Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I join?
A: Of course you can join!  Join requests don't have to be asked or voted in, so you're accepted automatically when you press the “Join Our Group” button!

Q: But... Where is the “Join Our Group” button?
A: The “Join Our Group” button is located in the “Home” tab just underneath it and slightly to the right, or you can also find it in the “Journal” tab on the top-left of the page, just underneath the club’s icon!

Q: Hey, would you guys want to affiliate with my Group?
A: Probably!  If you're looking at this Blog page, there should be a box/widget on the lower right bar with our affiliates and information about which Groups we accept (biggest of which is that your Group should be Pokemon-related)!  If your Group meets all of these, please send us a request!  We'd love to affiliate! ^_^

Q: I'm interested in joining the Poke-fanclub staff!  Is there a way I can go about doing that?
A: There is!  We have an application you can fill out here: Admin Application! We're always willing to look at applications, however, we can't hand out positions to everyone... Mainly, we're looking for people who are enthusiastic about helping out here, who have the time and means to communicate with the rest of the staff. Please keep in mind, however, that this is a group with over a thousand members and a lot of activities that work on steady schedules. It's a big commitment and we expect all admins to pull their weight, but the PFC staff is pretty tight, and we can also be a lot of fun.    Just make sure you take the work part seriously!

Q: What are your rules regarding art contributions?
A: For rules regarding submissions, take a look at the Gallery Folders and Club Rules.

Q: Do you accept Gijinkas (humanized Pokemon) and/or Pokemon anthropomorphs (anthros)?
A: Indeed!  

Q: What’s the club’s policy on photography?
A: We can accept photography as long as it is related to Pokemon.

Q: Does this club have a limit on how many pictures you can submit?
A: The limit is 5 submissions per week per folder! Too many submissions can get annoying for members and will make the club appear as spam.

Q: So, when you say 5 a week, does that mean that there's a certain day when the week resets, like Sunday?  Or is it a week after you last submitted two pictures?
A: The way DeviantART's system works is for it to reset seven days after your last submission.

Q: So you only accept art appropriate for all ages… Can you specify?
A: Please note that we do not accept deviations marked as Mature, even if it's 'just to be safe'.

Other than that we DO NOT accept:
Sexually Explicit Material: Anything showing genitalia, exposed breasts / butt. Obvious stuff.
Sexually Suggestive Material.  We have some younger members that might get in trouble for looking at suggestive pictures. Example: A character bending over and looking back blushing, sexual organs / breasts / butt are covered by clothes or fur etc., but are obviously meant to be sexually enticing and the focus of the picture is primarily these areas. Ask yourself if you got caught looking at it at work, what would your boss think. There are plenty of other clubs that allow these kind of things, though.  You’re welcome to search through our affiliates, which surely allow some of this.
No Violent Pokemon art, please.  A little blood we can tolerate, but it must be tasteful. Blood is allowed provided it's PG level. So scratches or small amounts of blood would be fine. Gaping wounds, excessive bleeding or anything you'd see only in an R rated movie, obviously not. If it can be described as ‘violent’ or ‘graphic’ it probably won’t be accepted.
Drug References
No profanity is allowed into the club. This also includes the comments section and back room for admins.
Keep in mind that this is all up to our discretion.  If we feel the picture is inappropriate, we may not let it in.  =/

Q: Is there anything else you don’t allow into the Club?
A: We don’t allow anything trying to offend a person or a group of people (sexism, racism, anticharacter, etc). We also do not allow ads.

Q: What do you mean you don't accept any kind of advertisement? Could you explain that further?
A: Advertisement is not allowed. If we would allow ads, things would quickly get out of hand with people covering the comments section and gallery with ads.
This means you can't promote your groups, but you can still request to affiliate if you comply with the appropriate affiliation rules located on our home page.
Commissions and adoptables are also restricted. It's okay to submit a commission you did for someone, but we don't allow deviations that promote your work on the title or image itself. Images with titles like "Cheap Commissions!" or "Adoptables OPEN" or anything that promotes your work in the image itself will be declined. Ads in the description of piece is ok!
We don't allow journals about commissions, adoptables, other groups, projects or any kind of self-promotion.

Q: What about original sprites?
A: As long they’re made wholly from scratch.  To clarify further, by 'original sprites' we don't mean official sprites edited to look like original characters.  Modified, edited, and spliced official sprites cannot be accepted!

Q: Would you guys mind looking through my gallery and picking what you want from it for the Poke-Fanclub?
A: We're sorry, but looking through peoples' galleries manually is very time consuming, and I'm afraid most of us usually have our hands full with other club issues if not life outside DeviantART.  Thank you for offering your work to us though! If you can't decide what to submit, just try contributing the work you're most happy with.

Q: I'm submitting my picture to what I'm sure is the right folder, but it won't go through.  What's the problem?
A: If this happens, please tell us right away!  The folder may have been accidentally closed, filled, or it may not have been opened yet (dA's default setting is to close new folders).  ...Or, dA could just be glitching.  If you're having any problems submitting your picture to the correct folder, please contact the club and we'll fix the problem, or request your picture in manually if necessary.

Q: Why hasn’t my deviation been accepted yet?
A: Keep in mind that submissions to the club are not automatically accepted and must go through a vote-in process.  If you submitted a deviation a few hours ago, it’s probably because the admins haven’t visited the club yet.

