Shoddy Lounge (Note: No mention of our slogan this time!)

EDIT: I'd prefer if only S&M people responded to this since they are way more familiar with what I'm trying to get at than anybody else.

I noticed that the Shoddy Battle Lounge...is dead o_O For those who don't know, it's a subforum of S&M that was put in but...nobody posts there lol.

The only two actual purposes it serves (at least as far as I know) is to allow people to have battle threads, to host tournaments, and then the NU metagame devlopment and tier threads. Let me cover these...

Battle Threads: lol useless. This isn't WiFi where your only means of communication are here on PC. You can just log onto Shoddy and ask for battles there (not like anybody actual battles on PC's server). Anybody who wants to battle can just go to the Smogon server, hit the Find Tab, and boom, you're battling.

Basically I'm saying that Shoddy itself pretty much can do what battle threads do for WiFi without the actual battle thread, so they're unneeded. The number of battle threads with literally no posts pertaining to having an actual battle is astounding. There are no battle threads that have served their purpose yet. Not one.

...So that is a huge main function of the subforum that is virtually useless. Now onto tournaments...

Tournaments: Wow, PC has a SMALL Shoddy battling population. People who are actually regulars on the Smogon and/or PC servers add up to about ten people-ish. This is a disadvantage for hosting tournaments since there aren't many possible participants. Most people who sign up mostly do "because they can" which leads to an unsuccessful tournament.

Speaking of which, I don't remember a tournament that has ever succeeded here. Ever. Yeah, the WiFi tournament in the DP section gets completed, but otherwise, I don't recall even one successful tournament. Most don't even get to the first round. Tournaments are almost never interesting since the gimmick wears off right when you realize you have to build a new team to adapt to a random new "metagame" (lol) that nobody has played.

...So that's the other huge function of the subforum that is largely useless (or hasn't worked out, at least). We don't have the competitive battling population Smogon does.

Tier Thread and NU Metagame Development thread: Both are dead, and both can be moved to S&M anyways. Truth is, S&M could probably use the activity and having a new thread or two. Besides, we basically use Smogon's tier list totally (unless we all-of-a-sudden aren't doing the UU/BL merger?) and the NU Metagame Development Thread...nobody cares about it anymore, to be frank. Besides, UU is changing a lot right now, so it's kind of not really a good time for that discussion to take place.

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So I'm essentially saying that battle threads are beyond useless and tournaments never actually are successful/fun, and that's pretty much what the forum is for.

I think that either the subforum should be downright removed, or the focus should be significantly altered. It's just dead right now and is withering away faster than the economy X]

What are your thoughts on this?

Anti said:

I noticed that the Shoddy Battle Lounge...is dead o_O For those who don't know, it's a subforum of S&M that was put in but...nobody posts there lol.

The only two actual purposes it serves (at least as far as I know) is to allow people to have battle threads, to host tournaments, and then the NU metagame devlopment and tier threads. Let me cover these...

Battle Threads: lol useless. This isn't WiFi where your only means of communication are here on PC. You can just log onto Shoddy and ask for battles there (not like anybody actual battles on PC's server). Anybody who wants to battle can just go to the Smogon server, hit the Find Tab, and boom, you're battling.

Basically I'm saying that Shoddy itself pretty much can do what battle threads do for WiFi without the actual battle thread, so they're unneeded. The number of battle threads with literally no posts pertaining to having an actual battle is astounding. There are no battle threads that have served their purpose yet. Not one.

...So that is a huge main function of the subforum that is virtually useless. Now onto tournaments...

Tournaments: Wow, PC has a SMALL Shoddy battling population. People who are actually regulars on the Smogon and/or PC servers add up to about ten people-ish. This is a disadvantage for hosting tournaments since there aren't many possible participants. Most people who sign up mostly do "because they can" which leads to an unsuccessful tournament.

Speaking of which, I don't remember a tournament that has ever succeeded here. Ever. Yeah, the WiFi tournament in the DP section gets completed, but otherwise, I don't recall even one successful tournament. Most don't even get to the first round. Tournaments are almost never interesting since the gimmick wears off right when you realize you have to build a new team to adapt to a random new "metagame" (lol) that nobody has played.

...So that's the other huge function of the subforum that is largely useless (or hasn't worked out, at least). We don't have the competitive battling population Smogon does.

Tier Thread and NU Metagame Development thread: Both are dead, and both can be moved to S&M anyways. Truth is, S&M could probably use the activity and having a new thread or two. Besides, we basically use Smogon's tier list totally (unless we all-of-a-sudden aren't doing the UU/BL merger?) and the NU Metagame Development Thread...nobody cares about it anymore, to be frank. Besides, UU is changing a lot right now, so it's kind of not really a good time for that discussion to take place.

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So I'm essentially saying that battle threads are beyond useless and tournaments never actually are successful/fun, and that's pretty much what the forum is for.

I think that either the subforum should be downright removed, or the focus should be significantly altered. It's just dead right now and is withering away faster than the economy X]

What are your thoughts on this?

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I strongly disagree with you, battling threads are not all dead, and I'm sure when platinum comes out in the US.

I'm strongly against removing it


As for the shoddy server, I really don't care what is done with it, but in your post it's like your saying "Let's all go to smogon's server", but I really like the idea of a PC shoddy server, so I would not want that closed, and when platinum comes the activity will probably go through the roof.

I say kudos to you for making such a lengthy post, but most people aren't as interested as they use to be and or they just don't have the time with school just starting and finishing up those assignments they never got around to doing. So I guess you should just wait a little bit and see how many people return after getting back some free time

Angela...

1. Lol.
2. Wtf.
3. You obviously haven't read the thread TITLE. It says "Shoddy Lounge". Obviously meaning this is not Wi-Fi. It is Shoddy. And that place is kinda dead. lrn2read lol.
4. Take a chill pill. xD

It's just epically funny, the misunderstanding. 8D

Desite the section's inactivity, I see no harm in leaving it where it is. It keeps clutter related to Shoddy out of the main section. If you want it removed, I'd suggest giving RMTs their own section for a while.

It's not my place, but I would prefer RMTs and logs to be given separate sections and for everything else to reside in the main Strategies and Movesets section.

I think it would be beneficial to the The Shoddy Lounge and PC's Shoddy Server to have Platinum updates added onto the Server. It's only a matter of adding pre-made database mods from the Shoddy Battle Repository.

Ninja Caterpie said:

Angela...

1. Lol.
2. Wtf.
3. You obviously haven't read the thread TITLE. It says "Shoddy Lounge". Obviously meaning this is not Wi-Fi. It is Shoddy. And that place is kinda dead. lrn2read lol.
4. Take a chill pill. xD

It's just epically funny, the misunderstanding. 8D

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Lol, wow don't let me read long threads 9 in the morning again lol XD, well I have edited my post to fit the topic, for a hour or so I thought he meant the wifi section lol, XD, sorry my misunderstanding, but I'm still sticking with that activity will go up when platinum comes out in the US.

I'll just shut up now XD

lol so I have a lot of arguing to do!

Angela said:

I strongly disagree with you, battling threads are not all dead, and I'm sure when platinum comes out in the US.

I'm strongly against removing it


As for the shoddy server, I really don't care what is done with it, but in your post it's like your saying "Let's all go to smogon's server", but I really like the idea of a PC shoddy server, so I would not want that closed, and when platinum comes the activity will probably go through the roof.

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It's funny you mention that, because Platinum has actually DESTROYED Strategies and Movesets. A lot of our most active players basically quit competitive pokemon (myself included). See, this is why I wanted S&M people to respond to this: Platinum changes have already been implemented on the Smogon Server, which is where our members go for serious battles anyways.

