5 Reasons to avoid getting Locked

Pokemon Showdown can be really great fun! Unfortunately, just like (nearly) every site, there is a need for us to remain civil towards others otherwise consequences can follow. Some of them may be easily brushed off, however others may not be so easy to ignore, as you can see to your right.

So anyway, what is a lock? It is a punishment that (supposedly) lasts a few days/a week, during which time you can't use the chat function at all; if you do, it simply tells you that "You are locked from talking in chat." Which is a really bad thing. These are some features that you can't actually do with that pesky ‽ symbol on your name. (It's way worse than a mute, which has the symbol !)

A fable about Corruption in Showdown[]

Every day, a small Ant arrives at work very early and starts work immediately. She produces a lot and she was happy.

The Chief, a Tiger, was surprised to see that the Ant was working without supervision. He thought if the Ant can produce so much without supervision, wouldn’t she produce even more if she had a supervisor! So he recruited a Bee who had extensive experience as supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports.

The Bee’s first decision was to set up a clocking in attendance system. He also needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports and he recruited a Rabbit , who managed the archives and monitored all phone calls.

The Tiger was delighted with the Bee's reports and asked him to produce graphs to describe production rates and to analyse trends, so that he could use them for presentations at Board‘s meetings. So the Bee had to buy a new computer and a Laser printer and recruited a Cat to manage the IT department.

The Ant, who had once been so productive and relaxed, hated this new plethora of paperwork and meetings which used up most of her time…!

The Tiger came to the conclusion that it was high time to nominate a person in charge of the department where the Ant worked. The position was given to the Monkey, whose first decision was to buy an Air Conditioner and an ergonomic chair for his office.

The new person in charge, the Monkey, also needed a computer and a personal assistant , who he brought from his previous department, to help him prepare a Work and 'Budget Control Strategic Optimisation Plan' …

The Department where the Ant works is now a sad place, where nobody laughs anymore and everybody has become upset... It was at that time that the Bee convinced the boss, the Tiger; of the absolute necessity to start a climatic study of the environment .

Having reviewed the charges for running the Ant’s department , the Tiger found out that the Production was much less than before. So he recruited the Owl, a prestigious and renowned consultant to carry out an audit and suggest solutions.

The Owl spent three months in the department and came up with an enormous report, in several volumes, that concluded.......“ The Department is overstaffed ...”

.... Guess who the Tiger fires first?.....

Of course, the Ant.........

"....because she showed lack of motivation and had a negative attitude."

Some cool features Locked away while Locked[]

Giveaways[]

Yes, this really stinks especially if you have a 3DS and the latest generation of Pokemon. There are just so many things that are given away in the Wifi room, but in order to actually make the "join" button work in the Giveaway, you need to not be giveaway banned (more on that later) and must be able to talk in the Wifi chat. (Why this is a requirement is beyond me)

.

Using commands[]

Although the chat box remains even when you are locked, you can't actually use it at all. Obviously this applies to chatting, but what may not be so obvious is that any forms of commands don't work. While you might set modchat (and/or slowchat) in battle just because you want it quiet, these commands do not work when you are locked. Or you may wish to set the timer, but "/timer on" doesn't work under locks. (Your opponent still can, though.) Additionally, for various purposes you may wish to search something using the nifty "/dexsearch" function, among other things. None of these can be done, which may be said to give your opponent the advantage here.

.

Having nicknames on your Pokemon[]

This is actually quite cool! Unlike ingame where you are restricted to 12 characters and with the 3DS blacklist to block offensive words or sometimes even innocuous words (such as "violet" or "viola", the latter of which is actually the name of a Gym Leader in XY). However, although they don't explicitly tell you this, a few battles will let you know that all these nicknames get blocked in battles (even replays) when you battle while locked.

Being able to PM other users[]

Of course, being in the wifi room often, in order to trade with other people (not just Giveaways), you need to communicate with them, or otherwise stick to trading with random passersby who will want your flawless Shiny legendaries for their (likely-to-be) hacks or possibly that low level random Pikipek from Memelele, neither of which are good deals. That being said, if you can't PM other users, then how are you supposed to strike a deal with them? Unless they have Telepathy, of course. But even then it's so much more straightforward to just chat there.

