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Why did you join and stay in this community?

Sheep

Sheep

Administrator
Sheep - Bulbagarden Forums Deputy Head Administrator
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Why did you join Bulbagarden originally, and what made you stick around as a member in the community?

I joined originally to participate in chats about the anime, BW was coming out and I was super into the characters. There was so much hype surrounding it and I still vividly remember all that excitement here. Then I took a break because of uni and work but came back later since I really missed engaging with everyone, especially some of my favorite sections (like Garden Grotto). Also the people here are awesome (b' ')b
 
Originally I never even planned to join at all. I started lurking Bulbagarden (and Serebii) in late 2007, when my interest in Pokemon had very recently been reignited, and I was absolutely devouring all the discussions about the anime, characters, ships, what have you. I was so into it. Then during my winter break in my junior year of high school, I was suddenly like...why not just actually join and participate in the discussions? It turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. I met so many wonderful friends and my partner here, and my life would be drastically different without them. While most of them don't frequent the forums anymore, I find myself sticking around more than I thought I would. It's remained a great place to discuss one of my favorite things in the world as well as other things.
 
I used bulbapedia for a while before, then I think on some kind of whim on my birthday, I decided to join this site! (I think I was in like the back of my car lol) Ended up racking up like 300 posts in the next couple days because of the Halloween event, then at that point I was looking around more threads and getting to know a couple people. Everyone’s so positive here and I think that was genuinely one of the reasons I stuck around rather than forgetting about it like I probably would have if people didn’t socialize with me as much as they did
 
i joined because i wanted another pokemon site to hang out in, no other real reason than that. that said though, because i was already an active member of another site at the time, and for whatever reason i didn't have much interest in posting here, i left for several years up until ~2019 or so. i decided to give bulbagarden another chance, starting with the discord, in which i applied for staff there when they had an open staff drive. i got the position (through luck and some people advocating for me based on my past staff experience lmao), and stuck around because i've developed an attachment towards helping out the community and the staff here.

i may not always be a public presence, but i do lots of work behind the scenes in ensuring bulbagarden really is a fun and chill place to be in. in today's world, when things can be rather rough and depressing at times, that's really all one can really want and that's my personal commitment because as a user, that's what i would want, too.
 
I'm kinda in the same boat as Liss here -- I've been using the 'pedia for years (ever since I started playing the games, in fact), and I hit a point in my life last summer when I really wanted to make some online friends in a chill environment who had at least one shared interest with me. And what could have been a better pick than a forum centered around a franchise with one of the most varied fanbases in the world?

As for why I stayed, well... I'm going to have to echo what others said here. Everyone was so damn nice; I remember those feelings of gratitude when I received such warm welcomes from the people here, and it left such a strong impression on me that I found myself absolutely having to return.

And I am so glad I did! Getting to know everyone and becoming close to people has been a blast, and I feel as though around every corner is a new treasure trove: more fun to be had, more people to befriend, more interesting topics to discuss, more memories to be made.

Bulbagarden has permanently changed my life for the better. This is where I met my girlfriend, my absolute best friends, and so many of the individuals I love talkin' both PKMN and gaming in general with (shoutout to my Final Fantasy and Ace Attorney squads in particular! If you're reading this, you know who you are). In my darkest moments, I've received so much support from those around me here, which I'm eternally grateful for; I've never been surrounded by such genuine, pure warmth and kindness, and that's the feeling I have every time I come here.

(Also it gives me a platform to wreak catastrophic havoc with my siblings)
 
Oddly, my first exposure to the Bulbaforums was actually the art community - I remember occasionally glancing through the recent posts on the homepage, but it didn't interest me too much until I saw an art thread pop up and I realized "wait, there's art stuff here?" So that's the main reason why I came here in the first place, I mostly just wanted to see what people were drawing lol. After that I naturally started looking into the other sections and overall it seemed like a pretty chill friendly place. I didn't actually join until around a year later, once I had had time to kinda observe and figure out how things worked around here, but I guess I just wanted to be a part of all the cool stuff that was happening. And I wanted to share my art, natch.

