Community guidelines
From FreeGameDevWiki
Internet communities are, most of the time, websites or a group of websites ran by people, who enjoy helping others, enjoy talking with other people etc. over the Internet. Now, imagine if you were going to a enthusiast meeting of some kind - maybe people who like to modify cars or people whose hobbies are sports - and someone would be misbehaving somehow at that meeting, wouldn't you be mad? Just like in the real world, there are guidelines how to behave or what to expect when asking a question etc.
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Be nice to people
All of the people in the Freegamer/Freegamedev are volunteers and aren't paid to help people or administrate the community. Personal attacks won't be tolerated! If you have a problem with how somebody is acting in the community, sort this out quietly and peacefully.
Do not use Caps Lock
Probably one of the most important rules on the Internet so people can take you seriously.
HI. I HAVE A PROBLEM. MY GAME WON'T RUN. CAN SOMEBODY HELP ME?
Nobody would take that kid seriously.
Use punctuation, capitalization and correct grammar
you might also start using punctuation and capitalization since it makes reading so much easier you see not that it's too demanding to read this no it's just awful for the eyes you could though theoretically-speaking use no punctuation at all and it would work the ancient romans didn't have punctuation but they did have a system neither did the ancient egyptians the ancient greek were the first one to invent punctuation as far as i know anywhere where was I oh you see punctuation is pretty useful huh
And if you want to speak like captain Domon from the Wheel Of Time universe, you could, but seriously, not in an Internet community like this.
Ask questions wisely on the Forums
Check whether the question you want to ask hasn't been answered in an existing thread already - that's what the Forums' search engine is for. Search and think before writing!
Ask questions correctly on IRC
If you have a question that has to be answered quickly or an issue which has to be fixed as soon as possible or whatever the reason might be to join an IRC channel, you should stick to a few guidelines. First, don't do that:
* someguy (i=youdontknowwhoIam@aBunchfOfNumbers.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com) has joined #SOMEGAMEDEVRELATEDCHANNEL
<someguy> help
<someguy> lol
* someguy hat die Verbindung getrennt ("Leaving")
If you ask for help, explain your problem first. Don't ask if you can ask. Don't wait to ask. But when you've asked, you should wait a while. Depending on the user count and the activity of the channel, you might have to wait quite a while. People on the IRC might be writing in another IRC channel, might be busy with other stuff, might be busy with their RL, might be away from their computer...
Use highlighting. If you write down another participant's name, his IRC client will inform him that he has been highlighted and he might react quicker. Tabbing makes this even quicker. Type the first few letters of the nickname of a user and press tab and it'll be auto-completed.
<newbie> Admin, can you help me real quick?
<@Admin> Yeah, what's the problem?
However, don't do this too often. Highlighting someone once is enough.
<newbie> Admin, can you help me real quick? [60 seconds later] <newbie> Admin? [2 minutes later] <newbie> Admin? [30 seconds later] <newbie> Admin? Admin? Admin? * newbie has been kicked by Admin ("Shut up")
Highlighting multiple people at once or one after the other won't help either. It's simply annoying.
<newbie> Admin, can you help me?
[60 seconds later]
<newbie> Guy|Afk, can you?
[60 seconds later]
<newbie> Artist?
[2 minutes later]
<newbie> Admin, Guy|Afk?
* newbie has been kicked by Admin ("Seriously")
Do not use automatic translators
Using automatic translators such as Google or Babelfish will confuse people, since a lot of the outputted text doesn't make sense. If you can read this though, you might not need an automatic translator after all.
