Bulbapedia:Messages from the Editor

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2012

June 25

They are here! Black 2 and White 2 are out now in Japan and we are adding info at a steady pace. Thing is, B2W2 has brought forth a number of changes to the usual Pokémon formula, so this isn't as simple as games past. Yes, the site will be locked for a short time, but once we get all the basics up and ready, it will be open to the public once again.

We also had the English release of Pokémon Conquest not long ago which gives us not one, but two games to add onto the site. We have a lot of work to do ahead, but it's all a part of the job on a wiki. Conquest is an entirely new type of game to the Pokémon franchise and with the rave reviews it's getting, it might not be the only one of its kind.

We would also like to once again congratulate The Speed Gamers on their recent Pokémon capture charity drive. Bulbagarden is proud to have been able to stream the whole thing live right here on the front page of Bulbapedia. TSG exceeded their $50,000 goal and managed an awesome $59,111.00! It just goes to show that Pokémon fans are the best kind of fans.

March 31

Howdy folks, this is MAGNEDETH, the Editor-in-Chief of Bulbapedia. Normally when we send these messages from the editor, we send them as a group. No one person is "the editor" on a wiki, so we feel that when we, the staff, sends a message, it is from all of the staff. However, I have an important message today that handles a major change above even the Editorial Board.

As our wiki changes, so does our staff. They come and go as time goes by, and every staff member's work is appreciated. But it isn't very often we have such a big change at the top of the board. My Deputy Editor-in-Chief, The dark lord trombonator, has decided to move on from Bulbapedia and focus on other projects. Don't worry folks, he isn't going too far. As we announced about one month ago, Trom can now be located as the Editor-in-Chief of Bulbanews.

Trom leaves Bulbapedia with a lengthy list of things he has accomplished, and without him, Bulbapedia would not be shaped the way it is today. The amount of effort and dedication Trom has put forth into Bulbapedia in the past is insurmountable. I wanted Trom to stick around, and I wanted to hand-off Bulbapedia to him when my time here is done, and it disappoints me a little that I won't be able to do that, and it disappoints me even more to know I won't see Trom's name grace the Recent Changes like it once did. But I have said many times that while the staff here has a job to do, I don't want Bulbapedia to interfere with anyone's personal life, and I know Trom has opportunities outside of the site he would like to pursue, and holding the Deputy spot, as well as being the EiC of Bulbanews would stretch him too thin. I'm just glad that my former deputy and friend, Trom, will still be there helping Bulbagarden; he'll just be next door is all.

However, with Trom gone, it leaves a rather noticeable opening on the Bulbapedia staff ranking. That's where Werdnae comes in. I knew replacing Trom would be difficult, but Trom and Werdnae have been working together to the point where a lot of Trom's knowledge has been passed onto Werdnae. That doesn't mean Werdnae isn't full of his own ideas though, he wouldn't have made it on the staff in the first place if he wasn't an excellent editor. I look forward to working with Werdnae leading the site and continuing to maintain our position as the #1 Pokémon website.

That all being said, the staff have been gathering new ideas to improve the site, and get ready for the release of Black and White 2, so expect some changes here and there as time goes on. And be sure to check Bulbanews for when information on Black and White 2 gets released (which has proven to be few and far between), you can be sure that Trom will have all info accounted for.

This has been a special message brought to you by the Editor-in-Chief,
— MAGNEDETH

February 26

BEHOLD!!! The mighty Kyurem is upon us!

After an unbelievable hype, Black and White sequels (yes, there are two of them) have finally been revealed. Please be extra cautious while adding new information to the articles and avoid baseless speculation as well. All information must come from official Nintendo sources, not from fan sites.

With that being said, do not forget to say hello to our newest family members, Keldeo and Meloetta.

On the other hand, thank you for participating in the Christmas contests. We hope that you all had a good time. As far as the prizes are concerned, our webmaster Archaic is trying his level best to ship them as soon as possible. So, bear with us and have some patience.

Last but not least, please welcome our new Bulbanews Editor-in-Chief, trom! We would like to wish him all the very best for a bright future. To our former Editor-in-Chief RexRacer, thank you for serving Bulbanews for almost three years and making it a wonderful place for all of us. Good luck, sir!

2011

December 16

Thank you to everyone who filled out an application form for the recent staff drive. We had over 130 Bulbapedia, Bulbanews, and Archives users wanting to be part of the team that keeps the wikis running. That's a huge amount. Obviously we can't hire everybody, but please give a warm welcome to new Bulbapedia Junior Administrators Ataro, Dennou Zenshi, Force Fire, MisterE13, Spriteit, Turtwig A, and Toon Ganondorf. Over on Bulbanews, Water Max and BaileyPlaysPokemon have been selected as new writers, with columnist announcements delayed until the new year.

There's also been a few promotions within the existing wiki staff. Kogoro will now be formally heading Bulbagarden Archives, and Kenji-girl, Maverick Nate, Werdnae, and Zesty Cactus join the re-energized Editorial Board.

Congratulations to those above, and others, on their new roles. And congratulations to you, the humble Bulbapedia editor as well. It is thanks to your hard work that we end the year with over 20,000 articles. That's an increase of over 2,000 pages since this time last year. But the work isn't done yet! In case you hadn't noticed, we're having another Christmas contest this year — the Festive Frontier, where you can win prizes simply for editing. Check it out if you haven't yet, and the other Bulbagarden contests, too. There's something for everyone (although we feel somewhat compelled to emphasize Day 2 of the Twelve Days of Christmas contest...).

Happy holidays!

November 4

Hey everyone. In case you missed it, look! New Main Page layout! Shiny.

If you want to have your work featured in this box up the top here, get in touch with trom. The content changes every day, so if you want your writing to be the first thing everyone sees when they visit Bulbapedia, pick a topic and put together a few fun facts our readers may be interested in. This is a great way to get involved with the Bulbapedia community.

If you really want to get into the community, why not apply for a staff role? Bulbapedia, Bulbanews, and the Archives are currently hiring. If you've been around for a while, have a handle on the rules and a clear head, then check out the job descriptions on Bulbanews and fill out an application form. We look forward to hearing from you.

Happy editing!

November 1

If you're reading this, congratulations: you survived Halloween. Hopefully you also remembered to pick up your promotional Global Link Banette as well.

You may have also noticed something different about the Bulbapedia Main Page. If not, take a look around. Our new layout has gone live after a few months of testing. This is the first Main Page update since we went "roundy" about three years ago, so we hope you enjoy.

If there are any problems with the Main Page, let us know about them here. Obviously with many different screen resolutions available it won't look the same for everyone but it shouldn't look awful for anyone.

Before you go back to the rest of the wiki, have a look at the center box on the top row. In this box we are hoping to feature work submitted by Bulbapedia editors and readers. If you're interested in collecting some relevant and interesting information from around the site and (most importantly) getting it displayed in a prominent location, get in touch with trom. He looks forward to hearing from you.

Happy editing!

October 22

Thank you all for your patience over the past few months. Our recently revamped servers are chugging along just nicely and as such we have relaxed some of the rules instituted since the release of Pokémon Black and White.

Firstly, the ban on adding trivia has been removed. However! Please think twice before you add trivia. Make sure that this edit contributes to the article as a whole and is not just a coincidence or irrelevant bullet point.

Secondly, we have amended our userspace policy to permit at most three userspace edits per day (cue excited screams). There is a slight catch though - in order to continue the large volume of constructive edits Bulbapedia has amassed over the past few months, we ask that you make at least one more edit to the mainspace than your userspace every day. For example, if you want to make three userspace edits, you have to make at least four mainspace edits as well.

There will be a few more changes around Bulbapedia in the near future — but we can't say too much at the moment. Watch this space!

September 9

Bulbapedia, Bulbanews, and the Bulbagarden Archives are all open and once again running as per normal... except with hopefully fewer technical disruptions.

Our revamped servers are up and running, but we are still fiddling with them so an error may pop up now or then, but we can't finalize the server optimization unless everyone edits like normal. We've also recently installed the latest MediaWiki version (full release details here). Most of the changes to the system will be back-end stuff, but you may see a few changes to your own editing interface. The update should hopefully contribute to a faster-running site.

Once we get the whole system running properly and everyone is happy, we will roll out some of those projects spoken of in the previous message (new templates, section changes, etc). In the meantime, enjoy the new site, and if you encounter a recurring problem, please report it to our official problem reporting thread. Once again, we thank you guys for all your support, and hopefully the updated system will prove a success!

August 28

BULBAPEDIA IS OPEN! But the Bulbagarden Archives are still closed unfortunately.

Our revamped servers are up and running, but we are still fiddling with them so an error may pop up now or then, but we can't finalize the server optimization unless everyone edits like normal. Once we get the whole system running properly and everyone is happy, we will roll out some of those projects spoken of in the previous message (new templates, section changes, etc). In the meantime, enjoy the new site, and if you encounter a recurring problem, please report it to our official problem reporting thread. Once again, we thank you guys for all your support, and hopefully the updated system will prove a success!

August 18

BULBAPEDIA AND ALL RELATED WIKIS WILL BE LOCKED FROM EDITING AS OF SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 2011 UTC.

**UPDATE: August 23** - Site closure will be extended for an unknown amount of time. We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience. Check back here for updates!

Now the real questions are why, and for how long. Well, lets answer them:

Why will the wikis be closed? - We are closing the site to to overhaul our server backend. As many of you are well aware, our site has been running...well pretty badly. Errors abound! We have been upgrading our servers steadily for the past year or two, but the thing is, more of you keep visiting us! This is totally acceptable, but the site is growing so fast we can't keep up! So we are closing the site to restructure the system, and that will hopefully alleviate the issue.

How long will the wikis be closed? - The tentative duration is currently 3 days, but anything can happen. We may reopen in two days, we may take four, but three is the goal. The site will still be available to view and browse, but we can't promise it will be running all that smooth until the job is done, so sadly, errors may still happen.

After these updates, we hope to take advantage of the new servers and do some updates around the site. Re-organizing some pages and sections, new and updated templates, that sort of stuff. We thank you guys for all your support (even though you destroyed our servers), and we hope that with our updated system we can continue offering all the information you need, and the stuff you don't! While we are closed, you can still browse the forums (which will be operational) or hang out in our IRC channel at #bulbapedia.

May 25

As the Black and White hype continues and so does the high server load, we have a couple of announcements for our valuable users. To begin with Bulbagarden Archives, a new rule has been implemented - that personal images are no longer allowed on the Archives. All the previously uploaded personal images will be deleted after May 31, so kindly save any of your personal images before they are all deleted. There are plenty of image hosting sites which can be used for personal images instead.

As far as Bulbapedia is concerned, a new userspace restriction has been put in place - that articles about anime Pokémon must not be created in the userspace. Articles for notable Pokémon should be created in the mainspace once the relevant episode airs. Articles created before the change will not be deleted until their notability is decided.

Last but not the least, the Bulbagarden forums are currently being upgraded to vBulletin 4.1.3. Until the upgrade is complete, any suggestions, comments or issues can also be voiced on the test forums or on the Bulbapedia IRC channel, #bulbapedia.

Remember the preview button, not to add trivia and one userspace edit per day. Thanks to all of our users for dedicating their precious time and contributing. Have fun!

April 16

Bulbapedia is finally open for editing. However the servers are still under very heavy load, which you may notice results in longer load times and occasional errors. To help limit the load, userspace editing is strictly limited to one edit per day, using the UTC clock at the top of every page. We would also like to remind you that the articles are the main purpose of Bulbapedia, so please edit them as well. Due to the inherent unimportance of trivia sections, we formally request editing and discussion of trivia sections be left alone for the time being.

Secondly, several users have been receiving edit requests via e-mail. If you receive one, you should ask yourself 1) why the sender can't make the edit themselves, and 2) why the edit request has been made off-site. The answer to both is that the sender has been permanently blocked from editing, and is requesting that poor edits be made. In fulfilling these edit requests, you are helping a user to circumvent their block. Instead, report it to a staff member and ignore or block any further e-mails you receive. Do not reply to the e-mail, this will allow the sender to contact you directly if they are not already.

Staff would like to remind users to be careful with their e-mail address. We can only block e-mails that are sent through the wiki. The Bulbapedia IRC channel, #bulbapedia, remains in need of activity. Remember the preview button, and happy editing.

March 4

BLACK AND WHITE ARE HERE!! As everyone clamors to grab a copy, we want to be here to bring you all the information we can. That being said, we also want your experience with the site to be as smooth as possible, so we have disabled editing to all non-staff users. While annoying to many (sorry), it should help the site run more efficiently. During this lock, our Staff will still continue to update information though, so don't worry, the site will continue to update even through the lockdown.

Speaking of staff, as Black and White bring us into a new era, we aim to bring you the best service we can, but the only way we can do that is with a staff of dedicated individuals to run the show. On that note, it's time to give them an overhaul. A number of your favorite staff members have been promoted, including three very special promotions. Congratulations to CoolPikachu! and Jello whom are now members of the Editorial Board! CoolPikachu! has been moving his way up the ranks for the past couple years and has arrived on the board thanks to his hard work and dedication. However, there's no discrediting Jello as she has likewise worked extra hard, on not just one site, but two. Jello took over the Bulbagarden Archives earlier this year and has been directing it with great focus.

That leaves us with the third promotion. Upon taking the Editor-in-Chief position, I am to choose my deputy, and I have chosen our resident dark lord, The dark lord trombonator. Trom has done an amazing amount of work over his time here at Bulbapedia running our contests, Golden Bulbasaur Awards, and a number of other projects as well. Kogoro, the former deputy Editor-in-Chief will move into a new role as the site's Technical Director.

To close, again, sorry about the lockdown, but it's a precaution to help you folks use our site better. For any suggestions, comments, issues, or whatnot, you can visit the Bulbapedia section of the Bulbagarden forums OR our all new Bulbapedia IRC located at #bulbapedia (imagine that). Thanks to all of our users for your continued effort and have fun with Black and White!

January 11

It is a new year, and with this new year brings many new things to Bulbapedia! I sure hope everyone can keep up!

I'll start with me. Hi, I am the new Editor-in-Chief of Bulbapedia, MAGNEDETH. Getting used to the new position is tough but I am up for the task. There are changes on the way, but for the most part, the same easy-to-use and informative Bulbapedia will be here for you. However, some changes on the horizon will be aimed to make both surfing and editing the site easier. Give it time, they are on the horizon.

Next up we have the release of two main series games. There will be a lot of new information to add to the site and we can really use your help to handle it. New Pokémon, moves, locations, items, you name it! It should be noted that a lockdown may happen, but we don't want to do that. Rest assured, if it does happen, it's simply done to relieve server stress. We don't like preventing our users from editing, but we also don't like when no one can see the site because it's masked behind a big 504 error.

And lastly, but by no means least, the Bulbagarden Archives, an extremely important part of our site that is often overlooked. All of our images stem from our Archives, so don't forget about it! There are plenty of images this site needs and you can help upload them. But be aware, the Archives are closely moderated due to its important activity, so make sure to read the rules before helping out.

For any suggestions, comments, issues, or whatnot, you can visit the Bulbapedia section of the Bulbagarden forums. Thanks to all of our users for your continued effort and have fun.

2010

December 1

A warm welcome to the new Editor-in-Chief, MAGNEDETH, and a hearty farewell to the guy making this edit, TTEchidna.

While TTE will not be leaving Bulbapedia as a whole, his active responsibility, which has been increasingly sparse over the past few months, will be ended. This comes after a particularly high-stress time; going through graduate classes and attempting to keep 649 Pokémon species straight really can wear you down to the point of insanity, especially when coupled with a part-time job at a world-famous store where customer interaction is constant.

And so, an era ends. From this point on, all Bulbapedia Editors-in-Chief will serve in their position for two years, and then pass on this position to another user of their choosing, with the approval of Archaic. A longer message can be found in the Bulbawiki general forum on the Bulbagarden forums, where well-wishing and criticism can be given. Please do not leave messages on TTE's talk page.

And so, folks, I wish you all well. Me? I'm going on vacation in two weeks.