Maybe list some reasons as to why it should not be removed? "Platinum will change everything" won't cut it...though the statement is true. What you don't seem to understand is that Platinum changed everything for the worst. Platinum is what did in this little project and what has largely done in S&M recently.

And lol, I never said anything about removing the PC server. I like it because you can still get DP battles and it's just a good place to chat.

Zetta Despair said:

I say kudos to you for making such a lengthy post, but most people aren't as interested as they use to be and or they just don't have the time with school just starting and finishing up those assignments they never got around to doing. So I guess you should just wait a little bit and see how many people return after getting back some free time

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But the tournaments have been up for weeks and weeks. It's not like people have just lost interest, and it's not like this is a recent trend. When I had a clan in the WiFi section before clans were banned (it was a Shoddy Clan), we held a tournament that basically ended up in everybody bar me, Syaoran, and Dark_Azelf dropping out. while it was completed, it was not a real tournament. Tournaments just aren't something PC can pull off well, so I don't see why we should have a subforum that was made partly for tournaments.

Gilgαmesh said:

Someone takes the internet way too seriously. To be honest, I wouldn't recommend bashing others' suggestions. After all, they're suggestions, and they're there to attempt to improve the forum, right?

Anyway...

If I may offer my input on things, I think it's really beneficial just to let the forum stay and give it a chance, provided that when Platinum comes in three months or so, that the activity will then rise and then hopefully there will be some activity in that section. I can only see the forum being useless for battle threads, since...you could ask people if you could battle them on Shoddy...? Yeah. I agree with you on the last two portions(can't be effed giving my opinion on the metagame stuff, too much to type and too little knowledge).

I can only see that forum being useful for tournaments thus far, seeing that's sorta one thing Shoddy does lack; some sort of a tournament ladder, IIRC. But then again, there's the small shoddy population that you've brought up. That could be a bit of a dilemma, too. So really, knowing all of what you said, the subforum's only hope is Platinum's release. That's the only thing I can possibly agree with Angela about.

Well, my 2 cents. If they were worth anything.

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See above. Platinum has not saved this subforum (since Platinum updates were already on Shoddy when the subforum was first put into place), but it has made it a total failure (one page of threads in two months, half of which have no posts and the other half being failed tournaments, is NOT good).

Platinum, at best, did not bring more people to the PC competitive battling scene (bar maybe the WiFi section, but I don't know since I rarely visit that place). We don't call it "Platifail" for nothing. It's almost as common as "Flameland" was a year ago when S&M was complete chaos.

Archer said:

Desite the section's inactivity, I see no harm in leaving it where it is. It keeps clutter related to Shoddy out of the main section. If you want it removed, I'd suggest giving RMTs their own section for a while.

It's not my place, but I would prefer RMTs and logs to be given separate sections and for everything else to reside in the main Strategies and Movesets section.

I think it would be beneficial to the The Shoddy Lounge and PC's Shoddy Server to have Platinum updates added onto the Server. It's only a matter of adding pre-made database mods from the Shoddy Battle Repository.

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Uhhhhhhhh that's the whole POINT of S&M (RMT threads). If you give them its own separate section, you might as well demod Smarties and D_A and delete the section totally. 99% of the threads posted are for team rating, the only exception that isn't a sticky is the Battle Tower thread. Quite frankly, I don't even see why Logs are a separate section when that forum is hardly active itself, and logs could just be posted in S&M itself.

And what clutter? Since when did we ever need tournaments and battle threads (or even want them)? It's not like the creation of that section took clutter away from S&M, it just gave members another excuse to raise their post counts? The only things it took away were the two threads I mentioned in the first post, and neither are "clutter" by any stretch of the imagination.

Yeah, there's no harm in leaving it there, but why the hell would you just leave a TOTALLY dead forum to rot away? What's the point of KEEPING it? "Platinum" isn't a good enough argument. Speaking of Platinum, getting the updates on our server wouldn't really make any difference. Everybody goes to Smogon for serious laddering anyways, and nobody battles on our server.

