General Forum Rules:
These rules apply everywhere and should always be followed.
Search Before Posting - SEARCH for keywords related to your query before you ask anything, most of the questions have been asked and answered before. Bumping old topics (even ones that are years old) is preferable to creating a new one on the same subject.
Illegal Content - No warez (and no-cd cracks, including any of the San Andreas game files or leaked content), illegal materials or pornography.
Multiple Accounts - Do not create alternate or multiple accounts.
Discrimination - No racism or any other forms of discrimination.
Don't Advertise - A link to a site related to the topic is fine, spamming your home page is not. This includes advertising your servers and services. However, you are allowed to put advertisements in your signature or server advertisements. A rule of thumb is that "Here is something interesting others might like." links are allowed, "Please click this to benefit me personally." links are not (moderator's discretion is final). Note that "links that benefit you" includes pay-per-click links and advert click-throughs (adf.ly etc), use direct links instead.
No Spam - If you are adding no useful information to a topic, you are spamming. This includes memes of any sort, especially in the more serious areas of the forum.
No Double Posting - There is a modify button , use it. However, bumping a topic in which you have or require further information is allowed after at least 24 hours. Note that two identical posts appearing at the same time is usually a mistake attributed to lag, and will not be penalized (but the second one will be removed).
English Only - The main bulk of the forums are English only, certain other languages have their own specific sections.
Offensive Language - Do not insult, curse at, tease, or make offensive comments towards other members. This includes reputation messages, we can see who sent what.
No Script Selling - Selling scripts or linking to sites that allow people to sell scripts is not allowed. Scripts contain content developed by other people, most notably the SA-MP team, for which you do not have redistribution rights, making selling derived works illegal. Hiring a scripter to make an entirely new script is different as you are paying for a service not a product. However, the SA-MP forums accept no responsibility for any deals made to that end.
Do Not Request Private Help - These are public forums where anyone can request free help in public, and to that end people will generally need to be able to see your code to help you. If you are not willing to post what is needed publicly, then you are not participating in a "community" in which everyone can learn from each other. Either post what is needed or post in this topic for private help, and be willing to pay for it. Do not post topics requesting private help via Skype, private message, or other non-public system. This includes contacting people for help without making a topic first.
Don't Stir Up Arguments - Do not post religious, political or other controversial threads purely designed to cause arguments. Additionally do not "troll" other forum members in an attempt to anger them. Similarly, report trolls and do not respond to them.
Do Not Abuse Forum Systems - Do not abuse the private message and reputation systems. This includes rep-for-rep requests.
No Duplicate Topics - If you have opened a topic on a subject, do not start another one. If you have a follow-up or other closely related topic, continue using the original topic to provide context.
No Plagiarism - Do not try to pass something someone else has made as your own.
Use A Proper Subject - So not "[HELP] SERVER [HELP] ROUTER [CRITICAL]!!!!!!!!!!" but something like "My router crashes when I port forward". It should summarise your issue, not just state that there is an issue.
Signature & Avatar Rules:
Height - Signatures can be a maximum of 250px high.
File Size - Images in your signature and avatar can't exceed 250KB in total size.
Reputation:
Abuse - Just because someone gives you negative reputation (-rep) does not mean that they are abusing. The vast majority of people complaining that they lost reputation simply don't understand that the person didn't like what they said, and expressed that dislike in a perfectly fine manner.
Topics - Speaking of posts people don't like, if there's one sure-fire way to lose all your reputation, it's making a topic about reputation. People give out -rep for topics they don't like, and people REALLY don't like topics about reputation... Not making topics is not a rule, but a handy warning, and they tend to get locked pretty quickly anyway to save further embarrassment.
Begging - Do NOT solicit other members for the sole purpose of asking for rep. This is considered "begging" and a form of harassment. If people want to give you rep, they will. Otherwise, don't ask.
Forum Specific Rules:
These rules are specific to one or more sub-forums, not everywhere.
Screenshots and Videos
In-Game Content Only - Do not post anything about SA:MP as a whole.
SA-MP Only - Do not post screenshots/videos that are not done using SA:MP (that includes no content from GTA single player).
Screenshots And Videos Only - Do not treat this a graphics/"GFX" section.
