The Oddish

Mother Nature suing Nintendo for copying animal designs in Pokémon

Guest post from The Enzyme

Nintendo is currently in court against Nature over its Pokémon franchise for unlicensed use of her various extant plant, animal, and fungus designs for the past 18 years; legal action had been delayed until now on account of the plaintiff’s lawyers being a bunch of hippie stoners.

If Nature wins the case, Nintendo will have to shelve about half of the 649 Pokémon, an outcome welcomed by everyone who has spent time trying to live up to the franchise’s catchphrase. Most of the contested designs are Grass-, Bug-, and Water-type, with the notable exception of Psyduck, which Nintendo has pointed out is based on the platypus, a design that Nature didn't copyright due to the sheer embarrassment of creating such a stupid-looking creature. In addition, claims over Omanyte and Omastar were thrown out early on as the copyrights on them had expired 50 million years ago. At present, her lawyers have issued an expedition into the Amazon rainforest in the hopes of finding things that look like Pokémon that could help in court, prompting Nintendo to fuel demand for grazing land by offering free cheeseburgers with every game cartridge.

Nature is also claiming royalties for use of the evolution process, which was patented 3.7 billion years ago. In response Nintendo has asserted that their process sufficiently differs in that it's a discrete jump to improve upon the previous iteration as opposed to a series of small changes that don't necessarily improve the design in the long term, citing the human appendix and fainting goats as examples.

Posters in Smogon Photo Album still do when they see a girl

Despite stern warnings from the moderators of a forum, it has been revealed that an unacceptable number of users still do whenever they see a girl there.

Soon after its debut as "a cross between Congregation and Firebot with the former's humor and the latter's sophistication", a forum introduced the rule as a measure to stem the flow of cringe-inducing comments from clueless teenage boys (and, shamefully, grown men who should know better) whenever anything vaguely female posted their picture. However, many people soon realized that this was only implemented so that the moderators can "do" without competition and that nobody actually knows what it is they're not supposed to do anyway, since those in the know refuse to tell anyone else.

Many of those contributing to the problem are defiant: "lol, like anyone is going to listen. The same guys who screamed at us until they were blue in the face about using 4chan memes expect us to listen to a rule that's derived from it?"

Spambots now posting more intelligent replies than most legitimate new users

Smogon's spambot problem has reached a critical level after a poll revealed that half the staff can't tell one apart from a really stupid user.

Spambots create accounts on the forums purely for advertising products that a typical member of the forum has no use for, like Viagra or designer handbags, by adding links either in their signatures or posts. To combat this, many websites require the completion of a "captcha" before submitting a post or making an account. However, spambots are becoming increasingly sophisticated, to the point that they are getting past them with as much success as their human counterparts. On one occasion a bot posted a team that was not only somewhat viable, but even got a couple rates before the account got banned.

In an interview, Birkal spoke candidly: "It's not as if the people coming here have been getting any dumber, either. These spambots are completing captchas better than I can, and I'm a relatively intelligent human being. If this goes on any longer, we're going to have to raise the age limit."

Deschain asks other users to stop posting pictures in his album thread

After four years of letting people post their own photos in the various incarnations of the Smogon Photo Album, Deschain has decided that "enough is enough" and has asked everyone to refrain from cluttering his thread.

The Smogon Photo Album has been a mainstay since the early days of Smogon, documenting the life and loves of user Deschain, in particular chronicling the change in his hair. However, recently it has been inundated by pictures of people who are neither Deschain nor have nearly as impressive hair, facial or otherwise.

The request has been met with mixed responses, with fans of Deschain's flowing locks welcoming the prospect of not having to wade through the hundreds of pictures of people sporting various outlandish clothing items, accessories and/or facial expressions. Many photogenic users are expected to fight and keep posting to get their fix of compliments, while the uglier demographic will surely feel relief from the pressure of having to post in order to dispel assumptions that they look like whatever happens to be in their avatar at the time.

chaos murdered

The owner of Smogon was found dead in his apartment on Friday morning, after neighbors alerted the police when they heard "muffled screams" followed by frantic loud typing on a keyboard.

Paramedics rushed to chaos, real name Christopher Monsanto, who was found bound by his arms and legs and gagged using red duct tape. The door, broken open when they arrived, and bruises found all over chaos's arms, strongly suggest forced entry and some sort of struggle—but forensic teams are waiting on paperwork relating to the case to be processed before drawing any official conclusions.

This shocking news comes mere weeks after Monsanto's widely criticized unilateral decision to appoint several moderators to a forum and OU, which angered one member of staff to the point of resignation. Police have launched a full investigation and are interviewing suspects, who include the entire moderation team of the two forums. DM has vehemently denied any involvement in the murder, stating: "I really hated that guy, but it wasn't me. Not that I haven't tried—I slipped a couple pills into his beer at the VGC in 2010 before evan knocked the can over."

There will be a minute's silence on #smogon tomorrow afternoon at 6pm EST in chaos's memory—alongside the other 1439 silent minutes on that day.

Leaves of Absence thread makes post to say it will be having reduced activity over the weekend

Badgeholders are distraught by the latest post of the Leaves of Absence thread in Inside Scoop, informing its readers that due to being "between ISPs" it will only have intermittent internet access through its smartphone this coming weekend.

The thread is essential for keeping the wheels of Smogon turning, as it allows people to efficiently organize efforts on the website. If someone is going to be away, they can communicate through the thread so that any projects they are working on can be temporarily assigned to someone else, or shift deadlines to accommodate the delay in their output.

An anonymous contributor voiced his concerns: "It's a nightmare >_<! I am working on three analyses right now and expect to be done by next week. Now, if something comes up this weekend I don't know how I'm going to tell people I won't be around as much for a couple days, or explain why I was a day late with finishing that GP check."