Poll Regarding 'Power Rankings'

[Devilish53]

Hoi.

Regarding something that is being planned in the future (and I guess this poll would be good for the site in general), I've opted to ask peoples thoughts on how a power ranking system would go. This would be a top ten/fifteen/twenty of ongoing LAW wrestlers. Personally I am iffy on the idea, as it's something of a indirect way of saying one character is superior to the other, and it can encourage win hoarding.

Hence the poll. Please pick one, or comment your idea for alternative means of handling it. Thank you!

[SuckerPunch]

I've brought something like this up before and it was met with similar trepidation. I think it's a great idea! I think giving players an opportunity to acknowledge their favorite characters and writers is great! We're a wonderful community and I think it's well within our abilities to to offer recognition to each other! A literal number ranking might be a little tough, even though it's easier to digest. But a "Wrestler's of Note" would he absolutely fabu!

[PrincessBlair]

I'm against it. I think it discourages people who don't post very often, and favors the more active people. Being somebody who doesn't post a whole lot. It would just be a thing I would feel like I can't compete with other people in. I absolutely hate the idea.

[LtLukas]

One of the most interesting things about this subject is the potential for RP. For example, it would be cool to have a PPV where number one fights number two, number three fights number four and so on and so forth. Even if we don't do that exactly, having callouts and promos would be fun, as well as interviews reacting to someone's ranking. Up and comers could be excited to get a four spot, while someone who is more established would be livid that they were in fourth, for example. This could lead to butting heads, which might be fun.

Blair (or should I say Princess), I understand your concern. Something that I would keep in mind is that this would not be an objective rating of your value to our little community, but rather something fun to see who the fans think is the strongest. The best wrestler is not always the most interesting or compelling wrestler, for example.

[CyanDimitrik]

Through some experiences I've had where a community introduced heavy "competitive" meta elements, I have to vote against this altogether. Characters should be characters. We don't need a tier system.

I don't know what the actual benefit would be other than bragging rights. Your character doesn't actually change, right?

On the other hand, I could see it discouraging people who feel like their character(s) would get steamrolled, or be expected to job out. Or people who are on the top wanting to protect that status.

In my view, there's a lot more negativity at stake than potential gain.

[Ichi]

I am against this. It introduces a competitive element to a site that is not competitive. While it could be good for RP purposes (i.e. characters reacting to rankings), I think it's too risky to implement a power ranking system as it could alter the dynamics of this site. We don't need people fighting over the top spots. Additionally, having a character in a top ranking could indirectly elevate the owner of said character above others---this is another thing that would be awful to have happen.

We should ask ourselves what a power ranking system would even add to the site and if it is even worth it.

[Ichi]

A community poll could easily devolve into a popularity contest. Moreover, how would it be decided who gets onto the poll? Would a few people decide who gets on the poll? Would it be open, as in anyone can enter a character in the poll? Either way, it would be strongly biased in favor of whichever characters stick out in the mind the most.

A win/lose ratio ranking would be meaningless as a character's record can easily be inflated---after all, who is better: an 8-2 wrestler who squashed 8 jobbers and lost to a couple medium-difficulty opponents or a 6-4 wrestler who routinely fights high-difficulty opponents? Sure, one could investigate how strong a character's opponents were but that would add a whole lot of extra logistics and subjective opinion into the mix.

Having a few people at the top decide would also not be good. That gives power to a select few, which would not be a good thing. We don't need people getting salty over the decisions of those people, nor do we need people needlessly kissing up to those people. I do not believe it would be a good thing to make how a select few view one's character into a metric for determining how good a character is.

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I suppose I should get some clarification: What exactly is a power ranking supposed to measure in the first place?

Does it measure quality of a character? Popularity? How entertaining a character is? Either way, I think that such a ranking runs the risk of adding unwelcome toxicity to this community.

[Ichi]

I think that instead of having explicit ranking, we could have a spot where individual characters can get recognized by people. Like, maybe people could write articles about certain characters or review matches. These could be posted in some new section of the forum.

Sure, maybe there could be some problems with such a scheme. But I doubt that it would lead to as many problems as an explicit ranking system.

Then again, I don't really see any problems with the way things are run now.

[PrincessBlair]

I was thinking maybe we can have a "Wrestler of the Month" type deal, were a wrestler is chosen at random to spotlight. And maybe we can have a section where people can have their characters give their opinions on that month's wrestler. But we have to find away to limit the characters that could be chosen. We don't want some nobody character of a user who left the site a years ago being chosen.

[Devilish53]

The poll is tilting towards the idea of not having them altogether, and even if it wasn't the case, the fact that many disagree on them suggests its better not to do something with minimal gain but a high chance of insulting people.

Ideas for similar or alternatives were thrown around the discord chat when I made the poll, along with a discussion with SuckerPunch who in the past queried the idea of a ranking system as well.

1. A wrestler of the week/month style spotlight. This should be emphasised as a 'when, not if' style thing - if your character wasn't featured in that week or hadn't been thus far, it simply means the random order deemed your character would come later. Simply because a character was featured early on does not emphasise them.
2. Free reign in general for people to emphasise their character. This will be done in general alot in the magazine (people writing about their own feuds, upcoming things) but people could naturally have a writer 'character' do a praising or scathing review on their OC.
3. Utterly ridiculous rankings with a emphasis on fun above all else. These would be written by a character straight from buzzfeed E.G. Top Ten Times Ducky Williams Used Her Butt, Top Ten Boston Crab Moments In LAW, Top Ten Revealing Attires. People would be free to write their own, and in all honesty I'd hope to write or see one done quite often.