Topics

16

Updates / NEWS: Code update

« on: November 13, 2011, 15:09 »

Wasn't going to post it, but this way we look a bit livelier:

The news code has received a major overhaul. Aside from looking a bit nicer, region and type filters have been added.

17

Updates / SERVER MOVE: 8 October

« on: October 07, 2011, 18:52 »

Sorry for the late announcement, but we needed to make sure we were happy.

Tomorrow 8 October, the site will be down for roughly an hour to move to new hardware. Might provide a bit of speed and stability, mostly making sure we are ready before it does go down

We expect to start our move around 1PM, but this will depend in part on when we can get some other things set up to go.

We'll do our best to minimize the downtime - the main thing is that it'll cost us some time to transfer files.

18

Updates / New Theme Dev Kit

« on: September 17, 2011, 22:15 »

Hi guys,

It turned out I never updated our theme development kit after the previous one... so I took some time to do so today. Go ahead and give it a try if you want to make something new!

Download the Theme Dev Kit

19

Updates / NEW MAIN PAGE!

« on: April 25, 2011, 15:24 »

Main page update!

Yes, if you've just gotten to the site, you might have noticed a few changes. Aside from a slight layout update (one that probably won't stand out much to most), we have also updated our main page to use a new gadget-based system.

In the past, like many other Pokemon sites, our main page mostly contained news - both Pokémon news and site updates. That's not, however, what the site does best, and doesn't focus on other parts we feel people will want to learn about when they visit us. So we changed it.

From now on, the main page will contain a number of gadgets containing basic information. Furthermore, as long as you have an account here, you can customize the gadgets - which ones show up, in which order, and to an extent, the information they will show in there. From now on, you're in control. Well, as much as we are willing to allow you, but it's more than what you get in most places!

We're adding further gadgets in the future (having only a few right now... sorry) and allow for a few more customization option. If you have any ideas, let us know... and if you want to try your own hand at some PHP coding, get in touch for the basic API and relevant technical details.

Enjoy everyone!

20

Updates / PKMN.NET Privacy Policy

« on: April 01, 2011, 18:51 »

As part of some legal requirements and to make things a bit more clear, we've posted our privacy policy on the site.

21

Updates / DONATIONS: Official start

« on: January 18, 2011, 22:04 »

As you will have read in some other topics, to offset the cost of running the site, we've been looking at some options to share some of the burden. Small ads have appeared on the site and forums, and we'd like to offer a few more options for you to donate.

To get these, you currently will need a Paypal account. We can set up the accounts manually, and may do so as future contest prices or such, but payments are far easier to organise this way.

There are three seperate smaller donation options:

• Larger PM Inbox - increase the limit to 200 PMs
• Upload your own avatar - instead of having to hunt for unreliable hosting, have your avatar uploaded to PKMN.NET and it'll just work there and then.
• Upload attachments - Want to show off your work? Don't want to bother with other hosting places? Upload them as attachments for your posts.

One note with the first and last - the better we can afford to run the site, the higher we can push these limits.

Do you want this all? How about standing out a bit while you're at it? The slightly larger price is the big donator package, which offers all of the above, and for a bit less too.

Prices are available at the same place as where you order the accounts. Go to your profile, and under the Actions menu, you'll find 'Paid Subscriptions'. It can all be arranged there. Isn't that easy?

Donations happen through Paypal, and are just that: a gift to us. While we offer these accounts as a thank you, it does not give any further obligation - breaking the rules repeatedly will still get you banned if it's bad enough, stuff like that. We'll be careful, but so should you be. We will try to deal appropriately with site downtime, but can't make any guarantees in that area either. It's a donation first and foremost.

Should our costs be fully covered, the remaining money will be kept first to cover future shortfalls and will then be used for other site-related purposes, such as expanding our feature base or to use for a future contest. Details are to be decided when and if that happens.

The systems do not all seem to be stable yet. If there's trouble between you starting to pay and being set up as a paid subscriber, and this doesn't actually come through, get in touch with us and we'll do our best to fix it.

