Suggestion: Consistent naming for Pokemon sections

At first glance, the thought of arranging the forums seemed good. However, having read more about what others have said, I think the current set up works well enough. For now. The two most notable points that stood out to me were the list for a category like Main Series Pokémon Games would eventually become rather lengthy and that would ultimately end up pushing the Battle Center and Trade Corner forums further down and away from the current games that would utilize them the most.

However, It does bring up certain contradiction. Wouldn't this mean that eventually the gaming forums will have to be reorganized? I mean, we couldn't just dump every non-current generation into General Pokémon Gaming Discussions like what was done with Fourth Gen. Otherwise, we'd have the same lengthy list of forums under one category and we'd be pushing the games away from the Trade Corner/Battle Center once again. They may be older generations by then, but they would still be games that use these particular features provided by the Trade Corner and Battle Center.

As far as forum names go, Fourth Generation Games (DS) and Fifth Generation Games may not be as creative as the names given to the first to third generation forums, but I they're straightforward enough to where everyone knows what they are right off the bat. I don't feel like the Fourth Gen or the Fifth Gen has earned a solid nickname for themselves that is universally known by the fan base as of yet.

Twilight Sky said:

Main Series Pokemon Games
<tl;dr here>

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On paper, a forum made just for remakes would make sense. However, talking about FR/LG and HG/SS, being remakes of older games are all these two hold similar to one another. Putting a generation of games together makes far more sense than designing a forum for all remake discussions.

Reason being, a generation of Pokémon games has more in common with one another than title remakes made during different generations. With the former, there is a connection between games of the same generation that allows broader topics to be discussed in that forum. The same couldn't necessarily be said about a forum made for bringing HG/SS and FR/LG together. They're too different from one another.

If that doesn't make sense, then you also have to consider, by making a Remakes Forum, you now have DPPt as its own stand alone forum as well as RSE. Neither of which can generate enough activity to justify having their own forums as they once did. That aside, you're also adding an extra forum to the bunch which only makes the list bigger than it needs to be.

Sydian said:

boring

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NecrumWarrior said:

boring

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Lightning said:

boring

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I'm sorry, but I find it ridiculous that this should be considered a legitimate concern.

Boring is a perfectly legitimate concern. It looks bad the way you suggested. If anything, its the other, more bland names, that should be made more consistent with those, since they were there first. Monochrome Gen would sound like a really cool name for a forum in my opinion.

I mean, if something looks bland and tasteless, then it reflects poorly on the forum as a whole. Overall though, I really don't see any reason to change anything.

It reflects poorly that the sections are poorly organised, is what I think.
True though, it's really just something I thought to point out. I hardly expected a substantial response.

If it's non-boring names you seek why not

Unova Uproar
Sinnoh Squabble
Hoenn Hullabaloo
Johto Jive
Kanto Commotion

I like Livewires suggestion of Trade Corner, Battle Center, Challenges, and General Gaming Discussion getting their own section, but I think it should be under Current Generation and above Past Generations since they involve topics that span multiple generations.

Anyways, I don't think the actual names of the forums matter. Those coloured boxes are plenty enough to guide people where they want to go.

Keiran777 said:

If it's non-boring names you seek why not

Unova Uproar
Sinnoh Squabble
Hoenn Hullabaloo
Johto Jive
Kanto Commotion

I like Livewires suggestion of Trade Corner, Battle Center, Challenges, and General Gaming Discussion getting their own section, but I think it should be under Current Generation and above Past Generations since they involve topics that span multiple generations.

Anyways, I don't think the actual names of the forums matter. Those coloured boxes are plenty enough to guide people where they want to go.

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Uhhh if fifth gen got renamed I'd much rather adventures in Unova or Unova united js.

Cassino said:

I'm sorry, but I find it ridiculous that this should be considered a legitimate concern.

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I didn't think it was a legitimate concern. :P If you read my posts, I'm on the side that functionality should be first concern and then interesting names can come into it if they don't interfere with that prime interest.

