Rules

[Petie]

Universal Rules

The following are universal rules for the entire site and are applicable in all sections. Rules specific to individual sections will be listed below as well as linked to from their respective sections. By posting or submitting anything to this site, you are acknowledging these rules and guidelines and agreeing to follow them.

1. Use Common Sense
No pointless or stupid comments. Do your best to type in complete sentences and with correct spelling and grammar, don't spam or advertise, etc. Yes, this includes another person's topic.

• 1.1: Content Requirements
  Single-word posts, short sentence posts, blankposting, and/or quoting a previous post with no additional content added by yourself are generally frowned upon. Don't just post to say "XD" or "lol". Doing this counts as spamming, which will result in a 30% warn and posting rights being revoked for 12 hours. Therefore, put something of at least SOME additional value to the current topic into your post that people might actually read, and not just scroll past.
  
• 1.2: Derailing Topics
  Unless you have something interesting to add to the topic, don't post in it at all. Posting your sprites in someone else's topic isn't interesting. If you want attention so badly then make your own topic.
  

2. Be Friendly
Don't just randomly flame other members and be mean for no real reason. Randomly accusing members of sprite theft and the like without evidence or a VERY good reason to do so is against the rules.

• 2.1: Respect of Others' Work
  Since this board is heavily art-oriented, people will make sprites, music, writing or anything related to art. The board gives you the right to comment and give criticism on it, but if you act severely hostile towards the artist without helping at all, measures will be taken. We aren't saying to sugarcoat your criticism, just don't be downright insulting.
  

3. Respect the Staff Team
This doesn't mean that you can't disagree with us or criticize us for our work, but don't think that just because we aren't regular members that we don't have bad days occasionally, just like everyone else.

• 3.1: Warnings
  If you were warned, chances are you deserved it. Complaining why you got the warn, and/or sending threatening PMs to the mod responsible for the action will result in severe measures. If you really feel the punishment wasn't well-placed, contact the mod and please CALMLY say why you think you don't deserve the warning.
  
• 3.2: Rules Apply to Staff as Well
  Just because we've got colored names, it doesn't mean those rules don't affect us. If you see a mod doing something abusive and/or wrong, contact an admin to take care of it. If you disagree with moderator actions, forum rules or how things are managed in general, you may criticize us. However, derailing topics, making sarcastic or rude comments is not acceptable. You can contact members of staff with your complaints or, if you prefer public discussion, make a topic at Site Discussion. Again, just as with rule 3.1, stay calm, be respectful and serious. Sarcastic remarks and defiant spam will have serious consequences. If you want to be taken serious, mind your manners.
  
• 3.3: The VG Resource is not a Democracy
  You can stay here and have a fun time, but if you break certain rules, the people in charge can (and will) ban you at their discretion. The rules aren't enforced because we're a police state or some grumpy dictatorship (that wouldn't be a very long-lived forum!), but rather because we want everyone to have a good experience. If you break the rules enough times, you will be banned. You don't have to come back, access to the forum isn't some sort of human right, and "getting revenge" surely won't help your cause. That said, this doesn't mean that you can't disagree with us or criticize us for our work.
  
• 3.4: No Backseat Modding
  We all appreciate that you want to help keep the community a friendly, organized, and well-run place but doing so by berating people (or even reminding them in a friendly way) when they break the rules does not help. The staff are here for that very reason and backseat modding undermines the staff and confuses the community so if you notice someone breaking a rule, please just report them (using the report feature) and move on.
  

4. Stay Safe for Work
Don't post any porn or illegal material. This includes linking to ROMs and the sites that host them. Discussion about ROMs and emulators is fine in reference to how to use them to rip the resources we archive on these sites but any links to or instructions for obtaining ROMs is strictly forbidden.

• 4.1: Other Site Areas
  The VG Resource has a lot of things that you can personalize, such as avatars, signatures, reputations, a biography and several others. Do not forget that THEY ARE PART OF THE VG RESOURCE, so if any offensive material is found in any of those places, the person responsible for it will be punished.
  

5. Don't be "Excessive"
The items outlined below are by no means forbidden but excessive use of them is discouraged and will often border on (if not cross right into) spam territory.

• 5.1: Overuse of Fonts and Emotes
  We have these nice features and there's nothing wrong with using them. However, overusing them isn't advised. Making all your posts in a non-standard font or color should be avoided. The usage of these should be restricted to cases where they make sense, for example to mark or emphasize text sections or to give large texts or story parts better structuring. There's also nothing wrong with using emoticons, but you shouldn't put a ton of random ones everywhere. There's no need to put long chains of emoticons at the end of every post or sentence.
  
