Psypoke: Difference between revisions

Psypoke
"The Psychic Pokémon Connection"
Language	English
Status	Active
Run	January 1999 - Present
Date opened	1999
Creator	Abra K./Psypoke Elite Four
Current owner	{{{owner}}}
Forum	Psypoke Forums
Mascot	Mew and Jirachi
Website	Main Page

Psypoke (also sometimes written as PsyPoke) is a Pokémon website that was originally owned, from 1999 to 2000, by Canadian webmaster Abra K. on the domain psypoke.com.

History

Psypoke's original incarnation was not very helpful as Pokémon fan sites went - it lacked a Pokédex and detailed information on the video games. It was also infamous for the amount of advertising on it. However, the site had popular activities such as the Psypoke Gym Challenge and its forums were the most popular Pokémon-related message board on the forum Coolboard.com during late 1999 and 2000.

Psypoke also held weekly trivia contests in its chat room, which was originally hosted on MediaDriven.net. Eventually, non-Pokémon fans frequented the chat more than actual fans of the franchise, and the members of the Psypoke community moved the chat to axpi.net, with the site expanding to hold trivia contests every Thursday and Saturday throughout late 2000 and much of 2001. It was also around this time that Psypoke briefly hosted the young Serebii.net, with Serebii becoming a news updater on Psypoke.com until he acquired his own web space.

After he had decided to leave the site in the summer of 2000, Abra K. transferred ownership to four people, most of whom were trivia regulars: darkmind, TheKirbster, Nova, and DeadeyeDave. These four webmasters called themselves "The Psypoke Elite Four" and started a new forum on ezboard.com. In 2001, Psypoke.com completely vanished from the Internet when Abra K. allowed the domain name to expire. The Psypoke Elite Four acquired the domain name psypokes.com in July 2001 and started a new UBB message board. However, before a new site could be launched, the hosting fell through and Psypoke became homeless.

Psypoke continued on as a somewhat-underground forum community on a second Ezboard throughout the rest of 2001 and much of 2002. Other than its Ezboard, its only web presence was a small fan page called the Psypoke Gear, or PPG, which was created by TonberryKing and Amphy and modeled after Generation II's Pokégear. It was not until December 17, 2002, that Psypoke returned as a main Web site under the ownership of the second, and current, Psypoke Elite Four: TonberryKing, Amphy, darkmind, and Frost. The site's former chatroom server, axpi.net, hosted the site at psypoke.net and psypoke.org until the server shut down in 2004.

Following axpi's closure, Psypoke moved to the GameSpy Network's ClassicGaming.com, with the site eventually re-obtaining its current domain name, psypokes.com. On March 16, 2007, the Elite Four relinquished all site and forum responsibilities to a new "Lite Four" of Krisp, sN0wBaLL, FireStarter, and TheCyberMew, with a fifth new admin being "The Geek," Jigglypuff, who handles much of the programming. While most of the former Psypoke Elite Four members have departed from the site, Frost still contributes as an administrator, meaning that the site has six altogether.

From May 1, 2004, until March 4, 2011, IGN hosted the site, first indirectly through ClassicGaming.com and Gamespy.com, and eventually directly after the network had largely cut down on its web hosting in the late 2000's. The current site is now independent, and its main feature its extensive game-related Pokédex, which is named the Psydex, although other features include walkthroughs for all of the main series games.

Administrators

This article is a part of Project Fandom, a Bulbapedia Project that aims to write comprehensive articles on every aspect of the Pokémon Fandom.