Hey all!
Something that's been kicking around in the back of my head has been how to reboot PP's forums as well as what we can learn from the past. I had a spiel for why it was important, but with the recent forum upgrades, I'd say that's a little redundant. Regardless, I think there's a need to reboot not just the appearance of the forums, but also discussion on the forums. And although ad hoc discussion is what we're after, it's not going to magically happen if there's no-one posting, so we need some sort of plan.
We also need to consider context- Discord is the main avenue of discussion for most people, so we need to look at topics that are better suited to more substantial posts on forums. The other thing we need to do is differentiate ourselves from Smogon and aim to exist in parallel (depending on what the plan is). Another consideration is that online forums in general are kinda declining in favour of more centralised platforms
I think in the past the vision was for PP to be an old gen rival to Smogon, which kinda made sense when much of the community focused on rby which back in the day received minimal support from smogon. Those days are long gone though, and I think we need to consider what kinds of things we can focus on that are unlikely to be done on smogon.
I think key elements are seeking buy-in to restoring discussion from a key group of users (basically, get people to agree to check the forums and share their thoughts), and having a plan for how we'll come up with stuff to talk about. Incentives for posts on forums could also be cool, but I have no idea how that would work. As for stuff to discuss, there's a few things that spring to mind:
Rather than sticking to a rigid structure, instead post make an OP summarising the Pokemon's sets, options and role in the meta, before posting some questions. Some examples might be:
> When building around X, what are your main considerations for teammates?
> What are some niche set options that may be overlooked, and why would you want to use them?
> In what scenarios would you want to add this to your team?
> Is there room for X to crack into the meta? Or what conditions would need to change to alter its impact?
PS: pls add UI for lists, ty
One last thing, we need to avoid spreading people too thin, and I think we shouldn't be afraid to cut things if people feel stretched. Burnout is something that's happened a fair bit on PP so it's best to avoid it. In the most extreme case, we could consider cutting support for certain gens if it's an issue. But that's obviously a contentious topic, so I'll just kinda float it and leave it there, I'm not gonna advocate for it.
I'm open to posting regular threads for rby as I think I've got a reasonable idea in my mind of what these threads might look like, but I'm not gonna talk to myself lol.
In any case, what do you guys see the forums being used for? How can we revive actual discussion?
Something that's been kicking around in the back of my head has been how to reboot PP's forums as well as what we can learn from the past. I had a spiel for why it was important, but with the recent forum upgrades, I'd say that's a little redundant. Regardless, I think there's a need to reboot not just the appearance of the forums, but also discussion on the forums. And although ad hoc discussion is what we're after, it's not going to magically happen if there's no-one posting, so we need some sort of plan.
We also need to consider context- Discord is the main avenue of discussion for most people, so we need to look at topics that are better suited to more substantial posts on forums. The other thing we need to do is differentiate ourselves from Smogon and aim to exist in parallel (depending on what the plan is). Another consideration is that online forums in general are kinda declining in favour of more centralised platforms
I think in the past the vision was for PP to be an old gen rival to Smogon, which kinda made sense when much of the community focused on rby which back in the day received minimal support from smogon. Those days are long gone though, and I think we need to consider what kinds of things we can focus on that are unlikely to be done on smogon.
I think key elements are seeking buy-in to restoring discussion from a key group of users (basically, get people to agree to check the forums and share their thoughts), and having a plan for how we'll come up with stuff to talk about. Incentives for posts on forums could also be cool, but I have no idea how that would work. As for stuff to discuss, there's a few things that spring to mind:
Pseudo-analyses?
Back in the day, we used to produce analyses for RBY, in the style of those seen on Smogon and PO's wiki. The trouble is, we always just had forum threads, as opposed to something to publish them to, like the Smogdex. This makes replicating that style of analyses a TERRIBLE idea, but I think there's room to reimagine them. Instead of having proper analyses, with QC/GP and the idea that they'd be "published", scrap all that and use them partially as a resource, partially as a discussion hub.Rather than sticking to a rigid structure, instead post make an OP summarising the Pokemon's sets, options and role in the meta, before posting some questions. Some examples might be:
> When building around X, what are your main considerations for teammates?
> What are some niche set options that may be overlooked, and why would you want to use them?
> In what scenarios would you want to add this to your team?
> Is there room for X to crack into the meta? Or what conditions would need to change to alter its impact?
PS: pls add UI for lists, ty
Hype up our tournaments
Tournaments have always been the lifeblood of Pokemon Perfect, so it makes sense to lean into that. Maybe threads discussing certain highlight matches and attempting to analyse key plays could work. If there are any storylines people can think of, that could be cool to highlight as well. All of these ideas would also work as a Youtube channel, which is food for thought (maybe I'll make some videos on this... probably not though lol), but discussing things on forums is easy and doesn't require any recording or editing.One last thing, we need to avoid spreading people too thin, and I think we shouldn't be afraid to cut things if people feel stretched. Burnout is something that's happened a fair bit on PP so it's best to avoid it. In the most extreme case, we could consider cutting support for certain gens if it's an issue. But that's obviously a contentious topic, so I'll just kinda float it and leave it there, I'm not gonna advocate for it.
I'm open to posting regular threads for rby as I think I've got a reasonable idea in my mind of what these threads might look like, but I'm not gonna talk to myself lol.
In any case, what do you guys see the forums being used for? How can we revive actual discussion?