• 5.2: Excessive Use of Memes or Fads
  If it's on the internet, we've probably already heard or seen it. Please don't think you're original for posting "shoop da whoop" or talking about "long cat" - you can use 4chan for that.
  
• 5.3: Swearing
  There are no hard and fast rules about swearing (it is allowed, so there's no real need to self-censor) but if you start aiming those offensive words at another member or just throw them out anywhere for no great reason, expect to be dealt with harshly. Hate speech is forbidden and will be dealt with severely.
  

6. Advertising and Requesting
Nobody will respect you if you join the community just to request something and then disappear forever. In a similar light, joining just to advertise your work and then immediately disappearing forever won't get you anywhere either. Keep this in mind while reading the below rules.
Note: Requests and Commissions have been moved to the Discord (https://discord.gg/dykg). These rules still apply and have been left here for reference but requests are no longer allowed on the forum.

• 6.1: Requests Outside of the Requests Board
  The Requests board is the only place we allow requests so as to prevent clutter across the rest of the forum while also being able to enforce this requests rule. While everyone can make requests, remember that joining simply to ask for something is strongly discouraged. You should try to participate with the community before requesting or your request is very likely to be ignored.
  
• 6.1a: Requests on the Main Sites
  While the "no requests outside of the requests board" rule should already cover this, for the sake of being perfectly clear, requesting by commenting anywhere on the main sites is never allowed regardless of whether or not you meet the requirements to request on the forum.
  
• 6.2: Don't Be a Slavedriver
  If someone kindly fulfills a request of yours, do not try to manipulate them into doing more things for you. This is a terrible act and if you do such a thing you will be punished. If you want more things that badly, then don't be lazy and try your best to learn how to obtain such a thing on your own. If you can't, then try asking about it on the forum (making sure you've searched the internet first of course). You may just find you don't need anyone to do it for you.
  
• 6.3: Patience
  It may take a while before anyone acknowledges your request, if at all. Please do not constantly bump your thread, and continue to request somebody do something for you.
  
• 6.4: Advertising
  As with requesting, we don't want people joining just to advertise and then disappear. As a whole, threads and posts in which the sole purpose is to advertise something of yours are forbidden - there is no post count or time requirement before they become acceptable. You are welcome to place those links in your profile or signature, which should be more than enough for anyone who intends to actually become a member of the community.
  

7. Bumping, Necroposting, and Double-Posting
In general, bumping, necroposting, and double-posting should be avoided. There are exceptions to these rules, some of which will be outlined below, but for the most part, these actions should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

• 7.1: Bumping
  Constantly posting in a thread to try to get it more attention while not adding any new content to it is not allowed. If you've asked a question or made some sort of request, just give it time. Breaking this rule will often wind up in the thread being locked which is counter-productive to your goal anyway.
  
• 7.2: Necroposting
  If a thread is no longer on the first page or the forum list (or more than a month old in slower sections), avoid posting in it without good reason. Specific topics that have died likely did so for a reason and chances are, if there's a reason to bring it back, enough new information is available to justify a new thread. Exceptions here include ongoing threads with dedicated topics (e.g. threads discussing a video game or series, pretty much all of the "Real Life" threads, stickied threads, etc.).
  
• 7.3: Double-Posting
  Posting twice or more in a row is, for the most part, not allowed. If you need to add more to your last post and nobody else has posted yet, simply edit the additional information into your original post. Exceptions here include the Errors and Suggestions threads, your own thread in which you are providing information (e.g. following a specific current event), and threads in which there isn't one specific topic being discussed.
  

8. Image Sizes
Being a video-game related board, it's natural that images will often be posted. By nature, some of these will be very large. The forum software does a good job of resizing over-sized images to prevent them from stretching the layout but care should still be taken to avoid directly embedding anything too huge (a link to the file can be used directly in these cases).

• 8.1: Signatures
  Signature images are limited to being 200 pixels in height. Having incredibly large signatures is unnecessary and distracting. Please do not include any images with extremely large file-sizes either (e.g. very long animated GIFs) or animations that are overly distracting (e.g. rapid or bright flashing). If found, these images will be deleted and if the problem persists, a warn or suspension will follow.
  
