple accounts, troll voting and many other nonsensical things that ruin it.

I do like the Federalist System though. I think a good way of doing it would be to have the BBR make statements and polls on current issues, things being looked at and have people vote on them, discuss them and give their say and with that information in mind, the BBR should make the final decision and send it out to the main tournament organizers to be put in play.

Once a season of tournaments ends a new thread should be posted so that we can further fix issues, people can give input and the BBR can continue solve problems and get stuff done.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Get back on the Prozac my friend.

Can't when you're drinking it all.

 

[Shaya]

The BBR really has been a joke for a very long time. No one really seems to realize it even exists but only people who are actually in it or have been made aware of what it does are or were in it or took part in what they did in some way. That in itself should spell a problem because what you basically have is a government that doesn't govern it's people.

If the BBR actually started to implement what it was supposed to then it wouldn't seem so useless. It needs to actually host a tournament under some title which directly links it to that tournament so that people are aware of it and attract a lot of ****ing attention so that people pay attention to it and what it means.

You obviously have a very incorrect view of what the BBR is.
It's a social group.
It's not a government. We aren't an official organisation. We don't want to govern its people.

Look for one of the posts by Marc in this topic. It's pretty blunt and easy to read/understand.

 

[Pierce7d]

Exactly. We aren't the leaders of the vommunity as an organization. Merely a collection of informed members who try to provide useful tools for the public by putting our heads together.

 

[Player-1]

I don't see why joining the BBR can hurt you, BPC, you can still do everything you listed in the OP while being in the BBR plus you can actually see what Is currently being discussed in there. The only thing you're losing is like 10-30 minutes of your time for typing out the application which isn't much at all.

 

[Excellence]

You obviously have a very incorrect view of what the BBR is.
It's a social group.
It's not a government. We aren't an official organisation. We don't want to govern its people.

Look for one of the posts by Marc in this topic. It's pretty blunt and easy to read/understand.

Yes you are. How could you create something and not know what you created? That's the common view of the BBR whether you intended for it to be that way or not. When you create some select group of individuals who sporadically put out information that tells people what's what that's exactly what you are and how people view you. If you actually took time to ask the general public about the BBR you'd probably see that very clearly.

The fact that a lot of people can't even accurately place a finger on what the BBR is says something in and of itself.

I've always felt the BBR wants to make decisions (and it does even though they do very little) but hates to claim responsibility for them. Someone needs to step up.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

How is it our responsibility to do something that wasn't in the intention of the creation of the room? That is dumb...that is like having a class of like 50 people never sitting in the front of the room, but one person does becuase they want to learn more, but then everybody thinks he is the leader of the class because he is representing them since he is in the front of the room...that's not his fault and he has no responsibility.

 

[-Ran]

Anytime you have a mass of people, they will want leadership once the limit of their personal impact has become evident/marginalized.

 

[Pierce7d]

Yes you are. How could you create something and not know what you created? That's the common view of the BBR whether you intended for it to be that way or not. When you create some select group of individuals who sporadically put out information that tells people what's what that's exactly what you are and how people view you. If you actually took time to ask the general public about the BBR you'd probably see that very clearly.

The fact that a lot of people can't even accurately place a finger on what the BBR is says something in and of itself.

I've always felt the BBR wants to make decisions (and it does even though they do very little) but hates to claim responsibility for them. Someone needs to step up.

As an organization with insight, we understand our influence. This is not in question. However, we do not consider ourselves the "rulers" of the Smash Community. Obviously, if we perceive something as good for the community, of course we're going to push for it, and try to make things our way. But we are still not in power. Our power is limited to our influence granted by the respect we gain from the collective respect for our members, our knowledge, and the content we produce. There is no real authority though, outside of, "Well, we probably know better than you."