Serious Pokecommunity then vs Now

[Figure]

I remember things from PC that are probably such a no-no that I can't even mention them here 😅

Cliques were also rampant at times, and it didn't always feel as friendly and inclusive as it does today.

I would argue that, in a sense, a certain clique has actually prevailed and now is pretty exclusive unless you act a very specific way. Funny how perspective can change from person to person.

 

[moon]

"the RP clique" used to be an actual thing people went and put in their signatures. dear lord.

i was ofc way too cool to be part of that :eyes:

 

[Hiroshi Sotomura]

omg dont say that dead pory is good, she might hear you



I don't miss the way The Count To Infinity would lag and doublepost and mess up the count when it got too long.

i mean she's literally in the position to remove it ahahaha

 

[Ivysaur]

Was this the database error page at that time?

I spent effort on this before Nica ran with it and made a theme based on it! And then one of the devs hosed it.

No, because back then Gen IV had just released and Stunfisk didn't even exist yet. It was just a plain VBulletin message error.

 

[Hiroshi Sotomura]

No, because back then Gen IV had just released and Stunfisk didn't even exist yet. It was just a plain VBulletin message error.

Ew I'm so happy we don't have those anymore

 

[Tsutarja]

Was this the database error page at that time?

fuck just seeing this gives me PTSD of when that would happen every day at the same damn time and not clear up for like 2 hours. that was back when I would be on PC like all the time too

 

[Hiroshi Sotomura]

fuck just seeing this gives me PTSD of when that would happen every day at the same damn time and not clear up for like 2 hours. that was back when I would be on PC like all the time too

The funny part to me is how little work we had to do to make things more stable

 

[Palamon]

Haha, I definitely wasn't around for the Stunfisk error message... nowadays, it's back to the generic "the servers are too busy at the moment, please try again later" message. Definitely miss the days when we had Pokemon error messages for server errors,

Something else I remembered that I didn't mention in OP was all the wild April Fools Day pranks we've had here over the years. I think one year, we became Serebii, and the staff turned on a really funny censorship filter that day like Pokecommunity being censored to THE GREATEST EVER (in all capital letters!) and some word that was censored to Applesauce. I wish the April Fools pranks were archived out there somewhere, though, because I think a lot of the pranks weren't screenshot on the wayback archive.

There was also that year where there was a fake owner takeovership of dictator Lerroux or something, and all the mods fake quit which led to fake moderator applications, but apparently, this prank lasted way over a month before April Fools Day, and it upset a lot of members. But there was even a fake "New Moderator Lounge" made with all these fake threads about banning people and trying to take Lerroux down. I don't think a prank like this would ever fly today, though.

And another prank I remember was the day every single member's icon were a random Pokemon and instead of it showing our usernames, it'd show the Pokemon we were. Sometimes, you'd have a chance to become a shiny Pokemon, too. I think this prank was ~2013. But, honestly these are the only three big pranks I remember!

Pokecommunity has gotten very tame when it comes to April Fools Day pranks. I honestly feel that's because a lot of people were upset about them and asked "how do we turn this off"? So, it feels like a relic of the past to me.

 

[Ivysaur]

There was also that year where there was a fake owner takeovership of dictator Lerroux or something, and all the mods fake quit which led to fake moderator applications, but apparently, this prank lasted way over a month before April Fools Day, and it upset a lot of members. But there was even a fake "New Moderator Lounge" made with all these fake threads about banning people and trying to take Lerroux down. I don't think a prank like this would ever fly today, though.

My greatest work :'D Fun fact. Ignacio Lerroux was a famously corrupt former Spanish PM. It also had a bilingual joke as, well, in French that sounds like "le rouge", "the red", which was the Admins' colour back then.

But yeah, it went on for a month behind closed doors, as we manufactured a realistic-looking staff war in a fake board made for the occasion. Which was then released for everyone to see as soon as it hit the 1st of April in the first country in the world (so like still way into the 31st of March most elsewhere). It would absolutely NOT work nowadays.

 

[Aslan]

My original account joined in January 2012 so its been almost a decade. I'll try my best to recall what I can but most of my memories of PC are pre 2016 as I was not that active for a few years after that.

