Serebii Forums Suggestions Thread 2013 Edition

[OceanicLanturn]

How about an Anime Spoilers Poll section? I've always had struggles deciding where to put a poll when almost all of it are spoilers. I mean, just tagging a *Potential Spoliers* doesn't relaly fit when the entire thread is about spoilers... XD

Also, rules and stuff in the Guild Tournaments section? I haven't seen it yet o_O and I'm still wondering how THAT worked.

[The Eleventh]

How come the forum's time is running three to four minutes fast?

[pacack825]

How come the forum's time is running three to four minutes fast?

I've noticed this too, but I'm guessing it's a forum thing, and cannot be fixed without a mod.

[RaZoR LeAf]

Forum Glitch, Serebii is looking into it

[pacack825]

Forum Glitch, Serebii is looking into it

Thanks for the information.

[ToeyJoey]

Was that being fixed while we were under "Maintenance?"

[jstinftw!]

I think since we have quite a few full art TCG cards of the trainers, it would be really cool to have them become avatars. (:

[RaZoR LeAf]

Was that being fixed while we were under "Maintenance?"

Probably nothing, when the forums goes down the message that comes iup is the same one. Unless it was a server issue in which case, that was what was being fixed.

[Skamory7]

I think you should be able to edit polls that you've made. Like I've created a poll, not knowing that it was permanent, then I try to change it and I realize it's stuck there. What if it's a club with a lot of posts that is having a vote for their mascot or something. The vote would be there on the poll for everybody to see, but what if they need to vote on another thing? That's why we should be able to edit our polls.

[Ellie]

not possible. the only way to give permission to edit polls is to give people permission to edit ALL polls in that section as a moderator, which is obviously not going to happen. you can ask a mod of that section to edit one for you. just another limitation of vb unfortunately.

[Dialga's Song of Time]

I am suggesting we add an Author's Atlas like subforum for authors to post info on their fanfic world and character bios?

[bobandbill]

I am suggesting we add an Author's Atlas like subforum for authors to post info on their fanfic world and character bios?

I don't think there has ever been a call for this before, and one that I don't feel is necessary. If one wants to add in extra information on top of their story they are able to do that within their story's thread. A few people have done this but from my experience this is few and far between. (That and stuff like character bios shouldn't be needed for someone to read a story; their personality, etc should be introduced within the story rather than separately).

[skypatt]

Hey guys, I posted this as a separate thread but I realize it should be here, sorry! Here is the post, feel free to lock the old one. Once again, sorry about that!


Hey serebii!

I respectfully want to bring to attention an issue that, as an illustrator and graphic designer, is pressing to me. This pertains to the "Artshop" section of the serebii forums.

I don't think that it would be unreasonable that artists offer their work in exchange for in-game items, such as pokemon, items, pokerus, etc. I do not mean currency. I am not talking about money, in any kind, here. I don't think that serebii.net is an appropriate place to pick up clients for any kind of art related commission work. That would simply take away focus from the forum and make it a place for artists' to advertise their work. That is not what anyone wants, I'm sure. (Plus, it would be unprofessional.)

Please read on before you immediately flame me, here.

I think that this is fair for a few reasons. And likewise, I have some suggestions as to make this system as scam-proof as possible.

1) The graphic design work, artwork, or other forms of work created by the artist takes time. Likewise, obtaining pokemon, especially shines, takes time. I think that it is only fair that, under the artists' and customers' discretion, a trade agreement can be made.

2) I understand that payment is not allowed according to the forum's rules in exchange for artwork, banners, and misc. graphic design work/sprite artwork. But I do not think that trading should be considered a form of payment. By definition, this is an exchange of goods/services in which no form of currency or likeness to currency is exchanged.

3) There is probably a wide margin of concern for scamming, since there is not a two way trade of in-game items happening here. I understand this concern. In order to confront that, there could be a few things put in place that might prevent/deter scammers:
-> Have the art-shops who do accept trades in exchange for their work more closely monitored.
-> Only allow an artist to accept trades for their work after their shop has had that clearance from a mod. (could be shown under their signature or name as some type of ribbon or medal) The artist must be able to prove that in the past, they have completed a great deal of requests and completed them on time, and in a professional manner.
-> Customers who get scammed should take the initiate to report the artist and their shop who scammed them. Artists should take it upon themselves to watermark their work until the trade is completed, so as to protect them from being scammed from the other end.

4) I think that if trades in art-shops were permitted, it would be a much more lively and respected area of the serebii forums. Everyone who runs one of these art-shops put a lot of time and effort into their work, and I'm sure they would appreciate the trade. Likewise, I think that their "customers" would feel that they received a top quality product. Trading would encourage artists to produce better work, while feeling more respected from the serebii community.

5) I don't think that every artist can and should request trades for their work. I still think request threads would shine, and many people would be perfectly content doing banners and artwork for nothing in exchange. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

6) To be honest, I don't see the harm in this at all.


That about sums it up. If you read it all, thank you! I really appreciate it!
I've done art and graphic design work for people on other game's forums and have done the same thing, where we trade in-game items for art. It turned out to be extremely successful and a lot of fun!

Thanks for your time!

-Sky

[Abhmul]

I don't think it would be a bad idea to make a thread for some of the major pokemon hacks. Some of them (like ruby destiny), I would say, are even better than some pokemon games. Also someone should make a thread about the new pokemon 3d that's in its beta. It's a remake of gold and silver and it is in 3d. The creators only started a few months ago I think but it already pretty cool (even though most of the battle animations are not finished and the graphics are pretty bad so far). It even has co-op!

[RaZoR LeAf]

I am not a fan-art mod, nor do I run a shop so I can't comment fully but as someone who makes his own banners and the forums banners, I do have some knowledge of what I'm talking about.

1) The graphic design work, artwork, or other forms of work created by the artist takes time. Likewise, obtaining pokemon, especially shines, takes time. I think that it is only fair that, under the artists' and customers' discretion, a trade agreement can be made.

People who run shops have chosen to take their own time to make images for people, the same that people who have trade shops have taken the time to hunt and catch pokemon for trading. Running a shop is entirely up to a person, and how much time they spend is also up to them. It's not something that the forum insists upon, so any kind of 'trade agreement' should only be reflective of how much time and effort a person chooses to spend.

2) I understand that payment is not allowed according to the forum's rules in exchange for artwork, banners, and misc. graphic design work/sprite artwork. But I do not think that trading should be considered a form of payment. By definition, this is an exchange of goods/services in which no form of currency or likeness to currency is exchanged.

Perhaps, but not everyone cares about trading. I don't. I couldn't care less if a shiny legendary appeared on my game. Or a perfect IV spread, ultra rare pokemon popped up and I had a Master Ball. If I had a shop, what kind of 'trade' would I be entitled to, if I had no interest in receiving trades?

3) There is probably a wide margin of concern for scamming, since there is not a two way trade of in-game items happening here. I understand this concern. In order to confront that, there could be a few things put in place that might prevent/deter scammers:
-> Have the art-shops who do accept trades in exchange for their work more closely monitored.
-> Only allow an artist to accept trades for their work after their shop has had that clearance from a mod. (could be shown under their signature or name as some type of ribbon or medal) The artist must be able to prove that in the past, they have completed a great deal of requests and completed them on time, and in a professional manner.
-> Customers who get scammed should take the initiate to report the artist and their shop who scammed them. Artists should take it upon themselves to watermark their work until the trade is completed, so as to protect them from being scammed from the other end.

Fan Art mods are concerned with Fan Art, Trade mods are concerned with Trade. I don't think either of them would want to have to deal with the others affairs aside from their own duties.

4) I think that if trades in art-shops were permitted, it would be a much more lively and respected area of the serebii forums. Everyone who runs one of these art-shops put a lot of time and effort into their work, and I'm sure they would appreciate the trade. Likewise, I think that their "customers" would feel that they received a top quality product. Trading would encourage artists to produce better work, while feeling more respected from the serebii community.

Again, only if a trade of pokemon interests them. Pokemon is a massive fanfom, just because one aspect is popular, does not mean that everyone loves it. We have people who only post in Anime, people who only post in Fanfic, people who only post in Competitive Battles. Unless you have suggestions of what to trade someone who only watches the anime and doesn't play the game, or is an avid Manga fan but has no interest in any of the consoles, then it's completely unfair to those who would go head over heels for a shiny trade.

5) I don't think that every artist can and should request trades for their work. I still think request threads would shine, and many people would be perfectly content doing banners and artwork for nothing in exchange. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I think the opposite. If people thought they could trade something they had for a piece of art, then they may be more inclined to go to a shop that accepts trades as payment, even if a person who is a better artist has a shop that doesn't accept trades. People offering trades as payment may expect their art requests to be done sooner or faster, leading to disputes when they are being told to wait as long as they would have done before. There would be a great divide between people who do accept trades and those who don't.

6) To be honest, I don't see the harm in this at all.

