Start out by laddering and learning about the metagame. Showdown is a great place to do that. Once you're comfortable, you should be able to pick up an analysis that needs to be completed for C&C, and perhaps you may end up inventing your own set to share. As for The Smog, I would recommend that you get familiar with the site first and then apply for access. Most of the monthly articles will be taken already, but if you have an interesting idea, I'm sure they would be glad to take your contributions!Where should someone begin if they want to get into the Smog and/or Contributions & Corrections?
Those are pretty deep questions and I actually have thought about both of them. Even though this is a Pokemon site, I have a lot of friendships here and I've spent so much time working for it.hey harsha I got two questions for you
1. You joined pretty much at the exact same time as me, September 2011. From that time I have seen you rise from a noob to a noob with moderating powers. Seeing that you experienced evolution of new user--> leader, what do you think is this site's attitude towards new users / lesser known users and how do you really feel about this that attitude? Have you felt it has changed since you first started? This is a question I have been thinking about lately.
2. At any point have you "fallen out" or felt "disconnected" from the game of pokemon? If so, what made you come back. This could be you just bored of the game, felt your main meta was a little bonkers, or even having issues with the community.
I think that new users are pretty much looked down upon if they jump right in and start trying to contribute. In fact, I'm guilty of looking down upon people that were in the same situation I was in. When I started Smogoning, the only thing I wanted was a badge, and I wrote analysis after analysis to get one. I think in around 6 months I wrote 20+ analyses and 3-4 articles and at first it was fun, but it soon turned into a chore. Nowadays you rarely see me do anything unless it is my project. My only relevance nowadays is updating the site with RMT news and being a leader figure, though I can't even do the duties I'm supposed to because I don't know how to use the new SCMS and all the people I've asked for help so far haven't a clue either!
That said, I think new users can best acquaint themselves with this site by laying low. Making contributions to the site here or there and getting a ladybug is the first step. All too often I will see newer badgeholders call out older members of the community and even if the newbie is right, the older badgeholder and all of his friends will suddenly hate the new user. That user will carry a stigma with him for the rest of his time on Smogon (though some people are able to rid themselves of these). I was an overeager newbie and I probably wrote way too many analyses before I was actually competent in this game. I would say that I finally transitioned from average upper ladder player to a decent player was during my first WCoP in 2012.
That was a clusterfuck, but I basically have mixed feelings about the attitude towards new users. I do think that the site right now is becoming a lot more friendly to newer users as a whole, but the tournament playerbase is a lot more elitist and less accepting (and I'm not calling out these guys because I'm friends with a lot of tournament players, and honestly I do feel like a lot of the times the tournament players get shafted). So you'll always have two different views on this site—those of the elite players and those of everyone else. There isn't a "right" viewpoint in my opinion. You just have to decide for yourself what you think is right on this site rather than listen to whatever clique you're with.
I've fallen out plenty of times. The worst feeling ever is when you don't think you're being appreciated for your work. In early 2013, I co-led RMT, co-led B101, and was an Overused moderator, but I don't think my name was ever brought up for super moderator candidacy despite all of my friends joking about it. I think I also was an active QCer and I basically did a ton of stuff. I just felt like my view on site policy wasn't wanted and I eventually realized I was sacrificing my time from my extremely busy schedule—with tennis season already going on and college applications coming up—for a site that I felt didn't appreciate my work. I've always felt that the super moderator process was run oddly, as Iconic and Tobes took forever to get super moderator powers while nowadays people that don't even lead sections of the site get them. I ended up quitting briefly because of my frustration but I came back for WCoP. During this time I got all my badges except for my RMT-related ones alumnized because I realized I didn't want to keep contributing to a site where I wasn't feeling appreciated, especially if it was taking a toll on me irl. I decided to just stick to RMT because that's basically my home on Smogon, and all my best friends on the site are involved there.
Competitively, I haven't bothered to learn much about XY. I know what each Pokemon does and stuff, but I use a modified sand team now because I don't want to have to learn to build teams for a new generation, and with college apps going on right now, I just haven't had the time. While everyone criticized BW2 OU, I never quit because of the metagame, and I always found Ubers, UU, and RU fun to play if I ever got bored of OU.
Sorry, that was a lot. Hopefully none of this is too jumbled!