How my six month Lock came into being[]

Ok, so this has something to do with my academics. Back in the young days, I would consistently top the cohort, and sometimes by quite significant margins. However, as I got older, I also started to play much more, which kinda led to my downfall.

The first sign of this came in my IB exam, when I only managed to muster 45 points. It was mentioned that it was such a wasted opportunity for me to have gotten that legendary 46 in my IB, as I had somehow managed to achieve a grade 8 in my Physics (this is possible, though barely so, according to a copy of the !nk magazine) . But what also happened was that playing excessive Ice Age Village and Pokemon (it was gen5 back then) meant that I did not focus on my Extended Essay, thereby achieving the first dismal grade I ever got, a D.

Then it got worse in University, as there was less guidance from the teachers and more of it self-learning, I got ever more hooked onto the games, tacking on substantial portions of Clash of Clans and Clash Royale as well, and actually breeding competitive Pokemon ingame. At the end of my first semester, I had two A-, two B+ and a D. Doesn't look too bad, does it? Not when your parents deem that only A and A+ are acceptable grades. This resulted in a stern warning, which of course I didn't take seriously.

What happened the semester after that was a real shocker (and stinker). While I didn't expect to get A+ grades just by continuing in the same merry way, I also didn't think that my grades would sink that low. But that all turned out to be a mistake, because without touching the books for over two months before (and even during!) the exam period, I managed to get two Ds and not a single grade even scraped a B. This, together with rapidly deteriorating social behaviour, led to some dramatic changes to my life.

All instances of games were to be removed. On the phone, this resulted in all apps and excess email accounts deleted and a restrictions code placed. It also removed all web browser access due to that "effectively" being the app for Pokemon Showdown.
The 3DS was also confiscated. At first I thought it was also my 3DS, but some time later when I used a store iPad to win a Marshadow, it was then found that all the Pokemon games (White, White 2, XY, ORAS and SM) in the house were removed too, just in case I stole my brother's 3DS to continue playing the games.
Web browsing filter was also implemented on the home computer. In this case it filtered out social media, games and most Wikias.
And finally, what led to the six month ban is that just in case the web browsing filter was circumvented, to ensure that I would not return to Showdown (since I also joined with the trolls occasionally), a link containing porn was found in one of my trades, which was then spam posted with a hacked ingame offer to different people.

The Original Smog Article[]

Oh boy. You've done it again. You've somehow managed to get that pesky ‽ in front of your username again, and you can't seem to talk. However in the world did that happen? Was it because you dropped a bag of Doritos in the lobby? No, that was last Monday. Did you perhaps harass your opponent after they made a particularly skilled play in which Ice Beam froze half of your team? No, the only hax that last battle was your opponent hitting Focus Blast three times in a row, and you only called himm a "hacking idiot who has no skill." As you muse over your unjust bondage and punishment, you suddenly remember! Aha! Just yesterday, your roommate's friend's cat's elbow somehow got onto your keyboard while you were away, sending a long stream of "wjefoiwenbrvbvowebvwnvwpvrwhgpweihqepjfwepfjv" into the Lobby chat, in addition to insulting multiple users and also mentioning the rear ends of a little more than a third of the staff in the Lobby. What a simple and honest mistake!

Okay, well, now that you know you've been falsely imprisoned and framed by your classmate's nephew's dog jumping on your keyboard, you need to find some way to let the world know about this injustice. Of course, being locked, you can't exactly broadcast your scenario to the chat, so you need to find one of those brutal slave-drivers of this website known as the global staff. As we all know, your punishment is of the utmost importance, so the best course of action you should take is to try and find an Admin or a Leader, especially when they're in the middle of some insignificant event such as fixing the server or managing policy and maintaining order. No? You couldn't find any? Alas, what a shame; it seems that you'll have to just turn to a lowly Mod or Driver now.