• 8.2: Quoting Images
  Quoting videos and images, especially the big ones, also affects browsing performance while making the forum look like a mess. Use your common sense when quoting images and videos and edit them into links if you feel it's appropriate to do so.
  

9. The Reporting System
The reporting system is there to report content that is offensive, breaking the rules, or just plain wrong. Don't report something along the lines of "he locked my topic" when you know good and well there was a good reason for a lock. The mods have to take time to check the reports and want to spend that time making the forum a better place rather than seeing needless reports.

• 9.1: Report System Abuse
  The report system is an important and useful tool. The staff team tries their best to keep the site running well but we can't catch everything and we appreciate the reports we receive from our members when we do inevitably miss something. That being said, abusing this system only causes us more unnecessary work so avoid repeated reports of the same content (unless we claim to have fixed something that is still broken of course!) or reports on content that really don't justify them (like things you simply disagree with, for instance).
  

10. Bandodging
If you attempt to make an alternate account in order to get around a ban (also called bandodging) you will be re-banned (on both accounts) and additional time will be added to your original ban. If you were permanently banned, well, you're still permanently banned. If you continue to bandodge, you WILL be IP banned. Because of this, coming here through a proxy isn't the best idea. Though proxy use isn't disallowed, we do have a couple of banned members who have tried to get past an IP ban using proxies, so the proxy that you're using will probably end up becoming banned. You'll either have to find a new proxy or just come here through your normal IP address.

• 10.1: Posting on a Banned User's Behalf
  Do not to post anything for a banned member. They were banned for a reason and if you do any such thing for them, you risk being banned yourself. There are contact methods in place for banned members to be able to appeal their bans if they wish to.
  
• 10.2: Alternate Accounts
  Even if your account is not banned, creating multiple accounts is not permitted. If you cannot access your original account for whatever reason, you should contact staff in order to get help. If you think you have a valid reason to create an alternate account, an exception can be made but it must be discussed with staff first.
  

[Petie]

Section-Specific Rules

To keep things tidy and in one place, other sections' rules will also be posted here. Dividing the rules across several sections proved difficult to newcomers, so while this might make things a little long, all the rules can be checked in one place.

Custom Sprites / Pixel Art

1. Board Purpose
This forum is mainly to help people to improve and develop as spriters / pixel artists. Furthermore, it serves as a form of quality control for those who intend to submit custom sprites to the tSR website. Here, you can show your pixel works in order to get comments and criticism. Feel free to help others with advice and your opinion.

2. Be Friendly and Polite
While you're encouraged to share your opinion, don't get upset when someone decides not to follow your criticism. Likewise, you shouldn't get upset when you disagree with the comments and criticism you receive. Keep aggressions at a minimum. The general guideline applies: If you feel offended, make use of the report system to contact staff instead of picking a fight. Moreover, if you have nothing of value to add, rather leave a topic alone instead of making insulting remarks.

3. Offer Your Advice and Criticism in a Proper Way
Aside from being polite, it's also important to be understandable. Keep in mind not everyone is familiar with all the pixel art specific terms. While we do have a Spriting Dictionary topic, it's never wrong to explain your points in more detail, especially when helping newcomers and beginners. Try to keep your advice simple and clear.

4. About Custom Sprites & Credits
The boards are mainly meant for custom sprites. You also are allowed to post sprite edits and recolors. However, don't be surprised when you don't receive the comments you expect. Most people prefer to offer their help on custom work so chances are the only answer you will get is that (and in the best case, why) you should make custom sprites instead. Again, stay friendly and calm when explaining why splices, recolors and edits are discouraged. If someone insists on making them, let them. Sprite showcase threads are also allowed, however if you appear to block all criticism, you may end up not getting any replies. Note that criticism doesn't necessarily need to be applied to the current piece, but can also be applied to future work only.

5. Images & Attachments
In order to show your sprites, you can either attach them directly to the post or upload them to an image hosting site (like Imgur or a personal Dropbox account). When uploading to a third party host, use the direct image URL with the forum's image tags. For very large images, text links to the file should be provided instead.

6. Sprite Discussion Threads
To prevent drowning out other people's threads and to reduce the general topic chaos, users are encouraged to use general sprite threads for their creations instead of creating a new thread for every single sprite they make. Note that this doesn't mean you should use someone else's sprite thread to discuss your sprites, which on the contrary is prohibited unless it is an open project or event. If your last sprite thread is rather old, feel free to make a new one instead of bumping it if you prefer that. However if it is quite fresh, please re-use it instead of opening another one!

