OFFICIAL RULES AND GUIDELINES!

1. Stealing, lying, or swindling members.
2. Trolling or showing negative, anti-pokemon or anti-collecting behavior.
3. Exhibiting abusive, racist, sexist, aggressive, or threatening behaviors.
4. Sexual harassment.
5. Backing out of bids on Group Auctions.
6. Having more than 3 (three) negative feedbacks (depending on their severity).
7. Being reprimanded/contacted more than 3 (three) times by a moderator.

Temporary Bans may be issued if:

You will have your sales permission automatically revoked if you get 3+ negative feedbacks or warnings as an unreliable seller. The list of members with revoked sales permission or under any kind of partial or total ban can be seen here.

●If the focus of your post is NOT Pokemon merchandise, it is OFF TOPIC. Of course discussing your in-game team, anime happenings, even cameos by merchandise of other franchises are OK, as long as they are not the focus of the post.
●This also means NO NON-POKEMON MERCHANDISE MAY BE SOLD ON THE COMMUNITY WHATSOEVER. If you have a sales post on your personal journal please keep your non-Pokemon items on a completely separate post. If you do not want to do this you do not have any obligation to advertise your sales here. You may link to your non-Pokemon sales on a sales post hosted in your own LJ. Non-Pokemon items in GA lots are the one exception to this rule.

Because of the size and nature of this community, we have to be VERY strict about our sales permission rules. Until you have sales permission here, you may not advertise sales of any kind, no matter where they are located, including your personal LJ, Deviantart, Etsy, eBay, or FurAffinity. "Referring someone to your art gallery" is not a loophole to get around this rule. Don't try it, please. Note that this ALSO includes posts "gauging interest in/price checking" potential sale fodder. Save it for when you have permission.

Our community is extremely large, and by posting multiple times per day you are cluttering up the page. The only exception to this is if you’re posting about NEWLY ANNOUNCED MERCHANDISE. Otherwise, your post will be deleted. This rule does not mean you SHOULD post once a day every day. Please do not do this unless every single post has new and original material.

We do not condone supporting companies that mass produce bootlegged copies or rejects of official merchandise. Please refer to our bootlegs guide in "Tutorials" for clarification as to what bootlegs are. This rule does not bar you from posting about bootleg/fake/unofficial items in your collection, only the advertising of bootleg companies/sellers. You may sell bootleg items, as long as they are CLEARLY LABELED, only because the items are already purchased and no more money will be going back to the companies.

You are not allowed to change colors or size of font. The only permissible font changes are bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, or a slightly larger text used for a post's TITLE ONLY or some other sort of announcement.

This is no longer allowed. These posts are often called “cool yahoo japan/ebay finds,” and are often abandoned right after being posted, which is unfair to the people already bidding on them who do not want their auctions advertised to add to the competition.

These are completely unnecessary, serve no useful purpose, and are also completely off topic. Leave personal entries to your personal livejournal. When in doubt, ask yourself if many thousands of people really need - or want - to be reading it.

No posts asking, “who do I owe money to?” Keep a record of your purchases/sales and contact members privately via LJ PM, email, or AIM. You can find GA's easily by looking up the LJ name of the runners using http://community.livejournal.com/pkmncollectors/?poster=LJ USERNAME HERE. Obviously, making posts asking the comm to help find sellers and GA runners who you cannot get a hold of does not fall under this rule, and is permissible.

A member breaking a rule should only be told once of their infraction. Feel free to copy/paste a rule from this page if you are unsure of how to be polite when pointing out rule-breaking.

Otherwise they must be under an LJcut. NO exceptions. Please refer to our LJ cut guide for instructions on how to properly use a cut.

If pokemon is not the central focus of your photos, your post is OFF-TOPIC and will be deleted. Also, “camwhoring” or “myspace” type photos will NOT be tolerated.

●If you do not have sales permission and/or have found a lot you want GA'd but want to take no part in it, you may NOT post to the community asking for it to be GA'd by other people.
●If you have sales permission, you may make posts requesting a partner to help you run the group auction, but these posts MUST be deleted once a partner is found. Do NOT partner with someone you do not know.
●There are dozens of deputy services for bidding on Y!J. If you wish to bid or buy on Y!J please sign up for one of them. You may not ask someone on the community to use their deputy service for you. There is no excuse to not get your own account. This rule only applies to Yahoo!Japan. Middlemen requests for countries besides Japan are fine (as there are no deputies available or fees involved).
●In that vein, do NOT post asking for "someone in Japan" do to special favors or store runs for you. Members who are in Japan are not there for YOUR convenience and not everyone enjoys doing free errands for random people. If a member in Japan is willing to sell Pokemon goods, or has permission to do a store run, they will post about it. Let them come to you, don't go pestering them.

