Prime you have no reason to complain about my wall of text. You love walls of text
True, I write a lot. I talk a lot in real life, too.
Fair enough. May I ask, why NOT return to the old look? Is it impossible? I guess I find it hard to believe that VBulletin downgraded its forum customization features. I mean we don't even have little Poke ball "New Post" symbols anymore. I know it's nit-picky stuff, but I just believe the Gym looks unwished, compared to previous designs.
1) Is it impossible to return to the old look? As far as I know, old themes do not work with new software. I'm not a VBulletin professional, though.
2) No Pokeball symbols. Those are just graphics, so I could easily design something and replace the current "New Post" graphic with them.
3) Gym looks (unwashed? unwished?). That's fine, you are welcome to your opinion. I like the current look. Perhaps we can add something in the future that will be more to your tastes.
I've read this a few times. I can't tell if this is a sarcastic comment or not.
Not sarcastic at all. Maybe should have included a
Artists work best in groups.
I actually was thinking about this last night, and made a survey and some plans to do some legitimate social research on the topic, but ultimately discarded the idea due to lack of time, though I am still fascinated by the idea.
Please don't waste your time. I'd much rather you spend your time thinking of ways to improve the PokeGym now, than collect data that proves the PokeGym was messed up in the past. One is constructive and helps improve, the other just leads to arguments.
We agree that the members have left, and we agree that they left for various reasons. I think you could agree that at least a portion left due to their perceived, valid or invalid mistreatment by the moderation staff. Furthermore, I think you could agree that the perceived mistreatment, against valid or invalid of the members by the moderation staff has become the "flagship reason" albeit not the only reason for the Pokegym to be an less desirable website to visit. When members leave, they take their friends and followers with them. Because Pokegym became less-desirable to visit, both other sites were born, and the more valuable contributors left. This is I believe a reasonable hypothesis to make.
Very reasonable hypothesis.
The Pokegym may have never forcibly kicked people out (minus deserved perma-bans), and people DID leave on their own choice, but you have to think about what that reasoning was. If it was for the lack of content, then why did the content providers leave?
Many of the content providers were high class competitive players, and they left with many of the other competitive players because they desired their own secret clubhouse to discuss competitive strategy, a place where n00bs wouldn't get in. You had to be allowed to see the discussions, so they could control exactly who was seeing their ideas, and who gets to discuss ideas with them. PokeGym couldn't offer that. So with those competitive players went many of our best writers, and with many of our best writers gone, there was a lot less quality content donated by members.
If it was for a freer and less moderated environment, why did they have such a problem with moderation? These are the questions that must be asked in order to come to a conclusion.
I think that answers itself. They wanted a less moderated environment, because they had a problem with moderation. They wanted to talk about above PG topics when the PokeGym wasn't going to allow that because of the young audience. I don't feel the PokeGym was wrong in not allowing above PG topics or discussion, but these members wanted something less moderated, so they found a place less moderated.
This is the first time I've seen a staff member be public about improvement to the system. That's very good to hear, and I hope other members or ex members see that as good news as well.
Well, I have been very much AFK from the PokeGym for a while. I stopped playing the TCG a few years ago. But with the new year, I feel like as long as I have free time to do it, I want to try my best to improve the PokeGym the best I can. And one of the biggest improvements I feel that is needed is more public communication with the members. So, nobody is telling to do it, but I'm going ahead and being honest and open to the members, because I think that is the right thing to do.
I wouldn't say that because other staff hasn't done something this, that they are bad or have done something wrong. I just think we all approach problems differently and we all do our work differently. I am trying to communicate to the members, while other staff are working behind the scenes to get stuff improved. We're a team and we're all working together for the same goals.
I was never "arguing" I was debating.
When I say arguing, I don't visualize someone mad or upset. That is just my term for discussion with points trying to persuade the other person of. I argue one idea, you argue another. Not shouting or anything, just trying to persuade and communicate. So I didn't mean it as you were arguing in a bad way.
It's not what I think. It's what I know was being said. No, I won't go into detail how I know, but I saw it with my own eyes.
Okay. Not sure how I can help you there.
If that is the reason, then I would like to one other website that is a portal to just as bad or worse topics that is not censored on Pokegym. YouTube .... The censorship of the word Hey Trainer has nothing to do with the content of the site....if it did, then the rule of "no links to anything that's not PG" would be more than enough to enforce the fact.
You're right. If someone went to google and typed in anything, they could find dirty pictures, bad web sites, etc. But places like and Wikipedia allow all content to be delivered, they are a database of information, so with the good comes the bad. But for a forum or a web site like PokeBeach, it's different. They aren't databases, so they don't have the leeway when it comes to understanding there will be bad stuff on there. Yes, it's a bit farfetch'd to say that the PokeGym censors the words Hey Trainer because a kid could google it, register, and find bad stuff. But that's really the truth. If a lot of people mention that web site, a kid is likely to google it, go to the web site, register, and find stuff. And if their parent walks in and says, who told you about that site, they are going to say, "I found out about in the PokeGym", more likely than not. Either way, it comes back to the PokeGym, and ultimately makes Nintendo look bad, because Pokemon is a nintendo game, and PokeGym is tied to Nintendo through it's staff. So the PokeGym has to be extra careful not to allow these things to even start rolling, because we don't want anything bad to get back to the PokeGym. Maybe they censor stuff a little hard, but we're doing it for the right reasons.
