Meta-PokéBase Q&A
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As many of us know, Pokemon DB's location guide is far from reliable, so it might not contain the full answer to questions like "How do I get Chikorita in HGSS?" I don't think those questions should be considered "can be easily looked up on PokemonDb" and not allowed. Please allow them from now on.

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Yes please. The whole entire ‘look it up on the site’ rule is a pain to moderate. You could answer any number of things with info on this site if you knew where to look. That includes stuff like ‘How do I breed x move onto y Pokémon?’ that encourages the exact type of expertise we want on this site to begin with.
The whole point of this community is people don’t know where to look, or don’t understand the mechanics when they do. It makes this rule very arbitrary in terms of what counts. The threads themselves harm nobody and don’t even come up often. Just let people have their answer and move on.
Fizz, but couldn't this be better that only new-users do this?
What do you mean? IMO it is a bad rule no matter who is involved.
In that case, can you re-show this? https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/301644/
What does IMO mean?
In my opinion

1 Answer

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Best answer

I understand what you're saying, but the rule is there to avoid us having thousands of pointless questions duplicating what we already have on the site. The rule is intended for really trivial stuff that would have a one word answer (like the example of a move's base power).

I realise that our location guide is not perfect so I don't see a problem with some location questions being asked (the original intent of Pokebase was to help fill in gaps on the rest of the site). And the examples Fizz gave I think are fine because they are more specific and involve looking up multiple bits of information.

But your example of Chikorita can easily be looked up here. Heck I just typed "chikorita locations" into Google and our Chikorita Pokedex is the first one in the list, there is a big blue banner at the top with a link to "locations".

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Sure, we have Chikorita locations, but what if they're wrong? Or incomplete?
I don't think any of the locations are "wrong" exactly, just missing. Where we have a location it is correct as far as I know. So if there is a location listed there you already have your answer. If it's missing then it would be OK to ask a question about it. Or if the only location is extremely rare there is no problem asking a question such as "is there an easier way to catch Mareanie?"
Maybe we are missing some obscure Chikorita location in HGSS. Who knows?
This is a good precedence. Could it be made clearer in the rules the specific type of question that breaks the rule (e.g. mention one-word answers)? The wording it has now is too broad and is what caused by problem with the rule to begin with. Make it obvious that it’s pretty lenient.
I’m just going to mention though, we should never moderate believing people would know in advance what is missing. The whole point is they don’t know anything on the topic. If we allow one location question, then we should allow all of them, or else we’re only blurring the line further. Having vague rules is a hallmark of poor moderation and bad culture.