Take 'I don't want trades for a game I don't play' into consideration and you have your harm.

I don't think it would be a bad idea to make a thread for some of the major pokemon hacks. Some of them (like ruby destiny), I would say, are even better than some pokemon games. Also someone should make a thread about the new pokemon 3d that's in its beta. It's a remake of gold and silver and it is in 3d. The creators only started a few months ago I think but it already pretty cool (even though most of the battle animations are not finished and the graphics are pretty bad so far). It even has co-op!

You want a thread to promote illegal hacks of games, that are clearly breaking Gamefreak and Nintendo's Terms of Service? We have rules forbidding the discussion of ROMs for a reason.

[skypatt]

It's not something that the forum insists upon, so any kind of 'trade agreement' should only be reflective of how much time and effort a person chooses to spend.

I agree here! I think that any trade should be up to the discretion of the art-shop owner and the "customer".

If I had a shop, what kind of 'trade' would I be entitled to, if I had no interest in receiving trades?

I'll re-post a bit here from my original post:

5) I don't think that every artist can and should request trades for their work. I still think request threads would shine, and many people would be perfectly content doing banners and artwork for nothing in exchange. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

If you had no interest in receiving trades, just continue to offer work from your shop for nothing in exchange!

Fan Art mods are concerned with Fan Art, Trade mods are concerned with Trade. I don't think either of them would want to have to deal with the others affairs aside from their own duties.

Once again I'll re-post a bit from my original post that pertains to this.

Artists should take it upon themselves to watermark their work until the trade is completed, so as to protect them from being scammed from the other end.

I understand that the main reason mods might not be a fan of this set up is because they wouldn't want to deal with tons of people coming to them with complaints about being scammed by artists, or artists getting scammed by "customers". I want to go into detail on that bit that I just posted from my original post. I think that both people, the art-shop owner, and the "customer", should take it into their own hands and know how to protect against scams. Watermarking artwork is an easy way to do this.

Pokemon is a massive fanfom, just because one aspect is popular, does not mean that everyone loves it. We have people who only post in Anime, people who only post in Fanfic, people who only post in Competitive Battles. Unless you have suggestions of what to trade someone who only watches the anime and doesn't play the game, or is an avid Manga fan but has no interest in any of the consoles, then it's completely unfair to those who would go head over heels for a shiny trade.

I understand your concern here. People who are here for reason other than the main pokemon games would have a hard time finding artwork for their signatures if every artist only accepted trades in exchange. I think most artists on the site are more than generous enough with their work to offer it without trade to people who do not play pokemon. In my experience on other forums where art could be traded for in-game items and/or in-game currency, it has never been a problem for people who do not have anything to trade. In fact, most art-shops continued to offer requests without asking for anything in exchange.

I think the opposite. If people thought they could trade something they had for a piece of art, then they may be more inclined to go to a shop that accepts trades as payment, even if a person who is a better artist has a shop that doesn't accept trades. People offering trades as payment may expect their art requests to be done sooner or faster, leading to disputes when they are being told to wait as long as they would have done before. There would be a great divide between people who do accept trades and those who don't.

As I said above, this has never been the case with any of the forums I've been that have allowed trades for artwork. Artists should let the quality of their shop speak for itself. Whether they create work that is quality, and meets a deadline, is up to them and should not depend on whether or not a trade is being discussed.
If you still doubt that, I urge you to see how the art-shop forum would operate after trades were allowed!

Take 'I don't want trades for a game I don't play' into consideration and you have your harm.

If the artist doesn't want anything in exchange for their work, for any reason, they can simply produce artwork without asking for a trade in exchange.



Thanks for your response!

[pokemonsquared]

Could we get a few more characters for our user titles? Just 4-5 would really help.

Thanks!

[Arlo]

I think this forum needs to be a bit less hostile to threads. It's a really bizarre thing - I don't think I've ever seen another forum that was so gung-ho about stuffing anything and everything into a bare handful of overly-general and thus ultimately useless threads.

I can understand wanting to do something about the neverending flow of "What's your favorite type?" threads, but I think you take things far too far in the opposite direction - closing pretty much any and every thread that contains the word "favorite," for instance, and directing everyone to the single stickied "favorite anything and everything all rolled into one" thread that's now at something like 647,000 pages, and that Nobody. Ever. Reads.