The censorship of the word Hey Trainer had EVERYTHING to do with the content of the site. There was no hidden agenda or conspiracy. We didn't want young kids getting onto Hey Trainer and reading about sex and other bad stuff. Yes, they can find it on their own too, but we weren't going to give them a starting place, or make it any easier to find it. Hey Trainer had some amazingly skilled players, but they also talked about some pretty adult and rated-x topics. We couldn't recommend our members to go to the site.
I'm not sure what Hey Trainer does now. I believe I heard they rebranded themselves as Virbank Gym or maybe I misheard. Either way, it seems like they tried to clean it up a little so they would be a more hospitable place for a younger audience.
It was a subtle transition, but the point where the Pokegym became an unofficial forum to represent the Pokemon company. This is the only website where PTOs and professors make up the majority of the staff. This is the only forum where the top execs post threads and respond to the players. When that happened, Pokegym became a much more moderated place, perhaps, out of necessity of agreement with the Pokemon Company, I can't say for sure.
Like I said, the staff running the forum has been mostly the same since it's conception. So the staff has always been heavily PTOs and judges. And I know when WotC had the game, they had their own forums, so they would have posted there. So, when Nintendo took over the game, they didn't have a official Nintendo Pokemon forum, so they had to post somewhere, and the PokeGym was the biggest Pokemon forum at that time, so they posted there. I don't think there was really a transition into unofficial officialness, where rules changes, moderation changed, etc. The staff never changed and Nintendo chose on their own to post here.
I won't deny that the staff has to take into consideration the connection to Nintendo, but I really don't believe the moderation has change in any big way over the years. Then again, 2003 is 11 years ago, so it may be hard to visualize any of change over that course of time.
It's a Pokemon forum with a "random topic center." I used those threads as examples of healthy discussion. Have you looked at the forums recently? The Random Topic Center, the Electronic Forums, almost every forum (with the exception of the trade forum) has seen a sharp decline or complete halt in traffic and new posts. That's a sign of decreased interest in Pokegym. If you promote healthy discussion, then members return. If they return, they explore other parts of the site.
There can be healthy discussion without allowing beyond PG topics. Nobody is stopping people from discussing everything under the PG rainbow. But like you pointed out, there has been a decline in posts. So, I don't feel it has to do with the PG barrier. I think it has more to do with the decline in visitors, because like you pointed out, the Electronics Forum has also seen a decline, and all of their topics would have been within PG.
Those don't need reporting...
I'm going to stop you there. Why would you ever say this? If someone does something wrong, regardless of who is reading the thread, regardless of who they are or what position they have on the forum, you need to report them. Seriously. How can you expect something to happen if you don't lift a finger to help it happen? I don't understand it.
Oh I disagree entirely. You can easily train mods. Punish them when they mess up, especially if they repeatedly mess up. Call out fellow mods (not in public, in conversation with other staff) who need to be called out on.
Really, to be perfectly honest, I've never seen a need to punish mods or call them out specifically for something they done. I mean, like I've given a bad infraction before, when I used to mod. And every infraction generates a thread visible to all staff, and people have said in the thread, like "you need to do this instead", and I would change the infraction. I don't know of specific cases where a moderator has just been completely out of line and either the staff said nothing or the staff agreed with the decision. The way you speak about it, it's like moderators make mistakes on a daily basis, but from my experience, it's very rare. I can't even name any examples, and maybe it's because I'm not a moderator anymore and I'm not in the moderator loop anymore, but I just don't see it happening as often as you make it out to seem.
That's why minus improving the infractions, and communicating with mods the right way to mod, I don't see anything more that needs to occur. In my perfectly honest opinion.
I stated before that this is excellent news to hear, and even more so because you are being so public about it. I only with more staff were this public with how they want to work with the members. Working hard is great, but if no one knows about it, they won't change their opinions.
Like I mentioned above, being public is my idea. The PokeGym has never been public about certain things, and to be perfectly fair, I could get in trouble for being too public about behind the scene stuff. I feel like it's the right thing to do, but I cannot ask other staff to do the same, especially if they don't feel it's the right thing to do. And I don't think it's fair to the other staff to look poorer on them because they aren't being more public. There are plenty of governments, corporations, companies, business, that are not public about things. And some have PR agents that will feed stupid stuff to the public. So, being pubic is nice, but I wouldn't expect it.
I know only the member side.
I think that is ultimately the reason not to continuously talk poor of the moderation staff. Because you and the members don't know what is going on behind the scenes. You don't know if other staff is critiquing that mod's actions, or if that mod is getting in trouble, or if that mod is being removed. And to make claims that the moderators are bad or make mistakes continually, it's not the full picture. It's better to try your best to communicate with other staff and tell them how you feel about the moderator's actions, set things in motion, and take a step back from it.
I'd much rather talk about how I think the staff can move forward in the future and get the members to come back. Dwelling on the past is just backtracking and doesn't move anyone forward. This I believe both of us agree on.
Sounds good to me
