Saturday, June 8, 2024

My Pokémon Communities on WhatsApp

While some messaging applications like LINE are on (or heading for) the down low, other established ones like WhatsApp are still on the up and up, even having some new features. One of those for the latter is a Communities feature, which allows group chats with (possibly) related members to be clustered together and to have an "announcements" group where designated community admins can post and indicate certain important matters. As expected, I have some of them that are related to Pokémon, and that bears a bit of a discussion. 

But first, it's helpful to outline some Pokémon usage scenarios for this feature. One group in a Community for a battling group may serve as a "lounge" for all Trainers, while another may serve as a way to inform and communicate about battles and battle results, which are then handled by admins. Another idea is to separate Trainers by time and/or place to make sure things need to happen in their localities of concern before dealing with others with different ones. Certainly, the possibilities are varied and need to be explored by groups and functions. 

As for my Communities, I have one for my local raid group and its primary group chat, which also includes a group specific for admins (and perhaps, would-be admins) as well as those who have attained a certain excellence... which I haven't qualified for, but that might just happen soon enough. There is also another Community for a very well-known series of PvP tournaments, which contains the primary group chat as well as a group for a live edition of the tournament, both of which may have common participants. Both of these realize the feature quite nicely.

It is important to note that not every group chat needs to be put in a community; small, close-knit groups - like the "splinter" raid groups that I also have - can do without one and every message or coordination can be done right in a single group chat as they always have been (and likely will be). The key aspect of the Community feature seems to be the emphasis on interrelationships and important matters, which not every group might need; obviously for some groups, particularly highly related ones, the need very much arises and the feature helps keep things in line.

The way that Communities in WhatsApp centralize related chat groups and provide a means of keeping important matters up front and separate is one that should work well for various interests. Evidently, they include Pokémon ones, as proven by the Communities I am a part of as above, with possibly more to come in the future. With the continued and plentiful use of the messaging application, the feature is sure to have its uses for Pokémon fans and contribute to the up and up of the messaging application to serve their communicative needs further.

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