Pokecommunity Battling Tutoring: ideas.

[.Aero]

Tutor = The person who teaches.
Apprentice / Tutoree = Person who is being taught.

Hope that clears it up. xD

 

[Dooonerz]

Tutor = The person who teaches.
Apprentice / Tutoree = Person who is being taught.

Hope that clears it up. xD

Okay then, since I'm dyer at competitive battling, can I be an apprentice? <3

 

[.Aero]

We're not actually setting up tutor/apprentice pairs yet, but when it does start we'll let you know. ^o^ Right now we're just figuring out how the program will be run and such. Glad you're interested though. :3

 

[Zeffy]

The tourney idea sounds good. It will measure how much the tutor trained his/her apprentice. :D

Btw, since I've been into Gen V lately which is kinda surprising I know most ups and downs of it. I'd most likely be a tutor, focusing on dreamworld. :D

 

[Anti]

We definitely need to continue carrying out this thread's purpose by getting the tutoring program ready to get up and running in a month or two (I don't really know what the preferred timetable is). I sense a dying thread so let's keep going!

So, putting aside incentives for a moment (that's something we can figure out later, it's not too important), have we all agreed that the basic structure of this will be one "tutee" and one tutor are assigned to each other and it's like the old program I linked to earlier? Assuming we have...

We need to get fixes to the old problems of time zones and a general dissipation in participation (what a cool sounding sentence!!!). I definitely think the tournament is a good idea since it provides incentive to actually get better instead of just being lazy (for the student and tutor alike), and it's an incentive that's worthwhile for winners and losers alike. It's a good assessment of progress.

However, I feel like we should have at least two of these. If we have a long tutoring session and a tournament in the distant future, there is a natural tendency to procrastinate. If we have a tournament halfway through the process as well as at the end, it will result in two members winning instead of just one (unless the same person wins twice of course, but the potential for two winners is still a big positive I think). It will also keep everyone motivated.

After the session is over, I wouldn't be opposed to having a dreaded Community Night so that tutors can introduce their students to the community and they can battle more seasoned battlers (they will have experience from the ladder so it won't be like throwing them to the dogs). That's probably when we should hold the final tournament IMO, but that might not work due to time zone restrictions etc.

Before I forget, we really should make sure that time zones, work schedules, etc. line up when tutors and students are matched together at the beginning of the process. We have to decrease the potential for a demise similar to the one our first tutoring program had. If anyone has other ideas with respect to that, fire away. We really cannot afford for this to fail again.

I also think we still need to establish how long these sessions will be. Personally, I'm for a month before the first tournament and another month before the final tournament/ComNight. If my earlier suggestions are rejected by the community, I feel like we should just make the time frame two months before the final tournament. But I'll admit, that's pretty arbitrary, so if anyone has a more polished way of doing this, please do speak up.

 

[.Aero]

A mid-way tournament is a great idea to keep people involved. ^o^ I like it. Two months seems like a while away though. I understand tutoring can't be done overnight, but it still seems like a long ways away for the final tournament. But I understand that we have to find a balance between session length and how long we'll stay interested.

So I think we should all post our time zones along with when we're on most?

[-5:00 EST] On usually at times between 5-11PM throughout week days, and random times during weekends depending on what I have to do. Tuesdays I'm unavailable from 9-11, and Thursdays I'm unavailable at random times that I have lacrosse (if needed, I'll post the times I'll be gone for this once I get an apprentice...assuming I'm accepted as a tutor?)

 

[Opposite Day]

+1 GMT here.
Usually on anywhere from 6 PM to later on most days, weekends are all random.

 

[Vrai]

My PC clock is telling me UTC -6. I'm here... well, I won't be here a whole bunch, but I'm always avaliable Sundays. On weekdays I'm avaliable from 7-11 PM generally, unless I have a meet or something. I'm also usually avaliable on Saturdays unless, again, I have a meet. Sports suck.

 

[*ADJ*]

Haha I had no idea there even was a tutor program..
It sounds like it would be a good idea I would want to participate because im trying to improve on my competitive battling skills..
Also, Im utc-6 and on most everyday.

 

[.Gamer]

GMT -6 (Central Time Zone) for now, GMT -5 (Eastern Time Zone) after about the first week of January. I'm pretty much on all day while I'm home because there is NOTHING TO DO here. But when I go back to uni its gonna be a lot more sporatic since I failed a course last semester so I gotta bust my butt.

 

[Detox]

UTC -6, Im on most days after school from about 3 P.M. to 10 P.M.. Im on most of the day on weekends though.

 

[Anti]

You guys are jumping the gun a little bit with the time zones lol.

Anyhow, D_A and I discussed this on the server and we have a basic outline of the program. Here goes.

____________________________

The sequence of the program will be as follows:

1. applications
2. selection and matching of tuitors, students
3. first one-month period of tutoring
4. progress check tournament
5. second one-month period of tutoring
6. final tournament

The applications will be like before. The will be two application forms, one for tutors and one for students. If you are an experienced member of the community, you will not be accepted as a student.

The selection process is still up in the air. Since most everyone is equally qualified to be tutors, tutoring positions (along with student ones) will be selected on a first come, first serve basis. There will be eight students and eight tutors accepted (this could go up to twelve each depending on the turnout). Matching tutors and students will be done based on time zones and schedules.

The one-month tutoring periods are there to give tutors time to teach and students time to get real learning done. The time frame is rather arbitrary so it is also flexible, but we aren't going to go crazy with extensions. This program in its entirety will probably take about three months to complete, which is a lot of time when you think about it, so we can't be lazy.

Here is the information for both tournaments.

• Both will be Gen V OU.
• The tier list being used will be the one that results from the current suspect test.
• No spectators will be allowed.
• Tutors may not give advice to students or help them in any way during the matches.
• All standard clauses will be in effect.
• The deadlines will be 2-3 days to keep things rolling. Alternatively, we could hold the tournaments in a Community Night format which would speed up the process but might be unrealistic due to real life restrictions.
• A decision needs to be made about the role of incentives in the tournaments.

Once the second tournament is over, the program will officially end for a few weeks. D_A and I have flirted with the idea of maybe having a tournament a week or two after the final one where both tutors and students participate. It's quite a confidence booster for a new player to beat an established player.

Anyhow, that's the basic outline. More ideas are still welcome and this is definitely subject to change, but here's what we've got so far. Thoughts?

 

[Skip Shot]

Sounds pretty good to me. One question- if a student wants to practice something other than gen 5 OU, should the tutor go over both if the student also wants/should get help from gen 5 OU? (say that Bob was a tutor for Joe, and Joe wanted to learn Ubers but also wanted some help with gen 5 OU)

 

[Anti]

Sounds pretty good to me. One question- if a student wants to practice something other than gen 5 OU, should the tutor go over both if the student also wants/should get help from gen 5 OU? (say that Bob was a tutor for Joe, and Joe wanted to learn Ubers but also wanted some help with gen 5 OU)

No one here knows about Gen V Ubers (which is the only other Gen V metagame right now), so we can't be very useful there. Even with something like Gen IV which we all know, it's tough since the tournament is Gen V OU. Gen V is the future and Gen IV will be like Advance in a few months, so even that really is pretty shaky.

Of course, there will be other metagames in the future (maybe even soon, I'm not sure), and there I'm not sure. Presumably we will teach OU and they can get UU assistance outside of the tutoring program itself (or we might even do two separate programs). After all, this is as much about getting new users into the community as it is about teaching people Pokemon. I doubt new users will have a tier preference but perhaps I'm wrong. We'll probably just cross that bridge when we get there. I don't really have a good answer for you.

 

[.Gamer]

Sounds pretty good to me. One question- if a student wants to practice something other than gen 5 OU, should the tutor go over both if the student also wants/should get help from gen 5 OU? (say that Bob was a tutor for Joe, and Joe wanted to learn Ubers but also wanted some help with gen 5 OU)

I think we should focus on Gen 5 OU as the main metagame we teach, since its the main metagame likely to be used in Tournaments and stuff, both on PC and afar. The goal of this tutor program should be to get "newbies" (for lack of a better term) ready to compete against other users. Thats not to say if the pupil asks the tutor "hey, since I think I have a pretty good grasp on OU, can we do a little bit of Ubers?" the tutor is not allowed to help, but the main focus of it should be Gen 5 OU.

Not only that, but if we have 1 user teaching Ubers and 7 others teaching OU, it kinda ruins the whole tournament aspect of the program. Also lack of resources (see: tutors) puts strain on this type of "fringe" metagame teaching.

 

[Dooonerz]

I like the fact that we are using Gen V OU, as it the only one I know a little bit about <33
When it says 'selections of tutors and students' does this mean that we choose who our tutors/students are, or do the organizers of this event?

 

[Anti]

I like the fact that we are using Gen V OU, as it the only one I know a little bit about <33
When it says 'selections of tutors and students' does this mean that we choose who our tutors/students are, or do the organizers of this event?

I'll probably do it. I will be neither a tutor nor a student so I can try to match up the schedules and whatnot without any bias (if such a thing exists in this context). If there are any problems we'll just make changes since it's not an exact science or anything, and you never know when something will come up.

We will probably include a section in the applications which asks what the tutor is best at and what the student feels he needs to learn the most. That will help matching up tutors and students as well though the first priority is still the time zone/schedule factor because that's what derailed this last time so we can't afford to let it happen again.

 

[wolf]

D_A and I have flirted with the idea of maybe having a tournament a week or two after the final one where both tutors and students participate.

I think we we should stick with just two, and leave that one for other tournaments in the Battle Stadium / server (though, we don't have many tours). It would make the process too long in my opinion too, unless we start allow a new set of apprentices join, etc without the final tour blocking progress.

I don't see any other issues / have anymore ideas.

 

[Anti]

Okay, I think that we need to discuss this:

If you are an experienced member of the community, you will not be accepted as a student.

I've had 2-3 people I'd put under that category who have asked if they could be a student. I figured I'd put that rule up as a discussion and state why I'm conflicted about it.

The tutoring program is meant to bring new users into the community. Yes, we're teaching them how to battle competitively, but the whole point of doing that is so that they consider sticking around. Activity is indeed low. Letting people who have considerable battling experience goes against that. That was the point of the rule in the first place.

On the other hand, the activity from our regulars has been a problem that was identified in the S&M Fix Thread and, realistically, probably won't be countered just by saying "hey guys, you need to be more active!!!"

The only solution I've been able to think of is something of a compromise between the two points of view where six of the eight slots are allotted to new users and the remaining two to regulars. (This is arbitrary but how many of our regulars actually need this tutoring?) Oppo did raise a good point about that idea though which was that new users are likely going to be intimidated should they have to enter a tournament where two people already have a distinct advantage.

Soooooo I don't know, and from what I can tell no one really has a good idea on what to do here. So then, what do you guys think?

 

[.Aero]

Well which two regulars are asking to join as apprentices? I think it depends on who they are. Obviously they'll have a slight advantage (and the tutor will have a much easier time teaching said person), but I think if we do accept 2 semi-regulars or whatever they'll need to be fairly close to being new at competitive battling.