PokeBase is a question and answer system. Put simply, members ask questions about Pokemon, and other members answer them! PokeBase is not a traditional forum - questions should be answerable, not discussed endlessly. Please check the rules below to help keep this place running smoothly.
I know some people are too lazy to read this entire page, so here's a short summary of what you can/can't do:
Tell me what Pokemon to usetype questions.
Almost anything about Pokemon! The site is mainly geared toward the Pokemon games but you can ask about the anime/TCG too. Questions can be simple or complex, all are welcome (as long as they follow the rules).
Remember, good questions will usually have one correct answer, no opinions.
What is the best Pokemon?- these questions have no right answer, it's just everyone's opinions.
Is this a good pokemon team?- please make it more specific, for example
How can I improve my team?and including more information. All team questions must have all the Pokemon and all their moves, plus abilities, items and EVs if known.
You can use the chat room feature for off-topic discussion.
Before asking a question, do a quick search by putting a keyword or two into the search box (top right) - we have over 6,000 questions here so it's likely that a similar question was already asked! Check the repeat questions to the right for some of the more common requests.
Make the title clear - for example, How do I do it?
is a bad title because it's impossible to tell what the question is about. But, How do I EV train?
is a good title.
In the next stage you can add more detail to your question. Please write in normal sentences, not in text-speak or shorthand. Make sure to include all relevant information - for example if you want team suggestions, you must post all the moves the Pokemon have. It's also useful to include abilities, natures and any items they hold.
Tags are keywords
that you can use to identify your post. Simply choose the most important words from your post. This can include the game you are playing (e.g. heartgold
), a pokemon name (e.g. dragonite
) or a move name (e.g. tackle
). Use a hyphen if the keyword has a space in it, for example hyper-beam
or mr-mime
.
If someone else has already answered the question correctly there is no need to add another answer, unless you can add a lot more information. You can vote up the existing answer to agree
with it.
As with questions, please write in normal sentences, not in text-speak or shorthand. If you find information from other web sites, do not copy-paste huge chunks. You could quote a few sentences but it's better to write it yourself in a way that answers the question directly. Also, don't just post a link as an answer with nothing else. Answer the question then maybe add a link to the page for "more information".
We now have a rich-text editor for both questions and answers. Formatting should be used sparingly to improve readability, such as putting things in lists. If everything is in bold then nothing stands out!
The editor uses something called Markdown
, which is a very simple text format. For example, italic text is written as *italic* and bold text as **bold**. You can quote other sources by starting the line with >. Lists are created using an asterisk or dash before each one.
You can use the buttons at the top of the field to add formatting easily. There is also a preview under the editor field so you can check everything looks good as you go along.
You can also vote on questions and answers. If you see an interesting question, vote it up. If you see a good and correct answer, vote it up. Answers with the most votes will appear at the top of the list so that anyone coming to the page will see the right answer straight away!
If you see a question that is very poorly written or breaks one of the rules here, then vote it down. If you see an incorrect answer you can vote it down. If you vote something down, please consider adding a comment so that it can be improved!
Please don't vote down for the hell of it or if you don't care about the question/answer. Questions can range from very simple to very complex, but as long as they follow the rules above, all questions are welcome!
Users also get points if their questions/answers are voted up. At the moment the points don't do anything special, apart from maybe giving you a feeling of superiority over other members :p In the future they may allow you to aid in moderating the site and so on.
All team questions go on the Rate My Team sub-section here. You must follow some slightly stricter rules here, this is just to stop it getting overrun with pointless unanswerable questions. You must include: