Forum Rules

[Nightcrawler]

Rules:

We like to keep things free for the most part here at ROMhacking.net, but we do ask that you follow some rules so we can keep this a mature, genuinely nice place for people to come to.  Honestly, following these rules will help make a better environment for everybody!

1.) Use common sense. THINK about what you're going to do before you do it! This basically means act friendly and respectful to your fellow community members.

2.) You will not gang up on your fellow forum members. You will respect them. If you have a problem
with a particular member, you will report it to a moderator.

3.) No Flame Wars. You must maintain a maturity level above this. If instigative comments are made,
ignore them, or report them to a moderator.

4.) Moderator interjection is to be respected. If you're asked to drop an off topic rant,or end a
brewing argument, you must respect that and act accordingly.

5.) You will not troll a topic. You will not give an unrelated opinion that wasn't asked for.
Example: If somebody makes a topic about how to edit the font in Game X, and you jump in and start
telling them that game X sucks. That is trolling.

6.) If you can't provide anything helpful or productive to a topic, don't post in it.

7.) Don't pretend to be a moderator. Report the infraction to a real moderator instead.

8.) No ROM Requests. See the sticky topic in the General Forum for where to get them. It's OK to talk about ROMs and where you get them, but just don't ask us where to get them when we've already told you in the sticky topic!

9.) Avatar size limit is 100x100, but use your head. Keep the file sizes small. It will keep the board loading quickly for everyone.  They should generally be 20K or less in size.

10.) Signatures.  Text only signatures are strongly encouraged, however signature images will be tolerated within the following restrictions; 100px height limit, 400px width limit, 25K filesize limit. Animated signature images are discouraged and labeled as distracting by many of our visitors. We reserve the right to evaluate signatures on a case by case basis and ask it be removed if it is distracting to our visitors. You may advertise your own personal site with a link in your signature rather than spam our forum with advertisement topics.

11.) TRY to make an effort to use your best English. Capitalization and punctuation are appreciated by everyone! THE BOARD HAS SPELL CHECK! So, try and remember to use it. We don't expect perfection here, just an honest effort.  Besides, it makes you look intelligent and people will want to take you more seriously. This is a good way to earn the respect of your peers.

)

12.) No personal advertising without permission from a Site Administrator. Use your signature instead. See Rule 10.

13.) RHDN should not be used as your vehicle to piracy. Talking about modchips and flashcarts by themselves is harmless. It's when you start talking about where to find game, DVDrips, etc... We're not pulling the righteousness card, We're saying we just don't want that stuff here. Hypocrisy or no hypocrisy, we're not a piracy ring. This shouldn't be the hangout to find the latest games, DVDRips or Anime, should it?

14.) Double or consecutive posting is currently not allowed unless your topic has fallen off the 1st page of topics or at least 1 week has past (The 1 week rules does not apply to Personal Projects section which has it's own rules) . Editing your previous post will mark it as new to everyone else. This rule is in place to cut down on unnecessary posts because a large number of posts will overtax resources and cause resource problems on our current VPS. These restrictions will be lifted in the event someone wanted to pay for a dedicated server.

Rule Violations:

I'm hoping nobody will purposely violate any rules and we do like to be lenient. However, by not following the rules, you are making this board a less than ideal place for our community to come to. Our community does not want that.

It's OK if you sometimes forget or have a minor infraction, it happens to us all at some time.  You will be warned in a friendly manner (unless your violation was big and idiotic in nature) and forgiven.  If you do not heed our friendly warnings and continue to not follow the rules, you will be banned from the board and any ROMhacking.net site privileges associated with your account.

So, please, just do on to others as you wish to be done onto yourself and all will be perfectly fine.  I'm confident we keep this board a nice place for people to come to.

1. Upon an infraction of any of the rules, a public warning will be issued in the topic.

2. Directly ignoring the warning will result in a 7 day posting ban.

3. If a user is warned a second time for misconduct within (1 week), they will be put on probation for (2 weeks). They will be notified privately about their probation along with a public warning where the infraction occurred.

4. When a user is on probation, any infraction will result in a 7 day ban.

5. If a user has returned from a ban and goes through the system to get to a second ban, the ban is 30 days.

6. If a user has returned from a second ban and goes through the system to get a third ban, they are banned permanently.

7. Attempting to circumvent any ban by creating a new account will result in permanent ban for 1 year from the forum AND the RHDN site by all means possible. Bans are short here. We expect them to be taken like a responsible person.