Angela said:

Lol, wow don't let me read long threads 9 in the morning again lol XD, well I have edited my post to fit the topic, for a hour or so I thought he meant the wifi section lol, XD, sorry my misunderstanding, but I'm still sticking with that activity will go up when platinum comes out in the US.

I'll just shut up now XD

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See above about Platinum lol

And by the way, don't ever go nuts on me like that again. I know you probably had good intentions but when you question me like that (and I've contributed a hell of a lot to S&M, just look at out Compiled guides sticky), it really burns me up.


I honestly don't mean any disrespect to the people who put in their time to give their opinions, but can somebody who actually is a little more aware of what I'm talking about respond here? D_A, Beachy, Luke? The fact that nobody seemed to realize that Shoddy doesn't wait for Platinum to come out in the USA kind of shows what I'm talking about ._.

But seriously, I'm not budging on this issue unless I get a better response than "well Platinum will fix things." Platinum totally screwed my beloved forum over (whether or not it's temporary I don't know, but I sure hope it is). I just don't see the huge opposition to this when the subforum literally serves NO purpose. Any of the "shoddy affairs" or whatever can be posted in S&M itself...I mean really, nobody even posts about shoddy or any of that crap anyways so who cares? I will repeat this one more time to make it clear: Platinum is NOT going to be taken seriously as a reason to keep this flotsam floating around S&M. I know you guys didn't know, but for any future posters, don't even THINK about mentioning Platinum.

So basically you're sour that Platinum ruined your forum? Well, we cant help that to be honest. I have to say I strongly disagree with you.
There's nothing wrong with any of the forums here. We know. Users come and go in a waxing and waning cycle and until you learn that, you'll never succeed at running a site properly.

You have nothing to worry about. There is simply less activity because our target audience has school to attend most of the time. So therefore our busiest time is in the summer months. and in the winter months (for the UK users) Even so, you have to take into account that in the UK, there are more countries and such as well, therefore so many different school schedules and such. Unlike the US, I do believe not all UK schools observe the same days off for the yearly break.

Anti, I believe you need to hang out at PC more. Everything is alright, I used to get worried too but I quickly learned that things here seem to run on their own rhythm. You don't seem to be aware of that rhythm yet, and you should just take some time and get involved here and not worry about it. The staff members do tend to do a pretty good job of keeping things running here, and coming up with new things to keep people coming to PC.

Anti knows from where he speaks...PC's battling scene, both wifi and shoddy, just aren't quite what I or probably any other consistent battler wants to see. You'd think with all the people here, we'd have a few more competitive battlers to keep things active in the shoddy lounge (and in some cases the wifi battle stadium), but there just isn't enough people. Platinum is not helping. =/

From an actual forum standpoint, I don't see much that can be done. Whether the shoddy lounge is there or not, I don't see S&M getting any more active. I remember back in early fall when things were going just fine, and suddenly....bam. Everyone leaves, be it because of platinum or some other reason. Anti, I totally understand where you're coming from, and I hate seeing S&M that way myself, but what difference is it going to make whether the shoddy lounge is there or not? It's all part of of the big picture of S&M, which is like a total ghost town either way. You said it yourself, we don't have the competitive battling population that smogon has. It's regrettable, and yet there's not much we can do about it. People are going to join for whatever reason they want to, and I suppose PC just doesn't attract that kind of crowd.

Anyway...I'm totally neutral on the issue. I'll agree that the lounge is useless, but dropping it won't do much either.

Zazie Rainyday said:

So basically you're sour that Platinum ruined your forum? Well, we cant help that to be honest. I have to say I strongly disagree with you.
There's nothing wrong with any of the forums here. We know. Users come and go in a waxing and waning cycle and until you learn that, you'll never succeed at running a site properly.