Here's a tip: Mods and Drivers have very short attention spans, a bit like goldfish, so it's extremely helpful to send them messages. A lot of messages. If you're not sending at least four lines of "help" per second, you're doing something wrong. This helpful tip will be sure to grab the staff member's attention, and they'll be extra sympathetic to your cause. Once you've got their interest and empathy, don't bother with telling them your conditions! Your username that you used while locked, the staff member that locked you, and your activities don't matter! As we all know, staff members have some kind of special Jedi Force magic that enables them to instantly know these things at a glance! And surely, they'll see that you've been wronged! Wait… what's this? Why can't you talk yet? You're STILL locked? What gives?

Okay, so if one staff member denies your appeal, or maybe says some Showdown! legal mumbo-jumbo like "please stop spamming me" or "I'm trying to find out why you're locked" or "I am going to file a restraining order; this is the fortieth time you've done this in a month," it seems that your only salvation may lie in the hands of another staff member. Or perhaps, every other staff member. A wise man once said not to put all of your lucky eggs in one basket, so you can improve your chances of being unlocked by sending messages to every staff member you see. Remember the tips outlined above in order to ensure that your pleas are informative and succinct: "help," "hey," "I need help," and "Unlock me plzzzzzzzzzzz."

With this strategy, you'll have their attention in no time, so just get ready to get unlocked! If you're still not unlocked, here is the point where you are justified in calling the Mods racial epithets and other insults. I mean, you've waited a good, what, five minutes, and your problem still isn't fixed! This is the worst customer service ever! Be sure to also threaten the Mods in addition to begging. Passive-aggressive threats work best. Just subtly drop the fact that you personally know the Admin of Smogon. After all, your friend did say on the playground that his uncle is the famous John Smogon, and he'll surely demote this insolent mod if you're not unlocked. If, for some reason, your logical and impassioned plea for help still isn't answered, or the Mods are just stubborn by saying "I'm not unlocking you for something you did on purpose that you clearly knew was wrong," just resort to threats against the server. Mods do their jobs for free, and so they tremble at the thought of overtime. Threaten to spam the server, dodge the punishment, and also to also tell your friend's uncle John Smogon to demote them all while calling them names. Ah! You see it now! The Mod, trembling, types something on the keyboard. You're about to be free!

(User was banned.)

That was rude! Make a Discipline Appeal, they say? As you head over to the forums, you notice that they have a guide to making appeals. There's obviously no need to read that; your problems are unique enough that nobody has ever had the same issue before! The first thing you need to do when making an appeal is to post a title. The title should be extremely topical, so keep it simple with something like "banned," or "I am locked," or "appealing my ban," or "why am I being punished?" These help catch the staff's eye among hundreds and hundreds of other appeals. Yours will stand out with such an informative and interesting title. If you feel like thinking outside the box a bit, try something more creative. Try a title like "[Mod who banned me] is a [creative insult]" Really get those brain juices flowing! The title can really make or break a Discipline Appeal!

After you have a title, it's important to decide whether or not you should tag any Mods. Either tag nobody and let your glorious title draw the eyes of staff to your appeal, or be sure to tag everyone, be it the Admins, Leaders, Mods, Drivers, or random room staff and your friends. After all, having more eyes means more chances your appeal will be seen and approved! It's not important whether or not you say why, how, or when you were banned. Again, Mods and Drivers have magic mystical powers that make them omniscient and able to see all these sorts of things!

After this, be sure to write something about how you once knew a guy who knew another guy who knew a guy who only got hour-muted for dropping TWO bags of Doritos in the Lobby, or about how the guy who knew a guy who only got a 7-minute mute for comparing the actions of Mods in lobby to those of genocidal dictators. Be sure to adopt an aggressive and entitled attitude, and be sure to belittle the staff. Staff members love attitudes like this, as it shows them that you are a confident and intelligent individual. Being argumentative in appeals also helps, as it shows that you're passionate in being part of the site at any cost. After all, those mods and drivers would surely see your dedication and unban you straight away!

If at last, you're still not freed, try this last ditch effort: admit that what you did was wrong… but they should still unban you just because. Yes, harassing and insulting and being obnoxious and annoying was bad, but hey, you acknowledged your mistake! Who knows, maybe you'll even get a custom title after this!

(User is now a banned deucer.)

Osha's Stash[]

This gallery depicts the various treasures of Osha Wott. See also Nature.