No Advertising - Do not advertise servers in your posts, you are free to do so in your signature though.
Be Constructive - When replying to a thread in this section, be constructive with your posts. Tell the creator what you liked/didn't like about the work, or any ways you think his/her work could be improved. If you just post "hahaha" or similar, it is highly likely that your post will be deleted without warning.
Server Support
No Hosted List Selling - Selling your hosted-tab listing is against game-mp's rules, selling accounts is against the sa-mp.com forum rules, therefore... you cannot sell/auction game-mp accounts AND/OR hosted-tab listings here.
This Is Not For Hosting Company Support - This is NOT the support forum for ANY hosting company (volt, color, KingJ, serverffs, etc). Please, PLEASE stop making posts about troubles you are having w/ your server provider. Go to THEIR website to file support issues. If they don't have a website, get a better host.
Read The FAQ - It's there and pinned for a reason.
Be Thorough - Describe your problem thoroughly, in proper English with screenshots if needed.
Server Advertisements
Advert Requirements - You need a forum reputation of at least 15 in order to create an advert. This is to stop people joining just to advertise, and instead offer it as a reward for useful contributing members of the forum.
Only One Advert Per Month - Each server can only have ONE advert posted per month, you cannot bump this advert in any way but you can edit it. Changing IP or name does not qualify you for a new advert, that's what "edit" is there for. Changing an advert to say "deleted" does not qualify you to post a new one, it simply means that your one for the month says "deleted" (possibly the most useless advert ever). If an advert gets removed and you post a new one, that is still a second one, and you still aren't allowed it. Note that this is per CALENDAR month, so one on the 30th then one 2 days later on the 1st is allowed, assuming that the forum has been cleaned in the interim.
Only Server Owners May Post - If you do not OWN the server, you may not post. Owners cannot give you permission to post for them - they do not make the rules of these forums and they do not have the authority to change them. If you make multiple adverts for multiple servers, and it is not clear that you own them all they will simply be removed as owning more than one different server is unlikely. "But I'm the community manager." is not an excuse - in that case write the advert for the owner to post. "But the owner is banned." is also not an excuse, if a member is banned, why should they still be allowed to use the forums for their own gain?
Servers Only - This is not a place to advertise clans/free server hosting/hosting companies.
SA-MP Scripting and Plugins
Don't Post Huge Scripts - If you have more than a few lines of code (or logs, or anything not prose), do not put it in your post directly, use pastebin.com instead.
Include All Source Code - Scripts or other programmed things released on these forums MUST include ALL source. If you do not wish to include the source code that is your right, and you are free to release binary-only versions elsewhere, this is only a condition for releasing programs here.
Post In Release Threads - If your problem is with a script release on the forums, then you should try posting in that script's (or plugin's) thread.
PAWN Only - This forum is for questions relating to the PAWN scripting language, we are not a forum for other languages. This is commonly quoted regarding C in that this is not a C help forum, but the same is true of any other language - PHP, SQL, etc. This is quite a fine line - for example a question on how to use the SQLite functions is fine because that's PAWN; questions on how to write queries isn't.
Scripts Only - You may not redistribute the SAMP server/client executables. Only upload scripts and supporting files/folders.
Scripting Help
Provide Details - If you do not get help, please re-evaluate the explanation of the issue you provided, it may not be providing enough information for people to help you.
No Useless Replies - If you are unsure or don't know how to proceed with solving an issue, then do not respond to the thread, it will be considered spam.
Provide Code - People are not psychic, if there's an issue in your code they need to see that code. If you are worried about people stealing it, don't be - its nothing special! If you are unwilling to provide code and want help in private, post here and be prepared to wait a long time and pay a lot of money.
Do Not Post Untested Code - If you are replying to a problem and you haven't confirmed that your code will work, you are likely to make the problem worse, not better.
Script Requests - If you are requesting a script be made for you, rather than help with your coding, post in the Looking for scripters/helpers? Post here! Thread.
Banned Code - There is a certain "#pragma" that can be used to hide significant warnings and produce unreadable code - DO NOT advocate its use if you know what it is; it is TERRIBLE practice and we want to get rid of it.