November 5

Over the past few weeks, the site has been slowly filling up with information related to the new Pokémon games, Black and White. Bulbapedia now has articles about each of the 156 new Pokémon, all the new moves and abilities, and the recent new anime series. But we're still not done! As you continue to update the site with information, remember that you shouldn't be taking information from other fan sites. This is partly so our translations stay consistent, but also because we need to make sure that the information we are putting up is 100% correct. If you have Black or White, we'd love your help.

A big thanks goes out to everyone who's helped so far, especially to the fifteen temporary junior administrators who gave us a hand while the site was locked down. Some of them have been kept on as permanent staff (more fool them!).

A reminder also that Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs goes on sale today in Europe and the United Kingdom. If you live in those areas, don't forget to get your games and take part in the latest in the popular Pokémon Ranger series.

September 18

The games are out, and a flood of information is upon us! Due to the wealth of details, the site has been locked from editing by all non-staff members and at this point will stay locked so we can get a lot of major updates handled without the majority of people getting in the way (ie: edit conflicts), so we are going to work on getting all the Pokémon pages, locations, moves, abilities, movesets, items, and other major additions to gameplay. We know it sounds like it will take a long time, and well, it might, but we are hoping to be done with the lockdown in under a week.

We don't like locking our users out of a community driven site, but it's so we can get everyone as much info as fast as we can while maintaining our usual quality standards. We don't want to be rushed here and it will save us the hassle of an inevitably short sighted new user who will ignore the rules and go posting information they got off of GameFAQs forums or another unofficial source. So check back often as new info is added to the site every second!

September 9

Pokémon learnsets are beginning to have their templates upgraded: above all else, do not attempt to jump in to help if you do not know what to do. Questions can be addressed to any of Bulbapedia's staff, most especially TTEchidna, who can show you how to make the templates work.

Black and White are likely to leak within the next week or so, so keep on your toes. Bulbapedia may go on a brief lockdown, allowing only staff to edit, shortly after release so as to prevent speculation and unsourced facts, however, after this time, normal editing privileges will return.

September 1

Black and White approach quickly. As they do, we are updating templates that will have relevance to them. These templates need input, and will often be posted in a thread on the Bulbawiki forum.

We are seeking the opinion of Bulbapedia's editors for what to do in regards to Generation V's release. Should the wiki be locked down or should it not be? Please vote in this thread to make sure your voice is heard.

For fans of other Nintendo series, Metroid: Other M, the most recent Metroid game, has been released in the US and internationally. For news concerning this and other Metroid series titles, visit our NIWA associates at Metroid Wiki!

August 13

Bulbapedia prides itself on its community. The site would not be where it is today without the input it has received from all of you. Thanks, guys.

Some names have stood out among the masses, though. These users have all been awarded a Golden Bulbasaur Award (or variant thereof) in recognition of the time and commitment they've put in. A special award this time is for the Crystal Bulbasaur - an award given to a user who has given his or her all over a one-year period. For 2009, we would like to give this to every single user that helped out with the updates regarding the English release of Pokémon Platinum and the Japanese release of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. As we mentioned above, it is the dedication by the community that allows the wiki to succeed.

The Editorial Board endeavors to hand these out on a regular basis, but (as you've probably realized) we sometimes get forgetful. You can help us in this regard by sending an email to the Community Development Officer if you have any suggestions for the next round of awards. They'll be in a couple of months.

Also here in a month or so will be the Japanese release of Pokémon Black and White Versions. To prepare for this, we have a few ongoing tasks which you can help out with. However, if you're following the Black and White news updates, please be careful with new information, and take care not to insert unconfirmed rumors into pages and present them as facts.

Thanks for your help, everyone, but we aren't done yet. Let's keep improving our wiki and prepare for the next generation.

August 5

As the Japanese release of Pokémon Black and White Versions draws nearer and the new features of Generation V are slowly revealed, Bulbapedia faces many large-scale updates, which all of us are working hard to execute. As always, we rely greatly on our community, and there are many ways for you, the users, to help.

One major change that we've done is moving all route articles to a new naming system to include the region name. Route 1, for example, has been moved to Kanto Route 1, while the former title has been turned into a disambiguation page. This means that thousands of pages need to be edited to relink to the new names. {{rtn|2}}, for example, needs to be turned into {{rtn|2|Kanto}}, and so on. In town infoboxes, new parameters have been added, as can be seen in New Bark Town. We hope to finish this job within a few weeks - which will only be doable with your help.

We would also like to remind everyone to be careful with new information, and be careful not to insert unconfirmed rumors into pages and present them as facts. This is especially true for information acquired solely from other English websites not affiliated with Bulbagarden.

We wish the community a Happy New Generation. Let's get to work and make sure Bulbapedia is ready for it.

June 29

While server issues still remain, Bulbapedia has been restored to its normal, rounded self, with the {{roundy}} being found to have caused only minimal problems, mostly with regard to a slowdown in loading pages for those browsing the site due to the switch statements present. Roundy remains in service, now without the switch statements, while eight new templates take over for rounding individual corners and sides of Bulbapedia's tables.

The server issues that remain appear to be related to Bulbagarden's load balancer, which, under normal circumstances, keeps the five servers that the website operates from in sync and serving Bulbagarden's community as one united entity. This glitch, which appeared as we were fixing the roundy-related issues, will possibly be flushed out of the system when the Bulbawiki network upgrades to MediaWiki version 1.16.0 on its exit from beta. Until then, please be patient, and tread lightly on your edits, which can make for disaster if too many are made in quick succession, especially to templates. If Bulbagarden goes down for any time, expect it to be back up within five minutes, thanks to a new feature which will auto-restart the website after a crash.

Meanwhile, discussion of the new Pokémon introduced with Generation V can be made on the Bulbagarden Forums. Articles on the recently-revealed species will be up in due time, when more data can be gleaned from future screenshots and videos, as ones we currently have access to are limited in this.

June 15

With the continuous server issues, Bulbapedia regrets to inform you that the rounded corners that have become so standard will all be removed until further notice. While those without Firefox have not been able to see them, the two-month-old {{roundy}} template, which brought rounded corners to those who are not Firefox users, has been suspected of being the centerpoint of the problem.

Please do not remove the template from pages on which it is used; hopefully it is not the problem and rounded corners, as well as editing, will return soon.

Also, congratulations to our fellows at ZeldaWiki.org for getting the remake that Zelda fans so desired.

June 1

As we move closer and closer to Generation V, the Bulbapedia community continues to expand. Welcome to all our new users (please read the rules and guidelines to help you contribute) and welcome to our new staff members: Tina, Umeko, and Zesty Cactus as Bulbapedia Junior Administrators and Jello and PsychicRider as Bulbagarden Archives Junior Administrators. These guys should be your first stop for simple questions about the wiki.

With more and more information about the fifth generation of Pokémon coming out by the week, we need to make sure the information we're putting out is correct. This means waiting for announcements from Pokémon Sunday, CoroCoro and other official sources before information goes onto the mainspace. As speculation often builds up before these publications come out, pages may be protected by staff. We ask that you do not try to circumvent these measures; they are put in place to ensure Bulbapedia has accurate, high quality information.

Additionally, we need to remind you all that the talk pages of the wiki are not meant for discussion of the subject of the article, but its content. Note the difference: chatting about what you think might happen, or your opinion about a new Pokémon is not permitted and should be taken to the Bulbagarden forums; discussing ways we can improve the article or pointing out flaws is what these pages should be used for.

And even though we've got new games on the horizon, don't forget about the older games. There are still lots of articles that need information and cleanup to meet Bulbapedia's standards. It's easier if we all chip in - don't be afraid to lend a hand!

April 22

As we celebrate the third anniversary of the English release of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, as well as of Generation IV itself, Bulbapedia continues to move forward.

Bulbagarden Networks has established a group on Facebook in order to better connect with the community at large, found here, while the recently-established NIWA also has a new Facebook group, located here. Join up and hit "like", especially if you liek Mudkipz.

The upcoming summer promises to be chock-full of information on Pokémon Black and White as we grow ever closer to their autumn release, and Bulbapedia will be changing some things around. A rearrangement of the staff structure, in the works for some time now, will see a more gradual slope for users to join the community and become full-fledged members of it. Bulbapedia, Bulbanews, and Bulbagarden Archives are all taking applications for the newly-created Junior Administrator group which will be established in the coming days, so check out the forum thread here for details on how to apply.

