Forum to discuss non-competitive aspects of Pokemon?

[cantab]

I wonder if Smogon should have somewhere to discuss non-competitive aspects of Pokemon. We have ample space to discuss competitive battling, and space to discuss things unrelated to Pokemon (Congregation), but there's nowhere on the site we're allowed to talk about other aspects of Pokemon - playthrough challenges, say, or contests, or even the anime and card games.
That seems somewhat anomalous.

I know we don't want Smogon to become Serebii or Marriland, but I think a forum for non-competitive aspects could be added without undermining the competitive focus.

 

[Thorns]

you can discuss non-competitive stuff like the anime in intenet renaissance I guess. we are strictly competitive though if you go on irc there are plenty of people to discuss non competitive with

 

[chaos]

While I see your point, I have mixed feelings about this.

 

[Tangerine]

I've proposed this in the past, but I remember some people having objections about it. not sure how the idea will flow now, however.

 

[Alex_Dino]

I think allowing maybe a subforum under Congregation that would discuss these things would be plausible. The fact that it's under Congregation shows that Smogon is more sided on competitive battling, however it also shows that Smogon doesn't disregard the game as a whole either.

 

[cim]

I think allowing maybe a subforum under Congregation that would discuss these things would be plausible.

You know Congregation has, like, nothing to do with Pokemon.... Why would it be a subforum of something completely unrelated?

Personally a lot of the appeal of Smogon for me is that I can play Pokemon and talk about Pokemon without having to be around people that are "fans of the pokemon universe" very much. Like, I won't hear anyone talk about Ash or Misty in the anime, or I won't hear about contests. Just battling (and maybe cards if RB Golbat is around lol). Smogon would lose a lot of its appeal to me if it tried to be "broad based" like Serebii.

But Chris is just me.

 

[Glen]

it just seems to me that internet renaissance should be able to house all non-competitive pokemon talk (with the exception of things like 'whats your fave mon!!!' but do we really even want threads like that lol)

perhaps add 'feel free to discuss the non-competitive aspects of pokemon' to the description for IR? that is, of course, if IR mods are ok with that, and if we think this is necessary. but either way i see no reason whatsoever to make a new forum for this.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I've gotta agree with Chris is me for the most part. While there are parts of Pokemon that are non-competitive that still may be interesting, there are already sites that cover non-competitive Pokemon better than Smogon ever could, such as Serebii.

One of the draws of Smogon for me was that it was a place where only the competitive aspects of Pokemon are covered. While I'm unlikely to just up and leave because that changes, I think that it kinda detracts from the whole "competitive Pokemon community" aspect. The pure competitive aspect of Smogon is what sets it apart from other boards, and I'm not sure why that needs to change.

 

[Ortega]

I support the idea, and I have a lengthy argument for why.

tl;dr version: A majority of posters there will be competitive players, it will do nothing to harm the philosophy of the site but will allow discussion of Pokemon in general from the hardcore competitive community's unique perspective.

There's no appropriate place for competitive players to discuss borderline "non-competitive" topics on the game or the series, as I've recently experienced, so a sub-forum that allows for discussion of the game or franchise that isn't strictly about competitive aspects could be productive. It doesn't have to be a fanboy/girl swarming point; simply a place for all of these competitive players to discuss the game/franchise in general.

For example, I started a thread in Stark Mountain a few days ago, and the topic was making an "LOL Team" for an experienced competitive player to handicap themselves against inexperienced players. While it seemed a valid topic for competitive players to discuss (and indeed, was rapidly responded to with dozens of fun suggestions), it was locked and deleted with the reasoning that "it's not about competitive Pokemon." I wouldn't want to go to a general site like Serebii or Marriland for such discussion; a majority of their posters don't share my perspective on the game like Smogoners do, and actually, there's even a ridiculous anti-competitive fringe out there among the rabid fanbase.

The community of Smogon is, by its very nature, purely competitive. Any discussion of Pokemon, be it the game or the franchise on the whole, would be from the perspective of a competitive player. Simply adding one sub-forum for general discussion of Pokemon would do little to jeopardize the philosophy of Smogon. It would be the ONLY sub-forum in which the "Pokemon fan masses" would be able to post, so there would very little appeal for them; the vast majority of posters there would be competitive players who already utilize a majority of the forum's resources and already share the Smogon philosophy on Pokemon.

 

[Alchemator]

Really my stance on this subject is, Well, why not?

There's no real harm in making a small subforum in IR or something similar, saying that it will detract from our purely competitive nature is slightly absurd when we have In-game articles on site and even an art forum (of course, I'm not opposed to either of these).

I'm sure the topics in said suggested forum could be moderated appropriately so that we don't end up having useless topics: "Ash is cool" "No he isn't nub l0l" for example.

So, Well, why not? We can at least test this.

 

[Bilaterus]

I don't think that making a small sub forum would attract hoards of Ash-and-Pikachu lovers, will it? I see the point of Smogon being competitive but a "lounge" where competitive battlers can discuss Pokemon in a more light hearted way could actually be beneficial.

And maybe there could be some rules enforced about who can post there, such as a post requirement. And posts there won't contribute towards postcount, to help stop spammers?

 

[mtr]

Well, if we have a small forum that attracts noncompetitive players, there's an obvious chance that some of them might become interested in competitive Pokemon, which would ultimately help the site. But a problem would result from a spillover into Stark or RMT, which might get more shitty teams from noncompetitive players, thus increasing the amount of work for the mods.

 

[Aeolus]

My personal opinion is that Smogon should not do things half-assed. If we were to have a section relating to contests or to the TCG... we should have SECTIONS relating to those things equal in caliber to what we have on the competitive side of things. In my view, TCG and contests, etc. do not fit into our niche as we have defined it. If we choose to expand our focus,then perhaps yes, it would be necessary and prudent to have sections about such topics. Until then, I think it would be a dilution of focus.

 

[Blue Kirby]

Aeolus has pretty much hit the nail on the head from where I stand.

 

[Synre]

To play devil's advocate a bit, I would agree that it doesn't fit our main focus as a forum, but I think it's worth noting our focus has changed in the past few years since the site was released. If you were to go back a few years when things were just starting here and tell us that we would have a CAP forum (especially with stuff like AA's modserver at the time) I think we'd probably tell you that you're crazy, but not only do we have it now, but it is (evidently) important enough that contributing to it is basically equivalent to making/editing on-site analyses. Even how those analyses are written might be a decent point of comparison, they're written in a way much more conducive to educating and luring in players new to the competitive scene rather than being written more toward players who are already advanced as they were at the site's inception. Whether we've intended to do so or not, the site's focus has definitely changed the past few years to accommodate a wider variety of users.

I do think, though, it'd be a mistake to hit the anime or the TCG as hard as we do competitive pokemon(and competitive sort of pokemon) because then it definitely would be a questionable dilution of focus, but I imagine an off-topic pokemon would fall under socialization - it's just discussion of a common interest, after all, rather than something that would be an actual Pokemon subforum. I'm not sure how much use we'd get out of it, but I know a lot of people play the TCG still, and I know on IRC at least there's still pretty frequent reminiscing about the old anime episodes...

I think it's something that would be needed to be moderated carefully since we would want to make sure it didn't devolve into some of the community we strove to distance ourselves from with Smogon, but I think if it's done well it could be a fun stress free Pokemon environment... even non-competitive games I know people play like Rumble and Ranger(oh GOD) and the Mystery Dungeons would better go to a forum like that. Since, like I said, it's probably best as a Socialization subforum I'd definitely be willing to moderate it if we change our minds.

It's not like it's going to attract throngs of non-competitive players, as I think the underlying worry is? since we'd have absolutely zero competitive advantage over somewhere like Serebii, which already does the general Pokemon thing about as well as it can be done. It'd simply be somewhere for the users we already have to discuss the other side of Pokemon without having to get their feet wet somewhere like that, which doesn't seem too problematic to me.

 

[Firestorm]

People are also free to create topics about Pokemon games on the Internet Renaissance forum like any other game. atlas created one on Pokemon Rumble a little while ago. I made that Heart Gold / Soul Silver topic there before it became so likely that I figured we might as well put it on Stark. I'm not sure if we need an entire board for it though.

I think I'll definitely make a Heart Gold and Suck Silver thread for people who aren't really playing competitively anymore to kinda keep up with everyone else's progress. I did that on another forum and I found it to be tons of fun in Pearl.