It's Who Said It, Not What Was Said

This is something that I am fully aware is not something that is going to magically change once I write this (does much change when I write these I sometimes wonder). This is not something that will ever go away. The whole point of this is to get people to realize what they're doing, and at least try to be more aware of this and to do something about it. I'm sure I'm going to get a little flustered with my words and probably rant a lot, but this is a topic which has long since bothered me.

The topic of this one is rather simple, but extremely important; it's the idea that all users make a preconceived judgment of a users post before ever reading it, primarily based on who said it. This is something that is very easily observable in the forums, on Twitter, and even at events. It's a dangerous game we play when doing this. It easily ostracizes users who are trying, but obtained a bad reputation for doing something stupid long ago. I think this contributes to people leaving the community so frequently. It contributes to them perhaps not feeling welcomed or unappreciated. I'm not saying we continuously baby bad users and posters, but we need to try our hardest to evaluate what they say based solely on the content of the post, and not who said it.

To bring up the most recently example of this, I want to look at a casual thread I made a couple days ago. It's intention was purely fun, just to be creative in a stress free environment. Of course, I was met with over a half dozen one liners and posts which failed to add to the discussion within the first hour of the thread being opened, including this one in particular:

This post was one of many hidden in my thread before Rushan made it very clear that posts that do not add to the discussion will not be allowed. What Hydreigone is asking for is something that has been said many times in my thread; he wants a rework of Rock Slide, or at least an alternative to Rock Slide. He didn't expand on his thought process as to why this would be a good thing to add, but it's still a solid complaint a lot of people bring up. People have been using Rock Tomb on occasion, I've seen it on Scarf Brelooms, Jeudy ran it extensively in 2014, and Blake ran it on his 2015 Nats team this year. It hits harder then Rock Slide and people value that. If we had a slightly stronger version of Rock Tomb, Rock Slide might see less usage and we'd probably be less annoyed by it, although people often fear Rock Slide simply for the flinch chance and would use it anyway.

I'm digressing heavily, but the point is he made a half decent complaint, but all he did was fail to explain his thought process. Hydreigone is for all intents and purpose, a random in this instance. He is someone who's name you wouldn't recognize aside from maybe seeing him post on NB. His post is hidden in my thread. I'm not saying it shouldn't, but it is.

Likewise, we have other one-liners from noteworthy users which were posted well after Rushan's post that remain in my thread. Now, these were hidden at one point, but they have since been unhidden, but I'm not going to address that can of worms. I am talking about the questionable posts from Scott and Len, shown below.

I would like to first note that Len's post use to be two separate posts, with the two bulletpoints being one and the sentence below being another. Someone has since had the wisdom to merge these, however it still doesn't quite do much to justify it remaining in my thread.

What's wrong with these posts? you might ask. I think it's very clear what is wrong with these. They did exactly what the 7 or 8 people in the thread before them did, yet they are able to get away scot-free (XDXD I'm so funny). Again, I would like to bring up that it's who said it, not what was said. Compare both of their posts to what Hydreigone said. All three of them want a Rock-type move which is of decent base power that cannot flinch. Okay, we're all in agreement. The only difference between their posts is that Scott has a funny "I work at Pokemon" joke, and Len asks for the removal of Team Preview, without saying a single word about why that is beneficial, or why he thinks so. What is the difference in their posts? I fail to see it.

Maybe I'm just missing something, but Rushan clearly laid the ground rules, yet why are some users not getting punished for doing the exact same shit that another is? This shit pisses me off. I don't care who you are, if you shitpost like that when countless users have been given fair warning, why are you getting away with it? (And you're practically talking to the king of shitposting: see here and here).

There's a time and place for shitposting. I fail to see how anyone can think they can get away with blatantly bad posts after Rushan very clearly said what is and is not acceptable. I think Hydreigone gets why his was hidden, but imagine him checking back on the thread and seeing those two (former three) posts left untouched. He probably doesn't get that. He's probably confused as to why, and wonders what he did wrong that they didn't. To me, he did do something wrong, yes. But they just know people. And are people who are known, and, in this instance, are exempt from the rules.