March 26

Yet another release of Pokémon games has come and gone, though unlike many others, this release was a much hyped one, both by the staff of Bulbapedia as well as by Nintendo itself.

Due to this hype, however, Bulbagarden's traffic has increased tenfold overnight. Even with a third server installed shortly before the North American release of the remakes, and a fourth on its way already, Bulbagarden has a hard time outputting all of the connections requested of it by users who visit it. This is the reason for the 503 errors: the servers work as hard as they possibly can, yet still, it becomes impossible to give the information out to as many people as are visiting, like a spokesperson handing out fliers who is surrounded by an eager crowd could be overwhelmed.

Due to this, editing by non-staff on Bulbapedia has, for the moment, been disabled. This is not a malicious act to keep editing in the hands of those in charge and to shut out ideas, as some might think, but as a precaution to prevent more 503 errors, or worse, a complete shutdown of the site. Being a wiki, Bulbapedia requires a lot of resources, with edits to it making for a majority of the stress Bulbagarden's servers receive daily. Under normal load, this stress is negligible, and hundreds of users can be on the site at once, editing any one of our more than 16,000 mainspace pages. Under the increased load, however, even with only some 20 users having the ability to edit, 503's still appear from time to time.

It is unknown when the load from the influx of new members of the Bulbagarden community will begin to ease, though as of this writing it has only been seen to increase, even with the third server's power. As such, it is impossible to predict when the ability for normal users to edit will return. Patience, however, is a virtue, and will be justly rewarded with many new things to do and updates to make when editing returns.

In the meantime, the administration of Bulbapedia can still be contacted on the Bulbagarden forums, specifically in the Bulbapedia section, or users may send members of the administration an email, and edits to mainspace pages or templates can be requested of them. Userspace editing, on the return of normal editing, will remain in a restricted state for some time after, with only one edit per day allowed. Your HeartGold and SoulSilver teams, Friend Codes, and so on should be condensed into this edit. Users who make more than this single edit in a day will have their userpages locked down for as many days as they made edits over this limit, and repeat offenders may have their pages locked for longer.

Meanwhile, enjoy HeartGold and SoulSilver, as well as the remnants of the Team Rocket takeover, which will remain as a selectable skin on the Bulbawiki system as well as on the forums.

February 14

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Bulbapedia's being open to public editing. This milestone, ever great, allows us to take a look back at the history of the wiki, as well as the website in general. Occurring only a week after the revelation of the first Generation V Pokémon, this can remind us that we have come far from where the wiki began, those years ago. In 2005, we were still eagerly awaiting the third version of Hoenn, Pokémon Emerald, to be released outside of Japan, and knew that the end of Generation III was quickly nearing.

Here, now, we have gotten the remakes of Generation II many hoped for since Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. The style of the wiki has changed drastically, with the plain charts of the old days now replaced by colorful templates that maintain a particular theme across a page.

Today, to celebrate this accomplishment, we are unveiling a new, custom, Bulbagarden-themed skin for Bulbapedia, created by our own Jioruji Derako. This is only the first in a series of skins, which are to be created to better integrate the wiki trio with the Bulbagarden forums, as well as with other parts of the site.

Only one month remains until HeartGold and SoulSilver are released in the US, when we will finally be certain of the names of the newly-introduced characters. Likewise, Generation V's brand-new information, still on its way, must be verified before it goes into the mainspace, so as to maintain our high level of quality.

February 7

Well, it's that time again. As have Generations I, II, and III before it, our beloved Generation IV is coming quickly to a close. The revelations have begun, and Junichi Masuda himself has announced the first Generation V Pokémon.

That is not to say that we should be fast to act! We must maintain our quality on Bulbapedia, even in the face of unconfirmed information. The Bulbapedia administration, including me, hang tight to the right channels for new Pokémon revelations, and rest assured, there is no need to worry or create an article for any new Pokémon yet.

This mysterious new Pokémon, whatever it is, will have its article created in due time. Do not rush. Do not worry. It will not be forgotten. Details must be verified before we create an article, when the Pokémon's full details are revealed in two weeks.

Details on Generation V are sparse right now, however, within ten months' time, all will be known. We have no need to get the information out as fast as possible here; our primary motivation should be well-written articles that inform, rather than poorly-written articles whose only purpose is to give the creator bragging rights (really, creating the Sinnoh Pokédex listing was no big deal). Writing an article that needs minimal maintenance in the coming days, months, and even years is much better than writing one that needs much maintenance to even be decent.

In closing, do not panic. Give us time to collect information, and do a little hunting yourself. Meanwhile, go back and enjoy Johto. Only five weeks remain until you can...

2009

November 30

This particular issue is actually rather important, so we're hoping that bringing it to everyone's attention will make an impact.

When uploading images, please be sure that the filenames contain alphanumeric (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) characters only!

We've had this message up at the top of the archives for ages now, but people still aren't paying attention to it. This is not just an issue of filename aesthetics, as some people seem to be treating it as. Putting filenames up there with characters outside of these, including punctuation, Japanese characters, or just weird characters (such as those from glitch Pokémon for instance) cause problems with our web server. I'll save you the specifics, but it results in a cascade which can cause the server to lock up in a manner which requires us to perform a manual reset.

It's a very simple request, and coming into December, I think we can all agree that we'd like to see as little downtime as possible from people simply not reading, or ignoring, the rules. Any users who can't do during this holiday period will be receiving a ban from editing and uploading on the Bulbawiki network until the New Year. There will be no warnings, no second chances.

November 16

Bulbapedia is, as you know, a community project. However, every community has its leaders, and a number of positions have become available.

Active contributors to articles under the Project Games scope are invited to apply for the position of Project Leader. A wide knowledge of all Pokémon games is required, especially regarding the oft-neglected side games. One or more users may be selected (as co-Leaders). If you are interested, see the talk page for details.

Bulbanews is also hiring. A range of positions have become available overseeing various sections of the site including (but not limited to) anime, games, TCG and miscellaneous/other. These "section editors" will be directly answerable to Bulbanews's Editor-in-Chief (currently Argy) and will govern over their selected fields. If you feel you have something to offer, see this forum thread.

If you don't think you're ready for a leadership role, that's fine. Bulbapedia and Bulbanews's writers are just as important. Don't forget we have a huge number of incomplete and low-quality pages: do your best to help complete our Pokémon encyclopedia!

November 5

As most of you probably noticed, Bulbapedia has been closed to editing for about 24 hours for maintenance. During this time the staff has worked hard to move two manga sections to their English names. Pokémon Special has been moved to Pokémon Adventures, and Pokémon PiPiPi Adventure has been moved to Magical Pokémon Journey. All relating articles and templates have been moved as well, and the characters of Blue and Green have been switched, so please be sure to check the list of link templates and follow the new names from now on.

It is possible that some instances of the old names were missed. If you come across one, please change it to fit our new standards. We would like to thank everybody who participated in this mass move. We will continue working hard to make Bulbapedia the best, most accurate Pokémon encyclopedia on the internet - by the fans, for the fans.

November 2

Starting this Thursday night (the 5th) and possibly until sometime in the weekend, Bulbapedia will be closed to editing, due to maintenance work. During this time the staff will be taking care of a large-scale move that might be stressing to our servers, and for that reason regular users will not be able to submit any edits.

There is no reason to be concerned about this. This move is done purely for the purpose of having a better, more accurate Bulbapedia. Editing privileges will be returned to the users by the end of the weekend.

Please do not start asking the staff about the nature of the move planned. This will be revealed during the weekend.

October 14

As some of you may have seen recently, there is an iPhone Pokédex application that was recently released, which uses Bulbapedia to supply its content. Due to licensing issues and other concerns, this is a no-no on the app creator's part; Bulbapedia is a non-commercial entity, while said app is decidedly commercial.

As the app's creators have not addressed these concerns despite Bulbagarden's efforts, Bulbapedia has begun to address these concerns for them. For those of you who view the site regularly, this has no effect on you; for those who edit regularly, you may notice that all of the Pokémon species articles have been temporarily protected from edits while we change variables. Don't worry; the wiki is not being vandalized, and all the changes being made are purely non-aesthetic ones.

Bulbagarden and Bulbapedia take content copyrights very seriously; rest assured that we will never allow others to make profit from your hard work and contributions here.