I remember the Pokemon Club IRC because it was the first chatroom I ever joined on PC. Alex / Squirrel still bullies me about my first account because he had no idea that was me, as I rejoined under a second account later that year. He didn't like me at all at first (and looking back I do not blame him at all) but I changed and we've been best friends ever since. We still joke about it like a decade later :D I remember seeing him and Olli back then but I didn't get to know them at the time. We became friends later that year though.

The battle server was never as big as the Discord in terms of numbers but there was a regular user base up to 2016 or 2017. These days I don't think I see anyone as most people will use the main showdown server on Smogon or those who want to chat will be on the PC Discord. I remember there were a lot of staff at one point (15+ when the user base was only 40-50 people at most?) and working on staff from 2012-2016. I think everyone at least had attempted competitive battling but I have a lot of memories of casual tournaments in formats like Winter Wonderland. Most of my friends for years were people I had met or worked with on the battle server. In stating that, I recognise that the battle server was one of several PC cliques but being a part of it was overall a positive experience. I could see how it would not have appeal to others though.

Pokemon Clubs had its own seperate section from other clubs. I think it was removed years ago but two of my closest friends at the time were the former Pokemon Club moderators who I'd gotten to know a lot better through being a part of Pokemon Clubs and then talking outside of that. So it was a bit sad seeing the section get formally taken down but I'm grateful The Clubhouse still has a lot of dedicated Pokemon Clubs. I'm happy to see them around still.

The GT was similar in set up. I don't think there were teams competing for points in earlier years but I could be remembering it wrong. A lot of the events have remained the same over the years but there are a few that I miss like the Pokemon Movie nights. I'm glad we've still kept the format of certain events though. iSketch always made me happy and I'm happy to be able to bring it back and host it for others through skribbl.io. Other community events like plug.dj were fun too. Some of the events now on PC though are phenomenal and I'm always excited to see the new events people come up with.

I remember Member of the Year being run in certain years and thinking how much effort went into it. Each section would have its own seperate categories you could vote on and then there was the overall one.

There were a lot more pairs on PC and PC families though I think both of those have come back a lot in the past few years. I remember having a few PC family members and pairs at certain stages. I also remember joint accounts. My friend and I made two which were.... interesting to say the least. There are still collabs on PC but I remember participating in a lot when I was younger and it was nice having matching avatars/themes with friends.

I remember PC first started enforcing COPPA when I was 11 and getting banned for like a month. There was a debate on whether it should be enforced or not when it was first implemented that went on for several pages I think. Good times :D

 

[pastelspectre]

Joined a good while ago.. so truth be told, it's kinda.. fuzzy. I just remember that it had a different vibe then? I was.. mostly a lurker for a good while, not gonna lie. Popped in an out for a good.. 5-6 years until suddenly I started coming on more often. Now I mostly login whenever I feel like it but anyways, even then feel like the forum had a different vibe to it. It felt more kinda, serious? Not in a bad way, just.. serious: And now the vibe is sort of relaxing, welcoming.

I feel like, at least for me back then, it focused heavily on Pokémon but maybe that was just me posting in those sections more often, I dunno. I also feel like forum games had a lot bigger presence back then too.

 

[Bellsprout]

I joined in 09. I would say the main difference between then and now is that it was cliquey back then. Being on staff was a bigger deal. Many of the interesting personalities and funny people are totally gone now. Besides that I remember there being clubs and reputation, but clubs were removed because they were mainly dead and reputation pissed too many people off lol.

 

[Ghost Owl]

Oh look a nostalgia thread to pull me out of hibernation!

PC was a very different place in 2005. It was the peak of internet forum popularity, so there was a constant stream of new people joining and new friends to be made. The staff did a lot more moderation, people got banned/warned regularly and threads were locked a lot (does that furretlock emote still exist?). The forums were extremely laggy and would randomly go offline (database error!) multiple times a day.

Oh and there were way fewer options for personal expression, we only had avatars and signatures (and the signatures didn't even support CSS.)

 

[colours]

my only big qualm is that pc back then was far more daring with its april fools events than present day pc, if only because we've become paralysed to the whole "make this a toggle i cant stand this joke!!!!" feedback.

 

[.hack]

wow this thread was certainly a interesting read.

