Smogon and Showdown Syber Safety

I swear to god it was a typo.

This is a general guide. for the most part you should be relying on common sense.

Showdown
A few general safety tips to go over
1. It is important to be safe when interacting with others online, and that includes showdown. For the most part chatrooms on showdown are safe, as usually moderated by responsible non idiots. i use that term loosely.
2. Despite the somewhat probably (hopefully) not drunken eye of the moderators watching, disturbing things might occur.
3. While most of the time the user is just harmlessly stupid, sometimes it can cross over into the realm of creepy users or predators.

What defines a dangerous user
1. As a general rule, if somebody is pming you being a serious creep and warning bells are going off in your head, use /ignore the user then report them to staff.
2. Asking for nudes is a massive issue. Especially underage. thats illegal child pornography, and very, very wrong. if this happens to you or anybody else please report it to global staff immediately.
3. General harassment is also an issue in this community. There are a lot of sad saps who will harass any they see as a girl out of misplaced desperation. The internet can sometimes be a sad place.

When dealing with any users such as those above who are legitimately acting creepy and harassing you or another user please don't respond to them and contact auth. I really mean that, do not respond in anyway to somebody who has begun to harass you or ask for nudes or other creepy shit.

Handling yourself online
1. As with usual, try to maintain etiquette, although this isn't mandatory, don't be a salty raging asshat.
2. I would recommend not openly giving out your address or name in public chats such as lobby, it usually amounts to nothing as nobody really lives near each other, but don't go overboard with it. Stalking does happen. Basically just don't be stupid about it.
3. Don't be a predator yourself, asking for nudes of underage kids is illegal and can get you in serious legal trouble, including things like jail time and fines, and Smogon won't really hesitate to drop the hammer on you.
4. For the love of gods don't post nudes of yourself.

Downloading files
1. Malware these days is pretty easy to get into your computer, so don't download x file because some random user you don't really know said too.
2. that being said don't be over cautious or anal retentive about it. places like imgur or gyazo are of course going to be fine.