22

Updates / SITE NEWS: Translations!

« on: January 17, 2011, 23:06 »

Yes, it finally returns! PKMN.NET goes international.

I've updated the codebase to allow for our content to be translated. It's been my design to do so for the past few years, with our codebase prepared to allow for the required translations, but it's only now that the possibilities to translate the site easily is there.

I'll be translating the site to Dutch when I have time from now on, and we'll officially update the site to link to it in when it's progressed far enough - stay tuned!

Next, the call for action. If you are a native speaker of another, non-English language, or are up to a similar level, then we need your help! Help us translate the site for your fellow speakers of the language and make our great content available to them! Get in touch with me and I'll get you set up.

23

Updates / IRC: New network

« on: November 20, 2010, 19:28 »

Right, don't complain me if anything goes wrong here. Connect to irc.synirc.net. Stuff will be updated as I get around to it. Good luck with it.

Oh, and you'll want to use #pkmnteambuilding instead of #teambuilding

24

Updates / PROMOTIONS

« on: September 19, 2010, 20:15 »

Sorry, we're swamped with B&W work - lots is going on, so check our Pokedex and Twitter feed for all the updates for gen V.

In the mean time, to recognise the many contributions they've made to the site (in particular during these releases), we have two promotions to report.

First, Mulholland is promoted to global mod, so you'll need to be careful with him around the forums from now!

Second, Kay, aka Dragonpika, has stepped in to moderate the Debate forum from now on. Welcome back!

25

Updates / Characters launch!

« on: September 04, 2010, 13:38 »

It's still bare bones, it still needs a number of updates, but trust me, we're working on that. We figured it'd be best to give it to you now so you can see where we're going with this and give us a reason to continue its development.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're happily announcing the release of the new Characters feature!

Having been in development for some time, and finally finished, this new information feature should provide you with more information on the various characters appearing in the anime, both for a longer time and (and this will take more work) in fewer episodes.

We still need to make a number of updates and so on, having mostly used our old characters section, but don't worry - we'll get there eventually. Give it a spin and tell us what you think of it so far!

Thanks to Rob for his invaluable help in getting all the data entered!

26

Updates / STAFF: New (old) staff members

« on: July 30, 2010, 21:37 »

Yes, in our constant desire to offload the boring parts of running the site like talking to people and moderating and keeping things running, we've 'graciously' invited to people to join our staff team with only a minimal use of torture devices. Which was a good thing, since our hot poker was held in the fire a bit too long last time and melted. But that's just our own private worries that I'm sure sound familiar to most of you.

To the point, the first person you'll see around the forums, now with a green name, is Enigma. He'll be moderating the teambuilding forum from now on, and I'm sure you'll all be polite and listen to him.

(With this, we have also taken another step towards our rebranding of the site and can say that work on pgaymn.net is steadily continuing.)

(No groans, you'd all secretly love it)

Second, there's a new administrator! Well, an old one who's returned. We shall not go into the history, but the guy known as GoldenMisdreavus, MetroidOnIce, Ledyba, Rex and countless other names that I can't remember as I've already had to deal with all the changes in the past seven years or so, has returned to the group and is now an administrator here on the site again. Isn't that wonderful?

Well, two new people, less work for me and my co-owner. Everyone wins... well, except for those nasty rules-breaking creeps that'll now get virtually assaulted by these new staff members. But we can't complain about that.

27

Updates / PKMN.NET: New layout!

« on: July 24, 2010, 13:56 »

Welcome to the new PKMN.NET layout! We figured it was time to make a few updates, and so here we are, with a total rework. Although most of the principles stay the same, our HTML has been cleaned up, junk removed, and what we've learned and know now has been applied to improve the site's layout just that bit more.

As you can see, we're back to red, which should please some. There's a number of smaller adjustments, mostly on the site. Just take a look and tell us what you think!

(HTML, CSS and code by me, images by Typhlosion)

UPDATE: The new devkit is here.

