Pokémon Standards Initiative - General Discussion

[Arty2]

Greetings fellow Pokémon fans,

The Pokémon fandom is truly remarkable: loyal, evergreen, creative and vast. However, while the sheer size of the fandom has certainly positive effects on the quality of the information produced, it also results into cluttered, cut-off bits.

As common sense dictates, localized communities are not water-tight, meaning users roam around using different related programs and visit several websites / forums, often with equally active accounts on many of them. Not only they have to keep several instances of their online presence, they need to move their Pokémon data along, whether that is their team's information, "trade material" and whatnot.

It would be overly optimistic (at the moment at least) to think of a portable "Pokéfan" identity across fansites; it is however possible to break all the rest free.


tldr - My vision (in lack of a less pompous word) is that anyone will be one day able to Copy a line of text and Paste it in their favourite application, forum, website and let the software format, translate and display it, never to worry about having to input their information over and over again.

In case I confused you already, let me illustrate using an example. This is the output of three popular IV calculation tools. You'll notice that every each one uses a different format. Go around in a couple of forums and you'll notice that every other post has a format of its own:

Code: Select all

Shuckle (Relaxed)
HP : 15 - 19
Atk: 20
Def: 15 - 19
SAt: 20
SDf: 20
Spd: 15, 20
--AVG: 17.6667

#213 Shuckle [Relaxed]
IVs: 15, 17, 19 / 20 / 15, 17, 19 / 20 / 20 / 20
Stats at Lv.20: 41|0 / 13|0 / 110|0 / 13|0 / 101|0 / 9|0

Shuckle - #213 (Relaxed)
HP: 15 - 19
Att: 20
Def: 15 - 19
SpA: 20 - 24
SpD: 20 - 24
Speed: 20


A Pokémon data structure is merely a graspable example; such a set of rules / standards could facilitate anything related to information exchange within the community, for the benefit of the end user, that is... us.


Like any other fandom, we occasionally quarrel, become fanboys and flame each other, often forgetting how we all enjoy playing the same games. This can be one of those different, rare cases of collaboration beyond personal grudges and language barriers that can easily yield efficient and palpable benefits for years to come.

yet another Pokémon fan

Pokémon Standards Initiative

Who does this interest?

Those within the Pokémon fandom that:

• manage websites
• program related tools
• use those tools
• write guides and FAQs
• battle competitively
• keep trade shops
• are active community members
• die-hard fans

If you're reading this, you most likely already belong to at least one of those groups.


What is this about?

As the name suggest, an initiative, about collectively defining and implementing a set of data format and representation standards across the fandom that should be readable by both humans and machines. Such standards should be easy to follow, degradable, extendable. Some applications include but are not limited to: Pokémon data representation, team sheets, event information, TCG card representation etc.
Once accepted, these standards will allow for simple and effective data exchange across websites and applications beyond language and format barriers.

Why should I care?

You really should care if you:

• happen to input the same information across multiple applications
• want this information to be chainball-free and re-usable
• have to manage a lot of Pokémon
• tediously style your trade shop
• need to keep track of event Pokémon
• move your team across battle simulators
• want to easily share your strategies
• are interested in the future Pokémon fandom
• …

How will it happen?

The infrastructure is already set; perfectly decentralized yet solid: forums, wikis, chatrooms, blogs, you name it! Thankfully localized communities are not water-tight and people usually participate in multiple talk spaces.
You can start a related discussion in your favourite forum, translate it perhaps, brainstorm, get more fellow fans involved and hopefully the idea will spread on its own.
Once the brainstorming has matured, the tech savvy fans can proceed and define the standards and adapt their software or websites. The means are plenty: plain text one-liners, XML, JSON, microformats and the list goes on.


signed by
add your name here

[MetalKid]

Is the consensus to use this forum for the main discussion points?

[Arty2]

Previous related discussion: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3027095

[xevee]

Hi people, I've found this topic through legendarypokemon.net when I was looking for some pokemon database to port to MySQL.

After years being a Pokemon fan (since 13, now I'm 25), I've realized that there are a lot of webs using their own Pokedex, repeating the same info everywhere... so this summer I've started to program an open-source database relational system that will store all Pokémon game data (in every language the games where developed), for reusing it in websites, applications and fan-made games.

The idea is having a central server where you can fetch data in JSON and XML format, and because it will be open source, people could download the database and libraries for building and use their own database servers.

I have other projects in mind that would use that system (communities where people could build a huge dex based on their own invented creations, web-based battle emulators, web-based multiplayer games, etc)
but the process is slow because I am alone and I have'nt much time for developing all those ideas. I'm currently developing the database structure.

Well after this introduction, I'd like to say that it's very interesting the idea you propose here: a way for sharing pokemon data using some standard.

I've been thinking about 2 hours before posting this message, and I've concluded that the best way of sharing information between applications is the JSON format.

Any programming language could parse and convert it into a HTML template for displaying in web pages.

There's an example of a JSON code and a sample structure:

Code: Select all

{
   "pkmndata":"1.0",
   "type":"EVENT_GIFT",
   "data":{
      "id":213,
      "form":0,
      "nick":"Shuckie",
      "country":"USA",
      "nature":7,
      "ability":52,
      "exp":4120,
      "happiness":127,
      "gender":2,
      "egg":false,
      "ivs":[12,16,31,21,29,4],
      "evs":[0,0,0,0,0,0],
      "moves":[32,230,0,0],
      "item":133,
      "pokeball":2,
      "hex":["4209187575","0xfae31af7"],
      "trainer":["Xevee","41695","32305"],
      "obtained":{"method":3, "place":45, "region":2, "game":5, "level":20, "date":"2010-10-10", "hatchdate":""},
   }
}


- All static data (pokemon species, attacks, items...) will be identified with numeric IDs, so the function must look up into a database to find all that static data info that's not necessary to include into the JSON object.

- In this case we need to follow some conventions, because whe should'nt have the move "Tackle" with different numeric ids and we cannot use "Tackle" as move identifier, because it's different in other languages. This could be resolved with a centralized data server as reference.

What do you think?

[Arty2]

Welcome on board xeevee. Perhaps you'd like to repost that in viewtopic.php?f=508&t=1361 as to keep related topics together; I do have some comments on your input, but I'll need a little more time to write them down and make a sum of all the stuff that has been said in the Pokemon data thread.

We've falled into quite a slumber 'round here but that's to be expected, it's a hobby afterall.

[Arty2]

Happy New Year everyone, who's still onboard to get this thing going forward?

[Arty2]

A couple of years passed since the last discussion, participants have obviously moved on, therefore it is safe to declare this project dead.
The core concept of being active in a fanbase, is doing things you enjoy and knowing to let things go if they turn daunting.

While it appeared to attract attention at first, it comes as no surprise that it never got any traction.
No party needs take the blame for I'm certain everyone approached it with honest intentions.
Devising standards requires a great amount of effort, endless discussions, conflicting interests, opposing goals, personal preferences. The Pokemon fanbase, like every other fandom, has only a few people capable of participating in such a laborious effort. Be it different levels of understanding, language barriers, lack of time or interest, a coordinated process for devising and applying such a thing as Pokemon Standards, becomes particularly tough. Certainly one that eventually no-one had time or courage to invest in —myself included of course.

Defining globally accepted standards is always an ongoing effort for big coalitions of interest such as the European Union but national standards still thrive within our daily lives. When market share comes into play —and here I'm not implying that it's about monetization— it becomes even tougher to decide upon a standard. For example, there's dozens of different phone connectors, or AirPlay, UPnP, DLNA and so on.

It's hard letting an ambition go down the gutter, but it was great seeing people from many different communities being interested in this process, no matter how short-lived it was. Here's hoping that a future, more capable, generation of Pokemon fans will try to revive this seed.

[MetalKid]

I've been kind of inactive the past few years. I never really used JSON while this discussion was in its prime, but I use it on a daily basis now. I think the best thing to do is, like Xeevee mentioned, is use a JSON format. The problem is that we can't really use any IDs because everyone is going to use their own database. So we should either have a "global" ID system in place so we all know what each ID is referring to (probably some sort of javascript library that defines all the data that is used in sharing across sites) or we just share everything in some common language, probably English, that other sites could easily look at and know what it means. Personally, I'll expose ways to export data as JSON or export a link that will return JSON so others can use it. Then when someone requests the ability to import data from some other site, I can work on implementing their standard. While not the most ideal solution, it would at least expose the possibility for people.