This is kind of a continuation of the discussion of TC and TCE from UK's thread, but it fit's better here and I don't want to break the rules and keep taking that thread off topic.
Here's the scenario with the current rules chats that we have with PUSA
For years we were frustrated with some of the rulings that the WotC made at the chats. They'd be off the cuff and a lot of times missed the crux of the issue and once in a blue moon they'd be, to be blunt, totally wrong. Suicune, anyone?
Now, don't get me wrong. No one has more respect for the WotC MTs than the members of TC. We knew what they had to deal with on a day to day basis and a lot of the things that tore at them that could not be revealed to the general public and, since we had signed NDAs, we couldn't talk about either. The chat rulings had to be made on the fly because of the nature of the chat. Dozens of questions getting tossed at them, and they had to respond and move on. They couldn't take a half hour to talk about the implications of every ruling they made. Not if they were going to dodge "next promo" questions and sing Minty Fresh songs, anyway.
So, we'd always have to decide: do we put this in the Compendium and hope that we can get them to clarify it next week, or put it in and argue with them and hope that 2 months later Japan will set them straight, or not put it in at all. This last was reserved for the few cases when it was patently obvious that the question they thought they were answering was clearly not what was really asked.
Usually, though, what we did was to put it in the Compendium and hope that we could get it overturned at the next chat.
So, along comes PUSA with their new player support and they are not as familiar with the 4 years of cards sets that have been released as WotC was or we are, and we have an opportunity.
Not an opportunity to make the rulings. No company would give that over to amatures (in the classic, olympic sense).
But an opportunity to discuss the rulings as they are being made and bring up points such as how it would impact previous rulings; and what other cards it would affect; and what other cards have similar wording and how those cards work so we can have consistancy.
In the end, the rulings still come from the card producers. But we get to argue and discuss them before they're released rather than having to clean up messes *cough*Suicune*cough* after the fact.
So, what do we do?
Heck, we jump at the chance! Who wouldn't?
Now, I guess the question is, why TC and why not someone(s) else?
Bottom line: I think we've earned it.
As I said in UK's thread, no one handed us a rulings document and a website and said, "It's your lucky day. You're in charge of Pokemon Rulings"
OK, OK. So Kori did hand us a rulings document...
He had started the compendium and had logged the first month or so of chats.
But it was too much for one person, so we took over with his blessing and took it from a homeless document to a link off of the old PokeGym, to it's own standalone site.
So. What did we do?
We went from site to site, looking for threads asking rules questions. And we answered them. But more than that, we quoted an official ruling backing that answer up and we gave a link to the Compendium.
At the beginning, no one knew who the heck we were. We get responses to that effect. But, slowly but surely, we started to see other people answering rulings questions
and then referencing the Compendium as where they found the ruling and why it was correct!
Yee hah! You don't know how that felt!
We were still out there, trying to get everone to use the Compendium at their tournaments. It was still mostly unknown by the general Pokemon audience. Then, we met DMTM at the MD STS qualifier. It was just 'sensei and me and Kori (still and honorary member) and a few others from the PokeGym (such as Joshman, who impressed our WotC hosts by climbing up onto a food court counter and drinking soda straight out of the fountain dispenser
). We were shocked that DMTM really knew who we were! And liked what we were doing!
From there, we developed our relationship with WotC so that we could have as much say in how rulings were made as possible. WotC always kept us at arms lengths as far as rulings went, but they did listen to us. Once in a while, we got our point of view across.
Then the PokeGym died.
It didn't die from loss of membership. It died from a stupid corporate decision to drop all boards that were being hosted and it died without notice. Luckily, at that same time, WotC was trying to develop a board of its own for Pokemon. Because of the relationship that we had cultivated, DMTM proposed that WotC make use of our suddenly available talent and put us in charge of their boards.
PokeGym was reborn as Wizards' PokeGym and Team Compendium was running it.
We ran that site for two years.
We ran it differently than all of their other boards. We were not WizOs. Our rules of conduct were stricter. We had a mod forum ("Why on earth would you want with that?" they asked. They have one now for themselves...). We had a Random Topic Center (scary! @_@).
Because of our demonstration of knowledge and commitment, we were given the chance to Judge at WotC Premeire Pokemon events.
Let me put that in perspective. Does anyone remember the crying and wringing of hands over
how bad the judging was at Pokemon events? Judges that ruled that Promo Mewtwo could place his absorbed energy on any Mewtwo in play. Judges that said Defender did not reduce Chansey's self damage by 20. Judges that said that the first player couldn't attack!
So, Team Compendium tested the waters for getting experienced players to judge. The Professor Program followed.
And we kept running the Compendium. Seperate from WotC. MTM created his Master Rulings document, but the Compendium was updated every week. The MR was updated, what, 3 times? The last time by community members (some TC members included). So we kept the current, most up to date rulings available to the entire Pokemon playing community. Month after month, year after year. Never made a dime off of the compendium. All we ever asked is that whenever it gets used to make a ruling, is that the Compendium gets acknowledged as the source.
So. PUSA felt that we could offer a sounding board to their fledgling Rulings program. Again, not to have us make the rulings, but to have us point out the pitfalls and minefields that were out there. They didn't feel ready for maling rulings on the fly in public chats. MTM, MTP and DMTM were running Pokemon customer service for over a year before they started doing it, remember. Jimmer has had a couple of months at most under his belt at this point. So, I just don't get why it's bad for us to have a weekly meeting with PUSA to get some rulings.
What would we have otherwise? Nothing, that's what.
