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Right, so I'm sure everyone is aware of this by now, and I'm just gonna come right out and say it. Pokemon profiles are a huge mess, and it really needs to be straightened out. And as the title says, it has diddly squat to do with their extremely unstable tiering. Now, I'm going to list several of these over-arching issues, which hopefully can be addressed as soon as it possibly can.
Missing Moves
The first problem to address here is the fact that the majority of Pokemon are missing their movesets. Now, I've seen some arguments claiming that Pokemon shouldn't have their moves listed on the site because it just adds a lot of unnecessary junk into the profiles which only serves to increase the size of the pages. However, currently, many of the Pokemon profiles instead refer to Bulbapedia for people to gauge what moves they have, which actually makes our site seem unprofessional for having to resort to someone else's work for our profiles, and can actually confuse people when it comes to the actual versus debating side of this site. (I know in my early days, I used moves that shouldn't have been used in the debating process, such as TM moves.) So, we need to go through each of the different profiles and add all of the Pokemon's moves while simultaneously removing these links from the profiles.
Also, it should be noted for everyone's sake that, according to multiple talks with Cal on this subject, that both Level-Up moves and Egg moves are accepted on the site, and should be listed individually on the profiles as such, not Tutor or TM or even Event moves, unless they are particularly unique to the Pokemon. Examples of these exceptions include Blast Burn/Hydro Cannon/Frenzy Plant (Tutor) for the final evolutions of the Starter Pokemon, such as Charizard or Feraligatr, or V-Create (Event) and Dragon Ascent (Tutor) for Victini and Rayquaza respectively. (As for whether Pokemon from the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon franchise should have access to TM moves, such as Grovyle (PMD Explorers), that's a matter of discussion for a different time.)
Some examples of how to list these moves include pages such as Breloom or Goodra.
Missing Evolutions
Another shortcut that has been done with many of the Pokemon on this site is failing to list each of their different evolutions in their profiles. Examples of profiles with incomplete evolution chains include Tyrantrum or Arcanine, and even starter Pokemon such as Delphox. While also showing a level of unprofessionalism by disregarding a major part of these individual Pokemon once again, it also leaves a lot of different Pokemon out of the capacity to partake in versus debates. Heck, once I had to add Cubone to the Marowak profile just so someone could make a match with Cubone. So, with that being said, this needs to be addressed almost as highly as the missing moves, as it fails to show our site at its best in regards to how we can handle Pokemon.
Good examples of Pokemon evolutions being handled correctly can be found in profiles such as Staraptor or Sceptile.
Missing Powers & Abilities
Next, to coincide with the previous topic about moves, many of each Pokemon's individual abilities stem from their movesets, not to mention their Abilities and other individual factors. Therefore, as these Pokemon are being updated to match this, their "Powers and Abilites" sections need updating as well. This especially goes for Pokemon which didn't have their Egg Moves added initially, even if they accounted for their standard Level-Up moves, as I have encountered quite a few additional Powers that came from these Egg Moves, such as Healing and Statistics Reduction/Amplification.
Missing In-Game Abilities
As I mentioned in the last section, Pokemon's in-game Abilities need some addressing as well. While this is actually one of the only things added to many of the different Pokemon profiles that I've seen, there are plenty of Pokemon that still do not have their in-game abilities listed. Not to mention the existence of games such as Pokemon Conquest, which gives Pokemon even more abilities to work with, but seems to be largely ignored on this site. And then there are the existence of IQ Skills, which stem from the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon universe, which Pokemon such as Lucario have already added to their profiles. As this is also a major issue with these profiles, this needs to be addressed along with everything else.
Differing Forms and Incarnations
Now, to anyone familiar with the franchise, it shouldn't be a surprise to hear that many different Pokemon have alternate forms. From Pokemon such as Deoxys and Shaymi who have different forms, to Altaria or Diancie and their Mega-Evolutions, to the brand new Alola forms of Pokemon such as Ninetales or Raichu. However, according to Cal, as I've talked to him about this before, while Pokemon with different forms or Mega-Evolutions can remain on the same profile, Alolan forms of Pokemon should be spliced from their original Pokemon and made into their own profiles, such as what has been done with Alolan Exeggutor. As Pokemon have differing moves and stats between their Alolan and standard forms, this is the preferred method of handling these different Pokemon.
Also, Pokemon who have clearly different iterations throughout different mediums should also be given their own profiles. Clear examples of this include Pikachu (Anime) or Kecleon (Mystery Dungeon). This can help avoid confusion with profiles such as Greninja, which appears to be an amalgamation of Greninja from the games and Ash's Greninja from the anime.
Pokedex Entries & Summaries
The final topic I want to discuss in this revision thread is adding quotations from the Pokedex to the Pokemon, as well as fixing what is already there. Many of the Pokemon lack these quotations, which could really help flesh out the different Pokemon profiles, and even those that do include Pokedex entries as quotations don't specifically state from where they come from. A good example of what I'd like to see done for most, if not all, the Pokemon profiles is found with Houndoom, where it specifically says which game the particular Pokedex entries come from, and doesn't just list it in the Summary, where other information can be added.
Speaking of the Summary, that's another issue regarding the Pokedex quotations. More than once, when I move to add a Pokedex quotation to a Pokemon profile, I then see that it's already more or less covered in the Summary, so I lose motivation to do something with it as I don't want to change the Summary, so I don't end up having the profile repeat the exact same piece of information in rapid succession. Also, while many Pokemon do have Summaries, and those that don't should be added as expected, many of the Pokemon that actually have evolutions listed within the profile only have the main Pokemon for the profile covered with the Summary, completely ignoring the other Pokemon within the evolution chain, such as Blastoise. I'm not entirely certain how this should be implemented in order to prevent it from looking clogged with Summaries, but if this can be pulled off, then it will be all the better for each Pokemon in the particular profiles, not just the Pokemon the profile is based on.
In Conclusion
As can be seen with the large list of problems I have created here, there are many, many issues with Pokemon, disregarding tiering. I have attempted to fix some of these for myself, but there are just too many profiles for a couple of people, such as me and Cal, to handle alone. Therefore, I'm requesting help from the entire wiki to organize the Pokemon profiles, and match them up to the qualities expected of other verses such as Dragon Ball or Mario Bros. Because Pokemon is a very important franchise as a whole, and it needs to be treated with the same level of respect as the other important verses on this site.
