Rulings Suggestion

I like the new rulings forum. It addresses a real need that is difficult to satisfy.

However I do have some concerns about its operation... so can I suggest the following.

Questions are posted in the Ask the MTs forum, as at present. A single reply then gets posted from or more likely on behalf of the MTs (there is just MT Jimmer right??) sometime later.

A copy of the questions gets posted to the normal rulings forum where it can be openly discussed. In this way much of the case for and against a particular interpretation will have been covered prior to the next Rullings meeting between TC and PUI.

TC then collate/organise the rullings from the closed ASK THE MASTERs forum into the Team Compendium document that we know and LOVE!

 

Guess its just me thats concerned that the members of TC might be slipping from keepers of the law to law-makers.

 

Slipping?

Gee, thanks. :/

No, what we have slipped to is to try to get some official rulings out to the community by offering our board and time to PUSA to give them some channels to get some rulings out. At our own expense, I might add.

As has been said in many places, all new rulings are made by MT Jimmer and P-USA with consultation of Japan when needed.
Any answers given by TC members in the Ask the Master Trainers forum are not new rulings, they are questions that did not need a new ruling.

For example, the Lady Outing/Lanette's Net question about quantity pulled, while about two new cards, concerns a principle that is very solid in the Pokemon TCG ("up to" includes 0 as a choice) and does not need to wait for the weekly meeting to get an answer.
As it is, our weekly meeting goes for over 3 hours.


On your original post, you ask can't answers be double posted to make it debatable.
Please, feel free to copy any Q&A that you want to discuss and/or debate into the Single Card forum. We encourage that. I see no reason why we should have to initiate it, though.

Feel free to do so.

 

Pop, I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT HAVING A GO AT ANYONE.

I think that the new forum is a very good idea. I doubt that Jimmer and Co want to get sucked into setting up a weekly chat open to all at this time as they are hopefully very busy.

In the Forum's guidelines it says that only a member of PUI will respond. I can understand members of TPC posting replies from the rullings meeting rather than requiring Jimmer to make the posts, they are simply acting as secretary.
But...

It is very tempting when you know the answer to a particular question to leap in. I'd be tempted too. However caution dictates that such responses should reference the particular ruling that applies and nothing more.

On several occasions in the past things that I was certain of turned out not to be so. I'm not immune to errors and was giving TC the same benefit of the doubt.

Please this is not intended as criticism more a heads up that there is a slippery slope up ahead, and a suggestion as to how it could be avoided whilst also opening up rulings debate to a wider circle of contributors.

I'd also suggest that the single card forum is split up into two forums rullings discussion and everything else. So we have the initial question, somewhere for rullings debate, and then the repository for the final answer.

 

I am really concerned that PUI are not involving the whole TO and Judging community here in making and discussing rulings.

If TC can get 3 hours a week why can we not have an Master Profs/Profs chat and get some of these rulings discussed?

I am not dissing TC here but there are some things PUI can do now to get us International types involved and feeling like we are not just an after thought.

Certainly if an MT or TC member posts it would be nice to see the reference to past rulings and understand the thought behind the reasoning.

If PUI want to continue to promote a split community with some players, professors and mods in the know and some excluded they are going the right way about it.....

Consultation is the key lets hope PUI haven't lost it with some of us locked on the other side

 

I think GymLeaderPhil summed up the situation pretty well in another thread:

I was certainly never asked my opinion on anything at all. This is apparently because I'm not important. As a Master Professor and TO, I used to attend most of the chats, and religiously read the logs when I could not be there due to my coaching of 2 soccer teams.

As of now, I feel really left out of the loop.

I am not blaming anyone in particular for this, but I really wish all my effort and experience counted for something. Right now it sure doesn't seem to.

Perhaps October will bring something?

 

I, like Broken Lizard, also never received any such information to critique. I think that it is important that for this to be a truly "worldwide and community" experience like Nintendo/PUI is envisioning, that key players in the community, should at least have a say on what is being said "behind the scenes".

I am grateful for all of TC's work to date, however, they are a small segment of this community, and I feel that it would be nice to have at least some insigts as to what is discussed between PUI and TC during these AIM meetings.

My two cents,

Skywolf1

 

I am in no way associated with TC, so anything I say shouldn't be held against them, or over my head -- since I, like 99% of you, am "out of the loop", as you say.

First off, TC is not 'slipping' in any way. You need to realize that for most of them, this is NOT their life. Pokemon and the PokeGym are only a portion of what they do during the day. They have jobs, families, and greater priorities than to sit here and read posts on the computer 24 hours out of the day, just for you.

Another part of it is that you need to realize there is more to adding a new ruling than just "hey, this sounds good... make it official". It's like the government. There are so many different levels that a "law" or "ruling" must go through before it can be announced to everyone.

About TC only being a "small" part of this community? As individuals they are, yes. As a group on the other hand, they have put more time and effort into the community than many of you could imagine.

You do get some insight... the final result. I can bet you that TC isnt in the chats talking with jimmer saying "man, these kids are so annoying, we should put them all in a box"... no, they are spending those hours actually discussing the new rulings. If you want to put your own words into the discussion, post here on the board and they will/can be adressed at the meetings.

I don't understand why all of you are complaining, really. This is almost the same way that WotC ran their chats, except in those, you could show up. However, the rulings at any time were still the same; you didnt have any direct insight into the rulings being made. The ones that were confusing were clarified. That is exactly how these chats are, except you arent in the chat.

Uhm, who exactly would be concidered "key players"?

 

IT IS SO STILL EARLY in the PUI game.

Are they chat ready?
Are they PROF ready?
Are they Master Prof ready?
Arre they TO/Judge ready?

DIDn't they probably get a FLOOD of emails from ALL OF US as soon as we learned they wanted feedbacks, TO's, professors?
I AM SURE they also received MUCH feedback from those who attended the PRE-Releases also.

They have all that information and are listening.

The future still holds MUCH that is not clear and yet to resolve.

=/
Thanks for the support and acknowledging the TIME we put into this.
But...
Well...
I meant...

Sorry looks all the same. Tired of looking toward the horizon? AIN'T we used to it yet?

 

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.

 

Well I do think that the closed forum for posting questions is a good idea... it functions like /ask did on the wotc chat server.

However it does appear to have stifled discussion in the single card forum. Something that I doubt anyone would have anticipated. Hence my suggestion about the duplication of posts in both the closed forum and the open discussion forum. Its quite likely that we could thrash out rulings amongst the community and all Jimmer would have to do would be to okay the outcome. Of course some rulings will still require input form Japan just as in the past and just as in the past some of the communities ideas will get overturned.

I miss the discussion that used to take place before the closed forum was started. It seems disrespectfull to TC to take it upon myself to duplicate rullings from the closed forum into the open discussion area.

My other concern is that the Title Ask The MTs, though discriptive of what is intended, is resulting in many making the association that TC=MT=PUI, given that the forum guidlines state that only PUI will respond.

I'm not trying to tread on toes. I raised the original post because I genuinely care.

 

No, no! We would not consider that disrespectful at all! It was our expectation, no, our hope, that people would take rulings and work them over the coals. Please do!

As for only the MTs responding.
Well, yes. That was our hope. However, as is now clear, it looks like that ain't gonna happen. MT Jimmer has had a limited presence. Maybe that will change. Maybe not.
We plan on reviewing the forum and making some adjustments.
We agree that it has not been all that we hoped it would be.

The plan was (shhhh!) to entice the PUSA to show up regularly on the boards.

So, we need to make some adjustments.