One of the reasons I liked Adventures in Unova was because it was interesting and straight-forward. Go there to talk about your adventures in Unova. Generation V had the unique position of being made up entirely of one region since no remakes were made, so it said on it's own that that was for Generation V without actually having Gen V anywhere in the forum name.

I do agree that straight-forward forum names are important; boring or not, considering I don't think the forum description should be the give away to what a forum is about. You should be able to read the forum name and know immediately what goes there. The main-series gaming forums have a unique description that catches your eye, though, because of those fancy game prefixes. So having a straight-forward forum name like "First Generation Games", "Second Generation Games", and so on and so forth aren't really necessary. Still, for the sake of consistency, I do think that they should be unified.

Personally, I think that Trade Corner and Battle Center should not be moved away from Current Pokemon Generation Gaming. It's an important thing that many people come to PC to do -- battle or trade with their current games. Yes, we can battle/trade in 4th generation, but the majority of the new people that sign up want to battle/trade with the most current games (B2W2) at this point. Moving the Trade Corner/Battle Center down to another section would make it more difficult for these people to find what they're looking for.

We should keep it the way it is. Current gaming has Trade Corner and Battle Center. It's very newbie friendly. The names on the other hand, that's up for you people to decide because quite frankly, I couldn't care less of what they're named as long as their easy to distinguish from each other.

FYI: I liked Adventures in Unova quite a bit because it is one of the only Generations with only one region. n_n

Hmmm I have a thought: (since it's related to generation five and the recent posts mentioned my forum, and all three of us moderators do like adventures in unova) Would it be a bad idea to trial it, and see if it actually works as a name? If nobody gets confused, or nobody complains or thinks it doesn't look okay, then by that... shouldn't it be okay (it isn't "unified" - but does that honestly matter? Gen 5 was the only generation for this to happen, and it's certainly 100% accurate)? I mean it only had two days to be the forum name, and basically everyone who commented on it loved the name. I mean, what's the harm of it being trialled for a while? I mean, generation five has had four name changes in the last two weeks so changing the name again wouldn't suddenly be a big change/issue, given the circumstances. Please?

I just want to say that while the saying "don't fix it if it aint broken" holds true for some situations in life, discussing a change just for the sake of changing isn't always a bad thing. Especially not on a forum that strives to stay interesting and popular with many rivals.

Maybe this topic ends up with "no change needed" being the major opinion, but I still find it nice that there is opportunity to give suggestions and hold discussions like this on PC.


Anyways, I don't feel like I'm qualified to give an educated opinion on whether or not sections should be rearranged, but regarding Cassino's original suggestion, I think renaming would be a good thing.

Naturally, Pokémon X & Pokémon Y is the easiest and most effective name for the upcoming games since people coming here probably look for those words rather than "Sixth Generation Pokémon Games". But when it comes to the other forums I definitely think that Cassino's suggestions are rational and good. They are not boring :p They are neat. In a super large forum, neatness is nice. :>
are more consistent and neat names than Advance and Metal/Color. Maybe the console (GB DS etc) can be omitted if people think it's not necessary or looks too ugly, hah.

Well, I think that if you're interesting, people will look past the name.

For example, there was this forum, and I remember that they had really creative names.

But however, since I wasn't interested, I couldn't get myself to like it.

It's more about the content more than the names, honestly.

So do whatever the admins like the best.

I would rather use the following format that's similar to Nick's:

General Pokemon Gaming Discussions
- Pokemon Gaming Central
- Challenges
- Trade Corner
- Battle Center

Pokemon Game Specific Discussions
- Pokemon X & Pokemon Y
- Fifth Generation Games
- Fourth Generation Games
- Third Generation Games
- First & Second Generation Games
- Spinoff Games

All of the forums that aren't specific to certain Pokemon games are grouped together at the top. The Wi-Fi sections are seen first before the Pokemon game forums, which means that we may see less people post in game-specific forums about trading, battling, team help, etc. To me, it makes more sense to place the "general" forums before the more specific ones. I find that this is the most organized and straightforward version; it's simply general game forums + individual game forums. Additionally, the name "Current Generation Pokemon Gaming" can be misleading, as it implies that all of the forums in the section are only for the current generation. Both TC and BC include all of the past generations (though, TC mostly focuses on the games that are capable of Wi-Fi trading), so they can be considered past generation as well. PGC and Challenges are just as current as TC and BC.