October 10

Bulbagarden is proud to announce the opening of its new Battle Center! The Battle Center is a place to solicit and accept wireless battles for the Generation IV games that are Wi-Fi compatible. Both competitive and casual battlers are welcome, so you'll always fit in. Better yet, you can use the Trade Center to find the Pokémon you need to achieve victory, and then use your new acquisitions to win in the Battle Center!

As a component of this, you can access our new IRC battling chat via your own IRC client (we're on irc.systemnet.info) or through our forums JavaChat. Just type in /join #bulbabattle - it's very easy, and will provide another way for you to find battlers.

As we mentioned during the unveiling of the Trade Center a month and a half ago, the Forums support both Pokémon and non-Pokémon discussion across a wide variety of topics. If you're interested in more in-depth discussion than Bulbapedia allows, we recommend that you register here and enjoy more of the services that Bulbagarden has to offer!

Bulbagarden is always adding exciting new features and offering a better, more engaging experience for Pokémon fans. As always, we thank thank you, the community, for your continued support as we continue to grow. We really couldn't do it without you.

September 20

HeartGold and SoulSilver have arrived in Japan, and, as always, there are new tasks pertaining to the games that Bulbapedia members can work on. See "Ongoing Work" for more details.

Instead of discussing the new games on Bulbapedia talk pages, make sure to keep questions and comments about the games to the new HGSS Discussion Forum on BMGf.

Also, if you haven't already visited it, a new Trade Center has been opened on the forums: a place where users can offer or express interest in certain Pokémon or items and then privately make the trade over Wi-Fi. This will give you the opportunity to connect with other users and expand your Pokédex or enhance your competitive battling team!

September 4

September is here, and HeartGold and SoulSilver are less than a week away. While we know many of you are excited about the remakes, we would like to remind everyone that only information that has been confirmed by an official source is allowed on the articles.

In celebration of the new games, we have created a new party template to replace the one currently in use. We hope to finish changing all the old templates to new ones before the release of HGSS, and any help would be highly appreciated. To see an example of how the new template is used, see Roark. A list of pages in need of update can be found here.

Also, if you haven't already visited it, a new Trade Center has been opened on the forums: a place where users can offer or express interest in certain Pokémon or items and then privately make the trade over Wi-Fi. This will give you the opportunity to connect with other users and expand your Pokédex or enhance your competitive battling team!

August 28

A quick update on Bulbagarden's newest feature:

We are very excited to announce the opening of our new Trade Center on the forums: a place where users can offer or express interest in certain Pokémon or items and then privately make the trade over Wi-Fi. This will give you the opportunity to connect with other users and expand your Pokédex or enhance your competitive battling team!

Also, we'd like to remind everyone that our forums are there for all discussions Pokémon-related, and have boards to discuss many other areas of interest as well, such as current events, entertainment, and much more.

If you haven't already joined, click the link above to visit our forums and create an account. It's as easy as making one on Bulbapedia! We're looking forward to seeing you both in the Trade Center and around our forums!

August 19

We now welcome the seventh wiki in the Encyclopaediae Pokémonis network, Pokéteca, to the table, as our Spanish language counterparts. Though they have more than a thousand pages already, like all wikis, completion and addition are the best things, and so we must all collaborate to our best.

Those on Bulbapedia who speak another language: do not forget that you can help our fellow wikis out, most especially if you speak German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Polish, or Portuguese. Encyclopaediae Pokémonis strives to be as international as the Pokémon franchise itself, a worldwide phenomenon, and expansion of our knowledge of this world is always encouraged.

Do not forget, however, that Bulbapedia itself also needs your help. We may have more than 15,000 articles right now, but many of those can be vastly expanded, and synopses of the more than 600 episodes of the anime are nowhere near complete. So go for it!

July 26

Account creation on Bulbapedia has been unlocked! For any users who have been wanting to register for the last month (vandals excluded, of course), now is the time to do it! And as for information that has been included in past Messages from the Editor but that is still relevant...

Note that a new item has been added to our Userspace policy concerning pages/templates in the userspace that spoof the interface. They are no longer allowed. Most notably, users with the "New Messages" template on their page are advised to remove it immediately. It's annoying and not the least bit funny. Thanks.

Also, starting this month, we are going to revive the featured articles process on Bulbapedia. On the first of every month, one featured article will be featured in this space. The first one will be in August, while July will serve us to try the new system, explained in previous Messages from the Editor. Please nominate and vote on featured articles.

July 16

Account creation is currently disabled on Bulbapedia! Please refrain from e-mailing Archaic and the other staff members about it. Although no date has been set for the resurrection of account creation, rest assured it will not be too long.

Note that a new item has been added to our Userspace policy concerning pages/templates in the userspace that spoof the interface. They are no longer allowed. Most notably, users with the "New Messages" template on their page are advised to remove it immediately. It's annoying and not the least bit funny. Thanks.

Also, starting this month, we are going to revive the featured articles process on Bulbapedia. On the first of every month, one featured article will be featured in this space. The first one will be in August, while July will serve us to try the new system, explained in previous Messages from the Editor. Please nominate and vote on featured articles.

July 10

Note that a new item has been added to our Userspace policy concerning pages/templates in the userspace that spoof the interface. They are no longer allowed. Most notably, users with the "New Messages" template on their page are advised to remove it immediately. It's annoying and not the least bit funny. Thanks.

Also, starting this month, we are going to revive the featured articles process on Bulbapedia. On the first of every month, one featured article will be featured in this space. The first one will be in August, while July will serve us to try the new system:

Every FA nomination will remain open for one month, at the end of which we will decide whether or not to give the article in question Featured Article status or not. Just like before, every user can nominate any article the old way, as long as the article fits the criteria. Every user may vote, provided that they explain their opinion – but note that the topic in question isn’t what the subject of the article is, but how good it is – its prose, details, accuracy, design, and level of interest. The final decision will not be based on the number of votes alone, but on their content as well.

Many of the articles that were nominated up until today have changed a lot in the long time they were nominated, and so many votes became irrelevant. To start off with a clean slate, the nomination page was cleared and all nominees were voted on. History of Pokémon received featured status, and several other articles have been re-nominated with a fresh slate. The rest were rejected for the time being.

July 1

Starting this month, we are going to revive the featured articles process on Bulbapedia. On the first of every month, one featured article will be featured in this space. The first one will be in August, while July will serve us to try the new system:

Every FA nomination will remain open for one month, at the end of which we will decide whether or not to give the article in question Featured Article status or not. Just like before, every user can nominate any article the old way, as long as the article fits the criteria. Every user may vote, provided that they explain their opinion – but note that the topic in question isn’t what the subject of the article is, but how good it is – its prose, details, accuracy, design, and level of interest. The final decision will not be based on the number of votes alone, but on their content as well.

Many of the articles that were nominated up until today have changed a lot in the long time they were nominated, and so many votes became irrelevant. To start off with a clean slate, the nomination page was cleared and all nominees were voted on. History of Pokémon received featured status, and several other articles have been re-nominated with a fresh slate. The rest were rejected for the time being.

Please vote and nominate away!

June 15

Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver are games that we've all been waiting almost five years for, and we're incredibly excited by their approach.

Despite this, please keep in mind that NO SPRITES ARE YET OFFICIAL. All sprites found on the HGSS site are until release beta sprites that may change, much as the sprite for Origin Forme Giratina did between the beta phase and final release of Pokémon Platinum.

Please keep this in mind. New HGSS sprites should be uploaded to the filename Spr 4h ###.png, but should not replace the sprites at the National Dex number at the current time. Platinum sprites are overall better quality than the sprites we can get from HGSS at the current point -- wait for the games to come out, and we should be able to rip the best quality sprites from the games themselves within days, as we did with Platinum.

Again, excitement may be high, but do not make the quality of images take a dive just because Lugia can. Reservations start in July, pointing to a release sooner than any of us expect.

May 22

As many of you have probably noticed, we have been getting a lot of what can be tentatively considered as vandalism the past few days. Namely, lots and lots and lots of sockpuppets created using proxies, likely of the same misguided user. We're currently considering and discussing implementing some sort of system to monitor new users automatically, although how exactly this would work isn't yet figured out. If any of you have any ideas, we'd be happy to listen.

