Recently, PC has become flooded with new tournaments and gyms that are basically carbon-copies each other. These types of threads never get any activity and only serve to clutter up the Battle Stadium and decrease activity. If you'd like to create a new tournament or gym, you should remember these few tips:
~ PM a moderator before posting
Half the new threads that get posted don't have approval from the DPP mods and end up getting locked. This is step one in creating your own gym or tournament. Once you have your first post constructed, be sure to PM/VM either Horizon, Barbie, or TwilightBlade and they will let you know if you have permission to post it or not. Once you do, be sure to say in your opening post that your thread is approved by a moderator.
~ Creativity
The biggest reason why tournaments and gyms fail is that they're boring. Tournaments that are just standard brackets with standard rules or gyms that have the generic 8 gym leaders, an elite four and a champion have already been made, so why make them again? Create something that the Battle Stadium has yet to see! There are plenty of ways to break away from the norm, so be sure that your thread is unique and different and battlers will always give it a look.
Don't just post a thread just so you can host a tournament or run a gym. It's not doing anyone else (or the forum) any good, and your thread will fail anyway. The only tournaments and gyms that are successful are the ones who's owners put time and effort into running them. Please, make sure you actually want to make a successful gym or tournament before pressing the "New Thread" button.
~ Try not to break away from the standard battling rules
The standard rules are standard for a reason. They create the fairest and easiest battles. That's not to say that you can't be creative with your ideas (We love that! :D), but in general, it's a good idea to just stick to the standard rules, which are listed under the battle stadium rules. And besides, most people are most comfortable with the standard rules already, and not following them will most likely confuse and/or turn people away.
~ Do NOT ask people to post their teams before joining.
Seriously, how is that going to make the tournament or gym any fun at all if you already know your opponents team? Smarter battlers are just going to stay away from these types of events, so don't even bother trying it.
~ Clarity
If people don't understand the rules of your tournament or gym, why would they join? Make sure your rules are clearly stated in a way that all members can understand. In that sense, proper grammar and punctuation is always appreciated.
~ Format your first post
You may have the coolest idea for a gym or tournament in the world, but if it's written in plain text without any color, it's not going to attract that much attention. Be sure to highlight important lines or different sections of your first post with different sized text, fonts, or color so that people will actually want to read through and see what it's all about! This goes along with the whole "putting some effort into it" idea. Don't just type a few sentences and be done with it. Go into detail, explain your ideas, and make it easy to read!
~ Prizes
People want to get something out of participating in your tournament or gym. While they may be a bit hard to obtain, a few events, shinies and other hard to obtain pokemon are great for prizes, give battlers a bit of incentive and help your thread stay active.
