(request) DELETE SMOGON NOW [decision pending]

[TheShield]

if Smogon deleted this site I will go to the owners house and kill him

 

[uppa]

chaos

 

[Elvira]

I don’t personally think we need to delete smogon as it provides more competitive sides and perspectives for battling.

 

[Elvira]

I don’t personally think we need to delete smogon as it provides more competitive sides and perspectives for battling.

Sulo I’ll go to HR if you laugh react to me again..>:( (hi)

 

[Sulo]

Sulo I’ll go to HR if you laugh react to me again..>:( (hi)

sorry i just find your contrarian attitude funny

 

[Elvira]

sorry i just find your contrarian attitude funny

Beee that as it may, the truth is there.

 

[uppa]

you two r in love now

 

[RainWaiv]

they should delete smogon. i dont have a reason i just think it would be funny.

 

[doipy hooves]

There is growing demand to add an edit (and delete) button to the forums. I'm pretty sure this already existed at some point but was removed along with polls, groups, and other features.

Update: The edit button has not returned, but instead the quote button has been removed from the official Pokemon forums within the past few days.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that the Quote button still remains on the mobile version of the forums. Also you can still copy in the link to a specific post to quote it anyway.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/7109/can-we-have-an-edit-button-for-posts

EDIT (2024/04/15): The Quote button has reportedly been removed from the mobile version of the forums since at least April 4 according to the above thread.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9371/new-pokemon-coming-soon/p4
I believe this may have been because whenever you quoted a post, it would always send it to the queue for a mod to manually approve because it's technically an embed of a link.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/comment/30451#Comment_30451
Another theory is related to the fact that the "exposing cheaters and exploiters" TCG thread ended up getting locked by a moderator, with its arguments continuing and involving constant use of quotes.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/8515/exposing-cheaters-and-exploiters/p1

Meanwhile, the TCG Live forums get into a lot of drama and arguments.

Despite the moderator not tolerating abusive behavior on the forums in any capacity, FlyPupKai was not banned unlike most people back in July and is still participating in other threads in a similar manner.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9380/five-in-a-row/p1
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9359/if-you-play-mew-vmax/

The latter thread was actually made by a different person who feels similarly to him about the TCG live meta.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9540/please-stop-playing-stall#latest

Meanwhile in the video games section, the new trend is just making brackets threads for everything now.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9551/pokemon-infinite-fusions-game#latest

The anti-Pokemon Horizons sentiment is also growing on the anime forums with more Ash fans joining the discussion.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9018/first-impressions-for-pokemon-horizons/p1

However, in another thread comparing their characters directly, there are still some Liko fans to be seen on the forum.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9426/liko-vs-ash#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9238/shiny-profile-pokemon#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9441/any-one-else-here-thats-new#latest

Lastly there is some meta discussion about the forums and advice towards new posters that I think is good advice even for smogon.

 

[doipy hooves]

Also I never got around to mentioning it at the time, but the Pokemon Forums run on the Higher Logic/Vanilla Forums software. I found this useful to make more sense of certain behaviour like how reaction score/points works (calculated by value of each badge + Likes/Agree react count - Abuse/Spam react count), the default values for each rank/star level (0 points/50 points/100 points/500 points/1000 points), the Best Of page counting posts with a net value of +5 points, and how reporting/flagging works to send things to the mod queue.

An example of this can be seen on the badges page, where after 6 months TechHog went from a 4-star to a 3-star poster because he keeps getting flagged and dropped below 500 points.

(TechHog has the most posts and points on the forums and is level 4 which is denoted by his 4 stars. Incidentally, the points formula seems to be based off 1 for each Agree and Like react + whatever points you are rewarded for achievements, which for each's point value can be viewed here.)

However, the recent example of FlyPupKai appears to have 152 points despite the mass of flag reactions he has accrued. However, this is also explainable if we just do the math with the same formula.
Badge score: 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 2 = 22
Reaction score: 2 + 6 = 8
Flag score: 25 + 157 = 182
22 + 8 - 182 = -152 points

Overall this shows that the Pokemon forums/Vanilla software doesn't visually show a negative symbol for a negative point count on a user's profile page, even though it is calculated correctly.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_Forums
https://open.vanillaforums.com/
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/categories/51-gamification
https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/21-ranks
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/bestof
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/badges (contains leaderboard + value of each badge)
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/profile/30973/FlyPupKai

 

[doipy hooves]

Update: The official Pokemon forums have seemingly removed the feature to view who reacted to posts. Previously you could hover over each reaction to see a list of usernames (except for Disagree and Flag), but now you can't even see it for the positive ones.

Apparently TCG Live is having issues with currency.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9768/500-comments-achievement/p2

Debate on the forum rank meta arises as people reach the 500 point/4 star rank again.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10125/old-forums/

The forums have truly grown beyond the events of last year in some ways with people joining that have no idea of what it was like.

For reference, brackets threads are still going strong, now with a Choose Your Own Adventure trend.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...-but-does-anyone-like-delta-rune-undertale/p1

Imagine finding out about Undertale for the first time from the Pokemon forums in 2024. Especially when Toby Fox making music for Pokemon has been notable for a few games.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10173/goodbye-matpat#latest

Links seem to embed in this small box format nowadays by default. Arguably I feel like this is less transparent especially for people not used to hovering over links.


https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10151/i-am-shiny-hunting-rowlet-in-moon#latest

More people play GO here than I expected.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10036/laziest-pokemon-designs#latest

Honestly Snorlax is less of a lazy design and more designed lazy.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...do-i-message-you-all-on-pokemon-forums#latest

This is a good tip for Smogon too.


https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10135/switch-2-potential#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10148/nintendo-switch-2-power#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10163/nintendo-switch-2-benefits#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...t-now-seem-unrealistic-or-proven-false#latest

This thread seems familiar.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...youve-changed-your-mind-on-over-time.3729618/

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10096/why-does-everyone-believe-riddler-khu#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...-youtubers-that-sometimes-play-pokemon#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10053/pokemon-of-other-dimensions#latest

I thought this thread concept was funny with the implication of a 1D mon.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10049/who-would-win#latest

I like how the lions thread always has a different way for the pokemon to win every time it's posted.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10022/digimon#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10141/program-leaks#latest

A strange set of private server ads for TCG live, with 2 suspect accounts flipflopping between it being harmful and incredible to be able to log in with your official account that have also already played it. You would think this would be taken down for at least recreating their current product.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9883/how-do-i-get-more-badges-for-my-forum-profile

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10065/stop-playing-snorlax#latest

A final message for everyone still reading this:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10144/the-community-is-great

EDIT:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9691/dont-trust-ebay-and-ebay-card-prices#latest

I just only noticed this thread in news and articles but it's funny because a mod edited the post to keep the language friendly.

EDIT 2:

You get 3 different styles to choose how your link embeds, as well as being able to edit the text to make a normal hyperlink.

 

[Ivy]

wow, speaking of clout chasing, I guess the Unite avatars from the summer are relics of the past now. neat

 

[Elvira]

I don’t personally think we need to delete smogon as it provides more competitive sides and perspectives for battling.

Delete it now for giggles

 

[BestDatrix]

Guys maybe we should delete the Pokemon forums instead

 

[TheShield]

Nintendo is trash

 

[Let's go shuckles]

Since there's a new mod, does that mean the decision to delete smogon will actually get made?

 

[doipy hooves]

I didn't mention it in this thread yet, but on https://legends.pokemon.com/en-us/ there is a link to the Pokemon forums that did not exist on the SV site, which is a good sign for its continued existence in the near future at least until Legends ZA releases, but there are major issues lurking beneath the surface that the moderators have failed to address.

As a mechanics update, the quote button has been fully removed from the mobile version of the forums as well according to TheJeffers on April 4th, with no sign of any other features or new avatars being added back yet. In addition, the forum is losing members and inactive moderation is shockingly common as I will show here:

The tragedy of Josiah2580:
Last time on the official Pokemon.com Community Forums, Josiah2580 was seen posting about Undertale and MatPat's retirement.

Afterwards, he would attempt to organize a Pokemon DND session in the Play! Pokemon forums.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10150/application-4-pokemon-d-d-session/p1

Ultimately it would not pan out due to the comment not reaching its like goal, and Josiah2580's sister would proceed to post their phone number publicly on the forums, which a moderator edited out with the word REMOVED 4 days after posting and 1 day after a moderator was pinged. (Note: As mentioned before, the edit button is not available anymore, so all edits must be made by moderators.) Now I'm just saying Miiverse moderators would have never let even a friend code slide for even a minute, so it's kind of concerning how long this went unnoticed.

In the end, he would end up quitting the forums on April 9th as the first and most major public quitting announcement since DoubleCure.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10539/i-am-probably-will-leave/p1

His own farewell was met with great sadness in the comments as he took his last breath on the forums.

But on April 13, he would rise once again with a new website he made:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10598/i-made-a-website

Meanwhile, the anime forums are busy asking the real hard hitting questions about Pokemon:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...d-meowth-overpowering-cynthias-kommo-o#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10567/pokemon-horizons-3rd-op#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10472/do-you-think-ash-is-likos-dad#latest

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10587/what-is-the-most-forgettable-pokemon-to-you

Finally, I wanted to highlight some very angry posts that have been left up the past few months and either weren't filtered or were manually approved. Either option concerns me about the state of Pokemon Unite and forum moderation overall and I think it is a damn shame to see any kind of swear words on pokemon.com.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9277/needs-more-options-to-communicate

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...-games-match-against-ones-played-10-000-games

EDIT: Fortunately, regular users are volunteering for the task to become moderators, but it seems like applications are not open to the public unlike Smogon, and there is suspicion that some are robots, or at least getting paid to moderate.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10612/how-to-become-a-mod-in-forums#latest

EDIT: Also, at some point image uploads were removed too which I just want to make a note of for complete reference on the features lost so far. You used to be able to as documented here in the Funny Pokemon Screenshots thread (smogon post) which would upload to us.v-cdn.net like the avatars and require approval if I remember correctly, but now attempting to paste in images makes a Permission Problem box appear. However, you can still paste links to images that embed automatically, and it seems like pokemon.com images work fine to get past the filter automatically, as I found when posting a picture of Azumarill linked from the website's pokedex.

The loss of the images button was first noticed on October 1, 2023.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/7454/has-the-images-button-been-removed

Linking imgur images seems to work as well though I assume those require approval, but I have noticed their usage to get around the filters in certain cases. It seems like the ban on external links specifically depends on the mod who notices it, and Mod_Pandaroo in particular seems to be responsible for all of these incidents, or at least the ones they bother to sign off on publicly.

 

[ant4456]

pokemon.com.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/9277/needs-more-options-to-communicate

How do they not have at minimum a filter for slurs lmao?!?!?!?!?!??!??!

 

[doipy hooves]

The official Pokemon forums are now having their own forum gym challenge, which in practice is more like a thread for nominations where everyone takes a role of gym leader or something.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10788/should-we-do-a-forum-gym-challenge-thing/p1

The main reason I mention this is that this thread has been explicitly approved as a "fun idea" by a forum moderator, which I have previously criticized for being too uninvolved in the community.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/comment/36517#Comment_36517

The other reason I mention this is that this also involves a vote for who has to be the champion, which is probably the most important election this year after the Smogoff People's Moderator.

Currently the main candidates are Josiah2580, UnovanZorua, and Ravenclawed1234. I will go over each of their campaign positions here.

Josiah2580:

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10794/vote-for-me#latest

After his DnD attempts, short farewell, and unofficial return discussed in the last post, Josiah2580 has changed to a Porygon2 avatar and is pivoting to a new type of campaign. Due to being the first candidate to sign up, he secured a few early voters and is the only candidate to make their own thread to request votes, but lost impact quickly after other options became available.

UnovanZorua:

UnovanZorua is the second poster to sign up for the championship. I can confirm they are the current highest ranked poster on the forums in terms of points, which can be found on https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/badges for the top 25, or https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/activity which shows the top 10 posters of the week as well, with their feat of 500 points earning them 4 stars. However I cannot confirm any other details as their profile is currently private, but overall they come off as one of the more well written posters.