A note to administrators: Watch the Recent Changes like a hawk. Checkuser any new user you see, and block sockpuppets on sight. I know many of you have already been doing this, but we need to be vigilant. Thanks.

May 15

Just as Bulbapedia upgraded in the time leading up to Pokémon Platinum during 2008, we must make certain that we keep ourselves up to date for anything new that occurs in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. We will be continuing to renew the various infoboxes around the wiki, at times breaking them in order to get them to work better, much as the Pokémon games did with the start of Generation III.

At the same time, although we are all excited about the remakes, a warning must remain in place: do not add details if you are unsure of their veracity, and as always make sure not to speculate in articles. When in doubt, bring it up on the talk page, but keep in mind that talk pages are not for wild speculation (save that for the forums). No matter what you think will come of the remakes, nothing is certain until their release (not even their release date).

And a small note to our newer users: please, lurk first and preview edits to see what wikicode does. Find out how the wiki works by watching other edits. Even our editor-in-chief started that way, so there's no telling how far you'll go by watching what works and what doesn't. Unlike other languages, wikicode is quite easy to learn, and other users will be more than happy to help you out with our style if you ask.

May 8

This is a temporary message to all editors of Bulbapedia; a more comprehensive one will soon replace it.

With the remakes of Pokémon Gold and Silver Versions confirmed, we would like to let you know that the administration of Bulbapedia is going through the updating process in a careful and comprehensive way. For the time being, please refrain from updating pages relating to the remakes with information until given the O.K, as we are only human and would like to be able to check all pages and make sure that speculation is not present.

Please keep this in mind for the coming days. Thank you.

May 4

The month of May certainly seems as if it will be an upturn in events relating to Pokémon, with rumors of what's in store already flying around.

We must insist on this from all Bulbapedia users:

DO NOT INSERT SPECULATION INTO ARTICLES. FACTS ONLY.

Whatever the exciting announcement that is to come next Sunday, whether it is the fabled GSDS, PBR2, Stadium 3, or anything, keep the speculation out.

Additionally, questions and comments regarding the subject of the article (as opposed to the article's text) should go on Bulbagarden's forums, accessible from the sidebar on all pages as "Bulbawiki forum".

April 20

In order to keep Bulbapedians up to date, this message has been changed.

The "war" with Wikia is over, meaning everyone can quit spamming their recent changes and vandalizing their pages. You know, the stuff we expressly told you not to do.

Bulbapedia's templates continue to be updated. Next up on the line should be the remaining infobox templates, beginning with those dealing with locations in the Pokémon world. If you have an idea on how to update these templates, please create it as a subpage in your userspace, and bring it to the attention of one of our many administrators.

March 29

As work on Project Overgrow continues, so does Bulbapedia itself. Despite this, some of you may have noticed that we have been having some issues with the server as of late, with Bulbapedia being inaccessible from time to time. This is due to a glitch in the system which we have been investigating to its fullest in order to eliminate as quickly as possible.

Through our continued prosperity, however, we have garnered the attention of a less-than-favorable faction. Wikia's "The Pokémon Encyclopedia" has recently been found to have taken the content of various Bulbapedia articles, changed one or two words (while at the same time remaining formatted overall in the same way), and posted it as their own. While this is not the fault of their administrators at all, the fact that, when this is pointed out to them, the administrators do nothing about the copied content or attempt to hide our comments about it is a very disturbing fact.

The Pokémon Encyclopedia, as a Wikia wiki, is licensed under the standard GNU Free Documentation License, while Bulbapedia's content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, incompatible with Wikia's license. Bulbapedia's license requires strictly that the content is attributed to Bulbapedia and its users, and additionally, the "noncommercial" aspect of the license requires that no money is made off of the content. Wikia's own About page clarifies that it is a commercial entity, while Bulbapedia's ads are in place to keep the massive server we have running.

Bulbapedia and Bulbagarden's administrators heavily discourage vandalism of The Pokémon Encyclopedia, despite their refusal to comply to our request to remove the copied content. However, we do encourage dialog with those in charge. So please, ask them, why are you taking content that we worked on?

February 28

Although Bulbapedia has been as prosperous as ever as of late, one issue has repeatedly occurred that, although not the end of the world, needs to stop. I would like to remind everyone that having multiple accounts, commonly referred to as "sockpuppets," are not allowed if not authorized by the Editorial Board. Lately, a number of users have been caught abusing multiple accounts by random IP checks. Although these users will not be harshly reprimanded, let me stress again that this is not allowed. Even if you don't edit from your "other" account, it's still against the rules and shouldn't be occurring.

If you currently have an unauthorized additional account, please report it to an administrator so they can disable it. Failure to do so and subsequent discovery of the account may lead to a minimal block or verbal warning. Thank you all for abiding by this and only keeping one account. If you would like to rename your account or have any questions about sockpuppets, contact a staff member.

February 14

Happy anniversary to Bulbapedia! We've been going strong for four years now, with over 14,000 articles since our public opening.

It is here where I announce Phase III of Project Overgrow: the upgrading and cleanup of Bulbapedia itself! With the English release of Pokémon Platinum imminent, and the revelation of the 493rd (and currently final) Pokémon in the National Dex, Arceus, having happened, we need to make certain that we have all of the best information we can.

Older episodes of the Pokémon anime, as well as several current ones, are in need of synopses, which can be added by anyone. A style guide as well as an example episode synopsis will be upcoming. These should not be too brief, while at the same time, should not be a script of the episode.

Our coverage of the various Pokémon manga as well as many other things is also in need of improvement. Pick a stub, find its subject matter, and expand the article. You may find new areas of Pokémon canon you otherwise would have no knowledge of.

As you may have noted as well, many of Bulbapedia's templates, as well as the style in general, have been upgraded to feature rounded corners (though these do not appear in some browsers). The ability to change back to the old skin will become available soon in your preferences, however, it is not currently.

And so, in closing, Bulbapedia's contributors must ignore the easy-to-know details of the front-and-center parts of the Pokémon world, and focus on the more ignored facets. We aim to make Bulbapedia the largest bastion of knowledge about Pokémon that the web has to offer, and we can only do it with your help.

February 9

The third phase of Project Overgrow will be beginning soon. Are you ready? Be prepared as this one is the one that pertains most to you, the users of Bulbapedia.

Bulbapedia's image policy has been updated, of course. For episode articles, the header image must be a png file, and should be uploaded at the episode's epicode rather than elsewhere. This discourages stealing images from other sites and encourages better quality for images. It also keeps edit warring to a minimum, as we've had many problems with that in the past. So keep this in mind and help us as we prepare for the start of phase III!

January 14

Project Overgrow's second phase has begun, and that is none other than a revamp of the forums! Not only have they been upgraded to the latest version of vBulletin, but several things have been reorganized, including an expanded space for Bulbapedia discussion!

A new forum has been opened specifically for social discussion regarding the Pedia, so enjoy it now rather than using talk pages for this. Also, keep in mind that on the forums, a [bp] tag exists for direct, quick links to Bulbapedia pages, and works much in the same way as other standard forum tags.

Also, effective immediately, there will no longer be a strictly-enforced userspace edit limit of four per day, or any other number. Use this wisely, and don't go absolutely crazy with the amount of edits daily– use the preview button instead. Abusers will, as always, be punished, but the enforcement of any limit will be much less strict, with administrators and others free to decide on their own smartly what constitutes far more edits than necessary.

The Bulbagarden forums have a blog system which can be easily used to detail your daily life, as well, negating the absolute need for a constantly-edited userpage.

January 3

Happy new year to all, and welcome to 2009!

Being a new year, Bulbapedia asks its users to begin by turning over a new leaf, and reading over the code of conduct that we have introduced. This will help all of Bulbapedia's users to get along better with each other, and at the same time, make sure that we in administrative positions also stay nice.

In addition, Bulbagarden's Project Overgrow has begun, which will be a major part of activities around the entirety of the website for approximately the next four months. The first part of Project Overgrow is a swath of new hires--if you're interested in joining the Bulbagarden staff, check out that post!

2008

December 24

Happy Holidays and a healthy New Year from all of us at Bulbagarden!

December 11

I hope you're all enjoying the new layout celebrating our sixth anniversary.

