This year's SPL is over... but how do the guys running the show experience it?
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Reflections of an SPL Host
- Thread starter Lumari
- Start date
Credits:
Written by: Mazinger
Art by: Bummer
QC by: Oglemi and Zebraiken
Grammar checked by: P Squared and The Dutch Plumberjack
HTML by: The Dutch Plumberjack
how exactly did oglemi burn ginkus 5k
Somehow because I did the reset they had to pay 5k more for bloo than before the reset (35 before, 40 after) even though had lonelyness not fucked up they would have paid that much anyway or just let lonelyess have him once it was apparent that's what he was going for and stopped at 39.5 or something. They then claim that that extra 5k then threw their whole auction plan out of whack, which idk lol. Not like anyone worth that extra 5k would have helped bloo's 6-3 or stopped them from getting creamed that season anyway but w/e. I've already accepted the flak and moved on, i'll even say I ruined their season but *shrug*
"had lonelyness not fucked up" is not the relevant hypothetical; the fuck up in question (resetting the auction instead of having ln face the consequences of his own ineptitude) is on your end and directly led to us losing 5k, ie a disadvantage for a specific team based on the whim of the host which, to the best of my knowledge, was never addressed until now, in a clumsy matter at that
It didn't result in a direct loss of your 5k, it resulted in a continuation of the original bid and a chance for correction of human error/resume fair play. I probably should have let ln live with the mistake but a) his messed up bid was within the time limit for the original bid, b) it was a mistake I could see anyone making, and c) it was one that was ultimately easily remedied, ignoring the fact I hit restart instead of redo. It was also the first bid of the auction and the most hyped one so I wanted to see it play out to its logical conclusion, which to you was when he messed up, which is fair, but to me was with a complete victory by one team or another as usual. Had it been your team that made the messed up bid you'd be singing a way different tune which is why I can live with the decision.
a) fair enough but he missed the time limit by fucking up which is his fault and not anyone else's, certainly not ours, b) no one else has ever made the mistake, c) it was only "easily remedied" by making the ruiners pay for the frogs' error, the equivalent of fixing a house by taking bricks from the neighbor (what was actually easy to remedy was the reset itself, at any point before the end of midseason no less, because the effect was immediately known and easy to compensate at no cost to anyone else)
also not a particularly smooth tactic to deflect from the issue at hand by making this about what I would be saying in a hypothetical situation (I too would enjoy being able to build my arguments on made up ulterior motives of other people), not to mention that the relevant part is not what I would be saying but whether I would be correct
also not a particularly smooth tactic to deflect from the issue at hand by making this about what I would be saying in a hypothetical situation (I too would enjoy being able to build my arguments on made up ulterior motives of other people), not to mention that the relevant part is not what I would be saying but whether I would be correct
At no point did the ruiners ask for the 5k to be compensated, at least never formally, all I ever got was that I "stole" the 5k which is an attack, not a request.
And you're not correct, I made that clear, there was no deflection there. I stated the action resulted in a continuation of the auction, it did not result in a loss of 5k. The ruiners decided to continue to bid up to 40k, they were not beholden to that, as was no other team. My point on the results being reversed isn't a deflection, it's a call to see my side in a positive light since you already have determined to call it negative.
And you're not correct, I made that clear, there was no deflection there. I stated the action resulted in a continuation of the auction, it did not result in a loss of 5k. The ruiners decided to continue to bid up to 40k, they were not beholden to that, as was no other team. My point on the results being reversed isn't a deflection, it's a call to see my side in a positive light since you already have determined to call it negative.
so you're saying it wasn't a mistake because we didn't fill out the proper forms
is that what we're going with
are we also going with a reality where "burn 5k" must mean you maliciously pulled up with a torch and set fire to them instead of being a shorthand for "made a call that resulted in the ruiners paying for ln's ineptitude with 5k auction credits"
is that what we're going with
are we also going with a reality where "burn 5k" must mean you maliciously pulled up with a torch and set fire to them instead of being a shorthand for "made a call that resulted in the ruiners paying for ln's ineptitude with 5k auction credits"
What the fuck are you reading into lol? I'm saying their really wasn't a mistake on any end other than ln's mistype, just a difference in calls, that's the point of my arguing lol. I'm also saying at no point did anyone from the ruiners non-inflammatorially actually ask me to compensate for the 5k, since you brought it up. Period. Done.
You were claiming my call directly cost you 5k, i was arguing it didn't - only continuing the bid that then continued for another 5k, the former of which wasn't the intention of the call as you made it seem, maybe from your own clumsy wording, but the latter. So sure ya, if that's what you mean then OK I did.
