[Forum] Posting Requirements for some forums

[ThePhoenixBird]

Some of you reading this may have already noticed that when you try to post on a forum you get this message:

You do not have the required post count to post in this forum.

From now on certain forums will have some posting requirements to publish new topics/reply on them

• Custom Server MODs (20 posts required)
• Custom Contributions Requests (15 posts required)
• Custom Datapack MODs (20 posts required)
• Core Bug Report (50 posts required)
• Server/Datapack Discussion (5 posts required)
• Core/DP Retail Contributions (5 posts required)

Why? im sure that the regular forum readers should know that every day someone posts in the wrong forum... this always happens and not just once, but several times, we know that this is just a natural behavior of the new users, but it takes time to the moderators (Jr/Sr Devs) to move topics from one side to other, because people seriously dont read the forum rules and the forum descriptions.

Instead of giving a rude reply to them or just sending warnings without regrets, we think that we should try to move our efforts into educating the new users or at least diverging their posts to the correct place, the most common issue is when we get "PLEASE HELP", "A PROBLEM" or "HOW TO..." topics on the Discussion forums... those forums arent intended for support, if you need help please use the Support Forums for either Datapack or Core.

Support forums have NO POSTING REQUIREMENTS, any new user is invited to post on this forums if they need help or have questions about our software.

Now it comes our second most common problem, the Contributions and Requests forums, a lot of people still posts on the Contribution forums when they have a problem with certain piece of code or something, Contribution forums are ONLY for posting YOUR OWN pieces of code to the rest of the community, not for Support Petitions and Requests, if you need help with certain Contribution then go to the topic from where you found it and ask there, do not create a new topic.

The Requests forums are mostly spammed recently by new users looking for Code Modifications or Support and i will state a few things about those forums:

• Requests forums are to give your ideas about new content to apply to L2j Server, you may have noticed that there are two requests forums one on the main development branch in Feature Requests where you should put Requests for RETAIL FEATURES OR ALIKE, the other one in Custom Contributions Requests has been renamed to Custom Feature Requests to avoid misunderstandings and this one is THE ONLY ONE where you can request CUSTOM FEATURES
• Recently the Custom Server MODs and Custom Feature Requests forums has been spammed by new users asking, begging, spamming and duplicating posts without following the Forum Rules, that is the reason of the increased amount of posts required to post a new topic/reply of those forums, we know you all new users are really exited to get those new custom features in your server but that isnt a excuse to violate our rules.
• Custom Server MODs is ONLY to post YOUR Modifications Patches, if you post anything else that doesnt contain a contribution in your first post it will be removed/deleted/destroyed, if you need help with a Custom MOD then go the topic of that MOD and ask there, if you are are looking for a Custom MOD then go to Custom Feature Requests and ask there.
• Custom Feature Requests forums ARE NOT SUPPORT FORUMS, so please do not "request support" there, if you need help with a MOD then go to the topic where that MOD is posted, if you are looking for help with a MOD that isnt posted on L2j Forums then go to the forum where its located. If you are looking for a NEW MOD then post your ideas for that feature and wait patiently for someone else to reply, but do not duplicate or bump your post.

Notes: Once a Custom Feature Request gets developed and reachs a "finished" o "usable" status it can be requested to a moderator to be moved into the Custom Server MODs forum.

Also we have seen a lot of Custom Contributions made by users that arent the author of them, we remember you all that ITS FORBIDDEN to post code contributions that arent under GNU General Public License, or code leaked/stolen from another forums/servers or with questionable copyrights/license, if you post a code contribution made by another one be sure to also give credit to the original author by mentioning it, we will DELETE contributions that doesnt follow this guidelines.

And last but not least the Bug Reports forum have the highest post requirements since we see lots of "bug reports" made by new users and actually those reports arent "real bugs", just problems that occur due inexperienced users handling complex software, we hope that rising the requirements we could filter those "problems" and get the real bug reports.