I would like to take a moment to remind our users that uploading media to our archives for a banned user is the same thing as ban evading. Not only would the user who told you to upload the media would be punished further, the user who did the uploading would also receive a ban.

So use your head; don't help someone break the rules.

December 10

Yet again, a new color scheme is added to the Main Page, which has received a redesign. This color scheme is not the permanent one, however, but a recolored one in celebration of Bulbagarden's sixth anniversary.

Bulbapedia's fourth anniversary is also upcoming this month, though we officially opened our doors on February 14 of 2005, the Bulbawiki project officially began on December 21, 2004.

As the English release date of Pokémon Platinum has been leaked, we will attempt to accelerate our plans to revamp several old templates to include new data and perhaps have a new look, much like the updated evolution, sprite, and stat templates.

Please be warned, however, that the English names given by the Circuit City ad are not confirmed as official, and thus pages will not yet be moving.

November 29

We hope everyone enjoyed the color scheme we had on November 21st to celebrate the 9th anniversary of the release of Pokémon Gold and Silver in Japan. We also hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving (where celebrated).

Editing wise, we have been updating numerous old templates including, but not limited to, party templates (which can be seen on Brock's page), evolution templates (which can be seen on Bulbasaur's page), and we are currently looking for a new Welcome template, but, we need the help of our users. Visit this page to view the candidates and vote.

October 29

In addition to the still fairly new policies on image reversion and userspace quantity and content, Bulbapedia has developed a tentative policy on talk page abuse. Be sure to check out the guidelines illustrated in these pages, as it could save everyone a lot of trouble.

Lastly, Bulbapedia would like to offer a belated congratulations to TTEchidna on his promotion to Editor-in-Chief, while at the same time expressing our gratitude for the time and energy Zhen Lin devoted to Bulbapedia during his time as Editor-in-Chief.

October 21

Bulbapedia now has official policies for image reversion and userspace quantity and content. Be sure to read both, as they make clear the official stance of the administrators and Editorial board regarding those important topics. If everyone reads those, there will be fewer conflicts around here and a lesser server load.

October 1

Due to the amount of edits done solely to revert images used on Bulbapedic articles over and over, a policy has now been created to attempt to prevent this from occurring again. From now on, any Users who are caught reverting each other because of an image will be subsequently blocked for an amount of days equal to the amount of reverts by both opposing parties made solely to change the image. Furthermore, the image will be replaced with the previous image. Hopefully, this will teach the opposing parties to discuss their concerns on the talk page, instead of causing ugly, pointless, revert wars that clutter the database. If no change is seen in the behavior of Users, this policy will be revised in order to reflect a harsher punishment.

Also, keep in mind that the current limit on Userspace edits is three; this not only covers your main Userspace page, but any subpages you may have, and any other User’s page. However, editing others' pages is almost always not allowed, so try to keep your edits to your own page.

September 12

While Bulbapedia may be celebrating the release of Pokémon Platinum, users should keep in mind several things when editing:

• If you do not have the game, do not assume based on appearances. Have faith in fellow contributors, however, as they may in fact have the game.
• The Platinum sprites of all Pokémon have already been ripped from the game and saved as pngs, in the 80×80 standard size. Taking screenshots and cropping them is frowned upon, as their quality may be low.
• The updating of moves to Platinum standard is still not finished. Why not contribute to that?
• Some menusprite images may look a bit "off". This is due to your computer reading the image data from cache, while we very recently updated all menusprite images to png format. In addition, some animated menusprites may link to an image that does not yet exist. Do not panic; this is part of the Platinum updates.
• The move tutor moves on Pokémon pages may display incorrectly. This is due to an upgrade we are doing to them so as to make them compatible with Platinum and XD move tutors, and will be done shortly.

Despite this, continue to enjoy Bulbapedia as we expand our information about the fifteenth main series Pokémon game.

July 27

As some of you have noticed, the much awaited return of the User: namespace has finally occurred.

Now, before you all get down to the epic celebration of this, we as a community must focus on the project at hand. Bulbapedia still needs work to prepare itself for the release of Pokémon Platinum, and as well needs to continue in its commitment to providing the best and most up-to-date Pokémon information. We cannot do this without you, the users. We must insist, therefore, that you do abide by the policies of the userspace, such as not editing it too much, keeping games off and subpages to a minimum, and finally, adequately contributing to the main namespace. These past four months have been absolutely bounteous with growth, and all of us would hate to see the quality of Bulbapedia suffer again as it did in the weeks and months leading up to the ban on the User: namespace.

This unblocking of the namespace is a temporary measure to gauge how users treat it. If it is unsatisfactory, the block will be reinstated as we continue to develop a system to prevent abuse.

June 30

Congratulations to all of us--Bulbapedia has reached its 10,000th article!

June 27

We certainly have been having a lot of these recently.

Additionally, Zhen Lin will be out of town for the week. All questions and such can be directed to TTEchidna or any of the other administrators.

June 15

With immediate effect, administrators are authorised and advised to remove any content that is inappropriate use of User or User talk pages. Users restoring content so deleted may be warned once before being blocked for abuse of Bulbapedia. The determination of "inappropriate" is presently left to individual administrators, but we will codify guidelines in the near future. Appeals to the editorial board over the interpretation of "inappropriate" are possible.

June 12

Guys, seriously. Stop using your user talk pages for meaningless MySpace junk.

June 9

After two years, we have finally managed to link the accounts on all three of our wikis: Bulbapedia, Bulbanews, and Bulbagarden Archives.

There may still be some issues with the linkage of accounts, such as having to still log in separately, but overall, the linkage should be in place. If your account has not been merged correctly, see Special:Mergeaccount or talk to Zhen Lin.

And yes, the userspace is still disabled from editing. We're sorry, but the server already has a lot of load and editing userpages every five minutes would destroy it and cause Bulbagarden to be down a lot longer than the two days it was at the end of May.

March 24

Due to an overwhelmingly large amount of edits going on in the User: namespace, we have disabled edits to all pages within it for the time being. We are monitoring how much the lack of ability to edit personal pages will affect the server, and when the results come in, we will make a decision on what to do.

If you feel the need to create a userpage or edit it now, you will have to wait. Do not create a page in the main namespace to move to the User: namespace under any circumstances. The results will likely be conclusive after about a week, and you will be informed with another message from the editor about the return of functionality.

Additionally, a policy on signatures is being discussed on the Bulbapedia forum on BMGf, so please, take a look at it even if you are not a member.

February 14

It's now three years since we opened Bulbapedia to the public and we are very proud to announce that Bulbapedia now has over 8,000 articles. That's nearly double the number we had this time last year! Congratulations and thank you to everyone who has helped us achieve this incredible milestone.

We are also announcing today the appointment of TTEchidna as Deputy Editor-in-Chief, in recognition of his continuing and vigilant watch over Bulbapedia.

2007

December 25

On this day, we celebrate the enlargement of the Encyclopaediae Pokémonis group by welcoming the Brazillian Portuguese LANDpedia – bem vindo from all of us here at Bulbapedia!

As Bulbapedia enters its fourth year, we also celebrate Bulbapedia's 100 millionth page view, recorded just last week on the 18th. To everyone, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

September 28

Let us all say bienvenue to Poképédia, which joins Encyclopaediae Pokémonis as its French member. This is but one of the many happy events of September 2007, which includes the creation of the 6,000th, then 6,500th article on Bulbapedia, as well as the 70,000,000th page view since we first began this project way back in December 2004.

The only event which clouds this otherwise incredible month is the controversy surrounding the implementation of advertising on Bulbapedia. We hope that our readers and contributors will bear with us and will not find the advertisements overly off-putting or intrusive - please do report any inappropriate ads you see to Archaic.

April 6

Please welcome the Polish Wikinezka, who have today joined the Encyclopaediae Pokémonis group of open-content Pokémon encyclopedias. We wish them the best of luck, and hope that the spirit of international cooperation will continue to grow in the international Pokémon fan community.

2006

December 30

At 4:52PM (UTC) today, the 4,000th Bulbapedia article was created. Over the course of this year alone, an amazing 1,364 articles were created at a rate of 3.758 articles per day - and it's been just only over two years since this project was started in December 21, 2004, and the two-year anniversary of its opening to the public is still ahead of us.

