I'll post whenever I can... I really don't have much time to, truthfully. ... Of course, you're free to pick and choose from what I've already written. It's all at http://www.fakecard.com/pokemon/tcg/ ... Just be sure the text get rewritten, best take out all the Hmmm!'s and other personalized stuff, just so it seems more like an official encyclopedia piece, y'know? -nick15
I'm also useless when it comes to anything Nintendo has released since around Team Magma/Aqua, so you're gonna have to find someone else who's up to date with those sets. - nick15
If I remember right, a user is alerted when someone writes on their talk page. I was going to see if I had enough power to abuse to put this on the front page, but I don't =P
I'm considering taking down PokeFor by the end of the summer. So, here's an open offer for Bulbapedia to take its content, reword it into your own words and use it. Okay, so I allowed that before, but now there's a rush for content as it'll be gone within a month or two! Okay, so there's still the Wayback Machine (where you can still see PokeFor's wonderous pink layout!) If PokeFor has anything of use, then have fun and enjoy. If it doesn't, then please disregard this. Feel free to pass this message on to any Bulbapedia users. Even though I openly and outright detest parts of Bulbapedia, why should I care one bit about things after I'm gone? --Meowth346 07:56, 19 Jul 2005 (UTC)
I was taken aback by your decision to freeze the site, but remained optimistic about the possibility that you could change your mind. I have even been keeping track of the site's recently modified files feed, and noticed that you have updated it at least once since the freeze took place. If it is not too much to ask, I would like to know why the site cannot remain in its present state, so that you can resume maintaining it if and when you change your mind.
PokeFor does indeed have its many uses, so the question should not be if Bulbapedia would be benefited from taking its content, but rather if it deserves to do so in the first place. Before PokeFor's content can be implemented, Bulbapedia has to undergo many changes, and Bulbagarden itself has to be less geared at the anime and the Pokemon fandom. The People category is a good example, merging the creators of the games with arguably influential figures in the Pokemon community (I consider it a problem that Archaic and Serebii's pages are more detailed than those of Satoshi Tajiri and Junichi Masuda). It will be very easy to simply implement PokeFor's content as it is, but it will not blend with Bulbapedia's less-than-satisfactory quality. If those in charge decide to take up Meowth346's offer, I hope that they will also be fair enough to follow suggestions to revert Bulbapedia to a true Pokémon encyclopedia. Even if he may not admit it, Meowth346 at the very least deserves to know that his hard work has been put to good use. --Unown Lord
- "so that you can resume maintaining it if and when you change your mind."; yup, you hit the nail on the head. That's why I'm dropping it. --Meowth346 11:30, 19 Jul 2005 (UTC)
- If you so strongly feel that it is less than satisfactory, you should take up the challenge and improve the quality of said articles. (Then again, this sort of information is hard to come by. Where could we possibly find out, say, Ken Sugimori's birthdate or Jun'ichi Masuda's birthplace?)
- But I don't think we are going to roll back on our policy to be an encyclopedia of canon and community. That's a step backwards. Anybody and everybody has an encyclopedia of canon. This is our way of differenciating ourselves. (You could argue the very idea of a wiki encyclopedia is how we are different, but anybody and everybody can have one.) As much as our latest efforts appear to be anime- and community-focused, rest assured we still respect the rest of the canon. (In fact, I would really like it if more effort was placed there...)