You have nothing to worry about. There is simply less activity because our target audience has school to attend most of the time. So therefore our busiest time is in the summer months. and in the winter months (for the UK users) Even so, you have to take into account that in the UK, there are more countries and such as well, therefore so many different school schedules and such. Unlike the US, I do believe not all UK schools observe the same days off for the yearly break.

Anti, I believe you need to hang out at PC more. Everything is alright, I used to get worried too but I quickly learned that things here seem to run on their own rhythm. You don't seem to be aware of that rhythm yet, and you should just take some time and get involved here and not worry about it. The staff members do tend to do a pretty good job of keeping things running here, and coming up with new things to keep people coming to PC.

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So let me get this straight...you're saying I need to get more involved (even though I wrote half of S&M's Compiled Guides and am working on another) and that I don't know how the forum works (even though you haven't set foot in S&M as far as I know, but I'm there every day and am one of the most active members, if not THE most active member there)...W H A T ?

Okay, enough of this crap. The original focus of this thread has already been completely ignored, just like last time, and now I'm not "involved" or "forum-savvy" enough to post what still hasn't been effectively argued against? You clearly have NO clue about the situation with S&M (doubting Platinum's huge impact is proof enough, or that you said I need to hang around more lol), and certainly not with the Shoddy Battle Lounge. This thread isn't even about how S&M has declined...at all. That's not going to be fixed because the current metagame doesn't interest anybody. I'm not saying "abolish platinum GSC all the way!" Then your argument would have a little more leverage, but the only reason I even brought it up was to debunk this whole "Platinum will fix everything" idea which is just simply not true.

This also isn't to magically fix S&M's activity problems. They will only go up if pokemon itself becomes more attractive to our raters and battlers, but it sure as hell isn't. this is merely to get rid of a forum whose third highest thread was last posted in on December 13th and was never much more active. I don't know why people keep assuming that I somehow don't know what I'm talking about even though I'm the most influential and active member outside of the staff in S&M. I guess being active and doing everything in the best interest of the forum you love isn't enough anymore.

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Aura, I actually appreciate the reply lol. It won't actually make a difference, and my support for removing it isn't because I think it will. It's because the forum is frankly useless and it's just sitting there doing nothing. why keep it around if nobody posts? I mean, I could have 10 subforums created and say "why delete them even if nobody has posted in them," but there isn't a good reason to keep it around. There's nothing to talk about when it comes to shoddy...it's kind of like having a discussion of how to speak Portuguese on PC. Not enough people are interested for it to warrant its own subforum.

Anti said:

Platinum, at best, did not bring more people to the PC competitive battling scene
And by the way, don't ever go nuts on me like that again. I know you probably had good intentions but when you question me like that (and I've contributed a hell of a lot to S&M, just look at out Compiled guides sticky), it really burns me up.

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Not to be rude or anything (Seeing that I have cause enough shenanigans today misreading what section you were talking about)


But Platinum won't come out until after three months, to sum it up, it's not out yet, so it can't have done anything for the sections yet.

Lol, and I won't give you a scare like that again, that's what a 4 hour sleep does for you (me in that case), and yes, I do not doubt your activity in the S&M section, I thought you were referring to the wifi section so sorry :embarrass,

And deleting the section, I don't think that will accomplish anything, if we remove it then some new member will probably be suggesting a S&M section on PC in a month, wait 3 months, wait for Platinum (Platinum is your savior). ;)

I just think your whole approach is a bit hasty Anti.

I've been through this before with PC and I have to say that you're obviously upset at the release of Platinum. This doesn't help me believe that you're thinking about it that much. Before you go trying to debunk myths, why don't you actually research things. Obviously the argument behind people saying Platinum will fix things is that it will bring new members to the table. It doesn't mean that they wont come to S&M. Seriously, do you think that the release of Platinum spells doom for S&M? Having that attitude often has a negative effect on things.

Angela said:

Not to be rude or anything (Seeing that I have cause enough shenanigans today misreading what section you were talking about)


But Platinum won't come out until after three months, to sum it up, it's not out yet, so it can't have done anything for the sections yet.

