i would like to address some things i noticed around here

the rules
beginning at the beginning.

as customary with the internet, forum rules reflect the attitude of a website. if you plan for your rules to be taken seriously, they must be spelled out letter for letter (if you expect rule-breakers to ever visit this website) and easy to understand for all audiences. there should be no questions after reading the rules.
1. No Flaming or Swearing: Please do not use any inappropriate language anywhere on this forum.
"inappropriate language" needs explanation. e.g., what exactly constitutes "inappropriate language"? what kind of people do you expect to visit this website, and how do you expect them to conduct themselves? why is toleration of others important to this forum community?
2. No Abuse to Other Users: Please do not abuse any other users on this forum in any sort of way.
explain "abuse". this is very general. consider the questions above in revising this rule.
4. No Wrong Pictures: Please do not post ANY wrong sort of pictures. The only sort of pictures that should be on here are Pokemon related pictures.
explain "wrong". also, why would you have "the gallery", "off topic", and "multimedia" forums if only pokemon related pictures are allowed? many discussions are facilitated by the use of images, and only allowing pokemon related pictures is a serious hindrance to the success of these three forums.
5. No Asking Personal Details: Please do not ask ANY users on here any of there personal details!
expand upon "personal details". this includes a short discussion on what is and is not allowed to be asked.

grammar and spelling checks
yes, this might be a little tougher from the admin panel, but spelling and grammar is absolutely essential to being taken seriously. major issues with these are rampant - again, to begin at the beginning: "Pokearena the number one pokesite!" let's be totally honest, as much as we'd like to say that we're number one, quantity always trumps quality when it comes to information about pokemon, and in that aspect we have nothing on smogon, serebii, marriland, legendarypokemon, etc. try to formulate a slogan that is both sensible (highlights exactly what we have to offer and why we are a website just as worth visiting as smogon and company) and well capitalized and punctuated ("PokeArena: The Number One PokeSite!" or "PokeArena, the Number One Pokesite", etc.)
the forum descriptions need editing as well. "talk about any off topic pokemon realted stuff here!" should be "Talk about any off topic Pokemon related stuff here!" "Hold your nose because this is were all that rubish spam goes!" should be "Hold your nose, because this is where all that rubbish spam goes!" i bolded "there" up at the rules, it should be "their"; i noticed another spelling error in rule #3, but can't quite recall it. important announcements and the like, which are meant for all users to read, must absolutely be grammar, spelling, and punctuation checked.

layout and aesthetic design
i strongly encourage you to toggle the portal off; it's the most badly designed aspect of phpBB and they have not addressed this one bit. design your own portal layout, if you do it right, it's very easy to make one better than phpBB's default, which is difficult to navigate and has many un-toggleable features that distract from lots of important things. i understand that graphic design itself is a low priority at the moment, but it will eventually need to be considered and now is as good a time as any to improve the banner and navigation, among other things (that pokestadium button is 100% horrible and repulsive).

i volunteer my assistance in the organization of all of these improvements.
i also believe i don't need to introduce myself.

The Rules
Thanx Charlotte for thinking of this. Ill post some new rules (that hopefully tell more about the rule and what is and isn't alloud). If you can think of anyway to put it, please be my guest. I have my hands full with tons of other things. Remmember, this site just got up and it takes teamwork to get it up and runing good.

grammar and spelling checks
I will get onto fixing those as soon as possible. And if you or anyone else could think of some names. Just post. Im sure if we could get enough names thought of we could make a poll and find out what one to use here.

layout and aesthetic design
The banner, if Dragon is going to. He said he would design a new one for us. And as for the ranks to, I will get to new ones in a wile. Those are some things I got done in about 30 min. The layout, I will get to some pokemon design sometime. The navigation, what do you mean by "navigation"? Like where the forums should be placed? Im sorry, I just didn't get that part. Could be becouse my brain isn't all the way turned on couse it's 12:30 AM here.

Yes, I noticed most of those things as well, didn't post them though. How about the old rules list from Pokestadium?

Quote :

Hello. Though the betlwedl forums are meant to be a relaxed place, we do need some rules in place.

Rule I:No Spamming

Spamming is prohibited on the PokeArena forums. Spamming consists of:
A) Pointless Replies (i.e: +1)
B ) One word posts
C) Posts containing only emoticons for no reason
D) Repetitive messages (i.e: hi i'm bob hi i'm bob hi i'm bob hi i'm bob)
E) Excessive use of blank lines or characters (i.e: kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk, dsjhfhxcnwnkxwnerfnxayklxmtwrxrngesdfaus)
F) No double posting unless to bump a topic your second post differs completely from the first and is relevent to the topic or if you wish to bring the topic to the attention of other users (i.e. if you had posed a question that was never answered and still needed guidance after a long time of inactivity)

Rule II: No Flaming

Flaming, or the act of pointlessly insulting a person over the internet, is not at all tolerated at PokeArena. This also applies to racism, sexism, or insults due to sexual orientation or social class.

Rule III: No pornography on public forums

PokeArena is meant to be a family friendly environment, that a person can look at without being accused of looking at pornography when they didn't know that a link would contain such an item. Pornographic images or links to pornographic material on the publicly accessible forums are not permitted. If users wish to exchange such information over Private Messaging, we can't stop them. If any users send you/post links, images, etc. to material such as this, please report the incident to a Moderator or Administrator.

Rule IV: English
Since many users of the PokeArena forums only speak English, please speak in English for the sake of being able to be understood. If you must post something in another language, please post a translation. It doesn't have to be perfect, as long as it is understandable.