I first joined over a decade (almost a decade and a half) ago so about 2006ish when I was 11/12 years old so I was mostly looking for new rom hacks to play and full time cringeposting.

I remember the "groups" or w/e that are now gone and think I was in a few for anime fandoms I was into. And this thread brought back memories of that furret lock thing and the servers going offline. The OP also reminded me of Psypokes, I had completely forgot about them but used them a lot back then, sad if they are now gone today but I guess as OP said a lot of these Pokemon fansites are dead now.

Considering this it's great to see PC is still alive & kicking, at least in some capacity, despite however it's changed over the years. I hope it's able to keep growing and changing along with the times to help it to thrive in whatever landscape we find the internet in the future, and we can continue to use PC for years to come!

 

[Fairy]

I don't have the longest tenure either as a user or a member of staff, but wow have things changed. I remember exclusively staying in my competitive battling (at the time called S&M, the CB, then CBC) lane until I was randomly promoted to Art Studio (then called Art Gallery, then A&D - a name I like more tbh). I think this is what Cherrim was talking about because I only ever lurked / gave small critique in AS other than working with ex-smod Luke and contributing art for his project. But my first 200 posts were in the competitive sections. Haha, I remember more or less copying my RMT reviews from Smogon but basically in my own words so I sounded smart enough to belong.

I remember being promoted the same day as Maruno, which I though was great for the health of ROM Hacking. It was some of the heaviest snowfall NJ had seen that year and my poor boyfriend was out there shoveling snow while I was like LOOK IM BLUE NOW and he was all grumpy cause I didn't do my half of the snow removal. But being promoted was important to me at the time and felt like a way bigger deal than some dumb snow on the driveway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Then the User Note congrats came in which I don't believe were ever a staff exclusive thing but it was like, just something we did. Maybe to justify its functionality idk lol.

I remember asking Went/Ivysaur if my promotion was just a 20 minute trial test cause it felt like a fever dream and like I didn't deserve it. He said it was and congrats so I low key freaked. I also remember him giving me my own ego emblem, something that only staff were allowed to have and able to give out. When my account was accidentally removed (by Steve before I was perma whitelisted), I was given free reign to give myself all my emblems back and you best believe I loaded myself up with the ones I thought I deserved haha. Plus, again, giving myself my own ego emblem to continue his tradition.

I remember Twilightblade being the nicest smod, especially when she traded me a shiny Kyogre and Rayquaza, which I still have and brought to SWSH! I remember mods like Shining Raichu, Nica, my bestie for like Twilight Sky, my mod partner Derozio.. Astinus getting me to read Ender's Game.. and so, so many great times learning how to battle competitively in Pokémon Showdown with wolf, Dark Azelf, Aero, Karp, Vrai, Anti, and so many more. I was so, so intimidated and awful against such good battlers but they humored me and I had fun.

I remember winning best username for MOtY (2014?) with the name Strawberry. Not gonna lie, that's a cute as hell name. And I remember losing to Janna by ONE POINT that year. Then she was immediately promoted to smod and I felt sooooo jealous, haha. Like fueling some righteous indignation that if I had won it would be me getting smod, proving to me staff promotions were just popularity contests. Just really immature stuff that I look back on now fondly. Love you, Cirno. (´,,•ω•,,)♡ And you deserve all the good that came afterwards too!!

There were more.. awkward times. The cliques we're bad. Unnecessary campaigns for who next mod should be when it never worked like that. Staff forums were a pretty opaque wall where we said more than unsavory things behind user's backs. It was fucking gross and I'm glad those days are over. And the further up the chain you got the more opaque those walls became. Staff was unorganized and you could tell from just a few days after joining.

I remember having a whole AMA forum for everyone to post in. I remember Clubs then no Clubs then Clubs but no member Clubs then no Clubs and now Clubs again lol. We tried different tiers of supporters, which was weird, but colorful! And a whole supporter forum - which died RIP. We tried a lot of silly stuff, haha. But that's what I loved! We weren't afraid to fail.

And then just a slew of legends I vaguely remember but are now long gone; Opposite Day, Careful with that axe, Pichu!, Kura, Kenshin5, Mr.CatDog, PlatinumDude, Toujours, Signomi, Livewire, Kaori, Arcanine, digi-kun, Pokéstick, good times, Aurafire, TheSmartOne, Morkula, countryemo, Elite Overlord LeSabre(tm), moments., Capital Fabio, parallelzero… and many others.

