Hacks aren't accepted anymore?

[You Gotta be Joshing me]

So recently I decided to rip sprites from the ROM hack Knuckles' Emerald Hunt, and after a while, I received a PM for this reason:

You're receiving this PM because I'm afraid we have rejected your sheet of "Sandwiches" for "Knuckles' Emerald Hunt (Hack)" under the console "Genesis / 32X / SCD".

Your sheet was not accepted for the following reason:

• Sorry, we don't accept hacks anymore.
  

So after thinking about this for a while, one question came to my mind, why? I can see that ROM hacks can be used to disguise sprite theft as there were many sheets (which I'm assuming) were submitted without the original creators consent, as well as getting things like OCs and bad quality sprites through, but at the same time, there are hacks that are ripped where their original creator simply couldn't be contacted (usually due to a lack of any social media or death) but in my opinion, as long as it doesn't go against the wishes of the original creator, ROM hacks should be on here for archival purposes.

This also makes me wonder if fangames or bootlegs are affected as well, my previous statement also goes to fangames as they can also be used to disguise theft and bad quality sprites, but for bootlegs, most of their sprites are of unknown origin, and quality varies from time to time, so in that case, only allow the good ones?

[Murphmario]

Honestly I think that sprites from hacks should be taken on a per-hack basis. For example, I think hacks that were made to be used as a template for other hacks should be allowed, as long as credit's given. Probably the best example of those I can think of is Super Mario World Redrawn by Icegoom.

[Superjustinbros]

In my honest opinion, if this is going to be a big rule going forward it should not apply to ROM hacks that the submitter gets (and shows) explicit permission from the creator(s) to rip from (which I did in the case of Super Mario Kart: Pro Edition back in December). But if this is a universal blacklisting of all hacks going forward, that's completely understandable.

[Dolphman]

That and plenty of hacks do very little changes to the point it's not really worth submitting. (Such as zones being nothing but recolours and minor gameplay changes)
A hack that has major changes in art, gameplay, or anything else? Hacks like that have been pretty much the only ones that have been accepted.

[Superjustinbros]

That and plenty of hacks do very little changes to the point it's not really worth submitting. (Such as zones being nothing but recolours and minor gameplay changes)
A hack that has major changes in art, gameplay, or anything else? Hacks like that have been pretty much the only ones that have been accepted.

Seconding this. Some are character swaps, some are level swaps, others feel almost like new games with the amount of content they edit/change.
I guess it's all based on how different the hack is from the base game and if it's not blacklisted or requested to be removed by the hack's creator.

[SonicStorm478]

Funnily enough, I tried to upload the sandwiches from Knuckles' Emerald Hunt too a few months ago.

Does anyone know why hacks are no longer accepted? I can't seem to find anything on it unfortunately.

[Simpsons Dumper]

Does anyone know why hacks are no longer accepted? I can't seem to find anything on it unfortunately.

basically our database is becoming a cesspool full of lazy, crappy fangames (those were also being discussed by all of us) including rom hacks and we have decided to stop accepting hacks because many of them are just so bad and lazy they don't have a place on the site

so funny thing
we were just discussing that once again
it looks like we're gonna start only approving ones with a substantial amount of custom work put into them, so basically no character swaps or fangames with nothing much changed
basically we're just gonna converse amongst eachother and decide case by case for unofficially released pc games, hacks and fangames
our current criteria seems to be "notability" and "effort put in" (in the case of hacks/fangames)
it's extremely hard to come to a concise decision so that's what we're rolling with for now
I'd just suggest ripping from stuff that has more than reused assets and is well, worth hosting

[You Gotta be Joshing me]

Funnily enough, I tried to upload the sandwiches from Knuckles' Emerald Hunt too a few months ago.

Does anyone know why hacks are no longer accepted? I can't seem to find anything on it unfortunately.

I saw that the hack had already been submitted and saw that someone had uploaded a sheet for it, I didn't know what it was as there's no way of seeing pending submissions on a game that's also pending, but I had already ripped the sandwiches at that point and organized them into a sheet, so while uploading them I just left "If this has already been uploaded, go with whichever sheet is more complete and easier to use" as a note.

[Ton]

We're still talking out the details. So far we're thinking a hack has to be significant to the hacking/gaming/spriting community. Not just just any old hack is going to get accepted from now on.

[SonicStorm478]

What about bootlegs? Many of those are hacks of pre-existing games, like the dozens of Mario bootlegs that are really just other games with the main character being replaced with Mario, but a few such as the Shenzhen Nanjing RPGs (Chrono Trigger, Golden Sun, etc.) appear to be mostly done from the ground-up. Would they be classified similarly?

[You Gotta be Joshing me]

What about bootlegs? Many of those are hacks of pre-existing games, like the dozens of Mario bootlegs that are really just other games with the main character being replaced with Mario, but a few such as the Shenzhen Nanjing RPGs (Chrono Trigger, Golden Sun, etc.) appear to be mostly done from the ground-up. Would they be classified similarly?

By that logic, Super Mario Bros. 2 should be classified as a hack since it was just Doki Doki Panic but with different sprites and some other tweaks.

[Magma MK-II]

Like I said before, I think bootlegs and romhacks should be given their own section, much like custom sprites.

[Ton]

What about bootlegs? Many of those are hacks of pre-existing games, like the dozens of Mario bootlegs that are really just other games with the main character being replaced with Mario, but a few such as the Shenzhen Nanjing RPGs (Chrono Trigger, Golden Sun, etc.) appear to be mostly done from the ground-up. Would they be classified similarly?

Not sure yet. Like I said, we’re still figuring this out.

[Garamonde]

I believe we have decided (some time ago) to keep bootlegs for the fact that they have been physically released on cartridges that you could buy in public stores, so they don't exactly fall under the rules for "fangame" or "ROM hack" (even though that's essentially what they are).

And yea, as Ton said, we're still figuring this out but for the time being, we're taking it on a case-by-case basis, as we pretty much always have. In short, we won't be accepting any fangames or hacks with little effort put into making them different from the base. We're currently trying to clean up the old stuff we approved years ago that no longer meet our criteria/quality control to avoid confusion as to why what we currently host does not meet our current claims.