Public Forums

The Public Forums are a community focused section of PokéFarm Q. It is a place where the community of the website can communicate with one another, and it holds many functions. It is not part of the game itself, so users may ignore it entirely if they desire. It can be accessed from a link at the top-right corner of each page.

Users should make sure to read and understand the Rules before posting. The Stickied threads of a given forum category should be read as well, as they may have more specific rules pertaining to that forum.

Navigating the Forums

The Public Forums operate as a public message board for all users. To help coordinate topical discussions, the Public Forums page is divided into several collections and unique forums and subforums within each collection. Each forum has its own range of acceptable topics to discuss. If users attempt to discuss untopical things in a certain Forum, the Forum Moderators may move the discussion to the proper location, while also alerting the poster to such actions.

Note: There is no current on-site way to search the forums. Users can search Google by adding the site specifier site:pokefarm.com to their search.

Forum Sections

Each forum collection is designated for a certain range of topics for users to discuss. These topics are broad in scope to allow for further categorisation within individual forums.

• Core: This collection contains Forums to interact more directly with the PokéFarm Staff. Site announcements can be found here, as well as other Forums to discuss the site’s development. Users can seek help or report bugs here as well as suggest new features or improvements to the game.
• PokéFarm: Forums geared specifically toward community game features are found here. Users can discuss features of PokéFarm within, keep track of happenings in the game, and find other users to play with.
• Pokémon: Topics not pertaining to PokéFarm, but still within the realm of the Pokémon universe can be discussed here. Discussions range from anime to video games to anything else within the Pokémon franchise.
• Other: Miscellaneous forums that do not belong in other Collections belong here. Non-Pokémon related topics and forum games can be found within.

Reading the Forums

A given forum is made up by a number of discussion chats known as threads. Each thread has unique titles to help in finding specific discussion topics that already exist. Users on the site may leave messages on these threads, known as “Posts”. Threads within a Forum are listed by title in reverse chronological order of the time the last post was made within, with the exception of Stickied Threads, threads 'stuck' to the top of a Forum for visibility. Clicking on a thread title will direct to its initial post. Clicking on the time since last post will direct to the last post of a thread.

When visiting a thread, the posts making up that thread will appear ten at a time, spanning multiple pages if there are more than ten posts. All posts are listed in the order they were posted, with information about their authors alongside. To navigate between pages, links exist at the top or bottom of the thread page that may be used to travel to another page. Links that provide a topic-path as well as a link to subscribe to a thread are present atop each thread page.

Subscriptions

A notification system exists to alert users to posts in forum threads they have taken an interest in. Users may "Subscribe" to a thread by clicking the "Subscribe to this thread" link found on the thread of their choosing. Users may view and edit their Subscription list by clicking the "Subs" link in the upper right-hand corner next to the Forums link. The Forum Subscriptions page shows the number of subscriptions the user has and is divided into sections. Users are allowed to access, Silence, Notify, or Unsubscribe from their subscribed threads. The "Silence" button allows users to stop receiving notifications from the thread while still being Subscribed. The "Notify" button will only appear if a thread has been silenced and allows users to receive notifications from the thread. Some threads may have icons next to their name indicating different meanings. Those icons are:

• Star: This thread has a new post. It will also be in bold.
• Crossed out Bell: The user has silenced this thread.
• [Deleted]: This thread has been deleted.

Posting on the Forums

A forum thread is made to have users contribute to the discussion. Users have a library of features available for posting on the forums. While users may post in any open, unlocked thread, they must remain courteous to the site and forum rules.

Writing a Post

A text field is available to quickly make a post at the bottom of any unlocked thread’s page. Any text entered when the Post Reply button is clicked will be made into a new post on that thread, with any BBCode formatting used being implemented. The new post will contain the written content, and show the author’s information alongside for others to see. A full version of the post editor is available through clicking the “Switch to Full Editor” button. The Full Editor includes some additional features such as a post preview, useful for viewing a post before it is submitted. New posts will not be posted to a thread until the “Post Reply” button is clicked.

Other options available from a thread are those that allow the user to start a post by quoting another post in the thread automatically, as a reply to that user. There is also a multi-quote option that allows a user to quote multiple posts.

A thread may say “you do not have permission to post in this thread”. This typically indicates either the thread is locked, or the user viewing it is Muted/Forum Banned, meaning they are not allowed to make posts.

Post Editing

A user may edit any of their own posts on an unlocked Thread at any time by clicking the “Edit post” button. This will open a Quick Edit field that can be modified in the thread. A button to switch to the Full Editor is also made available when editing a post. Any revisions or edits to a post will not be saved unless the “Edit Post” button is clicked.

Upvote Post

A user may "upvote" another user's post at any time by clicking the "Upvote post" button. Upvoted posts will show a "Post Upvoted" label, which cannot be clicked.

Note: Once a post is upvoted it cannot be removed.

Creating a Thread

Users may author their own forum threads by clicking the “Start new thread” link located atop most individual forums' pages. This link will open a page similar to a Full Editor for a new post, but will have an additional text box for a thread name. The main text box may be used to write the first post of the new thread, usually to introduce the topic of discussion. The new thread will not be saved or visible unless the “Post Thread” button is clicked.

Thread Options

The original author of a thread has access to a few options for their thread.

• Lock Thread - This will close the discussion, disallowing new posts or post editing within.
• Delete Thread - This will delete the Thread from the public forums.
• Rename Thread - Can be used to edit the name of the Thread.
• Add Poll - This will open a Poll creation menu for the author to make a Poll for readers to vote in.

Inactive Thread Deletion

As per site rules, forum threads are deleted based on inactivity. As of the 11^th of November 2021 , Sally automatically deletes threads in most of the forums after a certain amount of weeks of inactivity has passed. The owner of a deleted thread may contact a moderator to ask them to reactivate the thread.

A thread is deemed to be inactive if BOTH:

• Its most recent post is too old, AND
• Any of its posts have not been edited in a long time

"Too old" is defined on a per-forum basis. Below are the Forum Time Limits:

Note: The Time Limits are also located in each of the Forum's Rules.

Forum	Weeks
Help	2
Bugs	8
Solved Bugs	8
Discussion	8
Event Discussion	8
Type Race Teams	2
Journals	12
Trades	2
Trade Shops	8
Battles	4
Gyms	4
RP, RP Setup, RP 15+, PokéPark RP, Other RP, etc.	8
FF, FF 15+ (but NOT Completed FF)	12
Art, Art Shops, Art Schools	8
Forum Games	2
Miscellaneous	8
All other forums	no auto-delete

Trivia

• The character limit for a single post is 131,071 characters (128kb).
• The ability to delete posts is reserved for moderators to maintain record integrity for any rule-breaking content.
• Before the 1^st of January 2023, users could not tell when they had upvoted a post. They would only find out if they tried upvoting again and received an error message.