Other Introductory Paragraphs for On-Site Pages [Postponed]

[bugmaniacbob]

Approved by Birkal

Right so before we start, I realise that the CAP sub-site has custom programming, so the whole template for the Pokemon pages would need to be changed to accomodate this - so if Doug wants to tell us that this idea isn't feasible in the way I have it in my head, or doesn't want to spend his time on this, then this won't work. I still think this is worth discussing though, and that possibly in the event of the above being the case, we can think of somewhere else to put these.

EDIT: OK Doug has said that this is possible. Disregard the above.

Essentially, all the information we currently have on-site amounts to the basic information, the movepool, and the analysis (from varying points in CAP's history). For any other sort of information, you have to go digging in the Process Archive. And that's fine, but I feel that having some sort of introductory paragraph on the Pokemon's main page would be appropriate for a general overview of what metagame the CAP was designed for, details of any interesting bits of the process or discussions, ways that it differed from previous or following CAPs, and the like. Essentially a very condensed version of the CAP Report, which is easy to find and easy to read for people hoping to learn more about the CAP Project.

For example, here's a quick one I wrote for Mollux:

stuff and nicks

<h2>Introduction</h2>

<p>Mollux was the third CAP of the Black/White era, and the last to come before the introduction of the Black 2 and White 2 games. It began in April 2012, long after the banning of Deoxys-S, Excadrill, and Thundurus, and at a time when the metagame was thought to have stabilised. Scizor was the undisputed king of OU, and the metagame was more or less dominated by rain, sandstorm, and Volt-turn teams. Mollux was designed to be a Pokemon that turned its "bad" typing into an asset - this resulted in all manner of suggestions as to what exactly constituted a "bad typing", with Ice/Rock and Fire/Ice being early favourites. The community eventually settled on Fire/Poison, which it was decided could be played as a counter to Scizor - and intriguingly, to rain teams as well. The resultant debates over how this could be accomplised were some of the most heated in CAP's history, with supporters of Drought and Dry Skin occupying opposing camps. Eventually, Dry Skin won, and Drought did not even manage to grab a second-place slot. Through its ability, movepool, and typing, Mollux managed to become a powerful member of rain teams, as well as being a good supporter and tank outside of them as well, although many argued that Mollux's excellence on rain teams meant it had failed to be a counter to them, even though it had, indeed, succeeded in making its typing very much a selling point.</p>

I'm sure I've missed some stuff, but you get the general idea. Anyway, we would have one of these for every CAP, making note of their build, history, and possibly revisions that have cropped up since then. Obviously it would be nice to have people who were there at the time writing them, but if that isn't possible, then it's still perfectly possible for an obliging writer to write them by looking through the old process threads and putting the pieces together - and Deck or somebody could look them over. Maybe.

Anyway, thoughts are appreciated.

 

[nyttyn]

For the record, if we need help coding the main CAP site, I'm a programmer and would be happy to help.

Anyways, I think that this should have a separate tab if we do create it, titled "vision" or something like that. It's a nice idea though and I support it, as the entire purpose of the CAPpedia is to leave a written record of all the CAPs.

 

[DarkSlay]

I can definitely see the use in this, especially for users that are not involved with past and present CAPs. I agree with this idea. One question, though: will we be doing this for Generation IV CAPs, or just the ones in the current CAP cycle? If it's the former, I'd be more than happy to make a quick write-up of a few of the older projects.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

One question, though: will we be doing this for Generation IV CAPs, or just the ones in the current CAP cycle?

It would be for all CAPs ever, or at least that's what I meant in the OP. And yeah, you'd be more than welcome to write up some of the older projects, of course.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

Double posting because um stuff to be said

Anyway I had an idea that I discussed a bit with people in #cap, who weren't particularly keen on the idea because apparently we have a lot on our plate

Well, I've started to make some headway with our plate, so hopefully this idea can be more favourably received. Basically the original idea was for the introductory paragraph to encompass everything about the CAP, from its process to its performance to its later revisions. However, I have found that, on attempting to write such a suitably concise paragraph for the earlier CAPs, there is simply no room for the revisions to fit in - they pretty much take up a paragraph of their own. As such, I found a compromise that I think is good, especially considering that this is important information that really ought to be on-site.

