Should Niantic Introduce In Game Clan/Messaging Systems?

Regardless of petty admin dickwaving from local groups, a game like this desperately needs some form of in-game communication. Given their added emphasis on socializing via trading you'd think a chat system would be in the pipeline somewhere, even if it's just sending simple, pre-made messages to nearby players (shout-outs asking for raid help, trade requests, battle requests should PvP be introduced).

Obviously they can't stop groups from forming on their own via social media, but a chat system - even a simple one - is something that would make sense for a game like PoGo to have.

No, because you will barely get any moderation and i hate getting pm harassed by anyone who i would make an enemy of when i am trying to just walk around. I have enough enemies on reddit and here that everyday internet conversation becomes a pain that makes me paranoid.

No and hell no. For whatever reason, this game brings out the worst in people. I'd be fine with the game letting you send game-generated raid invitations to people in your friends list and they being able to accept or decline. But adding some sort of unmoderated messenger to this game would be a disaster

Honestly can't understand how these groups act like this...

You don't need admins for a Pokemon group. You get a discord app, people report raids and rare spawns, and you show up.

This is not a competitive game. You don't lose anything by other players being strong too. It's not like those mobile games where you get free rewards for being a top ranked player or in a top ranked guild/clan at the end of each week. If it was I'd understand this mindset. It's not though - so everyone should be working together.

I am glad my city dont have this problem.
Many group here some cross member also.
There are some jerk off course and some drama, but not escalating to ban people from raid together.
Some "war" between legit vs spoofers happened here, but not really within legit trainers with that scale of drama.

Either i move to other area, or i will ask some reasonable and strong player to make a small group. If you can raid T5 with 3-5 trainers for a start,that is good enough. Other trainers will know eventually and some of them will ask to join your group.
Just dont be like the old admin then if that's happen
Your gym coins will get worst depend on how other group react for it. But that is the price to pay..

My natural reaction to an idea like this is "YES!". I'd love to have an ingame message system. I play with quite a few players (not even close to the numbers mentioned, but still about 100 people in total I think) and it would be great to have another way than just FB, Messenger and Discord to talk to them.

But then I read about stuff like the thing you mention and unfortunately I have to change my answer to "No, let's not have an ingame message system".

I'm not going to pretend that there's never been any "drama" where I play, but I think that only one person has been kicked out from our group. Other than that we have a fairly friendly attitude, even when we don't agree with eachother.

To tell a kid that he can't raid with you because he's not part of the group is a fucking cuntish thing to do. That admin should lose his rights and be kicked out.
Even if it was an adult who wanted to play he/she should still be allowed to play. The more the merrier.
Helping kids with this game should be worth more than "only raid with your group". If not, you are not a nice person.
Good that you stepped up and took a stand. Too bad it got you kicked out.

As for handing a message system in the game, I'm sure Niantic has thought about it, but seeing just how much shit people can write to eachother online Niantic would have to hire more people to handle all the moderating. Not only that, Niantic would also probably have to try and add something in the rules to make sure that they won't be held responsible for anything, even if they are moderating.
And will they keep track of everything people write so as to be able to punish stuff like swearing etc. or will they just handle things that are flagged?
In short, there's probably too much work to add a functioning message system.

So we will probably have to keep relying on Messenger, Discord, FB etc.
Unfortunately I know that there are kids who aren't allowed to use such things and that really makes things harder for them when it comes to finding raids etc.

Niantic is pushing its social vision for the game without providing proper social features. There are jerks in every community, but in-game communication would make them easier to detect and deal with than privately managed Discord groups.