- But let's face facts: if people won't contribute because they feel it won't blend in, and if it won't blend in because people won't contribute - well, then we're mired in a vicious circle, aren't we? So, we accept the challenge to assimilate and integrate Meowth346's accumulated volume of knowledge. - 振霖T 13:33, 19 Jul 2005 (UTC)
- I simply fail to see why the the People category cannot be split into two separate parts, representing the canon and the community. Looking at the other parts of the Bulbapedia, there is no major collision between the two, but judging by this example alone, that may simply be due to a coincidence. Is there not a way in which Bulbapedia can remain an encyclopedia of both canon and community, and yet not force the community upon those who could find it offensive? You must have gathered from Meowth346 that he is one such person whose enthusiastic approach towards Bulbapedia was turned down by some articles that pertain to the community. I also find that there are very few English sites which do justice to the canon, so you should see Bulbapedia has a means to collect information from those sites, as well as to highlight them over the many sites that follow the repetitive pattern of the same limited content. You should not feel obligated to focus on the community if only to make Bulbapedia unique (that is not to say that you should roll back on your policy completely, but that you should attempt at separating the community-related content from the canon-related pages).
- I have been demotivated to take an active part in Bulbapedia, but with the inclusion of PokeFor's content, I feel compelled to change that. I will do my best at ensuring that the site's content is assimilated in such a way that stays true to Meowth346's ambitions, and that the rest of Bulbapedia undergoes the necessary changes. As a final note, I only hope that this does not only mean you will intergrate Meowth346's work on the past and present games, but also strive to follow his path when future games are released (the most relevant subject being the upcoming XD game). --Unown Lord
- Few of us have the skill or talent needed to do as he has done for the game canon. I myself have not the resources to even extract the simplest information from XD, for I have neither a GameCube nor a DVD-ROM drive to read the data with. The upcoming Diamond/Pearl are an even greater challenge: no one has ever dissected a DS Pokémon game before. I am not even aware of any successes in dumping DS games. (It is my hope that when dumped, the structure will not be too different from the GBA.)
- The people category would have been split, were it not for the difficulty in finding suitable category names. No doubt that people agree that Tanaka Hirokazu, Sugimori Ken, Tajiri Satoshi, Masuda Jun'ichi et al should be separated from Archaic, Meowth346 and Murgatroyd - just how do you define the criteria as a category name?
- My own question is this: is it actually the community that people find offensive, or just certain segments? - 振霖T 14:34, 19 Jul 2005 (UTC)
- Actually, Nintendo DS games are being dumped. Check it out here. -GoldChaos
- Cooperation is the key word. Meowth346 accomplished as much as he did because not only did he possess the knowledge and talent, he also had the ambition and intuition to decipher the games. He did have most of the resources available to him, but the English data for FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald is at least one example for instances in which he relied on others to provide him some of the resources. He seldom expressed his wishes to turn PokeFor into a wiki, knowing that cooperation would further the already high-end standards of the site. He was enthusiastic towards Bulbapedia at first for this reason, but the project took a much different direction than he had expected. You should not regard Meowth346's kind offer as a token of his approval of Bulbapedia--I assure you this is not the case. I have no place to speak on his behalf, but I will say that this is his way to ensure that the community does not completely deteriorate after he leaves. Do not expect him to hand you all the information without any substantial work, as that will establish very little. By working on the Bulbapedia so that PokeFor's contents blend with the existing information, and to a lesser extent vice-versa, a window of opportunity will be opened. PokeFor's contents can be made even more elaborate, as Meowth346 once wished that a wiki would accomplish, and with some time and much cooperation we may be able to reach a sufficient level so as to be able to extract and analyze data from future games.
- Myself, I was offended by the inclusion of a large part of the Bulbagarden staff in the People category. I have already described how inappropriate I find the lack of distinction between the game creators and the fans, not all of whom even deserve to be acknowledged as having contributed to the community. Some people are known, or used to be known around the community for various reasons. That is not to say that those people necessarily contributed more than others, but if their contribution can be put in words, it should mean that it is appropriate to list them. If the person is not widely known and is still listed, it creates the impression that Bulbapedia is not as community-driven as it is made out to be, and is simply dedicated to Bulbagarden's needs. In other words, if the inclusion of the person does not serve any purpose behind that of the Bulbagarden Staff profile or the user page, I tend to deem it inappropriate. I see no reason why the community-related pages in the People category cannot simply be moved to a new category: Community People. If a certain page does not even belong to this category (that is, it pertains to the person more than to his contribution to the community), it is a good sign that the content should stay on the user page or in the person's Bulbagarden profile.
