It’s my opinion that, to truly respect one another, we need to give one another the benefit of the doubt.
It’s true that anyone who started that cheer or participated in it was being inconsiderate of anyone who was enjoying Smash 4, but it’s my belief that very few of them were doing it out of a lack of respect for Smash 4 and its community.
To come full circle, all Smashers need to reject the action of cheering “Melee” because it implies that Melee is better than other games. We need to reject anyone who deliberately tries to hurt another event or community. This means that we all need to speak out against such things, and we also need to back people up when they do. For example, in retrospect, I wish that I had joined in with the “No” chant.
At the same time, all Smashers, including Smash 4 fans, need to acknowledge the very legitimate frustrations of the “Melee" chanters - we don’t want tournaments to run until 3am on a Sunday. We also should acknowledge that SSBM Finalists were asked to be available to play for 18 hours on Sunday (9am - 3am), which in my view is unacceptable.
Players and attendees need to let TOs and TO staff know what we expect from them. Out of respect for our time, we need them to make realistic schedules, fight hard to keep to that schedule, and let players and attendees know if things are slipping.