I never noticed there was a rules list before. It is really vague.

Ok, I think those tell what is and isn't aloud pretty clear. Everyone else agree? Ill wait to post them till we know what the new name will be. If anyone has anything that they would like to add to them just post there idea.

the pokestadium rules list looks fine to me, although it'd help my ego if we wrote our own. haha. ;p

basically make sure any "faq" section is gonna be as comprehensive as possible, because if it's not, then there is no point in having one at all.

I like the pokestadium rules list and think they go well, if anyone hasn't added them i will now.


Offtopic but i havn't been on lately because theres been alot of tests at school, but now thats it my easter holiday *yaay!* i'll be on the forum alot more.

Charlotte wrote:

the pokestadium rules list looks fine to me, although it'd help my ego if we wrote our own. haha. ;p

basically make sure any "faq" section is gonna be as comprehensive as possible, because if it's not, then there is no point in having one at all.

I wrote the Pokestadium rules list .

What do you think is missing? The default one looks pretty decent, I think.

I'm all for getting rid of the ugly Pokestadium button too.

EDIT:

Souseiseki wrote:

i happen to know a thing or two about administrating forum communities (i've worked for a couple decently major ones in the past) and i'd like to help get pokearena get set up. if you guys have any objections to me staying on permanently as part of the staff, that would be okay, but i really think i could help out a lot with creating rulesets, forum names, ranks, and the like.

when it comes to doing stuff like banning, user promotions, whatever, i don't really care about all that, so if you guys don't mind me helping to set up as a temporary admin, and then demoting me right back to normal user, fine by me -- i promise you won't regret the opportunity.

edit: basically i just would like to stay on long enough to fix the stuff i pointed out here.

I'm all for this too.

Dominic wrote:

I'm all for getting rid of the ugly Pokestadium button too.

EDIT:

Souseiseki wrote:

i happen to know a thing or two about administrating forum communities (i've worked for a couple decently major ones in the past) and i'd like to help get pokearena get set up. if you guys have any objections to me staying on permanently as part of the staff, that would be okay, but i really think i could help out a lot with creating rulesets, forum names, ranks, and the like.

when it comes to doing stuff like banning, user promotions, whatever, i don't really care about all that, so if you guys don't mind me helping to set up as a temporary admin, and then demoting me right back to normal user, fine by me -- i promise you won't regret the opportunity.

edit: basically i just would like to stay on long enough to fix the stuff i pointed out here.

I'm all for this too.

Seconded and seconded. Eevee Bros. has found out a way to give custom titles with custom powers (i.e. in my case the hawt "Artist" title (<3) and Mod powers specific to The Gallery forum) so just contact him and you can get something worked out.

[random]Edit: Zomg, Charolette I forgot you live in Manhattan. I'm going to be staying there at my older-sisters-husbands-mothers (whatever the technical term for that would be...) house this summer for a week long theatre camp [/random]

i third this! but eevee bros didn't discover this custom user ranks, i was already using them but no one had the right stats to be one.

Snakehead wrote:

i third this! but eevee bros didn't discover this custom user ranks, i was already using them but no one had the right stats to be one.

Well that's what I meant, then

Dominic wrote:

I wrote the Pokestadium rules list :oops: .

What do you think is missing? The default one looks pretty decent, I think.

haha
the only thing that isn't really covered (that was in the original list customized for pokearena) is the "personal details" rule. i'm rolling around a concept about a nice replacement paragraph that should work just fine; however, i'd like to know just exactly what snakehead or whoever meant by the original thing before i do an official write-up. just to make sure i'll cover all the bases.

@dragon: cool, what part of manhattan are you gonna be at? not that i'm gonna come visit (i'm def. not spontaneous or daring enough) but just to get an idea.

also, charlotte != charolette. :( it surprises me how few kids read e.b. white in past years to misspell my name that easily.

Charlotte wrote:

also, charlotte != charolette. it surprises me how few kids read e.b. white in past years to misspell my name that easily.

Stfu

Sorry, I just assumed it was spelled that way. And I haven't read Charlotte's Web in ages

Anyway, about NY, I didn't expect to meet up with you or anything (that would borderline creepy ). I just remembered you lived in Manhattan and brought up that I'll be there this summer. Unfortunately I forgot the specific area But my sisters husbands mother is really...er wealthy, seeing as she apperently lives in a pretty decently large place. She also might be sending a car down to the airport to get me when I arrive

np np
chances are it's gonna be a townhouse on upper east or west side, a penthouse by the east river, or possibly something down in greenwich village or soho (my dad's currently trading on the market for fifth avenue townhouses, those things are selling mad fast these days. it's a lucrative area for investment). i happen to live in the upper east side, so if you ever get bored i know some um, cool places to eat, and...everything about central park...and where to buy smokes in places where they don't card you, but other than that i don't really go anywhere unique so i should probably stop writing now but this is a really cool long sentence isn't it?

It is a really long sentence. Well I can't take you up on the smokes (since I don't), but if you have any lovely restraunt suggestions, I'll take you up on those. I was going to ask some of my other friends who've been to the city before, but I keep forgetting. It'll actually be my first time going to NY

But either way, I don't know how restricted my schedule will be or whether my SHM (or so I hereby dub her) has already chosen a bunch of places to show me around or eat at, but I think some suggestions would be great none the less.

If you need someone to be a spelling/grammar guru, I'm your dude. :-)