Even if you cant post of those forums they are READ ONLY for you, please exercise your brain and look for answers using they mighty Search Feature or reading the forums.

Notes #2: Users with more than the required posting requirements (high post count) that repeatly do not follow the posting guidelines stated on this post (keep posting on Requests/Contributions incorrectly), will be WARNED at sight and BANNED on the 3rd Warning.

The objective of this measure is to keep the forum clean and in order with less spam/junk posts on it.

## UPDATE - POST HUNTERS ##
Just to remind to all our NEW USERS that going through the forums posting on really old topics ( >6 months after last reply) or just doing random comments on random posts like: "doh dude i like this!", "great work! thanks!", "hahaha nice " moderators will give you a nice WARNING per each post, and if you collect 3 warnings you will be auto-banned for a month, sounds really cool right? is easier to collect 3 warnings than 20 posts, so if you are a new user and you have an urge to get rid of this posting requirements try to make your first posts quality wise and take your time to participate in the community, if you are in a hurry you will just end banned by our moderators, they have good eyes and they will spot you as a new user, and if they think that your reply is out of context or just too random/crappy they will check on you and check your post history if they find out that you have made a lot of posts recently (mostly on the same day or past day) with the same random/crappy/out-of-context motto, they will just ban you for "post hunting" they have permission to shoot first and make questions later, so dont taunt them.

[momo61]

Thank you a thousand times for this

It will definitely be an improvement to L2J !!! Thanks ^^ Good idea!

[theone]

+1
+1
+1
Good job Phoenix, I dont know who had the idea, but this is great news (hehe, I cant always disagree )

A suggestion if I may, to improve this great idea even further.
Alot of the "useless" posts are due to a lack of basic knowledge by newer users... knowledge in xml,sql,html,python and of course java.
This gets frustrating for alot of us and I am sure even more for you guys.

How about creating a "Tutorials" section where new users could learn the basics(just the basics, the rest they can learn as they go imho) about these languages.
Something like this:
=TUTORIALS=
- XML 101
- HTML 101
- SQL 101
- PYTHON 101
- JAVA 101

I'm certain that if you ask around a bit you'll find people more than willing to make short tutorials on these languages. Even better, you could create this forum category(Tutorials) and its sub-categories(python,xml,etc..) and let users with, lets say, 200+ posts have the possibility to create and reply to topics. The other users would see them as read-only. I think you'd be surprised how fast these topics would get created and how much it would help the community in general(and further more, you guys, since you'd have less "dumb questions" to answer, or you could say "see the tutorials first, then come back with your question").

[ThePhoenixBird]

There is our Wiki where those Tutorials 101 would be welcome by whoever wants to write them, anyone reading this is invited to create a Wiki article with any of the tutorials mentioned above.

Aditional Notes: The Posting Requirements could be increased and/or applied to some extra forums according to the users behavior. Doing SPAM POSTS in order to quickly get the minimal requirements will get your forum account BANNED instanly if caught and yea we will catch you.

[ThePhoenixBird]

## UPDATE - POST HUNTERS ##
Just to remind to all our NEW USERS that going through the forums posting on really old topics ( >6 months after last reply) or just doing random comments on random posts like: "doh dude i like this!", "great work! thanks!", "hahaha nice " moderators will give you a nice WARNING per each post, and if you collect 3 warnings you will be auto-banned for a month, sounds really cool right? is easier to collect 3 warnings than 20 posts, so if you are a new user and you have an urge to get rid of this posting requirements try to make your first posts quality wise and take your time to participate in the community, if you are in a hurry you will just end banned by our moderators, they have good eyes and they will spot you as a new user, and if they think that your reply is out of context or just too random/crappy they will check on you and check your post history if they find out that you have made a lot of posts recently (mostly on the same day or past day) with the same random/crappy/out-of-context motto, they will just ban you for "post hunting" they have permission to shoot first and make questions later, so dont taunt them.