No Object ID Requests - There are multiple tools available for searching for object IDs - if you can't find them from there, then post in the pinned "Minor Queries" thread, don't start a new thread just for one object ID.
Check Documentation - The SA-MP Wiki, the PAWN Language Guide, and the General Reference Thread contain vast amounts of useful data - check those first.
Do Not Request Private Help - The point of this forum is to ask for help, get help, and share that help. The help is shared by the fact its posted in a thread that other people can search on. Posting you need help, then keeping it private (via Skype or whatever) goes COMPLETELY against the "community" thing that we've established here. If you want help but want to keep it private... then you can ask in private and NOT on these forums.
Scripting Discussion
Do Not Request Help Here - This is not a scripting HELP forum, this is a scripting DISCUSSION forum. If your question has been asked before (in fact if you are asking a question at all), post it in Scripting Help. In fact, post in Scripting Help anyway and if a mod thinks it would be better here they will move it. This includes "I'm not sure if this is the right place but...", posts.
Plugin Development
No Memory Hacking - The explanation for why we don't allow it isn't simple.
Reporting Rulebreakers
If you notice a forum member who is breaking those rules, please report it by clicking on the Report Post button . As mentioned above, DO NOT post in the topic stating that you think there is a rule violation going on. For one thing, you are not a moderator so even if you're right YOUR post is off-topic and thus also breaking rules, so you can get in trouble for reporting other people in that case. The other possibility is that you are wrong, and the post is not breaking any rules, in which case all that remains is one post that is perfectly fine, and another post that is off-topic and incorrectly accusing another user of breaking rules. In that case, who do you think will receive an infraction? Submitted reports that are wrong are simply discarded - we do not give out infractions for an inaccurate report.
Penalties
There are three main types of penalties for breaking rules - a warning is basically a "don't do that again" slap on the wrist, a ban is reserved for serious or repeated rule breaking, "infractions" fall between these two and can add up to a ban. Every infraction type has a points value and an expiry time, if you get 10 infraction points at once you will be automatically banned. The categories are quite generic, so messages will often come with an additional explanation from the moderator that gave the penalty. The point costs and expiry times (i.e. how long it takes to lose those points from your total) are:
These rules apply everywhere and should always be followed.
Search Before Posting - SEARCH for keywords related to your query before you ask anything, most of the questions have been asked and answered before. Bumping old topics (even ones that are years old) is preferable to creating a new one on the same subject.
Illegal Content - No warez (and no-cd cracks, including any of the San Andreas game files or leaked content), illegal materials or pornography.
Multiple Accounts - Do not create alternate or multiple accounts.
Discrimination - No racism or any other forms of discrimination.
Don't Advertise - A link to a site related to the topic is fine, spamming your home page is not. This includes advertising your servers and services. However, you are allowed to put advertisements in your signature or server advertisements. A rule of thumb is that "Here is something interesting others might like." links are allowed, "Please click this to benefit me personally." links are not (moderator's discretion is final). Note that "links that benefit you" includes pay-per-click links and advert click-throughs (adf.ly etc), use direct links instead.
No Spam - If you are adding no useful information to a topic, you are spamming. This includes memes of any sort, especially in the more serious areas of the forum.
No Double Posting - There is a modify button , use it. However, bumping a topic in which you have or require further information is allowed after at least 24 hours. Note that two identical posts appearing at the same time is usually a mistake attributed to lag, and will not be penalized (but the second one will be removed).
English Only - The main bulk of the forums are English only, certain other languages have their own specific sections.
Offensive Language - Do not insult, curse at, tease, or make offensive comments towards other members. This includes reputation messages, we can see who sent what.
No Script Selling - Selling scripts or linking to sites that allow people to sell scripts is not allowed. Scripts contain content developed by other people, most notably the SA-MP team, for which you do not have redistribution rights, making selling derived works illegal. Hiring a scripter to make an entirely new script is different as you are paying for a service not a product. However, the SA-MP forums accept no responsibility for any deals made to that end.
Do Not Request Private Help - These are public forums where anyone can request free help in public, and to that end people will generally need to be able to see your code to help you. If you are not willing to post what is needed publicly, then you are not participating in a "community" in which everyone can learn from each other. Either post what is needed or post in this topic for private help, and be willing to pay for it. Do not post topics requesting private help via Skype, private message, or other non-public system. This includes contacting people for help without making a topic first.
