Various fansites and groups have begun putting their support towards a new "Pokémon Standards Initiative" that would "collectively defining and implementing a set of data format and representation standards across the fandom that should be readable by both humans and machines. Such standards should be easy to follow, degradable, extendable. Some applications include but are not limited to: Pokémon data representation, team sheets, event information, TCG card representation etc. Once accepted, these standards will allow for simple and effective data exchange across websites and applications beyond language and format barriers."

Arty2, from LegendaryPokémon has explained the proposal in more depth and his remarks are posted below.

Greetings fellow Pokémon fans,
The Pokémon fandom is truly remarkable: loyal, evergreen, creative and vast. However, while the sheer size of the fandom has certainly positive effects on the quality of the information produced, it also results into cluttered, cut-off bits.

As common sense dictates, localized communities are not water-tight, meaning users roam around using different related programs and visit several websites / forums, often with equally active accounts on many of them. Not only they have to keep several instances of their online presence, they need to move their Pokémon data along, whether that is their team's information, "trade material" and whatnot.

It would be overly optimistic (at the moment at least) to think of a portable "Pokéfan" identity across fansites; it is however possible to break all the rest free.

My vision (in lack of a less pompous word) is that anyone will be one day able to Copy a line of text and Paste it in their favourite application, forum, website and let the software format, translate and display it, never to worry about having to input their information over and over again.

A Pokémon data structure is merely a graspable example; such a set of rules / standards could facilitate anything related to information exchange within the community, for the benefit of the end user, that is… us.

Like any other fandom, we occasionally quarrel, become fanboys and flame each other, often forgetting how we all enjoy playing the same games. This can be one of those different, rare cases of collaboration beyond personal grudges and language barriers that can easily yield efficient and palpable benefits for years to come.

How does this affect fansites:

PocketMonsters.net is definitely interested in the proposal and how it would be applied to fansites. A data standard for fansites would definitely reduce work duplication across the various fansites in the Pokémon community. It could also keep information more consistent, accurate and allow for better moderation of data.

If you wish to participate in the new 'Pokémon Standards Initiative', a forum thread has been created to allow people to submit their support for the project.

Source: http://www.legendarypokemon.net/psi