●◎DO NOT COMMENT ON SALES ASKING FOR LOWER PRICES (unless haggling is specifically being accepted)
●◎DO NOT COMMENT ON SALES COMPLAINING THAT YOU’RE BROKE
●◎DO NOT COMMENT ON SALES WHINING THAT YOU MISSED AN ITEM
●◎DO NOT COMMENT TO MEMBERS BUYING/BIDDING ON WHAT YOU WANT TO MAKE THEM FEEL BAD.

Be sure to always include two important things: Which mod approved you for sales permission (and when, if possible), and a link to your feedback page. You will be asked to please add these two items if you forget.

Make your rules clear! Do you accept other forms of payment besides paypal, do you ship internationally, do you accept trades- these are good examples of basic rules.

Do not provide an end time for your auctions and then change it suddenly for whatever reason you come up with. This is unfair to bidders and does not reflect well on you as a seller. Also be aware of the community wide “no-sniping” rule that also applies to ALL seller's community auctions.

There is only need for ONE "reminder post" for your auctions/best offers/store runs/group auctions/anything you are running. We do not need a reminder once a day for a week about the same items. This rule applies to a post whose sole purpose is a reminder, simple text reminders added to your posts are not limited.

There are two special cases where this is allowed. Please see the Group Auction Rules & Guidelines and store runs section for more information on these exceptions.

Either update your sales post or don’t update the community. No one wants to see the same ten items over and over. This does not mean you can post once a day every day with your sales. Only post your sales when you have made a dramatic change in stock.

If you wish to take offers on an item, or auction it off, you must have clear starting prices. If you are taking offers, you MUST start them at the lowest possible price you would sell the item for. This is to protect sellers from lowball offers, and to protect buyers from feeling tricked into bidding more to reach some invented "reserve price".

If a buyer consistently causes you drama, backs out of sales, is slow to pay or in general does not follow your sales rules, ban them from your sales or from GA's you run as well as leaving them a negative feedback. Also check a member's feedback before dealing with them if you have any suspicions. It is your right to ban anybody from your sales who does not follow your rules or has too many negatives.

Regardless of whether the post is hosted in your own journal or directly on the community. If it’s advertised here it must follow the rules. Therefore DO NOT allow banned members to participate in sales or auctions in your journal. If you don't like it, you do NOT get to advertise your personal sales on this community.

If your buyer does not receive their item within 35 days of payment and especially if you are difficult to contact, a paypal dispute will be opened. Sellers- keep receipts and other proof of shipment (if possible) in case a buyer becomes suspicious and/or dispute is opened or if you need to prove a package was “lost”.

Exceptions:

This should be obvious. Buyers will leave negative feedback if they feel you are unreliable or untrustworthy. Keep good records, keep a clean sale post, be clear and be honest, make money and have fun!

If using paypal, pay immediately. NO EXCUSES! Otherwise read seller’s rules about holds or paying using other methods (check, money order, concealed cash) and politely request the seller accommodate your circumstances.

Do not comment with intent to buy and later say “nevermind.” Do this and you will be banned. Keep in mind sellers are allowed to “ban” certain members from their personal sales.

Inquiring about shipping before you commit to buy is allowed, so long as you make it clear that is what you’re doing. If the shipping ends up being more than you expected, thank the seller and say you’re not interested. Keep in mind sellers in Australia, Canada, and various other places often have higher shipping costs due to their country's postal system and this is NOT their fault.

If you asked for a shipping quote, a hold on an item, or specifically said you are going to purchase it, respond to the seller. Ignoring a seller is not a legit way to get out of acting responsible. Even if what you have to say is "No thanks" it is better than leaving the seller wondering.

Make sure all of your bids in community auctions are a reply to the bid before yours, and that you obey all sniping rules. If your bid is not a reply to the bid before it, it does not count! And if you are seen continuously placing last-second bids, you might be warned. Please just don't.