8. If a user attempts to appeal a warning resulting in probation, or a ban, the issue will be given to vote by the mods/staff to uphold or repeal.

[Tintenfisch]

All systems go.  Safety procedure initiated.  Of else Your face will be broken....with my fist to symbolize what the breaking of the rules was like on the board.  The fist being the post and the face being the board.

[Nightcrawler]

New rules have been posted to spell out what is not allowed on these forums.

New policy on rule violations have also been put into effect.

We are going to uphold a friendly, respectable environment. If you can't act friendly and respectful, you'll be thrown out.

Any questions on the new rules or policy?

[Splatter]

Geez, that was strange. One second I’m reading threads about riddle translations and the games people have beaten recently, the next I’m staring at the blue screen of scream.

Now, I’m a n00b when it comes to ROM hacking, but I’ve been visiting this board pretty frequently in the couple of weeks since I made that R-Type thread and from what I’ve seen there‘s a great community here. Did a random post just really rub you (or another admin or mod) the wrong way? I won’t hold overreacting against anybody, but yanking the whole board down and posting a rant is a little too close to being a drama llama.

[Suzaku]

It was a steady progression. Things finally ballooned totally out of control, and action had to be taken. There isn't a need to go into specifics on what all happened.

The rules posted were ALWAYS the rules--nothing changed there. They're still mostly just saying use common sense and don't be stupid. All we're really doing is reminding everyone of the rules, and letting you all know what will happen when someone steps out of line. We tried being lenient and letting everyone more or less police themselves, and things got out of hand. If you really look at the penalty for violations, you'll see that it takes a fair amount of jackassery to get temp-banned even once. All we're asking is for everyone to play nice. If someone can't do that, then action will be taken. If they persist in being an asshat, then they don't need to be here.

[Daniel]

It was my fault- I admit it.

A New Guy created a topic wherin he asked assistance in trying to begin creation of level editors using VB. You know, tutorials, links and so on- a basic help topic.

I told the new guy that, in the long run, it would be easier for him to learn some assembly and a lower level coding language like C++ or something than trying to soley rely on VB.

Nightcrawler popped in, politely reminded me that VB was just fine and that I should stick to the topic at hand, rather than interjecting my opinion on his programming selection. But I have a bad habit of not letting things go when asked and ranting about things that don't pertain to the topic, so I posted a reply trying to explain myself, which I really shouldn't have done.

Honestly, the best thing for me in the first place would have been to just give the topic creator a link to Thomas Blind's email address (professional coder, master of all things Visual Basic, and someone who knows a LOT about romhacking).

But I didn't. I'm surprised I didn't get a ban for what I did. My stubborn argumentativeness rightfully pissed off Nightcrawler, resulting in that... banner... thing.

Sigh.

I really need to learn when to just shut up sometimes.

[Pennywise]

No, I don't think it was your fault. There's a certain member here who is I guess you could say is stubborn. I guess some other members don't like him, so they make fun of him or instigate him and they go back and forth with pointless banter. A mod also got pissed off as a result of this banter.

[Nightcrawler]

It wasn't your fault. Relax. No one person was to blame. I wouldn't shut the board off due to the actions of one person. In fact, you're particular topic was a very small contributing factor. Although it was a reminder to create one of the rules.

As stated, this has been brewing for awhile. Then, there was a sharp rise this week of nonsense and complaints and messages about the quality of the board deteriorating. Wed .night, more crap broke out and none of the moderators on duty at the time were going to moderate it anymore.

When moderators want to step down, people want to leave because of our declining atmosphere, and when I don't even want to visit my own forums anymore, there's a serious quality control problem.

Everybody(and I even include myself for a slip up here and there) needed a reminder of what RHDN is all about and that we need to shape up and return to the friendly, respectful, atmosphere that many people came here for in the first place. But we can't mistake friendly for allowing a free-for-all either. Moderation enforcement is required. We've seen free-for-alls don't work.

That's all their is too it. Things got out of control, there was nobody left to moderate, and we need to shut down and rethink how things are being handled here because there was a serious problem.