Q: But my deviation hasn’t been accepted for days!
A: If you contributed a deviation days ago and it hasn’t been accepted or declined, it’s probably because it doesn’t comply with the rules, or the admins aren’t sure if it’s acceptable by the rules. Often we don’t like to decline a picture without an explanation, so we might let something that doesn’t follow the rules linger in the inbox until we have time to properly respond to the member.  If you found out after you submitted your picture that it doesn’t belong here, it would be a great help to us if you simply withdrew it.  If you're certain your picture is allowed under the rules and we haven't accepted it, just send us a note. Thank you!

Q: You declined my picture and I'm not sure why.    How do I go about finding out?
A: Please send us a note with a link to the declined picture and explain the problem.    We may have made a mistake, and if that's the case, we're sorry for the misunderstanding!  Just to be safe though, please look over the submission rules again in case the reason is there and you missed it, or see if you can find out if you put your work in the wrong folder.

Q: You said my picture was traced and declined it! What makes you think it’s traced?!
A: Trust us, there are fairly foolproof ways out there to find out if a picture is traced.  =/  Keep in mind, we don't penalize anyone for tracing unless they're trying to be dishonest about it. We just don't want traced work in the group as we've found it's more helpful for young artists to learn by drawing freehand.

Q: I found something in the gallery that doesn’t comply with the rules!
A: Send us a note with a link to the picture, please!  Needless to say, we're not above accidentally accepting work that doesn't belong. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Q: Does the group have prizes?
A: Currently we don't offer any prizes.

Q: How come the group doesn’t offer many prizes?
A: The club is working on rebuilding itself after going inactive for some time and there is only one individual taking care of prizes right now.

Q: What happened to the EV point system?
A: The old EV point system was scrapped a long time ago and we are working on deciding whether to create a new system or rebuild and update the old one right now.

Q: How can we help?
A: The best way to help right now is by promoting the club elsewhere anyway you can. There is a whole new generation out there that may not know about us! Next best thing you can do is donate.

Q: Where do I submit point donations?
A: Donations for the club are typically always handled by the current Champion. When you get to his page simply scroll down to find the donation widget on the left side of the page: Donation Page

Q: Do I get anything for donating?
A: You will be featured in our Donation Page.

Q: What is ‘Draw Me a Pokemon’?
A: Draw Me a Pokemon is a small ongoing contest. A member calls out a Pokemon for other members to draw, and at the end of the week, the member who called the Pokemon for that week gets to vote on the art piece he or she liked the most. The artist of the winning picture gets to choose the next Pokemon to be drawn for the week. More info check out the DMAP page: Draw Me a Pokemon!

Q: Is it okay if I submit something I did long ago?
A: One of the purposes of this activity is to get people to draw! For that reason we'll only be accepting pictures that have been made for Draw Me a Pokemon. We won't accept previously submitted pictures, or pictures done for other club activities or events.

Q: Is there a prize?
A: Your art will be featured on the group and you get to be the next caller/judge.

Q: Do I have to submit it right on the date?
A: Nope. Anytime between the time an updated DMAP journal comes out and the end Sunday EST of that week is fine.

Q: If I am an admin, can I still participate in the DMAP Event?
A: Yes you can, however you are still subject to all the say rules as the other members.

Q: Can I participate in Poke-Fanclub activities even if I'm not a member?
A: We don't recommend it.  You can't contribute deviations if you're not a member. If you want to participate in a Poke-Fanclub event, but don't want to be hassled by PFC deviation submissions and blogs/polls, you can simply uncheck 'Deviations' and 'Journals & News' on your watch list.

Q: I have an idea for an activity, contest or event that you should hold!
A: What a coincidence! We love hearing ideas!  Please go to the Event Ideas and Feedback Page and drop us a comment, or send us a note!

Q: My Group and I are looking for members/people to join my contest/etc.  Will you advertise for me?
A: We're sorry, but we can't.    We get several requests to advertise for others, and if we agreed we'd be making more posts for ads than actual club info, and we don't want to pick and choose what we agree to advertise.  If you think you've got something truly special don't be afraid to contact us, but we can't make any promises.  :/

Q: Can I just advertise with a comment on the club's main page then?
A: Unfortunately, we can't allow that either.    We used to allow it, but then our main page comments filled up with ads, fast.  We understand the need to advertise, but we don't want to become a billboard, so I'm afraid we can't allow ad comments at this time.  :/  When we do get them, we unfortunately have to hide them. See the rules list on the front page.

Q: I sent you guys a comment/note a few days ago and you never responded! What's up with that?!
A: We apologize, sometimes much of the staff is just busy, so messages that we aren't expecting nor seem urgent will sometimes be put on the back burner. Comments especially get buried really fast. If you only sent the message a little while ago and/or it isn't very urgent, we'll have to ask for a little patience... If you're beginning to get concerned, try sending us a note (another one if you sent one already). If you really need an answer immediately, try noting AllenQuills or another staff member personally.

Q: I want to stop receiving Deviations and/or blogs and polls from the Poke-Fanclub. How do I do that?
A: If you look in the top right corner of your deviantART page, you will see a button labeled 'Friends'. If you click on it, a drop-down window appears. At the bottom of it is a button labeled 'Manage Friends'. If you click it, it will bring you to the page you go to when you watch a Deviant.  Next, you simply scroll down to 'P', find '# Poke-fanclub', and uncheck the 'Deviations' and/or the 'Journal & News' bubble. Lastly, hit 'save' at the bottom, and then you're done!

Q: I have a question you didn’t answer here!
A: Send us a note!  We’ll answer you as soon as possible.


Thank you for reading!