I'm also not a fan of "Adventures in Unova!" simply because it's not consistent with the other forum names. The other forum names could be changed to suit the style, but forums that include multiple regions may end up with lengthy names. Then again, the forums could be remade individually for each region rather than them being generation-specific. i.e. A Kanto forum for RBY/FRLG, a Hoenn forum for RSE and speculation on their remakes, etc. However, Pokemon games with multiple regions like GSC/HGSS would complicate things. Anyway, I think what we have right now in regard to the forum names is perfectly fine.

That said though, even if they are boring, I do agree with "# Generation Games" now, because what's important is that the names of the forums communicate exactly what the forum is for. I suppose you can also achieve that with fun naming, but it would be to a lesser extent, I assume? Haha, but yeah, organization all the way, really~!

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I just want to point out that with the big, bold, colorful prefixes listed in the gen I-V forum descriptions, is the "# Generation Games" really needed? You can't miss those prefixes, and they tell you the exact games that go there.

i'm not gonna argue about the whole individual name thing mostly cause i'm too lazy to read it all right now but shouldn't forth gen games be in "current generation games"? maybe we should just rename that section to "wifi compatible games". it'll save the mods some work when we get to gen 7 and 5th gen is old.

i'm not gonna argue about the whole individual name thing mostly cause i'm too lazy to read it all right now but shouldn't forth gen games be in "current generation games"?

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Higher staff decided gen IV games were old and moved that forum into GPGD and merged BW and BW2. I don't think it should have been done then, but I don't see the problem in putting it back and renaming Current Generation Pokemon Games to Wi-Fi Compatible Games, or Pokemon DS Generations, since that would also incorporate Trade Corner and Battle Center. But I doubt they'd undo that move now.

Wolflare said:

I would rather use the following format that's similar to Nick's:

General Pokemon Gaming Discussions
- Pokemon Gaming Central
- Challenges
- Trade Corner
- Battle Center

Pokemon Game Specific Discussions
- Pokemon X & Pokemon Y
- Fifth Generation Games
- Fourth Generation Games
- Third Generation Games
- First & Second Generation Games
- Spinoff Games

All of the forums that aren't specific to certain Pokemon games are grouped together at the top. The Wi-Fi sections are seen first before the Pokemon game forums, which means that we may see less people post in game-specific forums about trading, battling, team help, etc. To me, it makes more sense to place the "general" forums before the more specific ones. I find that this is the most organized and straightforward version; it's simply general game forums + individual game forums. Additionally, the name "Current Generation Pokemon Gaming" can be misleading, as it implies that all of the forums in the section are only for the current generation. Both TC and BC include all of the past generations (though, TC mostly focuses on the games that are capable of Wi-Fi trading), so they can be considered past generation as well. PGC and Challenges are just as current as TC and BC.

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Of all the set ups shared here so far, I think this would be the best route to go and with good reason. To add to this, while the Pokémon Game Specific Discussions would be pushed back one category, it would guarantee that every new generation that is released will always remain close to the Trade Corner / Battle Center as well as the Challenges and PGC forums, which are like free-for-all ("general") forums because they can cover every generation. And while the main games category would run the risk of getting too long in the future, ─ which wouldn't be for awhile ─ there's always the option of splitting it later on (i.e. 1st-5th Gen grouped together, 6th Gen forward grouped together, and so on).

Also, I agree with the point that the title "Current Generation Pokémon Gaming" can be a misleading, but also, too specific in terms of what sort of forums can fit there. For example, Fourth Generation may be two generations behind now, but I don't think it exactly fits under "General Pokémon Gaming Discussions." As I mentioned earlier, they may be old now, but they're still part of the generations that will take use of the Trade Corner and Battle Center.