The idea now is to have one CAP "Introductory Paragraph" on the "Dex" tab, while adding in another tab entitled "Revisions". The information in this tab would be solely concerned with the Revisions made to the CAP after its genesis and provide a detailed map of how the CAP came to look like it does today. For example, take the following basic outline for Syclant:

The beginning is extremely confusing, I'm sure Deck or somebody can correct my historical ignorance

12/07
- Syclant's proposed custom ability "Ice Shell" changed from making Syclant immune to all entry hazards to making it immune to all Rock-type damage on the switch-in before the second ability poll.

01/08
- Syclant's original movepool created by Topic Leader (Cooper) as detailed here, based on votes on moves to be excluded by the CAP community.
- Syclant's custom ability "Ice Shell" put to poll - "Ice Shell" involves taking no damage from entry hazards, and "Mountaineer" involves taking no damage from Rock-type attacks when switching in. Mountaineer becomes the new custom ability.
- Tail Glow added to Syclant's movepool, apparently in Final Product thread, as detailed here.

11/08
- Syclant's base stats and movepool revised to make it less powerful, as detailed here based on votes from the CAP community.
- Base stats lowered to 70 / 116 / 70 / 114 / 65 / 115.
- New movepool, created by zarator.
- Thunder Fang, Fire Fang, Focus Energy, Superpower, Spikes, Light Screen, Reflect, Steel Wing, Focus Blast, Embargo, Flash Cannon, Stone Edge, and Fly removed.
- Platinum Move Tutor moves added: Air Cutter, Fury Cutter, Knock Off, Swift, Bounce, Earth Power, Mud-Slap, Signal Beam, Snore.
- Flavour moves added: Scratch, Ice Fang, Giga Drain, Metal Claw.

12/09
- Syclant's base stats and movepool revised to make it more powerful, as detailed here, coordinated by the specially appointed CAP Revision Committee.
- Base stats changed to 70 / 115 / 70 / 115 / 65 / 120
- TM moves added: Earthquake, Focus Blast, Focus Punch, Grass Knot, Psychic, Stone Edge.
- Tutor moves added: Vacuum Wave
- Flavour moves added: Megahorn, Leaf Blade, Spikes

07/10
- Syclant's base stats and movepool revised to return it to its supposed flavour roots, while complying with the new movepool guidelines, as detailed here. This process was led by eric the espeon.
- Base stats changed back to the original 70 / 116 / 70 / 114 / 64 / 121
- Fury Attack made a pre-evolution only move
- Tutor moves added: Bug Bite, Counter, Double-Edge, Mimic, String Shot, Superpower
- Dig, Megahorn, Leaf Blade, Vacuum Wave, Grass Knot, Psychic, Air Cutter, Knock Off, Swift, Bounce, Mud-Slap, Rock Tomb, Aerial Ace, Drain Punch, Shadow Claw, Payback, Flash, Poison Jab, Ice Fang, Giga Drain, Metal Claw, and Signal Beam removed.

09/12
- Syclar's movepool officialised, Fury Attack no longer a pre-evolution only move.

Possibly it would fit on the "Dex" tab as well, though I personally think that a new tab is more neat (also, don't want information overload the first time somebody looks at the page).

So the current two proposals are as follows:

Motion 1

That an introductory paragraph, detailing some highlights or specifics of the individual CAP's history, process, playtest, or "the moral of the story", be added to the "Dex" page of all currently existing and future CAPs.

Motion 2

That on some part of the CAP site, there should be archived a log detailing the revisions, updates, or other changes made to all CAPs, or possibly individual pages or tabs on the subject for each.

Discuss.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I don't mind a VERY SHORT paragraph on the Dex tab, but when I say "very short", I don't mean it in the terms that C&C now considers to be "very short", because everything on Smogon's site now seems to be wordy as hell. Pot calling the kettle black, I know -- because I am arguably the most long-winded poster in all of Smogon. But still -- if it's going on the Dex page, we should only have a couple of sentences at most. I'm thinking of something that is little more than an expansion of the fragment description we currently put in the CAP Pokedex listing.

