Well, I guess the next time we have a close presidential race, we should just keep the old president in office until the people come to a significant enough majority to justify going through the bother of the transfer of power...
Look, 55% isn't much, but it's still a majority, and it's been consistent the whole time. The only reason Meta isn't banned right now is because the SBR is made up of self-appointed, self-elected individuals. They don't reflect the COMMUNITY at all, just the top players, and as many people have pointed out, apparently only the opinions of the top players matter in this community. The SBR is a good idea, but it isn't set up to take the community into account at all, and that's the flaw, evident in how Meta won this last decision.
The SBR held their private poll before the public one. They decided before hand the math for how the public poll would effect the private poll. In order for the community poll to have made ANY difference in the SBR's decision, the public pro-ban % needed to be 66%, a minimum difference of 11% from ALL previous polls. There was NO WAY anyone in there thought that would actually happen; they KNEW that Meta wouldn't be banned. There was no way for them NOT to; the math wasn't in the pro-ban's favor. This setup is JUST LIKE the Electoral College in politics: set up expressly so that popular opinion has less of an effect on the outcome.
Basically: Meta got saved by a bunch of elite individuals that really only think that their top-level of play matters, while forgetting that all of the people Meta actually screws on a daily basis... pay for their plane tickets, hotel rooms, and pot money. I can't agree with that... and that's why I'm happy that Xyro's keeping Meta banned here in Texas.
This is more analogous to passing a constitutional amendment than selecting a president. We aren't deciding on a person to be in charge; we're deciding on a proposition to a fundamental change in the rules. That requires a 2/3 supermajority, as well it should.
The electoral college isn't designed like that at all by the way. The purpose of the electoral college is twofold. The first purpose is to make small states arbitrarily more significant than they would otherwise be. The second purpose is to guarantee a conclusion of presidential elections by a certain date. The way it sometimes causes the election winner and the popular vote winner to be different is a shame really, but it's not a corrupt process or a process designed to produce rigged outcomes, as anyone with a cursory knowledge of American history, specifically early American history when this system was designed, could easily tell you. In fact, when this happens, it is actually just fulfilling the first purpose most of the time. And, before you go and claim the first purpose is inherently bad, do consider that the United States is in many ways a collection of states and not a single unit (basic federalism at work). Small states are effectively disenfranchised in a raw popular system; their meager populations are just swamped by the populations of the large states. If the system does not favor them arbitrarily to some degree (like we do with the Senate and the electoral college), they have little incentive to be a part of the country, especially in the modern world where they are extremely unlikely to be militarily attacked regardless. Also, the winner take all system of the electoral college encourages campaigning in only a few states which seems bad at first, but consider how much less expensive that makes elections. Already elections are ridiculously swayed by the amount of money politicians can raise (amounts that are truly obscene and totally out of reach of normal people or even any but the most powerful of politicians or the richest of the rich), and it's an obvious waste of resources to spend them on deciding on leadership anyway. A system that keeps this spending to a minimum is one I can only view as a positive.
Lastly, you are basically advocating mob rule where the majority rules all as far as I can tell. This is an extremely bad idea since the majority loves to take rights from unpopular minorities, be swayed by propaganda, and generally make stupid, impulsive decisions (notice how radically opinion polls on political issues can shift). Of course we don't want rule by "enlightened" elites who are just as likely interested in maintaining their own power as ensuring the best for everyone, but we definitely do need leadership isolated to some extent from public opinion. In government the solution is called a "republic" or "representative democracy". Smashboards has a SBR which, while there are many issues with it we could doubtless complain (and are not worth getting into here), isn't fundamentally a terrible concept and either way is definitely better than total regional disconnect on rulesets (the "anarchy" solution, used by most fighting games with less complex rules situations) or by popular whim dictating policy. Do consider that smashboards users as a whole are basically an elite compared to smash players as a whole; there's a reason we don't have free for alls with items on the Temple at our tournaments despite that being the most popular way to play.
Also, honestly, Meta Knight being banned by the SBR would have caused such a ridiculous amount of damage to the community. I'm sure it would satisfy many of you Texas people (though not all of you seeing as there are clearly Texans who voted against the ban), but consider that many tournaments in regions such as Atlantic North and the Midwest would simply refuse to adapt such a ban. This direction leaves some of you guys upset no doubt, but the status quo of the Meta Knight banned tournaments being an obscure minority with the ability to just blanket claim that those tournaments don't matter is sustainable. The political situation would become more or less hopeless to manage with Meta Knight banned by the SBR...
Also, I'm extremely doubtful that non-top players are hurt by Meta Knight being allowed. If he destroys mid-level play, then all the Meta Knights in my region must really suck because that doesn't happen here at all (they don't suck, by the way). There's just no evidence for this claim.
