PKMN.NET or PUK as it was known before undergoing a rebrand, is considered to be one of the leading Pokémon websites based around the UK and European audience. It is a standard website, offering content based around the Nintendo games, Anime and TCG. Often criticised for perhaps not being as "up to date" as other sites, PKMN.NET stands out for often taking a light-hearted look at Pokémon, and tries to ensure that people simply enjoy themselves there. The website was founded by Psythor. The faces of the site consist of the actual site, the forums and an IRC chatroom.

The site also prides itself on being, outside of Bulbapedia, the most "user interactive" of all Pokémon sites. Once registered, users are free to post their comments on any news page or content page, and such features as Ask Sentret and The Name Rater provide constant amusement found nowhere else.

Controversy

PKMN.NET has attracted a few bits of controversy over the years, namely through it's april fools pranks. The site prides itself over trying to trick people on April Fools day, with past jokes including the first screenshot of a GSC remake, the shadow of a new Pokémon and the discovery of Celebi in Pokémon Emerald. A favourite joke at present is the editing of the forum filters, to ensure nobody types any sense. Another joke, which currently has affected the forums, is the 'establishment' of the site as a communist stronghold, rooted in liberal ideologies held by Psythor. The main trigger for this was when admin 'Joeno' had an immature altercation with a group of members who chose to advertise their site via PM. It was argued at the time that PM advertising was shrowded in mystery as far as other Pokemon sites were concerned, some (including admins) said it was okay others did not. Joeno then deleted the account of 'blue mew' and 'uber stevie' which caused blue mew to accuse Joeno of being communist. He then sent many malituious emails to blue mew and so insisted a site war. Both were at fault, but joeno took it slightly too far and posted male pornography on blue mew's site. The war ended with the online disappearence of blue mew and the PKMN.net communist uprising.

PKMN.NET is also notorious for the way of which it's moderators fiercely apply the rules of the forums, with major arguments having previously broken out between rogue members and administrators over the rules. The common argument being "our server, our rules".

Lastly, the aforementioned Name Rater feature has raised a few eyebrows. The feature consists of a mysterious figure controlled by an anonymous member who rates Pokémon nicknames submitted to him, in an often abusive way, with various members complaining about how they were treated. The question "Who is the Name Rater?" remains a popular but unanswered question on the forums, although one member once claimed he'd worked out the answer. Mysteriously, he has never been seen on the forums since.

Reality Shows

PKMN.NET also prides itself on hosting a number of "Pokémon reality shows" which although have been dubbed "pointless" by rival sites, have a lot of fans on the forums. The first, Pokémon Big Brother took place before the site became as well known as it is now, thus not many existing members remember it, and no trace of it can be found on the site at present. The other show, PokéMole, taking the form of the famous TV show "The Mole", has found much more success, having had four successful seasons.

Administrators

• Psythor, real name James O'Malley, is the webmaster of PKMN.NET and is responsible for the majority of political quips and references on the site. He has his own blog chronicling his everyday life.
• Iceduck, real name Steffan Alun, is responsible for a new forum project called Pokémon Live Connection. He also has authored walkthrough pages on the main site.
• Pokédude, real name Matthew Ward, is a close friend of Psythor. He is responsible for a large amount of forum and site coding and is the first to announce SMF updates.
• Joeno, real name Jeroen te Strake, is a walkthrough author and operates a parallel Dutch-language version of PKMN.NET. As the one who writes the forum rules, he is often subject to hatred and criticism by those found to have chronically broken the rules, but is also honoured by many other forum members due in part to rule number 20 in the forum rules: 'Joeno is the bst admin; he rules, is cool and smart, and superior to all the other admins even when James claims otherwise'.
• Typhlosion, real name Michael Harper, is responsible for most in-depth walkthroughs on the site and can be credited with any quips about Manchester United, his favourite football team, or his least favourite team Chelsea. He also is the creator of the PokéMole series.
• Steelix, real name Terry Evans and known throughout the boards as 'Rex', is responsible for some of the walkthrough content and has propagated a variety of forum quips such as 'SUPER' and 'cow'.
• irrevilient, real name Phil McCauley, also writes a variety of walkthroughs, among other content. His claim to fame, though, is the infamy incurred by being first to guess correctly — by the time the third episode had completed — in the PokéMole series before finally guessing wrong in the third volume (which, needless to say, caused Typhlosion a great deal of glee).

External Links

• PKMN.NET
• PKMN.NET Forums
• Pokémon Nederlands (Dutch-language version)
• Pokémon España (Spanish-language version)
• James O'Malley personal site
• Blue Mew's site