28

Updates / PKMN.NET: Major Changes Are Coming

« on: June 20, 2010, 20:51 »

In the coming few days, you will start to see a number of changes being made to the site that will, in its own way, have a large influence on the site, although, in practice, most of this will not make a big difference to how things will continue on the site, but there will be ideological changes and differences will undoubtably be noted.

Let's start with the big news. Those who've been observing things for a while will not be surprised by the following announcement, and in practice things have been running this way, but it has been made official. Psythor, has in the past indicated he is no longer interested in working on the site or owning it, and has officially transferred his share to Typhlosion. This means that PKMN.NET is now owned jointly by Typhlosion and Joeno. Since we've sort of been working this way for the past few months anyway, it won't have an impact on most things.

That won't mean nothing will change. While we do generally honour the vision Psythor had for the site, one that caused us to join and do the things we do, there are a few things that we feel needs a shake up.

First, the item that may cause some dislike amongst some. Over the next few days, you may see some staff members being demoted. We greatly appreciate the work these people have done to the site, but for clarity to our members and to make it easier to keep staff on one line, we will want to work with people willing to dedicate themselves and be present. We realise this affects some popular staff members and we hope they'll continue to be popular members. Staff will be welcome to return if they are willing and ready to maintain interest.

Moving on to something simpler. Due to the change in ownership, it is also necessary for us to move to a new server. This is not just because we are forced out, we've also been needing and looking for a better server that allows us a more stable experience, with more possibilities for expansion and growth. Better value for money.

We will move to the different server soon after it has been set up, which currently seems likely to be either Wednesday 23 June or the weekend of 26-27 June. We will prepare before taking the server down, but it may cause an hour or two of downtime.

We will also be transferring ownership of the domain names. This should all happen seamlessly, but be aware that it may hiccup if the automated processed don't work like they should. We'll sort it out though.

Last, we realise some have asked for this, and we've finally been looking at it. At one time, likely after the server change, the site will get a visual refresh that, to be honest, is already making us look a bit uncomfortable at the current layout. We're still tweaking and changing some things and the final look will be revealed only then, but we feel nice things are on the way there.

We're also looking at making more changes, but those are undecided, unclear or otherwise yet to be worked out. While we feel free to make more changes, our vision of what the site should be is what it's been for many years and most everything will stay the same. Our main advantage now is that we can make some changes and increase our effectiveness in ways where we had to hold back before.

We will be around for any questions. We cannot speculate about the future and things can always change, but we hope this will help explain what is currently happening to the site on our level.

29

Updates / VIDEO: Ten Years of PKMN.NET Video: The bloopers

« on: May 22, 2010, 19:49 »

As you've seen a few months ago, we have made a video to celebrate ten years of PKMN.NET.

Not all of that went well, so for a taster of our aborted attempts, go and take a look at this video:

Go here for the video!

Enjoy

30

Updates / Minidex Launch

« on: May 14, 2010, 20:53 »

Amidst the news of Pokemon and trainers with hair twice as long as themselves, we've found the time to rewrite an old feature to make this flurry of new Pokemon and moves a bit easier to understand. Yes, after a fourth generation absence, the Minidex, or as we'll call it not to confuse people too much, the Preview Dex, has arisen from the ashes, like a Ho-oh becoming a Moltres except better.

Yeah, we're in a lyrical mood about it. It took three months before we actually got enough information to use the code that was written. We're pretty pleased about it.

The PKMN.NET MINIDEX

We'll, of course, do our very best to keep it updated, and appreciate any and all corrections, new stuff and things we've missed about it, as well as other B&W news that we haven't found out about yet that we ought to put up. Especially when you give us something to base our news reports it. Makes it easier if we don't have to be witty. To the point, anyway, actually, aside from posting such things here, it may, at times, be easier or better to report it through the link at the bottom of the page, use content's submission systems to submit new information, or email us at (and please don't post this email address without the spam traps, as we changed it to get rid of that same spam) seniorstaff (at) pkmn (dot) net . Thank you.