I would like to see us add a new tab called "History" or "Background" or something like that -- which goes into much more detail about the backstory of the project that created the pokemon. Ideally, this would be written by the TL at the conclusion of the CAP, summarizing key events and decisions during the project. Then it could be added to later, if we revise the pokemon (but I'm hoping we stop that sort of thing in the future, because it has been far more trouble than it is worth). For past CAPs, we'd obviously have to write them up from memory and reading old threads. I'd be happy to help with the early CAPs by giving my recollections, as one of the few CAP participants that has been around from the very beginning.

The programming on this isn't too tough. The biggest issue is getting the material written. But I do think something like this would be helpful and informative, and it would add a lot to the CAP subsite.

 

[Birkal]

The programming on this isn't too tough. The biggest issue is getting the material written. But I do think something like this would be helpful and informative, and it would add a lot to the CAP subsite.

We talked about this on IRC, and if we have the technology to add a "History" tab, then we will have writers for it. I'd love to be a part of such a project; CAP history has always intrigued me greatly. However, at the moment, I fear that we may be juggling too many pins in terms of CAP things that need to be written. I'll address bugmaniacbob directly since he made this PR thread: Would it be alright if we delayed doing these until we get some other things completed, like updating the CAP site and finishing up other analyses? If that is the case, then this thread can be closed until a later date when we have a little less on our plates.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

We talked about this on IRC, and if we have the technology to add a "History" tab, then we will have writers for it. I'd love to be a part of such a project; CAP history has always intrigued me greatly. However, at the moment, I fear that we may be juggling too many pins in terms of CAP things that need to be written. I'll address bugmaniacbob directly since he made this PR thread: Would it be alright if we delayed doing these until we get some other things completed, like updating the CAP site and finishing up other analyses? If that is the case, then this thread can be closed until a later date when we have a little less on our plates.

I agree strongly with the first two sentences. Now that CAP 4 is over, I'm more than able to help write these and I'm certain that these will generate a fair amount of interest. As for the one-or-two-sentence Introduction, if we do have a History tab (which solves nearly every problem this idea had), then a short introduction would be infinitely better than the examples I had originally proposed, since any longer introduction would merely be repeated in the History tab, as per how the CAP was created.

As for your question - once something is locked it is easily forgotten, and there's no reason to stop other people weighing in if they have ideas. I'd prefer to put a "[Postponed]" in the title instead, if indeed we do go down this route. I do agree that updating the CAP site should take priority over all other bits of work (even though a lot of that is already written) - I question whether it is necessary to lock this since if people want to work on it, they should be allowed to, and there's no functional difference to the alternative if they don't. Certainly I think these will be easier to write up, with the goodwill and recollections of Doug, Deck and others taken for granted.

 

[Birkal]

[Postponed] would be a fair tag to put on this. I'm not so much concerned with the getting this written, but rather, I want to make sure that people are reading the other threads and focusing their critique on those threads rather than these. Like you mentioned, updating the CAP site is very important, and I fear that launching in to this would spread us too thin. At the moment, we have to write THREE analyses for CAP; I'd like to focus on those. Ideally, I'd like to finish up those three over the CAP4 playtest. Once that is over, we can continue to chart our course (hopefully towards updating the site).

Is that reasonable?

 

[bugmaniacbob]

[Postponed] would be a fair tag to put on this. I'm not so much concerned with the getting this written, but rather, I want to make sure that people are reading the other threads and focusing their critique on those threads rather than these. Like you mentioned, updating the CAP site is very important, and I fear that launching in to this would spread us too thin. At the moment, we have to write THREE analyses for CAP; I'd like to focus on those. Ideally, I'd like to finish up those three over the CAP4 playtest. Once that is over, we can continue to chart our course (hopefully towards updating the site).

Is that reasonable?

Actually we have to write two analyses for CAP, but I get the point.

I think that's reasonable enough. I'll add [Postponed] to the title.

 

[Birkal]

Necturna, Mollux, and now Aurumoth. I think the difference is our definition: you consider Necturna to be written, but I see it as incomplete. Regardless, we need to make sure these three get on site.

I forgot to comment on your proposal for locking this thread. I am actually going to go against what you proposed and indeed lock this. All writers need to be focusing on the CAP analyses and the updates on the site; this is really second bananas to other things that should be updated. Besides, even though this is locked, it won't prevent a writer from starting something up independently and posting it once the project gets underway. Don't worry, this won't be forgotten!