Pokemon Clubs Creation & CSS Guide

Club Creation​

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Creating a club, maintaining that club, options for when you can't maintain that club any longer, and consequences for failing to maintain your club. Consider this the heartbeat to a successful life here at Pokémon Clubs!

Beforehand
First of all it is important to have a good idea for the club you want to create. If there's an area of Pokemon that you have a particular affinity for then that's probably the right topic for you to create a club about. Now throughout this whole process, the Grand-Master thread will be your most valuable resource. The thread contains an up to date list of all the active clubs, so that you can check if your idea already has a club, instead of looking through the pages, (even though most active clubs are on the first page :p). All updates on the clubs, like when the clubs were approved, changes of ownerships, etc, can also be found in the Grand-Master thread. If you're completely stuck on ideas, try to look at the "Club's to be Made" part of the Grand-Master thread, where there are a few un-claimed club ideas, free for you to make a club on. The only ones that aren't free, are the ones that have a username and a date next to them, which shows that a person has reserved that idea, and when the reservation expires. Only if the club hasn't been made before the expiration date, are you free to make a club on that specific idea. Also if you have a ton of club ideas, that you just can't make yourself, it'd be a great help if you would post them in the Grand-Master thread, so that they can be added to the list for more people to get ideas on.
Now once you have an idea for a club, which you are sure you're going to make, it's hugely advised that you make a reservation for it in the Grand-Master thread, or else there might be a small chance that someone would snag it from right under your nose.

Club Creation
Club creation is a moderated process that requires a moderator to approve your club before it shows up in the thread index. This is for a wide variety of reasons, but the most important reasons are to cut out the sub-par clubs (the clubs that don't have the required information and details) and weeding out the clubs that are based on things that already has a club created.

Creating a club is simple, but it requires a bit of detail, and a person with an eye for detail and a sense of responsibility to lead the head. A proper club should include rules (which are specific to the club, and are expected to be followed in addition to both the Pokémon Club forum rules as well as the Community Guidelines), general information about the purpose of the club, an updated list of members who are involved in the club, and an application of sorts for others to join. Successful clubs usually include other things, like a points and rewards system, and their club leaders are actively involved in the discussions.

If you feel you have all the information and required details for creating a club, then by all means, create the club. Please keep the title of your thread appropriate. If you're creating a club for Grass Pokémon, name it Grass Pokémon Club or something of the sort. Club thread titles are supposed to be straight forward. The name of the thread doesn't necessarily have to be the name of the club. After you create the club, it will be submitted in an unapproved status. This means that staff members with the ability to moderate that forum (the moderator of the forum, super moderators, and administrators) have the ability to view that thread, but members and supporters do not. Do not create another thread with the impression that it didn't get submitted, it did. Now you wait.

Clubs are usually approved multiple times a day, every single day. All clubs approved are then visible to everyone, while clubs that are declined are soft deleted. This means that the content is still available to staff and still take up space on the forum. As mentioned above, there's an update list, with an up to date list of groups that are approved or declined when they are approved or declined. Information on why the group was declined is provided, the exact name and username of the group and group owner (respectively) are included as well. Please make sure to check this thread regularly once you have submitted your group until it has been approved/rejected rather than re-submitting the thread. Some groups will take longer than others to approve as there may be aspects of the group which require editing or certain aspects may need to be checked/revised, so if you've been waiting for longer than you'd expect for your group to be approved don't hesitate to contact the current moderators or post in the Grand-Master thread asking about the thread's progress for being approved.

Club Maintenance
Having to maintain your club is the responsibility gained for creating it. If your club is approved, it is your responsibility to uphold the club in a two prime ways.

• Updating the member list to include forum members who actively contribute to the thread and have a sense of purpose and enjoyment among the club. Be sure to only include those who are genuinely interested in actively contributing to the club. Everyone has the ability to post in any group they choose, whether they are a member of that group or not, so you may get someone come in who may seem like they're interested in joining, yet only posts once or twice.
  
• While you don't have to be the club owner to introduce new topics, contributing to the club is of the upmost importance. As the club owner, it's important to remember that you set an unseen and unconscious standard of activity level. Nobody is going to want to join a club where the owner doesn't show up every now and then and converse with the rest.
  
  
• The double post still applies in Pokemon Clubs, expect in certain circumstances. If a club has been inactive for more than a week, the club's owner (and/or co-owner) may break the double post rule in order to revive the club.
  
• If you at one point are not interested in maintaining your club(s) anymore, or if you simply don't have the time for it, you can, as an alternative from getting your club closed, get a transfer of ownership. All you need to do, is to find a fitting candidate, most likely one of the more active members of your club, or a person who would be responsible enough to take care of the club, and ask them if they are willing to become the new owners. Once you've found a suitable new owner, you have to contact the current moderator ([USER]Olli97[/USER]), and tell us that you want a transfer of ownership for your club, give us the username of the member so we can verify this, and optionally give us an explanation to why you don't want to maintain the club anymore.

If you aren't interested in participating and contributing to the club as well as updating the information and member list of the club, do not create a club.

"What is a club and how do I use one? o3o"

Okay so recently I've had quite a few members asking about clubs, what they are, and how they're used, so hopefully this thread should clear things up a little. c: (Thank Krazzikk for suggesting it :D)

"What is a Club?"

Basically what clubs are for is a place to discuss anything and everything about a certain topic. The idea is to not have too many topics going on at once or the place gets confusing, but a lot of clubs choose to anyway to give more to discuss at one time. How they work is you sign up to the club, then you just treat it like a normal chat thread by answering the topics posted and replying to other people's posts. You could think of it as having several standard threads all in one place with discussions linking them all together.

"So how do I join and use clubs?"

First off, it's important to choose a club about something you're really interested in, otherwise its hard to keep interested and keep posting in them. For your first club, I suggest you join one based on your favourite Pokemon type. You can find a list of all the currently active clubs by clicking here, so choose one you like and take a look at it. c:

The most important part of any club is the first post of the club. The first post contains a list of the club's members, information about the club, rules, sign-up forms, and often trivia or challenges to take part in too. For example, take a look here at the Poison type club's first post to see what I mean and for an idea of how most clubs are laid out. This club is pretty standard in terms of layout and content in the first post, so it's a good example to use if you're wondering what clubs can offer you.

Before you join any club, it's important that you take a look at the sign-up form. This is always found in the first post of the club, and you're advised to post it in the thread before posting in a club. Have a look at some people's first club posts here, here, here and here to get a feel of what I mean. You don't have to join a club before posting in it, but it is strongly advised and requested that you do. You must contribute to the current discussion alongside posting your sign up form. Do this by either answering a current topic, or discussing someone else's views. c: Another important part of clubs is that they almost always have a 'Current Topic', which is what the discussion at the time is focused around. Some clubs change this topic once a day, some will change it a lot less frequently, but it's important to try and answer the topics when they're given and keep discussions related to them - although as long as you keep all of your posts about the Pokémon in the club then a little off topic stuff is okay.

So hopefully that should be enough information to get you started in Pokémon Clubs. If you're at all interested in owning and running your own club, then make sure you check out the Clubs Creation Guide for tips and advice, or contact me or Olli97 and we'll be happy to take you through the whole process of club creation and ownership.

Hopefully that helps clear up some issues and acts as a guide for the newer club users; feel free to post any questions or concerns c: