After looking over the site for a few days, I find that the main purpose for Smogon University is to serve as a much more competitive option for pokemon players when it comes to battling. Instead of just battling, users focus on testing new strategies for pokemon builds and also talk about current pokemon events. There are subgroups for each pokemon game, mentorship forums, and people who like to get into the technical aspects of the games and site. The clear mission for this group is to offer a more adult space for battling and talking pokemon. This community was rumored to start way back at the time that the first games came out when a simulator was developed by Blizzard, and people came to the site over time.
The gathering places on the site are numerous. These include close to 100 different forums, the battle simulator, the battle chat room, and there are links to Youtube, Twitch Tv, and various social media handles. The site is mapped with numerous links on the left hand side of the page, leading anywhere on the site. There isn't any site customization for the user, but it really isn't required. The site feels good without user customization. The features that the user gets is the ability to post to the forums and use the battle simulator.
The only barrier to entry is creating an account, and unfortunately, the membership benefits are not clearly communicated before sign up. The information collected consists of: your email, a desired password, the timezone you are in (to connect with players locally), your birth date, your location, occupation, your favorite pokemon, and a defining characteristic about yourself. The site does a very good job at letting a guest view all parts of the site without a membership. Members create their own profile, and the site indicates the history and level of participation on the site through a user tag that shows a profile pic (usually a pokemon) and the number of posts and likes and how long the user was on the site, all of which is tracked automatically.
The Leadership on this site is very different than most. They are not trained by anyone in the community. They sign up to become a Mentor and start a thread in the forums. They have no real control over anything besides the thread they start. There is no manual or technical support that I can find on the site.
The closest thing to a code of conduct is in the Philosophy section of the About page. It doesn't really offer the user a way to act but it explains the motives behind the organization and its decisions. That being said, there is no way for the user to edit this philosophy.
There are cyclic events that are posted on the homepage and a newsletter called the Smog. There are also contests that allow users to design pokemon. These results are communicated to the community. There are many other types of events.
As I said before, when a user makes a membership they are given access to the forums and the battle simulator. As a non member, you can really only read pages in terms of participation. All members, new, regular, and leaders (the Mentors) all have the ability to read content, customize pages and forums, and host forums as well. You can also comment in forums. The owners and moderators of the site have all of these abilities plus the ability to set policy. A member's status is determined by the time on the site. This is labeled on their user card near their profile picture. There is no real way to move up in the site unless you become an extremely successful mentor.
When members create a subgroup by becoming a mentor in a mentorship program. This is not necessarily encouraged among members so it is not desirable exactly. The mentor subgroups are promoted well in the community and they only require a basic membership (the only one available) to create one. There is no infrastructure for the user to make their own events. That being said, there are no real world interactions promoted by the site. There is a forum for players to share their pokemon friend codes in order to battle over the internet.