You were claiming my call directly cost you 5k, i was arguing it didn't - only continuing the bid that then continued for another 5k, the former of which wasn't the intention of the call as you made it seem, maybe from your own clumsy wording, but the latter. So sure ya, if that's what you mean then OK I did.
alright, even in your version ln is the only one who made a mistake, yet the ruiners pay for it. we're getting somewhere. you then mention that the ruiners didn't formally ask for compensation, which is either inconsequential (because you stand by your call and wouldn't have done it anyway) or means that you didn't do it because they didn't formally ask for it ("use the proper forms"). this leads one to question why you would not make the correct call just because it was not submitted in a way that suited you (after you completely ignored the initial backlash), and how it's even possible to host spl with that approach. one also wonders why it took 3 years of radio silence and 3 posts itt for this reason to emerge from the shade you threw at the team that got shafted. I brought it up in the first place because you used "easily remedied" as a reason to undo ln's mistake, which applies even moreso to your own mistake (or "different call" if you insist).
I was arguing that the call should not have been made and resulted in us losing 5k, for which I used the shorthand "burned", which does not imply intent, although you did intentionally make a call that could only possibly put the ruiners at a disadvantage compared to the status quo even though the status quo was a result of an ordinary mistake by someone else. I appreciate the acknowledgement that you probably should have let ln live with the mistake, though.
I was arguing that the call should not have been made and resulted in us losing 5k, for which I used the shorthand "burned", which does not imply intent, although you did intentionally make a call that could only possibly put the ruiners at a disadvantage compared to the status quo even though the status quo was a result of an ordinary mistake by someone else. I appreciate the acknowledgement that you probably should have let ln live with the mistake, though.
I didn't compensate because I didn't think I needed to; if someone actually /asked/ then I probably would have, but just submitting to flames wasn't an option because then that opens the door for other teams to get what they want by bullying the host(s). I can both stand by my call and also have been open to compensate, this isn't black and white lol.
As to the radio silence, there wasn't? I never made a post about it because I didn't need to; the call was made during the auction, everyone saw the call happen, we moved on with the auction.
The reason I threw shade is just returning the favor because you and cbb and idk whoever else can't seem to become un-butthurt about it lol.
And you continue to insist that continuing the bid was putting you at a disadvantage. How? The bid was /continued/. That's what I don't understand. I did not place you at a disadvantage by continuing the bid, I neutralized the setting to its original state, effectually calling ln's mistake as a real bid and continuing from there.
As to the radio silence, there wasn't? I never made a post about it because I didn't need to; the call was made during the auction, everyone saw the call happen, we moved on with the auction.
The reason I threw shade is just returning the favor because you and cbb and idk whoever else can't seem to become un-butthurt about it lol.
And you continue to insist that continuing the bid was putting you at a disadvantage. How? The bid was /continued/. That's what I don't understand. I did not place you at a disadvantage by continuing the bid, I neutralized the setting to its original state, effectually calling ln's mistake as a real bid and continuing from there.
i'll answer the questions posed early in the article because i feel like it
Why is Isa not hosting? Why is the replacement not another TD? Can Prague Kick really run SPL? Who is Prague Kick?
i was incredibly burned out as a td. i had been appointed only one year prior, but had worked a lot. my university studies were coming to an end while my professional career was supposed to pick up, and my interest in pokémon had waned significantly during the past 6 months. i took the decision to step down as a td already in november, but for the sake of not ruining spl by stepping down either unannounced or just before the start of the tour, i decided to continue on until the start of week 1.
the reason no other td was a replacement was because nobody wanted to host lol. i was the only one that was interested in hosting spl, everyone else wanted to compete. quite quiet was the exception but he was strapped for time so we went external. we discussed replacement hosts for some time before i announced prague kick to the public.
spl host prague kick was my idea. i've known him since 2012 and he's always been fantastic. he had hosted plenty of tournaments on smogon and done so splendidly. hosting the italian spl was a bonus - i dont remember if i knew it before speaking to him or not, but it certainly didnt hurt. we had other candidates in mind, but some candidates were already locked up as participants (manager/retain), others had entered a period of inactivity. overall it felt like a natural choice to me.
what i had completely missed was how much smogon as a community values badges - prague kick was not a TD nor an acclaimed competitor, and thus mistrust was huge. prague kick himself foresaw the backlash but i did not. i found it absurd. despite being acclaimed as a host i had only some hosting experience on smogon - but if your first two tournaments hosted are RBY Cup I and OST XII, you get a high profile status quickly. apart from that i had hosted two or three live tours and a forum tour where the final game took several months to complete. prague kick had hosted twice as many tours as me just on smogon and was very active as a Smogon Tour host, having done an excellent work there.
some of the rebuttals to prague kick were abhorrent. his nationality was seriously held as a reason not to have him as a host by not only randoms but also managers. i was absolutely appalled.
to me, the concept of badges as proof of ability is somewhat ridiculous. people asked me tons of questions about hosting tournaments when i got TDs despite never having hosted a tournament on smogon. my knowledge or suitability hadn't changed overnight, merely whether i had a badge or not. likewise, prague kick's lack of a td badge was absolutely not a problem to me - he had proven that he had the abilities, and his lack of a merit badge was not due to any supposed fault of his own.