- The community-related pages should always be categorized separately from the canon-related ones. Other than the People category, the Pokémon meta category includes the pages for the Crossover Pokédex Project and the Deoxys Media Player Project, both of which have nothing to do with the franchise. The Fanon page uses examples of Shipping, which should stay in their respective category--a simple explanation of the terminology is more than enough. Community-related pages should preferably not be used to represent Bulbapedia by listing them on the Main Page (this is currently not a problem). There should also be no room for allusions to fanon theories on the canon-related pages, such as the one listed at the bottom of Eusine's page. Finally, the priority of the top-level categories on the Main Page disturbs me greatly. It is not listed in alphabetical order, justifiably so, yet the order does appear to be random. First of all, the games should always be listed before the anime and manga. I would gladly open a debate on the subject, but I feel that you already realize that giving priority to the anime hinders Bulbapedia's status as a true Pokémon encyclopedia, and instead renders the entire project a mere part of Bulbagarden, which is undoubtedly anime-focused. The priority between the anime and manga is up to debate, but I tend to agree that the anime should be listed first for being endorsed by Nintendo. The TCG, though endorsed by Nintendo, should come after the manga for holding a separate share of the franchise. Pokémon, moves, characters, world and meta should follow in the end, as they deal with the ideas introduced in the former categories. This order should be followed in pages relating to the games, anime, manga and TCG (even organized pages, such as this one, give priority to the anime-related contents by listing the Japanese voice actor in the character's introduction and listing the anime category first). --Unown Lord
*Yawns*
As a long time visitor of the beloved Pokemon Forever Site, I often come to this site for one main reason: many Trainers data - battle e, contests, battle frontier etc. Do you mind send me all of the trainer data to me at [email protected]. Thanks for your time. I am really going to miss your great site for good... I first came here since the one warm summer of the year 2000....
I agree with and support Zhen's statement; we would be honored to work PokeFor's volumes of information into Bulbapedia.
Well, this has certainly been a surprise and a half. We'll be sad to see you stop work on your site Meowth, as will I'm sure a great many other people. I can only hope that we live up to the legacy of this inheritance. I'll contact you after I get home from University tonight regarding this Meowth. If you could arrange for us to have a temp. FTP account to download the PokeFor site with, so that we might store it on a local archive while we transfer its information to 'pedia, that'd be most appreciated. --Archaic 21:48, 19 Jul 2005 (UTC)
- Mm, no FTP access. No access to the original files and databases. People can get what they can from my pages, again as long as the reword it. No copy & pasting directly, please. This isn't a license to plagurize, just an affirmation to use and reword the information while it's still there. Of course, the Wayback Machine and Google, Yahoo, etc. have caches. Oh, and there's no way to contact me unless you e-mail me at my Gmail account. --Meowth346 21:53, 19 Jul 2005 (UTC)
- Well...that certainly makes things a lot harder. We weren't intending to plagurize, but having the original information saved locally while we re-write it would've helped a great deal, both in giving us a longer of period of time in which to transfer it, and in allowing us to put up a permanent memorial site of PokeFor as it was at the time it closed, seeing as the Wayback Machine won't be able to manage anything that uses a script (your dex for instance). --Archaic 22:15, 19 Jul 2005 (UTC)
DS games
qoute: Few of us have the skill or talent needed to do as he has done for the game canon. I myself have not the resources to even extract the simplest information from XD, for I have neither a GameCube nor a DVD-ROM drive to read the data with. The upcoming Diamond/Pearl are an even greater challenge: no one has ever dissected a DS Pokémon game before. I am not even aware of any successes in dumping DS games. (It is my hope that when dumped, the structure will not be too different from the GBA.)
I have extracted some graphics from the Pokemon Dash rom before by using UNLZ-Gba... ~Jason