Even though Pokémon hasn't really been one of my main interests as of late, I guess I've stuck around because I'm comfortable here. I first came across this community shortly after starting college, when I was having a lot of trouble fitting in, and since I still haven't really made any friends there it's nice to have a place I can come to with a bunch of familiar faces where people actually share my interests. Basically I don't feel as weird and lonely here as I do irl :chansey: (I realize I sound so depressing, I'm just saying that everyone here is cool lol)
 
Back in the old days of 2010 I was just a kiddo who was really into Pokemon and found this online social space dedicated to it via the Bulbawiki, so I joined up because it was a place to chill and talk about things I was interested in.

More recently, I rejoined partially out of nostalgia for the olden days, partially for the wider community that isn't just a relatively small tight-nit friend group like the Discords I'm on, and partially because forums as a medium for social interaction just have a certain something to them that makes them stand out in a way IM chats can't really replicate.
 
I like Pokémon why do you think I joined this place lol. (No like seriously I was 13 years old at the time, that was literally the whole reason I joined this place all those years ago)

And as for why I stayed...well I mean I kinda didn't stay considering I ended up being permabanned twice and was therefore completely absent from this community for over 12 years.

I came back because I really started getting into Pokémon again (I mean I never really fully lost interest but it had been more of a periphery interest for some years just because I didn't have a Nintendo Switch so I couldn't really keep up with the franchise as much as I used to) and, I'm not gonna name this forum, but talking about Pokémon on a certain other community I'm active on sucks ass (outside of super casual threads like 'If Pokémon were real, which one would you want as your starter?' and other threads like that) because you basically cannot say anything positive about the franchise there without other users coming in to basically try and argue with you that you're wrong and you're just a fanbrat shill who's excusing shitty games because God forbid people get enjoyment out of something, even if it has technical deficiencies like Scarlet and Violet do, right? And social media like Twitter and Tumblr suck ass for like...having actual discussions about stuff (and Reddit can have discussions but sucks ass because I hate the way Reddit is formatted VS traditional forums like this one and there's no actual sense of community there).

And that just lead to me sending a message to the forum staff here asking if I could be unbanned cuz I figured the best place to actually discuss Pokémon would be a forum specifically dedicated to Pokémon because that would likely be a place where:
  • You could have actual discussions about Pokémon
  • You could express your enjoyment of the current games without being accused of being a shill (even if others disagree and don't like them)
  • There'd actually be a sense of community
I probably could have joined another Pokémon forum that I wasn't banned from, but something just made me decide to see if I could have my permaban lifted from here instead.

And as for why I stayed here (after having my ban lifted and returning to the forums): I mean, it's literally why I came back to this place. If I wanted to participate in an actual online community where I can have genuine discussions about Pokémon (without having to deal with dips who'll go 'but they run like shit and are bad games u can't actually like them' if you say you like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet), then why would I leave if this place fills those needs, y'know?

(Also online forums are just the best type of fandom space in general, I'm sorry but it's just true. It's why I'm still active on them and utterly hate when forums are shut down in favor of a bloody goddamn Discord server. I fucking hate Discord, Discord is not a replacement for a forum, stop trying to replace forums with Discord servers /rant)
 
Joined the site for basically two reasons. One, to curb my appetite for SV speculation, this was still early when we just had the reveal trailer. I joined as many Pokemon related forums as I could to get the most discussion out of it possible. Two, I wanted to experiment my identity by joining a new site with exclusively female pronouns. As you may tell, that escalated lol

Anywho, I stayed, cuz like... this community was so in depth and friendly, and there was decent enough traffic to keep me engaged, as well as other things to talk about outside of Pokemon. It really felt like a whole new social group to get myself into. It really felt like the defacto new forum for me. I appreciate y'all so much! Keep making this community great!
 