EDIT: Also I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but speaking of badges, the 4 badges that show under a user on their post used to show their highest value badges at least back in 2023, but now they just seem to show only the lowest ranking ones in some arbitrary order which has much less bragging worth.

Ravenclawed1234:

The final candidate is Ravenclawed1234. All I know of them is that they still have an old Unite avatar of Zeraora and I believe they have the earliest joindate of December 9 2022, since their user ID is 2951 while UnovanZorua's is 21081 probably joining sometime in 2023, and Josiah2580's is 35453, joining on February 7, 2024.

While voting began this morning, more details of the league settled in for a full house, and the vote thread was also used for debates/questions from the public at the same time.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10803/champion-voting/p1

Ravenclawed1234 sets an example to vote for another candidate.

The public begins asking important questions.

Ravenclawed1234 proposes a clean energy plan for the region and cites their veteran forum experience.

UnovanZorua highlights their knowledge of the main games and has a tough stance on crime.

Josiah5280 keeps it short and to the point with their 3 years of Pokemon playing and promises to be just while not holding back.

Counting all the votes so far including from candidates, early votes heavily favour UnovanZorua with a total of 1 vote for Ravenclawed1234, 6 for UnovanZorua, and 2 for Josiah5280.

(from the main thread)

Resilient30 is still a skeptic but seems to be engaging most with Ravenclawed1234.

Coming back to the actual moderators, notably Mod_Skrilla has gotten better at being less generic with their feedback, aside from bugs.

Here they are commenting positively on a Pokemon quiz thread:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10717/pokemon-themed-quiz
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/comment/36524#Comment_36524

And actually engaging with the topic of a thread and expressing an opinion:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10666/if-you-were-a-pokemon-which-one-would-you-be
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/comment/35921#Comment_35921

And responding to feedback about SV, though in a kind of generic way.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10626/pokemon-scarlet-and-violet-can-be-better
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/comment/35743#Comment_35743

Sometimes they still post irrelevant posts about TCG Live in non-TCG threads though but it's an improvement.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10643/nintendo-not-appearing-at-gamescom-2024
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/comment/35812#Comment_35812

They congratulated someone's achievement which they used imgur links to display, so I guess that's a more implicit approval of external links contrary to other mod behaviour.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10584/arceus-league

They also congratulated the OP of a thread from 2023 that just got bumped.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/2477/post-your-decks-rate-decks/p1

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10769/tera-raids-are-impossible
It is humbling to see how the average pokemon player views tera raids.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10776/why-can-t-i-play-my-switchcart#latest

Apparently there's a card called Switch Cart which threw me off in this context.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...er-pokemon-unfit-for-pokken-tournament#latest

Josiah2580 is up to more antics, fortunately not posting his phone number this time.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10770/do-you-have-spotify#latest
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/10740/i-know-how-we-can-do-d-d#latest

As a last note, someone is asking the Pokemon forums for serious help with a Pokemon GO stalker, and the community has banded together to support them in the only way the Pokemon forums can, by telling them to call the police and/or do something else:

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...ng-with-an-aggressive-pokemongo-player#latest

 

[Teh]

I fear that one day posters on that forum will surpass us in posting ability and usurp our throne. They're getting too powerful. We have to stop them!

 

[Geysers]

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...ever-walked-under-the-heavens-ask-me-anything
this is still live and still a problem. [BANNED SHITHEAD] keeps posting his doxxing rmt and linking his discord. Can someone with an account over there please report some of his later messages and / or try to communicate to the staff there how big of a problem this thing is?

 

[Dead by Daylight]

I fear that one day posters on that forum will surpass us in posting ability and usurp our throne. They're getting too powerful. We have to stop them!

cong is right there. this is like saying "we must invade algeria" when canada is pointing nuclear weapons at us

 

[DerpySuX]

I think we should keep smogon because I have clout on it

 

[BIG ASHLEY]

well I'VE never heard of you,,,,.....

 

[RainWaiv]

maybe smogon should start their own tiers for the tcg. like we have a banlist for the broken shit like the new greninja-ex and then we just tier by usage from there. gotta show those casuals who the real competitive pokemon nerds are.