Sellers will get angry if it’s clear you aren’t following their rules and may refuse to sell to you.

This is NOT an art community. You may only take commissions in which the buyer gets a physical piece of art (examples: keychains, sculptures, jewelry, paintings, plush). NO DIGITAL ART. NO ICON COMMISSIONS. Take it to poke_arts if you’re unsure.

CUSTOM ARTISTS may only post about their custom work twice a month. UNLESS you are hosting an auction for a commission slot or a finished item, in which case you may post once advertising the auction and again as a reminder, for a total of FOUR custom posts a month. No, mixing your customs posts with your regular posts is NOT a loophole to get around this rule, sorry.

You may trade once you have A) Sales permission or B) 10 positive feedbacks from the community (eBay feedback doesn't count!). Naturally you can trade in PM with people - however PMs are private and not under the jurisdiction of the community and could be very risky. Do not trade with anybody you don't know.

These sniping/last minute bid rules now apply to ALL auctions:

A bid placed in the last 5 minutes is considered a "snipe" bid, whether you intended it to be or not, these rules will go into effect: IF A BID IS PLACED IN THE LAST FIVE MINUTES, THE BIDDING WILL EXTEND AN EXTRA FIVE MINUTES and CONTINUE to extend UNTIL AN ENTIRE FIVE MINUTES HAS PASSED WITH NO BIDS. If you make an obvious habit of attempting to snipe often, mods WILL be called to attention as it is not OK behavior!.

If you have never done a store run before, please contact denkimouse for permission. You may post a list of what your store has and gather interest, but you should not take payments until you have the items in hand. With extremely expensive or large runs you may take payments ahead of time, but be prepared to refund ASAP if anything was not available.

If you plan to do a store run while in a foreign country must contact denkimouse to discuss it first (even if you have done runs in your own country before) as we have had multiple disasters surrounding these sorts of situations.

The Pokemon's Name! (currently this links to Pikachu. Just replace "pikachu" in the URL with the pokemon you want!) You can include a tag that is the name of the Pokemon/s included in your post. If you have 40 different Pokemon in one shot, pick the main ones for the tag.

Tags for Pokemon Merchandise
info (my favourite tag, for info and news on upcoming and new merchandise! MERCH SPOILERS ALERT! :D)
kids (for posts focusing on pokemon kids)
zukan (for posts focusing on 1/40 scale zukan figures)
mpc (for posts focusing on the amazing new My Pokemon Collection plush line)
pokedolls (for posts with pokedolls and/or pokedoll related merchandise/info/etc!)
canvas (for posts featuring the pokemon center canvas plush line)
charms (for about metal charms -- a much bigger deal than you'd imagine...)
plush (for all other plush posts)
figures (for anything that is a figure!)
cards (for TCG and other card related things!)
mirage plush (for any post pertaining to the mysteries of the mirage plushies!)
bell plush (for posts focusing on the often-posted bell plush series)
games (for game or DS related merchandise - please note game strategy or game discussion in general is off topic!)
people (for posts focusing on the human characters of the pokemon franchise)
books (for manga, doujinshi, or other bound items!)
jakks (for posts with toys and goods by the USA company jakks pacific!)
tomy (for posts with toys and goods by japanese company takara tomy!)
pokecen (for posts with toys and goods by the pokemon center, or anything else about the various pokemon centers!)
custom (for any custom pokemon - plush, artwork, sculpture, commissions, etc)
banpresto (for posts with toys and goods by the japanese UFO catcher company banpresto!)
ensky (for posts with toys and goods by ensky, which makes keshipoke, retsuden stamps, amada stickers, etc!)
collection (for when you post your collection photos and updates!)

Tags for the Community
sales (for your sales!)
shipping status (for posts informing folks about any shipping status updates for your sales)
auctions (for your personal auctions you are running on the community or eBay, etc)
group auction (for group auctions and group buys)
questions (for questions and queries!)
payments (to help find posts about payments)
totals (to help find posts that compile people's totals owed, usually for group auctions)
wanted (for your wanted list or posts about items you are searching for)
modpost (use this tag to search for posts by mods!)
contest (this tag will be used when there is a contest going or as a way to archive past contest entries)
theme (this tag will be used for when we do theme week/month activities!)

gen5 (this tag was a placeholder before we know Gen5 english pokemon names. don't use it anymore!)