I was looking at sv stuff before I could actually get the game. Pretty sure I saw a forums button and was like ooooo shiny. I posted a few times, got mostly positive reception, so I decided to stay! I think that has been a mostly positive choice.
 
for me, i missed the experience of forums that i had in childhood, and i wanted to be able to talk about pokémon because i didn't really know anyone i could talk to about it other than my younger brother, who likes it in a very different way than i do hahaha. i really haven't talked to many people since i'm very nervous all the time & unable to initiate, so my main form of activity has really just been posting in threads (and even that not too much, as you can see from my message number) and lurking, but even just with that it has been a wonderful experience here & i doubt i could find something like here on another forum.
 
Like some people had said, I used Bulbapedia a lot. After a previous forum site I was a part of shut down, I came here and stuck around. I have looked at other more writing centered forums but, most either seemed a bit too complex or way too specific when it comes to what they do. Plus, like I said, I was part of another Pokemon Forums for a long time before it shut down (it did get revived later down the line, but that eventually died as activity fell to the point that it was a ghost forums).
 
Without going into too much detail, I ended up disassociating with other communities for reasons I won't get into.

Generally though, I've stuck around because the people here actually interact with you, and are good people. Occassionally I've had someone be a little rude to me or whatever, but the good far outweighs the bad. In general here, everyone seems to be ready to jump to your side and make your day a little bit better.
 
Cavespider_17 said:
Without going into too much detail, I ended up disassociating with other communities for reasons I won't get into.

Generally though, I've stuck around because the people here actually interact with you, and are good people. Occassionally I've had someone be a little rude to me or whatever, but the good far outweighs the bad. In general here, everyone seems to be ready to jump to your side and make your day a little bit better.
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I agree that a forum where people actually interact with each other are the best ones. When I made my introduction thread here, I had like eight or nine people welcoming me. On a forum that I tried that was more writing-centric, No one really seemed to notice. Heck, there wasn't even a place to make an introduction thread. There was just one thread for that (I can kind of see WHY that is the case [why make a thread that you most likely won't go back to?]).
 
Back when I first joined in 2010 (when I was 10! Crazy) it was just because I was a huge Pokemon nerd and had been routinely using the wiki, and stumbled upon the forums. I hadn't long gotten access to the internet / my own computer so I was intrigued by the idea of an online community who shared my interests, especially since not many people offline in my life at the time did.

I stayed (/still pop my head in every now and then) because it's been a part of my life for so long now that it's just habit checking in here and posting a thought every now and then. It still feels like my internet 'home' (or base?) in a way, and it's mostly very disconnected from the rest of my life in a way I find very refreshing. Plus lots of my closest friends who I met here way back when and still talk to are also sometimes (or always @TheCapsFan) active here so it's fun checking in with what they're up to on the forums at the moment. <3
 
i was liek vaguely aware of the forums for a while because of bulbapedia and would occasionally consider joining but ultimately always decided against it >< but lately id been feeling super duper lonely and wanted 2 have somewhere 2 dump my pkmn thoughts since i was getting super duper into pkmn again so i remembered oh yea bulbapedia has a forum!! and thought id finally give it a shot because im liek...ungodly terrified of big social platforms so i thought this might do it 4 me.

i was actually rlly scared joining because my experiences with pokemon fans tend 2 be god awful so i was worried this place would be filled with liek the average overly negative mean old guys who complain about every game that u can find liek....everywhere else buuuut i was surprised that everyone here was liek super nice and welcoming so !!now this is liek my go-to place 4 posting pkmn stuff \<33 the price of being too nice 2 me is that it becomes impossible 2 get rid of me. >:33 this is liek one of the few places i feel comfy posting and there's liek almost always something 2 kill time with unlike on big sites where i make an acc never get any replies or even reactions and everyone is always out 4 blood
 
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