Right I promised an administrative post, and as I really ought not to be putting this much work into the project a week before exams, I need to outline where I hope to be taking this project once my final exams are finally over, and so that people know what needs to be done when I do inevitably disappear for a bit.
First of all, as to where I've been for the past few weeks and indeed the past few months - I have been neglecting this project for the most part since late December, when I managed to complete most of the move descriptions on-site. I won't make any excuses for this - schoolwork and revision being the devils that they are, a vague assertion that the GP team needed to check entries as I couldn't check them by myself, yada yada. I still maintain that I was doing my level best to keep the project going, if only on an scms level. Anyway, what I am saying in my customary roundabout way is that I am sorry it has taken this long to get moving. Also many thanks to Oglemi for coming to the rescue, multiple times.
As for what I've been doing for the last week or so... I have put a rather large amount of time and effort into finishing what I had been doing on-and-off since January, which is finish up the items list that is currently appearing on the dex. Some of the descriptions and indeed competitive sections that appeared previously were, not to put too fine a point on it, somewhat dire, and I won't hide from you that I lost the will to check more than a few of them when it came to grammar checking, nearly half a year ago. Anyway, long story short,
all items that are currently appearing in the dex should have all of their sections completed. Note that this does not include two important things, which need addressing from a programming standpoint:
1. Lagging Tail has no entry on the scms, despite having an entry in the dex. If somebody could create an entry for Lagging Tail then that would be great
2. About 80% of all items are not showing up in the dex, including some items with moderate competitive use, such as Ring Target. This needs addressing, but do take your time with it - after all, as far as I'm concerned items are currently finished, but there'll be a lot more work to do when they all appear on the dex. In any case, it gives us time to work on abilities, heh.
So, here's what needs doing, roughly speaking:
Moves:
- All descriptions are currently done
- Most Competitive Use sections are either done and on-site or waiting to be checked and uploaded
- Most Related Move sections are, for want of a better word, utter bilge.
Abilities:
- Nearly all of them are completely done, but it's been about a year, so they need updating
- Some of them were never completed, but I'm fairly sure this is a minority
Items
- All items that currently appear on the dex (most relevant competitive items) are done
- All items that do not appear on the dex are not done, but since these aren't really relevant to the competitive scene, with the exception of Wonder Launcher items (and somebody else is going to have to write those as I have absolutely no idea what the best strategies are for that, heh) they shouldn't require too much work
That's all well and good, but going about fixing all of this is a bit harder. With that in mind, here is my plan for how I personally will be going about working around this, and how I encourage everybody else to apply their own resources - I find that it will be easier to make progress (certainly for me) if we all concentrate on the same area to start with. Thus:
#1: Abilities and Moves
- This is where I feel we need to start off. Abilities were completed first, heavily OU-biased, and mostly done by the same person. Hence, these are the ones I want to be targeting first. I feel that given enough time I can probably run through these on my own, as there are not that many of them - however, given that I am likely to be leaving long before I can finish them, here's how those of you with scms access can help. If you know any other metagame (I'm looking at RU, NU, and VGC in particular here), do feel free to add your knowledge in. Quite a few of the Competitive Use sections, I feel, could use beefing up a bit. Also, these are the only section that currently has entries on-site without any Description section - this needs fixing, as this is the single most important section.
- Also, Moves. The Competitive Use sections need to be grammar checked, added to, beefed up, sorted out. Descriptions are already fine. If you know any other tier, and it's different to OU, put your input in. It's appreciated, even if it doesn't seem like it (the scms is a pretty thankless system, I know).
#2: Moves
- Once the Competitive sections are grammar checked, I intend to go through and review every entry, not just for grammar but also for professional quality. You lot don't have to do that, of course - and naturally you won't - but what I would like help with are the related move sections, as very few of these actually conform to the guidelines that I set out for them at the beginning of this project:
bmb said:
The Related Moves section is designed to house all of equivalents, variants, and alternatives.
Equivalents are those moves that are exactly the same save for a typing change. Examples are Seed Bomb and Strength.
Variants are those moves that have similar mechanics but have slightly different properties anywhere, for example in effect, Base Power, or accuracy. Examples include Flamethrower and Thunderbolt, or maybe Seed Bomb and Iron Head. These should be kept quite strict, however.
Alternatives are those moves that, were the Pokemon to happen to have both of them, then they would be able to consider one over the other for competitive reasons. This does not include "physical variants" - it ought to be assumed that said Pokemon is using a physical/special move for a reason. This also should not include "legendary exclusives". Examples include Seed Bomb and Leaf Blade. You also ought to include Power Whip and Bullet Seed in here.
These sections need to conform to this standard, otherwise we end up with positively ridiculous scenarios where moves that have no competitive value are mentioned as alternatives. Also, get rid of this section if it has no related moves. If you disagree with this, that's fine. In that case, just change the Related Moves section to the following:
<h2>Contentless Section</h2>
<p>This section has no content.</p>
#3: Items
- Finally, once all the new items turn up on the dex, we'll need to add/check/write descriptions for all of them. There are a heck of a lot of them, but in general I think that the uploading will be a lot more painful than the writing - so it's a good thing we've got you lot on board. In any case, once this is done, as with all the other sections, the entire Items list will need to be reviewed for any mistakes before being passed on to completion.
---------
Once the above is done, the Project should essentially be complete, and we should have one of the most comprehensive competitive game element sections available. Even so, I do not intend to stop there, as there are a few more things that need doing first.
Thus, my overall plan for the future is:
1. Finish up all entries for all the game elements - essentially, complete the Project (see above).
2. Go through the BW Research thread and find every last bit of information pertinent to competitive battling in any tier and add it in.
3. Only once this is done, I will set up a new thread titled "BW Move/Item/Ability mechanics" or something along those lines, where anyone can suggest a mechanic that has been omitted from any of the descriptions but is still needed (for example, "If I use Lunar Dance, does the Pokemon switching in receive entry hazard damage before or after the healing?"), and this will be added.
4. The Competitive Use sections will likely all need revamps to tie in with any tier changes, released items, or what not that may occur - it's such a shame that most of the higher metagames are balanced now, really.
5. Finally, add hyperlinks a la the DPP pages, as eric stated above.
------
OTHER JOBS THAT NEED DOING
- Make a list of everything that is done and everything that isn't done (I would do this myself but... if I find something that isn't there, I have a tendency to automatically just add it in anyway)
- Grammar checking
- Uploading
- Writing
- ...I'll think of something else at some point and add it in here
------
It's been roughly a year since I posted the OP, and I'll admit that this Project has had me stressed out more than once. Regardless, I think that we are somewhere close to finishing - it's rather hard to tell at the moment, of course, as I don't actually have a list of what is and isn't done, as quite a lot of very dubious stuff was uploaded without my knowing (I do have a habit of harping on about that, don't I) - but to reuse a tired old analogy, it took my DPP Anorith analysis a year and a half to upload. Not sure what the moral is, but there you go.
Regardless, I feel as though I personally will have to take my foot off the pedal for at least the next three weeks now - until my exams are finally over. I really can't afford to mess these up, and I've been toeing the line quite a bit now, working this hard on the project in lieu of revision. I'll still be here and there, working away at odd moments - but don't expect me to dedicate entire days to revising what's on-site. At least, not for the next few weeks. I have full confidence in Oglemi to keep the show running until then - so good luck, one and all.
Well I'm truly terrible at encouraging speeches aren't I... not to mention brevity