I for one... enjoyed this video! y u all mad?
I'm not sure what Mike expected the reactions of the URC would be watching this video, in fact my largest qualm is that the video was
slightly off sync with the audio which frustrated me lol.
Even though I'm not mad (though I'm salty you caught me on one of my worst PR rankings yet, couldn't have been a few months ago when I was second <_< ), I do have A LOT of comments on it. But still, I've done things very similar to what Mike is now, being a dissenting voice of a group while being in it. Sometimes it takes someone part of a group to know the true flaws of it, and I appreciate Mike using only public information which 1) doesn't leak anything despite being discontent with the URC, and 2) shows that he did research, especially with posting the links of threads in the video.
The biggest point you are making here is that you feel the members of the URC are not qualified to be making decisions like this while a group like the BBR is. I want to start off with your comedy relief section of the video (which I found funny, though lame that I wasn't mentioned >_> ).
West Coast players had a tough time naming the 17 members of the URC. Some of them got a few, which actually isn't a terrible percent. However the fact is that, the URC is largely based out of SWF, and West Coast's smash presence is somewhat lacking on SWF. I would love for them to be more involved, not that I'm trying to download AiB, but basically everywhere else in North America is represented fine on SWF. You can't blame some people from not knowing most of an group that is based out of SWF, though perhaps if anything this is a wake up call to have more of a AiB presence.
However, I wonder how the results would be if you asked them how many members of the BBR could they name? If someone can nail like 4 names out of 17 for the URC, that's hitting 23% of it. Do you know how many members are in the BBR? Over 96. The current list I can find has 96 members listed, though I know there are that haven't been updated on the list. This is technically public information as you can go through every member on SWF and see what groups they are in. Those same people are going to have to name around 23 members to hit the same % of what they guessed in the URC. Surely though you can just throw out names of top players and hope they are in the BBR when naming them. Though some food for thought... ADHD, Mew2King, Tyrant, Fatal, Atomsk, and more are not currently in the BBR. Though some of them may have been at one point or another, they have either left (because of their discontent with the BBR) or were removed at one point or other. However despite not being in it, it means they wouldn't have been a part of a Meta Knight discussion if held now, which is what you seem to have wanted.
The Meta Knight issue we are tackling here largely is a part of the North American scene, encompassing US and Canada. Yes international discussion can help, but discussing how North America can be different on the MK issue over South America, Europe, and Japan is an entirely different debate. Did you know that 16 members of the BBR are not from North America? Do you think that this could effect a Meta Knight decision made for the North America? It certainly would. I dare your lackeys to name 23% of the BBR members from outside of North America lol.
Of the 17 URC members, 7 of us are from the BBR as well. In looking at this, I'm actually shocked that you aren't one of those members Mike, and that you're advocating for a group like the BBR to make the decision. For those of us not in the BBR, we have members that are also parts of other groups on SWF that can be just as important, such as Smash Researchers. I believe 4 of the URC members are also Smash Researchers, 2 of which are also in the BBR. That leaves 9 people of the 17 who are also in other groups, who you could call multi-talented and important in more than one aspect. The URC is a group of Tournament Organizers, and it's hard to say that none of us in there aren't actually organizers. However, that doesn't mean all of the groups can not work together on Smashboards. The BBR has called for information from the Smash Lab before. Prior to the Meta Knight debate in the URC, the BBR held a series of discussions on Meta Knight between all of their members. Transcripts (summarized version, etc) of said discussions (by members who took part in it that approved of it, which was nearly 100%) were provided to the URC to help aid us in deciding the outcome of the Meta Knight issue. We have also taken look at everything the BBR has done in the past concerning Meta Knight, so to mostly imply that the BBR had no hand in this is basically... wrong.
We don't accept anyone quite as easily as you say. The only true stipulations to being a URC are that you need to use the Unity Ruleset, and that you are an active tournament hosts with upcoming events on the horizon. We have a soft cap of members we don't exceed to try to keep discussion organized and civil, and to help balance out regional representation. No, we do not look for character representation, so excuse us if no one in the URC mains Meta Knight. That isn't to say that no Meta Knight mains had their hand to discuss the topic, because we paid very close attention to the Unity Discussion Topic, other topics in general, and the polls held on AiB and SWF, which everyone had access to, regardless of who you mained. If getting into the URC was as easy as it seems, then I suppose we should have never declined anyone right? Because we have, and none of them were Meta Knight mains to my knowledge.
When the URC first started, I was very discontent with it's member list sort of like how you are now, but I eventually came around. I figured that while I didn't feel the BBR was the right governing body for a ruleset, I felt that there are people qualified to help make ruleset decisions that aren't necessarily TOs. But then I eventually realized something... When a TO hosts an event, they need to decide on the ruleset. Whether they use a ruleset already made or create their own, they give a flat out YES or NO answer to every single rule. They are deciding the fate of their ruleset and tournament. When a tournament organizer becomes successful through huge events or successful long going series, they are doing something right. That is what the member list of the URC is comprised of. Successful tournament hosts with an edge to regional representation. Regional representation is important in that, we all know tournaments in each region aren't the same. Just as a while ago Midwest players were adamant about stages such as Port Town and Green Greens being legal, but you better not DARE suggest those stages in Atlantic North. Having representation from various regions and communities is important so everyone comes together on an equal balance (aka UNITY), and who better than a successful tournament organizer from there to be their representation? The tournament organizer's forte is not frame data or tournament results, it's listening to the community and knowing what is best to do. Afterall, they want to attract the largest number of entrants to their tourney right? If they need help from masters of other aspects of the Brawl community, they are free to ask, and have. This applies to all groups, just as the BBR has asked the Smash Lab for help, despite being the most appropriate group of the best and well known smashers according to you.
And so when all is said and done, after two recent public polls that equate to roughly a 75/25 split on pro/anti ban, 3 years of endless discussion from the public where the topic would be brought up mere months after stopping if it ended up in anti ban, MK banned tournaments catching on in every single region, and a public initiative to track many statistics and data (that most of us would agree have overall been on the anti ban side of things) - it's not hard to see this inevitably coming, and the representations for all communities coming together to do this (in such a largely positive manner with 14/17 Yes votes).
WELP I spent a lot more time than I had planned to on making that post lol.