Their posts remaining in the thread also sets a precedent to others. It shows that one liners are allowed in the thread, and I'm sure some others were posted after which have been hidden. They must wonder the same thing Hydreigone does. It doesn't make sense. Again, it's who said it, not what was said.

Of course I mean no bad blood to either Scott and Len. I certainly did come off a little angry and upset, but I'm upset at the problem at large, and not the two of them in particular. Hope I'm not offending you two, but it is a perfect example.

I hate bringing this topic up, but the community really showed a lot of their true colors, so I'm again going to bring up the Jflynn stuff. This time, I'm not going to look at what either major party said, but a third party.

I am not going to discuss the validity of Angel's argument at all. We have had this argument before and I do not want to bring it back up. What I am going to do is address a comment from someone that attempted to invalidate what he said simply based on who said it.

Who said it? Angel did. Who does Angel know well? Chuppa. Angel's argument is invalid because of that. He's trying to do damage control and has his own bias toward Chuppa. This may very well be true, but I too know Angel very well, and he will tell you, "I agreed with Jflynn until the whole community went insane." Angel may be making a false equivalence, as Evan said, but it's that Evan is trying to devalue Angel's idea simply based on who said it is what I want to draw attention to. Would Evan have said that if someone else had said it? I doubt he would reply if it was a random, but what if it was someone who wasn't affiliated with Chuppa? What if Ben, or Wolfe had said that? Would the response have been the same?

I think it's clear Justin would still have gone off no matter who said it, but would we have reacted the same way if it was someone much more respected? What if Randy went off the chains and told him off? What if Scott decided to ravage him on Twitter? What if Aaron made a "JFlynn is a fraud" video similar to what he did about Verlisify? This is a bunch of hypotheticals, but I do think we react and respond to things differently, and in some cases severely differently, based on who said it.

The final example I want to bring up is two articles we have on NB that I think are valued very differently based on who wrote it. Both are aimed at teaching players how to think about the game, as opposed to our usual articles about teaching players how to build a good team, or make a good EV spread.

I'm talking about Werford's article on cognitive bias, and Zog's article on not losing. Now I don't know much about Werford. I know he got drafted by the Hornets in NPA last season, and that's about it. I think a lot of players had the same mentality going in. Regardless of the article's content, you're wondering, "why am I learning how to think about the game from someone I've never heard of?" This is precisely why when I write my Top Players Talk, I seldom talk. I just ask the questions. I'm by no means a top player, and I'm very aware that my input will be valued less than what any of my guests will say simply because I am not a top player with a plethora of top cuts. It was something I was very aware of going into the process.

Zog on the other hand is a player who has been around a long time. You may not have seen him post on the forums much, or do well at a tournament in a while, but it's hard to forget his 5th Place finish at Worlds in 2011 and his incredibly cheeky mannerisms. Zog hasn't done a whole lot since then, but for whatever reason I value his article more than Werford's, regardless of content. How many people remember Werford even wrote an article? How many people are still waiting on Zog to write part 2?

I would also like to bring up that I think we've done the same thing to MindApe's article about training. I'll be 100% honest, when I first saw the article my response was: "Who the hell is MindApe?" I had never heard of him, and I didn't feel compelled to read the article. I immediately judged his article on who wrote it, not what was said. That being said, I have since read it because I heard from numerous people that it was very well written and useful for everything, not just Pokemon. MindApe has since been an extremely helpful user, and I look forward to what he does in the future, but I can't help but remember how opposed I was to reading the article because of who wrote it.

Changing this mentality is important to me, because it encourages eager users who want to write to post good articles on NB, however we unknowingly have created an environment that doesn't invite them to write. I think if we change this we'll have a lot more users try to write good articles. Of course, we don't know what will happen until they write a bit and it gets approved, but I'm sure we can think of something.

As always thank you for reading. Please direct all comments you have to the NB thread. But before you do, ask yourself: would you value my blog more if someone else had written it? Or are you perhaps valuing it too much because I wrote it? Do you think we'd have everyone in Top 8's Team Report if Rushan called for it instead of me? Or do you think nobody would read these if a random user wrote these? If you take away anything from this, it's to be mindful of trying to avoid that dangerous bias.