I didn't know that April Fools nullified the rules.

During the course of the last few weeks, the staff engaged in an April Fools prank which struck false loyalty, tyranny, prospect of misguided hope all under the rule of one Lerroux. Some people cottoned on early, some not until now that it's been revealed. What some of you might not have realised at all, is that during the course of the stunt, the staff as a whole, repeatedly broke a considerable number of PokeCommunity's Rules.

Repeated Offence:

the rules said:

Everybody is to respect other people on the board. (3 pts / 4 mths)
The PokéCommunity is open to anyone. Do not threaten, harass or insult your fellow members, or launch personal attacks against any of them. Please respect the beliefs of other members. If someone acts uncivil, or harasses/intimidates you, you are not given the excuse to act the same in retaliation. If you disagree with the conduct of other members, please contact a staff member.

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While he technically wasn't a real member, Lerroux was set up by the staff as an actual person, so by their own doing, enabled this rule to be broken. See all the posts the 'demoted staff' members made, or the VMs.

Which leads onto number 2.
Repeated Offence:

the rules said:

Foul language is unacceptable. (3 pts / 4 mths)
As the PokéCommunity is a place for people of all ages, please do not use words that may be considered offensive. Many swear words are automatically filtered, so intentionally bypassing the filter may result in an infraction. Do not use certain words in ways that may offend people. As an example, using words such as "gay" in a derogatory manner can result in an infraction. You may also be infracted if you use a censored term (which will be replaced with asterisks) to provoke or attack someone.

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Again, the VMs, the comments made directly to Lerroux, most of which were censored and replaced with asterisks.

Repeated Offence:

the rules said:

No "trolling". (3 pts / 4 mths)
Inflammatory or irrelevant messages with the sole intent of provoking other users or inciting controversy is considered "trolling". We consider trolling to be unacceptable as it undermines the friendly environment that we aim for. At the discretion of the staff, any posts we believe are attempts of trolling will be removed, and continued offenses will result in any involved members being infracted.

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By definition, and by direct outline of this rule, every post that the staff made by, or about Lerroux was a troll. Every staff member who defended the legitimacy of Lerroux broke this rule.

Repeated Offence:

the rules said:

You are not allowed to use multiple accounts to create an illusion of more than one person.
You may not create an alternate account simply to vote on a poll or back up an argument, mislead other members, or evade a ban. Note that this does not prohibit having multiple accounts (for yourself or individuals in your family) in general. Accounts used to sidestep bans will be suspended without question.

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This one could've gotten away with minimal casualties, but with evidence from the lovely Lerroux himself.

Lerroux said:

Hey people. This all was a joke. Nobody was demoted. Nothing in the Lounge is real- it was just a play, nobody wants to close boards under 100k posts or whatever we posted there. Lerroux doesn't exist, I'm actually Went posting here right now and the password was open for all the staff to log in here if they wanted.

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The bold basically. I don't know the exact details, but basically a guilty plea that there were more than one person who broke this rule:

And finally, my favourite and while technically not a 'rule' as outlined in the Community Rules, but definitely an assumed one.

Single Offence:
Abuse of power. I, moments, was banned temporarily last night for the sole purpose of 'reinforcing the legitimacy' of Lerroux. Note, I did absolutely nothing wrong against the rules, against moral codes or anything. Because I was assumed to be trying to undermine the prank, I was banned. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a direct abuse of power. And for what? To uphold a prank on April Fools...

NB: This blog post is intended as a joke, in no way do I believe that the staff should be punished or reprimanded or anything. They acted this way for a bit of fun and were in no way serious offenders. Simply a bit of an ironic observation. don't kill me

I saw the end comment, but just in case anyone is seriously agreeing with this, or feeling this way:

Fighting / arguing / hating on someone you dislike = sometimes results in using bad language. The staff forums really do have heated arguments sometimes, and cursing does happen. PC also allows it to an extent, unless you aim it directly at someone, but in this case it was sometimes directed at Lerroux, to show the severity of how much some of us hated him. Some of the language was overkill, but in the end, it was a prank on a forum, and a specific forum area that will never be seen again, and is gone now. It's all okay. xD;

I saw the end comment, but just in case anyone is seriously agreeing with this, or feeling this way:

lighten up it's april fools on a pokémon forum on the internet


I had a good laugh at the last comment btw, moments. Thanks for posting!

April Fools! They're all getting infractions!

I was actually hoping that this wasn't a joke. Oh well.

BAN THEM ALL !