Like any good community, Johto Times has a set of rules and guidelines that all users should abide by if they wish to be a part of our community. We try our best to keep these rules simple, easy to follow, and fair. They are reviewed occasionally, based on observations made across the community, and from feedback within the team, and our users.
1. Treat everyone with respect and dignity
While this is a fairly straightforward request, it’s an important one. Everyone that signs up to this forum should feel like they are welcome and belong here. Members must:
- Create an inclusive environment for everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, race, gender, disability, age, or other protected categories.
- Respect other people’s viewpoints, and politely disagree when your opinions don’t align.
- Communicate respectfully and with courtesy to all members.
2. Be mindful of discussing spoilers
We want to ensure that members who use our forum are not exposed to anything that could ruin the experience of a new game they haven’t yet played. Our policy on spoilers is as follows:
- Official announcements and promotional materials that have been revealed by The Pokémon Company and their partners may be discussed freely.
- Upon a game’s release, avoid sharing major plot points, surprise reveals, or anything that could ruin the enjoyment of the game for others, until six weeks after its official global release. (Use spoiler tags.)
- Users should keep all discussion about the game to its dedicated board. Users wishing to avoid spoilers should avoid said board, minimising the risk.
- When in doubt, use caution with a spoiler tag.
3. Keep the community suitable for all
Despite our target audience being over the age of eighteen, the community should be suitable for everyone of all ages. This includes:
- No sexual or graphically violent content
- No explicit language that you wouldn’t want your own children or loved ones hearing
- No uploading, linking to, or describing where to obtain ROMs or other illegal content
- No buying or selling items through the community
4. Maintain good forum etiquette
In order to keep our community organised, respectable, and to a high standard, we have some guidelines we request people follow. The following are some examples of things we advise against:
- Double posting (use the edit button to fix mistakes or if you have something additional to add)
- Writing posts in all capital letters
- Bumping topics (adding little to no value to a post in order to push it up the list)
- Cross-posting (posting the same message in multiple places on the forum)
- Derailing a conversation (changing the topic almost entirely from the original)
- Creating new topics that already have one present
- Creating topics in the wrong category
- Using our platform with the sole intent of promoting their own works
- Posting other people’s content without credit
- Engaging with rule-breaking posts in-thread (users should use the report function)
- Posting or sharing works generated by artificial intelligence
5. The rules aren’t all-encompassing
These rules are guidelines! Johto Times reserves the right to take action on any users who are impacting the community in a negative way, even if it’s not outlined above.
Actions
We would love to believe that our community is an awesome one, and that all of our users are wonderful people who will respect our rules, fellow members, and do their best to build a great home for everyone to enjoy. In the event this isn't the case, we follow a simple procedure:
- Warning (depending on the severity of the rule break, we may skip straight to a ban)
- Firm warning (If problems continue to occur, a ban will be given)
- Ban (temporary or permanently, depending on the severity)
Thank you for taking the time to read our rules. We hope that users will understand and respect why we have them, and why they are necessary. Please keep checking back here for any changes to these rules.
Rules last updated: October 2nd, 2025
