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New Rule Regarding Teams in Social Groups

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evkl

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Hi all,

We've had an issue with Teams in social groups. We've mentioned this rule before, but I wanted to codify it:

"Teams" which involve membership, leadership, and attacking/battling/conflicting with other groups or individuals on these or other forums are not permitted. Any teams which are operating in social groups have 72 hours (until 12:01 Monday morning EDT, 5:01am Monday GMT) to disband and close the social group. Teams which do not comply will have all members infracted for Severe Inappropriate Content. This is an infraction worth 10 points. This is equivalent to an automatic ban, with the length depending on how many existing points you have. Even with zero points, it will lead to a two day ban.

If you are not sure whether your group qualifies as a Team, please contact a member of the staff as soon as possible.

We believe that teams are a detriment to the community and provide a hostile environment for those excluded. They can also harass and intimidate other users and groups, and that's something else we want to avoid. If anyone has questions about this policy, please feel free to contact any of the moderators or admins.

Best,
evkl and the Bulbagarden staff
 
Which members of the staff should we ask? I would really hate to randomly query someone about this.
 
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Me, for one. Also anyone listed as a social group mod or admin (that's people in bold italics.)
 
Please enlighten how a team can be hostile. With no disrespect but this is completely absurd! Teams are a fun great RP opportunity no where else on the fourms!
 
BattleStar, the hostility can stem from the mere perception of attacking someone. With belligerent terms on the internet, it's never clear cut how intentional verbal abuse can be. Much of the problem with the groups last year led to attack parties getting out of hand and the so called 'roleplay' began spilling out to other social groups and in one circumstance off site. It was never clear what was orchestrated and who would have been attacking/retaliating for getting peeved.

That open conflict led to massive complaints from users across the whole site. That's not something we can just ignore.

Even if you can maintain the 'roleplay' this isn't as obvious to other members who take this as a free opportunity to incite pandemonium on other members. While we've worked to allow certain aspects of these teams for the last year, we've unfortunately seen the team groups running into the same critical problems that affect the social stability of the site.

While social groups can foster a great RP environment, for the particular interests of 'Team' function, boundaries aren't as clear cut in the Social Groups leading to a runaway effect where controls over members are lost and the ability to sustain the Roleplay image devolves into chaos. It is evident they can not be kept self contained for long before they devolve into massive outbursts with user casualties.
 
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I have a question regarding the rules about teams. What if a team was created that wasn't feuding with any other teams, and wasn't even about roleplaying, but was just a group of trainers who liked calling themselves a team and doing activities together? For example, if I were to make a group called "The Pokemon Hunters Union" who ran a communal shop, helped each other out with finding rare pokemon, and held internal tournaments, would that be counted as a violation of this rule?
 
That is a different type of team and doesn't fall into the same structure outlined above, so that's fine.
 
So does something like this fall under teams?

Or are you talking about something else?
 
Same question as above, but for Battling Tournaments or leagues, like the Bulbagarden Premier League Round robin style competition where there are fair teams and everything is private.
 
Teams meant just for competitive battling/Pokémon collection and trade etc are not in danger.

The only Teams we disallow are the RP ones who feud with each other and, as Rayne pointed out, things always devolve into chaos. And not the good one.
 
I say we just turn our heads on the group and only inflict punishment if they get out of hand. I can name at least 50 people who enjoy these groups. And besides the "teams" brought vast people to be involved.

Also other site have social groups with teams and they do fine.
 
In the past we've allowed them, and their participants had been given several chances to cease the bickering and flaming that'd result from them. No means no.
 
To add, we are currently working on a formal policy to better structure the rules of the Social Group space.
 
could we have one and only team rocket rp group whose role playing activities wont go out of the group? If any member goes out of control for the rp (dont mind user titles "Rocket Elite Grunt" or siggys like that), ban/warn him/her.

Like:

Thread - Mission 23: Catch Raichus

Description: This is the rp thread for mission 23, Catch Raichus for Experiment.

Boss Raikou and Commander PLC have rocket scientists working on a unlimited electricity project. As you know, Electric pokemon can have unlimited electricity. So we need aleast 100 raichus and experiment.

Sign up/Play this mission in this thread only.


And after its completed, thread will be "Mission 23: Catch Raichus - COMPLETED

and the next mission title "Mission 24: Using Unlimited Electricity: Hijack Rustboro

I mean come on, we need a rp, or maybe a massive rp for the best villan team.

if accepted, This should have ranks, or it wont be rocket after all, in the games grunts always ask for "promotion"
 
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Pure RP groups aren't banned in social groups, either. But having ranking systems is not allowed. That's where the issue is.
 
Whats wrong with ranks leaders are nessacary.

Btw Shadow Rakiou why am i not a commander?
 
What's wrong with ranks is that it's against the rules for a member to tell another member what to do, unless they're staff. We also oppose the idea of members organizing private little "gangs" under their control and then using them for feuds, which is what teams have been so far in the history of Bulbagarden.

No one gets private armies, and no one bosses anyone around unless they're staff.
 
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