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SparksBlade

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Shadestep im not gp or anything, long ago i think fleurdyleurse gave me this: http://pastebin.com/GNxxBjTj
there, in notes, is your answer
- "like" =/= "such as." "like" means "similar to; in the vein of", while "such as" means "for example" (so such as is used for examples including, while like is used for examples resembling). also, commas before such as imply a non-restrictive clause aka something that's not needed, but if the info is needed, there should not be a comma before such as. if one of "like" or "such as" would be more applicable, change it; if both sound equally fine, leave as is
so, breaking it as simply as i can, "like" is to express similarity, "such as" for examples
 

Lumari

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hey, I couldn't find this under the Spelling & Grammar Standards, so I'll ask it here.
are there any rules as to when to use such as or like? a lot of the corrections in the GP Stage of my Analyses have been like such as , which seem to be a common mistake with lots of people. I'm not a native english speaker so I don't know if there are any rules for it and if so, what they are.
Shadestep im not gp or anything, long ago i think fleurdyleurse gave me this: http://pastebin.com/GNxxBjTj
there, in notes, is your answer
so, breaking it as simply as i can, "like" is to express similarity, "such as" for examples
(fwiw, the standards only cover Pokegrammar and Smogon-specific conventions, not English grammar in general, but we often also discuss the latter in there, so that thread is the best place for questions like this.)

Like and such as serve similar purposes, but they carry different nuances. The specifics are a tad tricky, but it works pretty much like this: "like", quite literally, means "similar to", so when you're saying "teammates like Omastar and Garbodor", that implies that you're not talking about teammates in general, but about teammates "similar to" Omastar and Garbodor, i.e., hazard setters. "Like" is used here to include an additional nuance with the category "teammates", which makes it correct to use. "Such as" on the other hand implies that the given examples are just that, examples--e.g., "Swords Dance sweepers such as Drapion and Virizion", which don't have anything significant in common aside from being Swords Dance sweepers.

However, to make things even trickier, they are interchangeable to an extent--e.g., even though they're not arbitrary examples from the category "Pokemon", "Pokemon such as Rapidash and Flareon" is perfectly fine, because it's very clearly implied that we're talking about offensive Fire-types here and we don't need the extra nuance expressed by "like" to convey that we're not talking about Pokemon in a general sense. Not to mention that whether or not a similarity is significant enough to warrant employing "like" can be pretty subjective to begin with--"Water-types like Suicune and Milotic" is absolutely fine as long as you consider the extra nuance bulky Water-types to be significant; otherwise, "such as" is equally correct here.

more reading here: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/like-versus-such-as
and here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/grammar-dojo-see-post-61.3508366/page-4#post-5716550
and here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spelling-and-grammar-standards.3490681/page-15#post-6422882


As a rule of thumb, "such as" is usually your safer bet, but for broad categories, "like" works just as well. (and apologies for the technical answer heh)
 

Pyritie

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If I find a spread for a pokemon somewhere, and use it and end up really liking it, is it still ok to write an analysis with it? Do I have to "credit" the original creator of the spread somewhere?

VGC tends to be more "possessive" of EV spreads than other formats, imo
 

GatoDelFuego

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If I find a spread for a pokemon somewhere, and use it and end up really liking it, is it still ok to write an analysis with it? Do I have to "credit" the original creator of the spread somewhere?

VGC tends to be more "possessive" of EV spreads than other formats, imo
In general, I would say no. Sets are not entirely unique, and unless there's deep innovation made to a Pokemon people usually don't get credited for it in analyses. Now the thing to be considered is that players make custom sets and EV spreads all the time. Our analyses are just guidelines, not requirements. So while there are tons of unique spreads and sets out there, not all of them are going to be as universal to get on the smogdex anyway. I don't know anything about the VGC culture, but the way I see it, if you're designing a set for optimal use in the metagame then most players should come to the same conclusions and it doesn't just come down to one person's idea. That's different for highly custom sets, though. The answer would depend a lot on context, but I think for most cases this probably wouldn't end up being relevant.
 
In regards to GP, what is "placeholdering" an analysis? I've seen rules about when not to do it, but I don't understand what it means to do so.
 

GatoDelFuego

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In regards to GP, what is "placeholdering" an analysis? I've seen rules about when not to do it, but I don't understand what it means to do so.
Basically, our GP checkers will post a placeholder saying that they're editing the analysis. If we didn't do that, then two checkers might work on the same thing at once, which would waste somebody's time!
 

GatoDelFuego

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I put that in the OP of the GP queue as well; there's been way too many times ppl have asked me for that link
 
Hey, I'm not sure where to ask this, but feel free to move it if I've asked in the wrong place.

Is there any particular reason why the competitive analyses for moves were removed with the advent of X/Y?
 

MZ

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Can we link to wobbuffet's uber analysis before the PU one? It's actually usable there and it's really annoying to keep getting the analysis that screams "don't use this mon ever please" before anything else.
 
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GatoDelFuego

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Can we link to wobbuffet's uber analysis before the PU one? It's actually usable there and it's really annoying to keep getting the analysis that screams "don't use this mon ever please" before anything else.
Is that possible for specific Pokemon? I'm not sure if that's editable by C&C staff, as I think the "order" that analyses appear is preset for all Pokemon, or at least determined by the same set of rules (tier Pokemon is in gets first analysis or something like that).
 

Lumari

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Can we link to wobbuffet's uber analysis before the PU one? It's actually usable there and it's really annoying to keep getting the analysis that screams "don't use this mon ever please" before anything else.
Is that possible for specific Pokemon? I'm not sure if that's editable by C&C staff, as I think the "order" that analyses appear is preset for all Pokemon, or at least determined by the same set of rules (tier Pokemon is in gets first analysis or something like that).
the dex defaults to a pokemon's home tier yeah, which for wobbuffet is pu no matter how you slice it. afaik the only way to link to wobbuffet's uber analysis by default is by putting it into uber (or any BL), which of course doesn't seem like something that we should be doing
 

Pyritie

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In formats where you don't bring all your pokemon to a battle, such as battle spot formats or VGC, how do you refer to pokemon you don't lead with but still bring to the battle? Is there something better than "in the back"?
 

Hulavuta

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In formats where you don't bring all your pokemon to a battle, such as battle spot formats or VGC, how do you refer to pokemon you don't lead with but still bring to the battle? Is there something better than "in the back"?
I usually say "benched" or "on the bench" etc. borrowing from the Pokemon TCG term. I don't know if that's a common thing though.
 

Acast

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A lot of analyses mention specific pokemon that have been banned in that particular tier for quite some time. If I was a new user that wasn't familiar with the metagame, I would have no way of knowing an analysis is outdated. Is it possible to start including a date in each analysis to show when it was last updated? It could be just a small bit of text at the bottom of the page saying "Up to date as of September 22, 2016".

I hope this is the right thread to post this in. It seemed to be the most appropriate one I could find, but if there's a more appropriate thread for requests could I please be pointed in the right direction?
 
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i wanted to make a post about something, but i honestly wasn't sure where to post it, so i thought i'd ask here before doing anything. i wanted to make a post asking about what pokemon XD, gale of darkness exclusive moves are considered useful in the current metagame, but i am pretty new to this forum and i am not sure where i should post a question like this. i didn't want to jump ahead and do something that might be wrong, so could someone let me know where i would post a question like this?
 

GatoDelFuego

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i wanted to make a post about something, but i honestly wasn't sure where to post it, so i thought i'd ask here before doing anything. i wanted to make a post asking about what pokemon XD, gale of darkness exclusive moves are considered useful in the current metagame, but i am pretty new to this forum and i am not sure where i should post a question like this. i didn't want to jump ahead and do something that might be wrong, so could someone let me know where i would post a question like this?
A thread like this (http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...the-op-first-now-with-100-more-rules.3542207/) is probably a good place, though it depends on what "current metagame" you're talking about. I would guess that not many XD moves are actually useful tho.
 

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