So I guess, this post can be considered the 'official corporate' response for the down time. 

Staff took advantage of the down time to have a lengthy discussion to come up with suitable new policies and moderation practices and standards.

Nobody is out to get anybody. It wasn't any type of childish overreaction. We're just trying to do the best job we can to maintain and uphold the ideals of this site and community. We needed some time to rethink, reorganize, refocus, and relaunch so our board did not lose it's identity and can continue to be pleasant place for all of us to come to.

Let it serve as a reminder for all of us to try just a little bit harder while we're here to be the good people that we know we can be.

[Kitsune Sniper]

No, I don't think it was your fault. There's a certain member here who is I guess you could say is stubborn. I guess some other members don't like him, so they make fun of him or instigate him and they go back and forth with pointless banter. A mod also got pissed off as a result of this banter.

Former mod.

This isn't kindergarten. I got sick of everything. Now I know how a certain person who adminned a forum I frequented felt all those years ago.

[Piotyr]

I hope I didn't contribute much to this. I myself got warned via pm about something and learned my lession about it so hopfully I won't contribute anymore either.
I also hope I can still continue to make my lame jokes at least in the social forums such as gameing and general. I am fine letting the romhacking forums get more serious tho.
I try my best to be friendly and sure I do get off topic sometimes but I try not to let it get out of control.

[sb iq]

Will there be a rule against people who demand that other people make things for them?

I say this because there are several recent newbies on this board (will not name them) who occasionally demand (rather than ask nicely) that other hackers make tools and hacks for them. Obviously these requests do not receive a good reception.

I bring this up because I fear that with the influx of such people, the experienced hackers on this board might assume that all newbies are like that and ignore or insult them.

The main reason this worries me is because I am a newbie myself who is still struggling to learn romhacking. I fear that when my questions come off as elementary, or "stupid", that people will refuse to help me because they think that I am like those other newbies who demand that people make tools and hacks for them.

[Nightcrawler]

Sure. That's failing to be friendly and respectful. They will be warned. If you see one, report it to moderators.

[dshadoff]

I bring this up because I fear that with the influx of such people, the experienced hackers on this board might assume that all newbies are like that and ignore or insult them.

The main reason this worries me is because I am a newbie myself who is still struggling to learn romhacking. I fear that when my questions come off as elementary, or "stupid", that people will refuse to help me because they think that I am like those other newbies who demand that people make tools and hacks for them.

Firstly, the experienced hackers on this board have already met all varieties of newbies, and won't lump them all together like that.  Being polite, respectful, and genuine will get you far in these forums and in real life.

As Nightcrawler already mentioned, there were many separate incidents which occurred in separate threads of separate forums, all at the same time, which synergistically formed a meltdown.  I can't say where they came from (because I honestly wasn't paying attention to the names of the posters), but they generally involved unprovoked vituperative, provoked retaliation, disrepect for genuine effort, and trampling over other peoples' conversations.

I returned to reading these forums (after a long period of only watching the frontpage news), because I saw the announcement of RHDN 2.0 .  I was quite pleased at the amount of real technical discussion which was going on - it had improved considerably since I last looked.  I even felt like posting.  But I also noticed that these conversations were being interrupted at random intervals by irrelevant things, and useful discussion effectively terminated.  I can certainly understand why some people would lose interest under these conditions - I felt the same way myself.

Personally, I think a warning/ban system is entirely justified, and should be strictly enforced so that it is taken seriously.

There are various groups of people here - some are working on projects, some want to become involved in projects or learn things, but by far the most people are here to see and discuss the works that have been released to the general public.  So be it.  But everybody needs to coexist, and the best way to do that is to offer people some initial respect, give them a chance to earn more respect, and in turn to try to earn their respect.  Or simply to allow them to have their own space.

The rules above are intended to help people to remember exeactly that.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

i apparently missed a bunch of drama, but from what i did see, there were some inflammatory posts and such going on. i don't want to see the forums become simply a place for us to slap each other on the back and trade high-fives, but yeah, there was definitely stuff going on that had to stop. here's hoping that that break (and this thread) curtails that stuff.

on a side note, you should probably check out .NET, daniel

[hippiejake]

One small question: The avatar size limit is still listed as 96x96px, but IIRC, didn't you [NC] change it to 100x100?
Not really important, but yeah...