Going back to the names and their consistency, Advanced Gen and Metal/Color Gen have been the names of their respective forums for as long as I can remember, and I don't ever recall there being an issue of identifying what sort of games they cover. I would honestly hate for them to be renamed to something as stale as "First & Second Generation Games" and "Third Generation Games" especially when there's the big, bold, and colorful prefixes right upfront and hard to miss. "Fourth Generation Games" and "Fifth Generation Games" work, even though they are bland, because these particular generations don't really have a universal fandom name like Gen I, II, and III have. So I really don't think a forum name change for Metal/Color and Advanced Gen are necessary at this point.

Patchisou Yutohru said:

I'm more concerned with this: why are the forums for the main-series Pokémon games separate?

Spoiler:

This makes the absolute most sense (and how it used to be, if I remember correctly). Move all of the main series games into a category in a logical order of most recent - least recent, and then move the forums that are from alternative Pokémon gaming to a category of their own. That way, the Pokémon main series discussion forums are all in a neat, easy to find area near each other. Why separate old generations from the most up-to-date generation?

General Pokémon Gaming Discussions -> Alternative Pokémon Gaming
Description: For players who extend their Pokémon gaming experience well past the general adventures the game provides.
ie: Players who trade, battle, competitive battle, and play the games with challenges in mind.

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This, is what I'd love. It's orderly, it's logical and it makes sense.

I don't really have anything else to contribute.

Ah yes, I do wholeheartedly agree that the forum's description (in this case, the colorful prefixes in the description) assists a heck of a lot as far as identifying the purpose of forum. However, I don't think it's so much identification here rather than trying to keep the names at a consistent basis, here. If the problem was just identification, then I believe it would've been just left alone at that (or I could be wrong. /shrugs)

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I just can't understand why we're just now caring about consistency in the year 2013. It matters all of a sudden? Which brings me to the next quote:

Going back to the names and their consistency, Advanced Gen and Metal/Color Gen have been the names of their respective forums for as long as I can remember, and I don't ever recall there being an issue of identifying what sort of games they cover. I would honestly hate for them to be renamed to something as stale as "First & Second Generation Games" and "Third Generation Games" especially when there's the big, bold, and colorful prefixes right upfront and hard to miss. "Fourth Generation Games" and "Fifth Generation Games" work, even though they are bland, because these particular generations don't really have a universal fandom name like Gen I, II, and III have. So I really don't think a forum name change for Metal/Color and Advanced Gen are necessary at this point.

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I agree with this. Keep the grandpa forums with their names, or at least with the names the fanbase has given them. It's been like that since I joined as well, and seeing them under any different name would just be...strange. :/ If anything, they've been named that the longest so forums that have come after them should adhere to their names, however like Shivi said, there aren't really any fanbase names for gen IV and V, but it still works for them. I'm guessing consistency is suddenly important because of 4th Gen being in GPGD so it stands out now, but it doesn't really bother me, other than making GPGD look a bit bloated. The name itself though doesn't really bother me at all.

And the problems I have with grouping all the Pokemon Gaming sections together have been brought up by Erica though, and idk if she mentioned this one, but the series is always growing. So you're going to end up with a HUGE "Main Series Gaming" section or whatever it would be called and it would keep growing and growing and it looks really bad. GPGD already looks kind of weird with its six forums while CPGD looks...skinny? Haha. Needs meat on its bones or something!

Sydian said:

And the problems I have with grouping all the Pokemon Gaming sections together have been brought up by Erica though, and idk if she mentioned this one, but the series is always growing. So you're going to end up with a HUGE "Main Series Gaming" section or whatever it would be called and it would keep growing and growing and it looks really bad. GPGD already looks kind of weird with its six forums while CPGD looks...skinny? Haha. Needs meat on its bones or something!

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If we arranged it with all the games together, (including Spinoffs) similar to the way Wolflare arranged them, then the remaining sections wouldn't be too small. For example, Off Topic Discussions only has four forums, and its not like the fact that it only has four forums has decreased its activity or anything like that. It just seems like to me like having all the games together with no more of this "Current Gen" stuff would work better than the current system. And if you really, really, seriously, legitimately care about how much space it takes up, then make one forum titled with a separate sub-forum for each game. But as far as I'm concerned, that isn't necessary at all because the amount of space a forum takes up isn't a big issue, or at least not as big of an issue as organization.