Congratulations and thank you to everyone who has participated in this collaborative project!

June 26

We are pleased to announce that the Japanese Pokémon encyclopedia, Pokémon Wiki (ポケモンWiki) has joined our German affiliate PokéWiki and us in Encyclopaediae Pokémonis, a group of open-content Pokémon encyclopedias in different languages.

The first person to conceive of a Pokémon website that visitors could edit and update was Meowth346 of Pokémon Forever. Inspired by Wikipedia, one implemenation of that idea was founded on December 22, 2004: Bulbapedia. After a period of secret development, we opened it to the public on February 14, 2005.

Two months later, German Pokémon fan nYoo launched an inquiry into the possibility of opening a German Pokémon encyclopedia in the spirit of Bulbapedia. Though nothing came of that discussion, another inquiry was made in early August, and that resulted in PokéWiki.

Naturally, the two open-content Pokémon encyclopedias agreed to affiliate. Expecting more affiliates in other languages, Encyclopaediae Pokémonis, Latin for Encylopedias of Pokémon, was proposed shortly thereafter, but it would be a long time before the group expanded.

Pokémon Wiki was founded early April 2006, and was first brought to our attention mid-June. Ten days and many e-mail messages later, Pokémon Wiki joined Encyclopaediae Pokémonis.

February 14

In the one year since we opened Bulbapedia to the public, there has been amazing growth - we have gone from 114 articles to 2,642 - that's 6.9 articles per day!

Admittedly, I initially had my doubts about whether such a radical idea would even work in the context of Pokémon - but here we are. On behalf of Bulbagarden, I would like to thank all who have contributed and supported this project.

The editorial board would like to thank a few of you, in particular. Congratulations and thank you to all award recipients, and to all of you as well for supporting Bulbapedia!

January 9

The Bulbapedia editorial board wishes all our readers, contributors and staff a belated happy new year. Please welcome our new Research Editor, Unown Lord, who will offering us fresh insight on a variety of topics. His personal aspiration is "for Bulbapedia to turn into a plethora of informative resources viewed by readers as enlightening."

We have also added (Modern) Hebrew to our collection of Babel tags. If you would like your language there, please make your request at Category talk:Babel tags - with the text to be used in them, if you wish to supply your own.

Finally, we would like to remind you that Bulbapedia is approaching the 1-year anniversary of its opening to the public.

2005

September 19

Bulbapedians can now indicate their linguistic capabilities on their user pages with Babel tags. Currently, languages available are English, Japanese, German, French, and Spanish. If you would like to see your language on the list, please make a request to Argy, evkl, or Zhen Lin.

June 21

The Future of Bulbapedia:

Bulbapedia and the Bulbawiki networks as a whole have come a long way since their inception and release to the public. Starting out at barely over a hundred articles at public release, the current article count on Bulbapedia (As of today, June 21, 2005) stands at over 23 times that number. The Bulbawiki networks now include a news site, Bulbanews, and the Bulbagarden Archives, a repository for all pictures and other non-text data files with relevancy to Bulbagarden.net and its side projects.

June 1

Please take a moment to visit the Where from here? post in the Bulbapedia Discussion forum on BMGf.

April 29

Bulbanews has opened to the public with exclusive information on AG126. The Bulbapedia editorial staff invite you to make use of this new resource for your daily Poké-News fix. Enjoy!

April 23

• Bulbagarden Archives has been opened to the public.

April 16

• Recently, a large number of pages were vandalized. Although a mass reversion/deletion has been done, there may be traces remaining. We would greatly appreciate it if you could help us correct that.
• Congratulations to Zeta and Woopert, who have been granted sysopship for their past work on Bulbapedia and assistance in dealing with the attack.

April 9

• Henceforth any and all articles directly pertaining to Serebii and Serebii.net are placed under strict protection. All edits must be approved by evkl or Damian Silverblade.

March 28

• Although a number of articles have been created for People who have not had an impact on the Pokémon canon, i.e. fans, please do not take this a signal to create encyclopedic articles on yourself. The subjects of the aforementioned articles should also take note of the difference between a personal page, such as User:Jimbo Wales and an encyclopedic article, such as Jimmy Wales, and strive to maintain NPOV in the latter.

March 24

• A thread has been established for requesting Bots and Templates.
• A new policy on what defines mass editing has been established; ignoring it is grounds for being temporarily blocked. Please read the definition of "minor" and "major" edits for future reference.
• Making mass changes as described in the above "mass editing" thread can be first discussed by making a post in the Bulbapedia Forum; rules for those posts can be found here.

March 19

• As a guideline, do not create any move articles without filling in most if not all of the Infobox, as well as the Template talk:MoveProperties. Make a positive effort to do so. You may wish to refer to [1] to find out the Japanese name and the move number.
• A basic structure for the Bulbapedia:Community Portal has been set up.
• Make use of the abbreviated link syntax: [[Ruby (Special)|]] is equivalent to [[Ruby (Special)|Ruby]], similarly, [[wp:Satoshi Tajiri|]] is equivalent to [[wp:Satoshi Tajiri|Satoshi Tajiri]].
• Avoid coding in HTML unless absolutely necessary. Wikicode is documented at [2] and [3]; please note that some things are Wikipedia-specific.

— Zhen Lin

March 6

• We now have all of the pages in the Category:Pokémon listing. You can feel free to expand any of the pages to include general information on that specific Pokémon. Specific, useful Pokédex-like pages will be established shortly. We're working on it--and we greatly appreciate the help of all those who made the Poké-pages possible.
• BMG had a minor virus problem earlier in the day; please run any antivirus software you may have to see if you were infected unknowingly.
• Character pages can still use more information. The Community Portal will shortly have a number of features which point to things that address community-based projects and pages that need attention.
• That Bulbapedia button is on the way, I should have it uploaded within a few days.

February 27

• PLEASE temporarily refrain from making any Pokémon or Move pages for the next couple of days. Our templates are being enhanced, and we don't want to have to fix any more than we have to as it is.
• If you didn't already notice, Episode Guides are starting to go up. If you personally have any to contribute, it's always welcome. Remember to use the numbering guidelines put forth in the Manual of Style.
• We'll be coming out with a Bulbapedia button very, so if you want to link to us from any site, it'll become possible.

February 22

• Please remember to link to games with their full name, i.e. [[Pokémon Red|Red version]] instead of just linking [[Red]]
• Remember to use the Macro tag for Pokémon Meta and use Pokémon Infobox where applicable. Thanks to everyone who's been working on Macro conversion.
• While the link to it has disappeared from our revamped front page, remember the List of wanted pages is still there.
• The Items list needs filled out.
• Remember to add the appropriate stub tags to any article, via the {{ }} stub macro formatting.

February 18

• Only the first instance of a term in an article's actual text (excluding sidebars, lists, etc) should be linked to that term's matching article.
• Keep up the good work! It seems like every day, there's less and less conflict and more and more cooperation.
• So long as you include the Pokémon Infobox with a Pokémon article (see the talk page for usage notes), you may go ahead and fill in all ____ (Pokémon) articles, but don't make them too expansive. Any more information than what we currently have in Geodude or Bulbasaur's entry would be overly much. Please use the {{p|(name of Pokémon)}} macro to link to Pokémon pages, as we may choose to change the article titles for Pokémon species pages in the future.
• Elements pages should still look like the Grass-type page.
• There are still many articles that need worked on! Consult the list of wanted articles to see what people most want filled in.
• Make sure pages are appropriately linked to others.

February 14

Welcome to Bulbapedia! All of the instructions on use, semantics, and the like can be found either below in Getting Started or via one of our quick links in the green toolbar to the right.

The staff of Bulbapedia has worked very hard in getting it to this point, but there's only so far any one small group can expand an encyclopedia, and after it tops out in size from our knowledge base or ability to work on it, the public is of more help than the staff in expanding and growing. That's the philosophy of a Wiki-based encyclopedia, and we're taking that to heart. We know there'll be differences of opinion, we know there'll be hard times and heated arguments, but we're going ahead with this project anyway, because it is our goal to compile the best, most comprehensive Pokémon database on the planet.

We're not there yet, but we're working on it, and you can help us. The staff of Bulbagarden.net and Bulbapedia hope you enjoy, contribute to, and use our newest service!