Lol, and I won't give you a scare like that again, that's what a 4 hour sleep does for you (me in that case), and yes, I do not doubt your activity in the S&M section, I thought you were referring to the wifi section so sorry :embarrass,

And deleting the section, I don't think that will accomplish anything, if we remove it then some new member will probably be suggesting a S&M section on PC in a month, wait 3 months, wait for Platinum (Platinum is your savior). ;)

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...lol, please read my responses. Platinum is already out on Shoddy and it has been out. Maybe the WiFiers will like it better, but you can't really call the decline a coincidence when many members have openly admitted to leaving or losing interest because of Platinum.

Besides, I'm not talking about WiFi here at all. Even if they love it, S&M and more importantly the Shoddy Lounge aren't going to recover. Hell, S&M even could, but almost no WiFiers even visit the Shoddy Lounge at all, so Platinum's USA release isn't going to help the "Shoddy Lounge."

Zazie Rainyday said:

I just think your whole approach is a bit hasty Anti.

I've been through this before with PC and I have to say that you're obviously upset at the release of Platinum. This doesn't help me believe that you're thinking about it that much. Before you go trying to debunk myths, why don't you actually research things. Obviously the argument behind people saying Platinum will fix things is that it will bring new members to the table. It doesn't mean that they wont come to S&M. Seriously, do you think that the release of Platinum spells doom for S&M? Having that attitude often has a negative effect on things.

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Okay, enough of this. What the hell is there to research anyways? Don't assume any of this crap about how I haven't though this through or haven't done enough research. You're the one who isn't reading a thing I say, so I'm going to go through my entire thought process and everything so I don't have to listen to this bull ever again.

First, here's the subforum itself. The reason I posted this thread was "well gee, nobody ever posts there!" But that's not even my real beef with the section. It could have ten times as many threads with the same content and purpose and it would still be useless. why? I covered that in my first post (with the battle threads and tournaments and such).

As for me being "hasty" about this, how the hell is that true? I don't think you quite understand that Platinum has NOTHING to do with why I want this subforum gone. It was only brought up to respond to people going "the USA release of Platinum will help it a lot!" which isn't true because Platinum is already on there. In fact, even if this subforum had come out three months BEFORE Platinum when S&M wasn't dying a slot and painful death I would have supported its removal, because its main uses - tournaments and battle threads - are both useless for Shoddy Battlers (don't bring up WiFi, I don't care =/) and never will be. I know I can't "prove" the "never will be" part, but battle threads aren't useful on a software with a main chat and a find tab to request battles in, and we still haven't run a successful tournament (just look at the subforum itself lol, it's proof enough).

And Platinum will bring new members to the table? So you're defending the logic of "well gee, in three months new members will pour into PC to go on ShoddyBattle to play Platinum which has been out five months on there!" No. If this was discussing WiFi, Platinum would be a fair enough argument, but this is NOT WiFi. The only new members it will bring are those who are ready to breed their Infernape and play WiFi. Yeah, a few could move into the Shoddy ranks, but a few members won't save the subforum, lol. Besides, that's assuming they're quality members, and almost every new member we get has to learn how stuff operates (especially with the metagame itself) before really getting into the forum a lot. And quite frankly, a lot of these members recently have not shown the willingness to learn...not all of them, butyou'd be surprised.

And why should I not feel that Platinum has had a negative effect on S&M? It certainly hasn't had a positive one...and in case you're wondering, 90% of RMTs (Rate My Teams) posted are for ShoddyBattle, and you'll notice that they now almost always have Platinum updates. You're actually saying that Platinum's release (which had PROFOUND effects on the metagame) and the decline of S&M happening at the same time was a coincidence? And better yet, even if it is, why does that matter? Who cares? The only part Platinum should be playing in these discussions is that it won't be saving the Shoddy Forum. I'm not even going to say it destroyed its potential or whatever, but it certainly didn't help enough to make it worthwhile.