I love this place. Faults and all.

—

Edit: wtf did this post even become haha. Talk about getting carried away with nostalgia. (」°ロ°)」

I also can't spell forgive me. ｡ﾟ(｡ﾉωヽ｡)ﾟ｡

 

[Alex]

I joined at the end of 2006 and I'mma be honest, I don't think PC has changed very much. That's not a bad thing - this place is super charming and brimming with discussion and activity. It's great. But the topics have almost always remained the same, and the forums and subforums have nearly never changed. Perhaps a few expansions and "trial" subforums, but all in all, this place has remained the same as long as I've been here.

One of the few changes I can point out is the loss of the Mixed Community Groups forum, which I used to moderate way, way back in the day LOL. It was a great little place to chat about specific things people liked. There were clubs to celebrate all sorts of things, such as specific Pokemon; characters from the Pokemon anime; and versions from the main series game. The Espeon Fanclub, for instance, was where I met some of my earliest friends here. And, of course, we had the very self-indulgent Member Fanclubs that essentially acted as a slow-form MSN where people would pop in to ask the person what's up and leave. They were super cute, but very clearly outdated (and, honestly, kind of boring). There was also the Other Clubs subforum that had clubs for all sorts of things, but mostly anime series.

The BIGGEST change I can think of is the update to vBulletin in circa 2008-2009. Around then, vBulletin released a new version that introduced user profiles and the infraction system. Before that, there was no system for moderators to keep track of user infractions. They used something called "User Notes" which were present on all user profiles. Technically, they still exist and can probably be accessed if a moderator tried hard enough. It's where they kept track of warnings and bans. It was super archaic and also kind of abusive. As you can imagine, young people in a position of power (albeit, a small one) would sometimes post nasty things in what were effectively private threads about specific users. It's a good thing we've moved away from that.

There are few things that have happened at PC that match the aforementioned vBulletin update. IMO, PC 2.0 is probably the only thing that comes close. I'm more of a boomer when it comes to PC so I don't use it much, but I see its benefits and am 100% supportive of it. The Discord server also helps the community stay connected more actively, which is great, but I would almost consider it as PC's little brother as opposed to a new addition. It has replaced MSN, which a large majority of my friends on PC would use to communicate off the forums. I probably spent more time chatting with PC people on MSN than engaging with them on the forums. Those are where most of my memories lie, and I know I'm not the only one. Good times!

Thanks for the short trip down memory lane, it's fun thinking of these things. :) Really puts things into perspective.

 

[Pyrax]

A small feature I remember are photo albums. This was way back before ~2013 iirc (2009-2011 maybe?), we were allowed to upload pics into our profiles. Dunno what their actual intended purpose was since people just used albums for random photos saved from the internet. Or at least I think Pokecommunity had those? It was vBulletin so it might've been 🤔

The only thing notable to me was that incident during 2018 with the old owner being accused of a crime. I was still a new user, so that was quite something to observe. There were all these posts about the forum shutting down, it was like the feeling of walking into the end of a fun party.

I remember that. Left for a year to join a new forum some people set up, but I returned after that forum turned out to be mafia-centric.

 

[Fairy]

A small feature I remember are photo albums. This was way back before ~2013 iirc (2009-2011 maybe?), we were allowed to upload pics into our profiles. Dunno what their actual intended purpose was since people just used albums for random photos saved from the internet. Or at least I think Pokecommunity had those? It was vBulletin so it might've been 🤔

We still have those! They're mostly used for profile customization nowadays, since profiles don't accept regular links - only PC generated ones. Albums are on the far right side of your profile page. :)

 

[Aljam]

The hacking scene was a whole lot different 10 years ago. The pret decompilation project amazes me now. Back then it was just binary tools. Hackmew had XSE, and there was a tool made for every binary hacking funtion. I remember when I left there was a lul in quality ROM hacks and I remember leaving and joined LAZ and mewthree's web forums. I even branched out and made my own pokemon hacking proboards website that is probably now lost to the sands of time. Boy time sure does fly!