Ultimate Insight 4 : Shitashi
1) You're the creator of Ausmash.com.au which is the most thorough collection of Australian competitive Smash data that has ever existed. What aspect of the website are you most proud of?

> I think just the fact that all of Australia has signed on to upload content to the website is what I'm most pleased with. As one person I can only ever do so much and to get the website to the level of coverage it is today has taken the help of almost 100 moderators and contributors. In this aspect, I'm proud that the entire Australian Smash community can pull together and continue to maintain something of this scale. Next to this, I'm probably happiest with the data analysis tools such as Elo, compare player, head to head and seeding. It's one thing to be able to collect and show data such as results and matches; the level where it gets interesting is where you can automate processes which slice and dice this data and that's where I see the highest value in the site.



2) How has the creation of the website and access to such a huge amount of data changed how you look at competitive Smash?

> Compared to the Brawl days when I competed, I feel like there's a whole new level of accountability in Smash in Australia these days. During Brawl when the only data that would get posted are result placings it was easy to forget that you had lost to xXUnknownScrubXx in round one of an event. Now that is immortalised on your profile forever and will be brought up in places like Elo, player profiles and player comparison and used in discussions for things like PRs. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but as I've risen to the higher tiers of QLD Smash the huge amount of data I've made available has made me a lot more wary of losing matches to pretty much anyone and made playing secondaries feel riskier.



3)You've been playing Smash competitively since Brawl. Who do you believe have been your greatest rivals throughout your career?

> There's a lot of people who I've had fierce rivalries with across multiple games but the only person I can think of who has pushed me in all three games I've played competitively is Jaice. I've definitely had my clashes with him throughout the years over everything from PR placements to his terrible taste in characters but overall I've enjoyed the time I've spent with him and how he's pushed me with multiple characters. He's also one of the few people in QLD who I feel is a legitimate threat to timing me out as he's been doing this garbage since Brawl. Look at the ending of this match screw that guy. https://youtu.be/MWIz9H9qGwQ



4) In what ways do you think the culture in QLD Smash has changed over the years?

> This one is quite tricky. In one way I think that the average age of QLD Smash players has increased so it feels like in general the scene has matured a lot from a bunch of kid and uni students to the same mix plus a bunch of functioning adults. The recent wave of crews in QLD has been pretty exciting too; there doesn't appear to be any hostility between any of the groups just a good sense of competitive fun. Also probably the number of people in the scene who have stepped up as TOs has been positive. During the Brawl days Vyse was pretty much the only TO we had and it was thought that the scene would collapse without him at one point. It's good for us to not put all our eggs in one basket in terms of TOs.



5) Who is a player in Ultimate that you see a lot of potential in? What about them has caught your eye?

> Some might say this one is already showing their potential, but to me this person could go a lot further. Ari is a player who I've seen rise through the ranks in QLD through hard work and sheer dedication. While he's now pretty solidly considered top level in QLD, he's yet to have a break out performance interstate. I can honestly see him taking top 8 soon or even winning a major if he continues his process of attending as many tournaments possible, ruthlessly practicing, and traveling interstate frequently. It's hard to pick just one person as I think the other top players in QLD (Ben Gold / Sadhour / Shadrew) all have similar levels of dedication and have a lot of potential plus there's a lot of new players who are edging into top player territory quite quickly.

===

Ausmash and all of its base coding was done by Shitashi himself. Shitashi has used this base to spin off a number of other products so in a way there are many sister sites to Ausmash out there in the wild. The one that Shitashi has chosen to highlight is one called Writelike. Created from a funding grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it is designed to help students learn how to write by imitating the writing styles of other authors. Check it out at Writelike.org

by Mittens 12/13/2019 00:00:00

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