Look at the X and Y forum - there's 11 threads. 11. You've crammed everything that seems to even vaguely have anything in common with any other thing all into just those few threads, some of which are now themselves hundreds of pages long, and in doing so, you've made the forum far too unwieldy - far more unwieldy than multiple pages of threads could ever have been. And in doing so, you've actually made it that much more difficult for people to discuss things and that much less likely that they'll do so. You've traded off having multiple pages of threads - which would indeed be a bit complicated, but would at least have the benefit of having actual titles that actually address actual different aspects of "Gameplay," for instance - for cramming anything and everything that might even vaguely have anything to do with some overly broad topic all into one thread, where it's pretty much guaranteed to be impossible to find anything, much less discuss anything, since every topic is in there intermixed with every other topic, with no titles and no organization, and buried under a heap of avatars and sigs.

I think this would be a much better forum if you just let up a bit - close and move the obvious duplicate threads of course, and keep the stickies for the on-going narrow topics, like quick help and shiny hunting and such, but allow at least some range of topics rather than cramming absolutely everything into a dozen multi-hundred page threads. It would make it a more inviting place and would encourage actual discussion, while the current policies only invite one-shot posts that end up on page 597 of a thread that nobody ever bothers to even read, much less respond to.

[RaZoR LeAf]

I think this forum needs to be a bit less hostile to threads. It's a really bizarre thing - I don't think I've ever seen another forum that was so gung-ho about stuffing anything and everything into a bare handful of overly-general and thus ultimately useless threads.

I can understand wanting to do something about the neverending flow of "What's your favorite type?" threads, but I think you take things far too far in the opposite direction - closing pretty much any and every thread that contains the word "favorite," for instance, and directing everyone to the single stickied "favorite anything and everything all rolled into one" thread that's now at something like 647,000 pages, and that Nobody. Ever. Reads.

No offence, but what is there to read in a "what's your favourite" thread anyway? A random amount of pokemon names. There's nothing there other than the name of a pokemon and maybe one or two words like "is the best" or "is my fav". They're not discussions, it's a simple question with a simple answer. Unless you really really really want to know what everyone's favourite pokemon s (which is why it's a field in your profile) then it serves absolutely no purpose.

Look at the X and Y forum - there's 11 threads. 11. You've crammed everything that seems to even vaguely have anything in common with any other thing all into just those few threads, some of which are now themselves hundreds of pages long, and in doing so, you've made the forum far too unwieldy - far more unwieldy than multiple pages of threads could ever have been. And in doing so, you've actually made it that much more difficult for people to discuss things and that much less likely that they'll do so. You've traded off having multiple pages of threads - which would indeed be a bit complicated, but would at least have the benefit of having actual titles that actually address actual different aspects of "Gameplay," for instance - for cramming anything and everything that might even vaguely have anything to do with some overly broad topic all into one thread, where it's pretty much guaranteed to be impossible to find anything, much less discuss anything, since every topic is in there intermixed with every other topic, with no titles and no organization, and buried under a heap of avatars and sigs.

How much do we know for certain about X and Y? The names of the starters, the names of the legendaries. That's it. There is nothing going on in the forum at the moment other than wild speculation. We know what types the starters are, beyond that, every single post is going to be a guess or hope at what they evolve into, what types they are and what moves they'll learn. Are you suggesting we let people repeatedly make the same threads
"What type will Chespin's final form be?"
"Chespin level3, what is it?"
"Chespin's last types."
"Grass starter unused types"
"Grass/Fire how does that sound?"
"Grass/Dark will be the next final form"
"Chespin not as good as Chikorita?"
"Will Chespin learn Tackle or Scratch?"
"Chespin - Discuss it here"
"Is Chespin your favourite? Post here!"

We learnt from previous experience of leaving a new generation forum open for people to post in. It was pages and pages of utter rubbish.

When there is more known about the games, then the forum will be taken off moderation. Until that time, speculation and guessing is the only thing that will be posted, and it is being contained to those threads.

I think this would be a much better forum if you just let up a bit - close and move the obvious duplicate threads of course, and keep the stickies for the on-going narrow topics, like quick help and shiny hunting and such, but allow at least some range of topics rather than cramming absolutely everything into a dozen multi-hundred page threads. It would make it a more inviting place and would encourage actual discussion, while the current policies only invite one-shot posts that end up on page 597 of a thread that nobody ever bothers to even read, much less respond to.

You've only pointed out two Forums, in a Board that has over 50 Forums. Where else are topics being crammed? The tiny percentage of threads you've mentioned doesn't make much of an impact.

[Jb]

Could we get a few more characters for our user titles? Just 4-5 would really help.

Thanks!

Joe actually adds more as the generations are released. If you wait a little after 6th Gen is out, there will most likely be ones involving those Pokemon.