Game Development

1. Post Enough Content
We won't accept a thread that barely describes your game, and especially not if there's no game or content at all. If you're making a game, be sure to include actual evidence of the game being worked on. In other words, make the game available for others to play, show screenshots, talk about the gameplay/programming, etc. If you're working on a game idea, tell us how the game will play, show some concept art of characters and/or places. If you're making a program or application, tell us what it does, the requirements to run it, etc. Include something in your thread to let us know what it is that you're posting. Don't forget to say what programming language/game-making program you're using for the project.

• 1.1: This Also Means Reserving Threads is Prohibited
  Threads with content such as "I am making a game, will post it when it's done" will be locked on sight. Those are completely pointless and aren't useful for anything. Post only when you've got actual content.
  

2. Everything Posted Here is Prone to Criticism
People will give C+C on your work, so don't go nuts if you don't get the sugarcoating you wanted. Consider this a way to promote your game; we're giving you advice on how to improve here and make your game the best it can be.

• 2.1: Don't Be Rude Though
  You're free to give C+C on anyone's work here, but this doesn't mean you can say "you suck" or "this is shit" and just leave it at that. Give the OP very concise AND constructive criticism so they can improve their work.
  

3. Requests are Strictly Prohibited
We don't have a game requests section because the amount of effort required to fill a game request would likely result in the section going unused. If you plan on making a thread in which you're the "idea guy" and just want us to "make sprites for your game", forget it. Either post it in the requests section like everyone else, or don't post at all.

• 3.1: Recruiting, However, is Allowed
  While it's technically a request, recruiting for your project is allowed if you meet the requirements. If you have enough legitimate content in your game (as in, you've actually done a large amount of work on the game YOURSELF), and have enough reputation from people (we're not talking about the green number below your avatar; I'm talking about REAL reputation), you can recruit people to help you. Note that they may want money for their work, however. Be sure to explain how you'll pay the contributors, how much, and when.
  
• 3.2: Don't Post Purely to Advertise
  If you joined just so you can cheaply advertise your game, tough luck. We're no ad board. Post only if you sincerely want to get feedback and criticism. Pure ad threads will be locked and all references to your product will be removed. Don't try to be sneaky, either.
  

4. How to Upload Files
Use dedicated external file hosting sites such as Mega.

5. What is Allowed in the Game Dev Section?

• Original games
  
• Fan games
  
• Programs and applications (e.g. gif animator, image editor, music maker, etc.)
  
• Romhacks, IPS patches, etc.
  
• Game mods, custom maps, etc.
  
• Open-source code
  

Other Creativity Boards

1. Tag What Kind of Topic You're Posting
Please label your topic with what it is using a tag at the beginning of the title (e.g. [ART], [MUSIC], [WRITING], etc.).

2. Basis of Artistic Nudity
Artistic nudity is allowed, but please mention if there is nudity involved in the art. If you do not label it as having adult themes, there will be SERIOUS consequences. And there is a difference between artistic nudity, and just nudity. Don't post hentai and porn.

Requests

1. Request Requirements
People joining purely to make a request are not appreciated. Be sure to check our Resource websites (tSR, tMR, tTR, tSoR), use the Forum Search and Google (or whatever you prefer) before making a request.

2. Be Clear and Understandable
When posting a request, make clear what you want. Be precise and to the point, give all necessary information (game, system, style, character...). If people have to research what exactly you want, they may be less inclined to help.

3. No One is Required to Fulfill Your Request
Fulfilling someones request is doing them a favor. You cannot expect anyone to do what you want and you cannot demand anything. Note that smaller requests are more likely to be fulfilled than large and complicated ones. Furthermore, you're free to offer incentives like money to raise interest. If no one fulfills your request, chances are no one wants to or no one knows how to do it. We're people, not slave machines. Wait at least one or two weeks before bumping a topic and accept it when a request won't be fulfilled. Consider learning how to do it yourself. In general, stay friendly and respectful. No one likes to do a favor for someone they don't like.

Commissions

Commissions follow the same set of rules as Requests except for the following change to rule #1:

1. Request Requirements
Remember that if you request here, you MUST make it clear that you are offering monetary compensation in return.

Note: Requests and Commissions have been moved to the Discord (https://discord.gg/dykg). The above rules still apply and have been left above for reference but requests are no longer allowed on the forum.