the one complaint i found legit was that prague kick didnt have first hand spl experience. this was part in why we eventually chose ginku (alongside manager memes that'd fill your inbox if you let it) - he was interested, had support from the managers and had participated multiple times in spl before. as mentioned in the article though...no hosting experience. this was a Big Deal to me (and still is. i cant believe we chose a non-host as host for spl) and i was definitely the one on the td team to oppose it the hardest. eventually i caved though and we made ginku/prague kick co-hosts.
in the end, as documented, it worked out very well. i was very pleased to see that both spl hosts managed their duties excellently and i was positively surprised to see that ginku was doing a great job as a first time host. id still not let ginku host if it was only my opinion that counted though because im stubborn and grumpy.
good article, good writeup ginku. hope you stick around some more during the non-spl periods too.
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appreciate the elaboration, kicc did indeed not deserve the mistrust, great dude. hate on italians is way out of line.
no radio silence is laughable though, as far as I can tell you've never commented on this anywhere before now. I even asked you about it on smogtours a couple weeks ago because I wanted to be sure before putting it in the article. moving on with the auction doesn't really mean anything because you're the one who made the call and the others all benefitted fom it, while ruiners did indeed not move on but were ignored.
shade in return would be fair if the original shade hadn't been justified
the status quo was that the ruiners had bought bloo for 35k, then you intervened and put the bid at 35.5. there is no possible outcome where this does not hurt the ruiners, who wanted bloo at 35k and now either had to give up or pay more. the end result was the loss of 5k. we can see a clear chain of events from you hitting !reset for no reason (now that I checked the auction log I can't even find the original "!bid 35.5" by ln, but assuming that it happened it was still not a reason given that people miss bids all the time because of mechanical errors or even lag) to us losing 5k. the point is that the bid should not have been continued (which you seem to admit) and that the ruiners therefore ended up with 5k less than they should have. it couldn't be any more simple. there's also nothing neutral about "neutralizing the setting" by fixing one party's mistake in a competition.
......ok, so we were supposed to interpret the !reset followed by complete silence in the face of backlash as "ask and you shall receive". I don't think this is reasonable or the alternative would have opened the door to anything (people will still be loud about everything and still only get what they want if they're actually correct) but it's not complete nonsense and you seem to agree that the initial call was not the correct one, which is what this is about, so I'll take it.
no radio silence is laughable though, as far as I can tell you've never commented on this anywhere before now. I even asked you about it on smogtours a couple weeks ago because I wanted to be sure before putting it in the article. moving on with the auction doesn't really mean anything because you're the one who made the call and the others all benefitted fom it, while ruiners did indeed not move on but were ignored.
shade in return would be fair if the original shade hadn't been justified
the status quo was that the ruiners had bought bloo for 35k, then you intervened and put the bid at 35.5. there is no possible outcome where this does not hurt the ruiners, who wanted bloo at 35k and now either had to give up or pay more. the end result was the loss of 5k. we can see a clear chain of events from you hitting !reset for no reason (now that I checked the auction log I can't even find the original "!bid 35.5" by ln, but assuming that it happened it was still not a reason given that people miss bids all the time because of mechanical errors or even lag) to us losing 5k. the point is that the bid should not have been continued (which you seem to admit) and that the ruiners therefore ended up with 5k less than they should have. it couldn't be any more simple. there's also nothing neutral about "neutralizing the setting" by fixing one party's mistake in a competition.
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I've never commented on it because literally no one has ever asked me about it, outside of "why did you burn our 5k", which isn't a question worth answering because it was obvious to me I hadn't and the question is just inflammatory. Literally no one asked why did I hit reset except for on irc immediately following the incident. No one asked for an explanation after that. I figured most people saw it happen, accepted it as a bad call but valid, and moved on with their lives. The complete absence of any request for follow up on the decision confirmed my immediate assumption on it. Aldaron may have received different, i'm not sure and if he did he never made a point to ask me to explain either. The ruiners were ignored because it was only inflammatory. Why should I explain anything to someone that can't ask a question without also insulting me? Expecting an answer in the face of that is what aladaron would call A grade entitlement.
Cheers guys,
As much as I'm sure ppl enjoy SPL drama even outside of the season, this forum is not really the place for this--Unun's question of what was meant by the 5k has been clarified fine as far as the facts go, if you guys wish to continue this elsewhere then feel free to but it's getting p. awkward for others here.
As much as I'm sure ppl enjoy SPL drama even outside of the season, this forum is not really the place for this--Unun's question of what was meant by the 5k has been clarified fine as far as the facts go, if you guys wish to continue this elsewhere then feel free to but it's getting p. awkward for others here.