Sources & Citations

Last updated: May 2026 · Author: Aria T., Data & Stats Editor

This page describes the sources we use for Pokémon GO data, in priority order, and how we cite them in articles. The principle: primary sources first. Where a primary source exists (Niantic’s own announcement, the game’s actual data files), we use it. Where we use community sources, we identify them and explain why they are reliable. Where we are uncertain, we say so.

1. Primary: Niantic and The Pokémon Company

The most authoritative sources are the publishers themselves:

Pokémon GO Live — pokemongolive.com. Niantic’s official news for the game. Event announcements, balance update notes, season schedules. We treat these as authoritative for what Niantic intends; in-game observation can sometimes diverge from the announced behavior, in which case we report both.
Niantic Support Center — helpshift.com. Official documentation of game mechanics, troubleshooting, and Terms of Service. Cited where the underlying claim is policy or mechanics rather than meta.
Niantic and The Pokémon Company press releases. Cited for major announcements (collaborations, new features, regional rollouts).
Pokémon official channels — pokemon.com for Pokédex entries, lore, and species information beyond the Pokémon GO context.

2. Primary: in-game observation

For mechanics and balance, our own in-game testing is a primary source:

Raid counter performance is verified by Marcus, Aria, and Kai in actual raids.
PvP matchups are verified through GO Battle League ladder play.
Catch rate, escape rate, and similar mechanics are verified through observed sample sizes (where the sample is large enough to be defensible).
Event timing, event reward structures, and field research are verified during the event.

Where in-game observation contradicts a community source, the observation is documented and reported alongside the community claim.

3. Primary-equivalent: PokeMiners game master archive

The PokeMiners GitHub repository maintains an archive of the Pokémon GO game master file — the single configuration file that drives all in-game numerical content. This file is the source of base stats, move stats, IVs, encounter mechanics, raid pools, and similar configuration. We treat the PokeMiners archive as primary-equivalent because:

The file is extracted directly from the running game.
The community has been maintaining the archive since 2017 with consistent methodology.
Numerical claims published from this file are reproducible: anyone can download the file and verify.
The maintainers have a long track record of accuracy and are not affiliated with content publishers.

Aria maintains a local copy of the archive that is synchronized after each game version. Numerical claims on Pogodex Pokédex pages are sourced from this archive and are version-tagged where the article references a specific game version.

4. Community research: Silph Road

The Silph Road hosts community research on Pokémon GO mechanics that go beyond what is in the game master file: throw-bonus effectiveness, weather-boost interaction edge cases, encounter spawn rate analysis. We cite Silph Road research where the underlying claim is about mechanics that have been formally researched by the community. We attribute and link the specific research; we do not republish their work.

5. Community-trusted publications

Several long-running fan publications have built track records of careful research and reliable analysis. Where their reporting is the best source for a particular topic (a leak, an analysis, an event report we did not attend), we cite them. The publications we draw on most often:

Pokémon GO Hub.
Leek Duck.
GamePress (where their Pokémon GO content survives).
Trainer Tips (video content where the analytical claim is verifiable).

We attribute by name and link to the original. We do not paraphrase their work as ours.

6. Datamining: caution and verification

Datamined leaks — new Pokémon, upcoming features, scheduled events — are a frequent source of community discussion. We treat datamined content carefully:

We report it as datamined and explicitly flag what is not yet officially announced.
We cite the dataminer or the consortium that surfaced the leak (typically PokeMiners).
We do not present datamined leaks as confirmed facts.
We do not chase every leak. Many datamined items never ship; some appear in altered form. The signal-to-noise ratio favors patient publication.

7. Reader-submitted information

Reader tips, observations, and corrections are accepted at face value but verified before being incorporated into editorial content. Where a reader claim is the basis for an article (or a substantial part of one), the reader is credited where they consent and pseudonymously where they prefer.

How we cite in articles

Citation style on Pogodex is:

External primary source → linked inline at the first mention, with the publisher named in the link text where possible.
External community source → linked inline with the publication or researcher named.
PokeMiners → cited inline where stats or moves are quoted, with a link to the archive.
Internal: Aria’s verification, in-game observation by named editor → cited as “verified in our testing” or “confirmed in our [date] play session.”
Cross-reference within Pogodex → linked to the Pogodex article that has the source.

What we do not cite

Reddit threads (except where a thread is the original research location, in which case we link the thread and identify the researcher).
Twitter/X posts (except where a tweet is the original announcement from a verified Niantic account).
YouTube videos (except where the video contains analytical content with verifiable claims).
AI-generated summaries, regardless of quality.
Other publications’ republished versions of an underlying source. If the source is reachable, we link the source.

Source preservation

Where we link external sources that have a track record of being unstable (deleted leak threads, removed videos, expired event pages), we capture an Internet Archive snapshot at web.archive.org when the article is first published, and we point the link at the archive copy if the original goes down. Source preservation is part of editorial responsibility.