I actually find it quite funny that all this thread has amounted to is bashing my thought process, research, and basically my suggestion totally when every single person that has done that has ignored my reasons for wanting this gone in the first place. It's not because of Platinum, and the next person who says that is going to get a much more stern talking to than this. My point was that nobody is interested in Shoddy or battling enough for it to warrant its own subforum and the activity sure as hell backs me up. Battle threads are just extremely silly for Shoddy and tournaments never work.

That's my reasoning, and it's pretty simple. I did all the "research" I had to do and I sure as hell thought this through. Don't assume all of that crap EVER again. Again, the fact that you're focusing more on the thread creator than the idea itself says way more about your thoughts than mine. =/

Listen, if you don't frequent the S&M section, why exactly are you giving an opinion. I can't see why you feel the need to participate in this discussion. Maybe to start an argument, maybe to try to make yourself look smart. I'm not sure. I know one of you in particular despises competitive Pokemon, so why you are concerning yourself with a forum that deals with something you dislike is beyond me.

Any who, back on point. I'm disappointed by the lack of activity Anti. When I asked for it to be implemented, I was hoping for a massive amount of activity. I didn't anticipate people being so adverse to the Platinum changes and lose interest in Pokemon, for the server to be down so much, and certain trolls ruining the environment we had created on the server. It's really disappointing because that sub-forum had a great deal of potential.

However, I'm not going to give up on it. Perhaps we can find a way to attract more people to the server. That in turn may spark more interest in the battle lounge and perhaps we can have a successful tournament for once. I'm not ready to give up on it yet. It's still too relatively new to do that yet.

Also, if I see another post pertaining to the previous argument in this thread, the posts will be edited or deleted. I want this to be a discussion on how to improve the sub-forum, not attacking and/or defending thought processes, the way forums work, etc.

In order to make the subforum a success, I think that it needs to be significantly changed. Otherwise, I will support its removal once its "relatively new" subforum tag expires.

First of all, I think all battle thread should be banned and existing ones deleted or locked. They serve absolutely no purpose and just clutter the forum with uselessness. Not good.

The other beef I had was the tournaments, which also need changes. I don't suggest banning those since that wouldn't leave a whole lot to do in the Shoddy Lounge (virtually nothing). I do think that the way tournaments are operated needs to be overhauled though. The Shoddy population isn't like the WiFi population, so I think running stuff differently is necessary.

For one thing, I think that tournaments should be more of a community effort than an individual one. Having ten separate tournaments doesn't do us any good (as the forum in its current state shows us), but having two or three very well-organized tournaments going on at the same time will encourage people to actually participate in them. Also, since it would be a community effort, "bad" ideas wouldn't make it to be a tournament, and unsuccessful tournaments would be far less frequent. And by community effort, I don't mean we make a thread and vote on what the next tournament should be, I mean three or four people getting together and really making a good tournament. Two mids is better than one, so three or four will be even better.

Also, I think that we need an official tournament ever few months with the normal metagame, much like WiFi's Official PC Tournament. It would essentially be that held on Shoddy. Gimmicks are only good for so long until you just want to play the real thing, and this would definitely be the most competitive since almost everybody who frequents in S&M has experience in OU and/or UU battling. that reminds me, there would be one tournament for UUs and one for OUs. I expect the two tiers to even out (to an extent...OU will always be more popular) as OU loses popularity and the changes to UU being made by Smogon right now are attracting all kinds of new players to said metagame.

Also, I think that the punishment for being an annoying troll should be made more severe (one-week ban imo). I don't mean "hey let's flood 4 funz!!!!11!!1" trolling, I mean the acting like an idiot to piss people off and generally being stupid kind of trolling. I would name examples but you guys know who I'm talking about. Trolling instantly puts everybody in a bad mood and makes intelligent conversation impossible. If people want to screw over the server, then they can take their one-week ban and live with it.