Smogon

Smogon University, commonly shortened to Smogon, is a website whose content encompasses competitive Pokémon battling. It offers guides on battling strategies for people of different Pokémon knowledge backgrounds. The website was founded by 'chaos' (one of the developers of ) and is a considerably well-known website, visited by competitive Pokémon battling enthusiasts. Its mascot is , with the site being named after Koffing's German name. Members of the Smogon forum typically identify themselves as "Smogonites" or "Smogoners."
==Site==
===Website & Forums===
The official website contains various articles and information about competitive Pokémon battling, including a "Strategy Pokédex" with competitive movesets and analyses, occasional news articles under "The Flying Press", in-game guides, and more. It's also a hub to access the Smogon Forums; as of August 12, 2022, it has over 421,000 members and 219,000 open discussions. It features discussion points for the Smogon metagame, VGC metagame, and any past generation metagame. It also has numerous workshop forums for making competitive documents and discussing tiering policies. It is also the central hub for tournaments, with its tournament subforum being where the premier Single Battles event, Smogon Premier League, is held annually.
During Generation IV, Smogon was affiliated with Shoddy Battle, and the official support and discussion forum of Shoddy Battle was a section on the Smogon forums. During Generation V, however, Smogon instead affiliated with Pokémon Showdown, the most up-to-date Pokémon simulator available. 
===IRC and Discord===
As of late 2016, Smogon's central discussion happens on their Discord server, which maintains over 38,000 members as of April 2023.
Historically, Smogon has operated several IRC channels on irc.synirc.net, the most important being #pokemon for Pokémon centric discussion; this is also where Smogon originated. Others included #othermetas, #ubers, #genvuu, #neverused, #littlecup, #adv, #vgc, #tcg, #smogonwifi, #mentor, #insidescoop, #cap, #grotto, #c&c, #grammar, #ratemyteam, #rarelyused, #ruinsofalph, #orangeislands, #smeargle, #circus, #warau, #fluodome, #doubles, #capasb, #tf2, and #showdown. 
===Spriting===
To accommodate their site and Pokémon Showdown, Smogon created the XY Sprite Project, which makes sprites in the style of Generation V, and has since continued for later titles. To date, the projects have front and back sprites for almost every new Pokémon released since Generation VI, and have animated sprites for a significant portion. This project has been borrowed from for other community sites, fan games, and Pokémon Online.
Smogon's Smogon Sprite Project has been the hub for ripping sprite icons from the 3DS games, distributed to other sites such as Veekun and r/pokemon, and continues to see activity into Generation IX.
==Competitive Battling==
The term 'competitive battling' within Pokémon refers to battling against other human players using either Wi-Fi Battling via Nintendo consoles or online battle simulators. 
Despite the console origins, Smogon tiering has historically been conducted on a variety of online battle simulators, including NetBattle, Shoddy Battle, Pokémon Online, and as of July 2012, Pokémon Showdown!. Pokémon Online formed the basis of its usage-based tiering in Generation IV, which Pokémon Showdown has continued since Generation V. Battle simulators are primarily used for quality-of-life teambuilding, ease of data collection for usage statistics, and diverse communities with in-built chat rooms.
==Staff==
This is a list of Smogon's Senior Staff, who govern much of the goings-on on the website, as of August 2023. This ranges from leading tiering efforts and subforums to their server.
* chaos (Founder & Site Owner)
* estarossa (Contributions & Corrections Leader)
* Coconut (Little Cup Leader)
* DHR-107 (Orange Islands Leader)
* Blitz (Discord Leader)
* Aberforth (Ubers Tier Leader)
* ausma (OverUsed Forum Leader)
* HoeenHero (Pokémon Showdown! Administrator)
* in the hills (Other Metagames Leader)
* ironwater (OverUsed Forum Leader & Pokémon Showdown! Administrator)
* Kaede (Discord Leader)
* Lily (UnderUsed Leader)
* EviGaro (RarelyUsed Leader)
* Marty (Research Leader)
* Merritt (Head Tournament Director)
* Quite Quiet (The Flying Press Leader)
* shiny finder (Wi-Fi Forum Leader)
* Theia (Pokémon Showdown! Administrator)
* Ticken (Battling 101 Leader)
* UT (Other Metagames and Contributions & Corrections Leader, Pokémon Showdown! Administrator) 
* Aeonic (Forum Administrator)
* autumn (Contributions & Corrections Leader)
* Kalalokki ("Jack of all Trades")
* Lumari (The Flying Press Leader)
* nui (Appeals Warden)
* shiloh (Tiering Administrator)
* Zarel (Pokémon Showdown! Founder & Administrator)
* Siatam (Ruins of Alph Leader)
* Rissoux (Draft Leader)
==Trivia==
* Contrary to popular belief, Smogon was not the first website to focus on competitive battling. In the past, websites such as Azure Heights and Marble Palace catered to competitive players. 
* The badges used on the Smogon forums are based on the in-game badges.
* Smogon discovered the 'Masuda Method', a way to increase the chance of breeding a shiny Pokémon in Generation IV onwards.
* The German name for Koffing (The Poison Gas pokémon) was chosen in reference to the Holocaust. Previous versions of the site included a Koffing mascot with a swastika on its body, derived from the Flag of Nazi Germany.link forbidden, Archive.org, 2004
==External links==
*Smogon
*Pokémon Online
*Pokémon Showdown
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