Don't Stir Up Arguments - Do not post religious, political or other controversial threads purely designed to cause arguments. Additionally do not "troll" other forum members in an attempt to anger them. Similarly, report trolls and do not respond to them.
Do Not Abuse Forum Systems - Do not abuse the private message and reputation systems. This includes rep-for-rep requests.
No Duplicate Topics - If you have opened a topic on a subject, do not start another one. If you have a follow-up or other closely related topic, continue using the original topic to provide context.
No Plagiarism - Do not try to pass something someone else has made as your own.
Use A Proper Subject - So not "[HELP] SERVER [HELP] ROUTER [CRITICAL]!!!!!!!!!!" but something like "My router crashes when I port forward". It should summarise your issue, not just state that there is an issue.
Signature & Avatar Rules:
Height - Signatures can be a maximum of 250px high.
File Size - Images in your signature and avatar can't exceed 250KB in total size.
Reputation:
Abuse - Just because someone gives you negative reputation (-rep) does not mean that they are abusing. The vast majority of people complaining that they lost reputation simply don't understand that the person didn't like what they said, and expressed that dislike in a perfectly fine manner.
Topics - Speaking of posts people don't like, if there's one sure-fire way to lose all your reputation, it's making a topic about reputation. People give out -rep for topics they don't like, and people REALLY don't like topics about reputation... Not making topics is not a rule, but a handy warning, and they tend to get locked pretty quickly anyway to save further embarrassment.
Begging - Do NOT solicit other members for the sole purpose of asking for rep. This is considered "begging" and a form of harassment. If people want to give you rep, they will. Otherwise, don't ask.
Forum Specific Rules:
These rules are specific to one or more sub-forums, not everywhere.
Screenshots and Videos
In-Game Content Only - Do not post anything about SA:MP as a whole.
SA-MP Only - Do not post screenshots/videos that are not done using SA:MP (that includes no content from GTA single player).
Screenshots And Videos Only - Do not treat this a graphics/"GFX" section.
No Advertising - Do not advertise servers in your posts, you are free to do so in your signature though.
Be Constructive - When replying to a thread in this section, be constructive with your posts. Tell the creator what you liked/didn't like about the work, or any ways you think his/her work could be improved. If you just post "hahaha" or similar, it is highly likely that your post will be deleted without warning.
Server Support
No Hosted List Selling - Selling your hosted-tab listing is against game-mp's rules, selling accounts is against the sa-mp.com forum rules, therefore... you cannot sell/auction game-mp accounts AND/OR hosted-tab listings here.
This Is Not For Hosting Company Support - This is NOT the support forum for ANY hosting company (volt, color, KingJ, serverffs, etc). Please, PLEASE stop making posts about troubles you are having w/ your server provider. Go to THEIR website to file support issues. If they don't have a website, get a better host.
Read The FAQ - It's there and pinned for a reason.
Be Thorough - Describe your problem thoroughly, in proper English with screenshots if needed.
Server Advertisements
Advert Requirements - You need a forum reputation of at least 15 in order to create an advert. This is to stop people joining just to advertise, and instead offer it as a reward for useful contributing members of the forum.
Only One Advert Per Month - Each server can only have ONE advert posted per month, you cannot bump this advert in any way but you can edit it. Changing IP or name does not qualify you for a new advert, that's what "edit" is there for. Changing an advert to say "deleted" does not qualify you to post a new one, it simply means that your one for the month says "deleted" (possibly the most useless advert ever). If an advert gets removed and you post a new one, that is still a second one, and you still aren't allowed it. Note that this is per CALENDAR month, so one on the 30th then one 2 days later on the 1st is allowed, assuming that the forum has been cleaned in the interim.
Only Server Owners May Post - If you do not OWN the server, you may not post. Owners cannot give you permission to post for them - they do not make the rules of these forums and they do not have the authority to change them. If you make multiple adverts for multiple servers, and it is not clear that you own them all they will simply be removed as owning more than one different server is unlikely. "But I'm the community manager." is not an excuse - in that case write the advert for the owner to post. "But the owner is banned." is also not an excuse, if a member is banned, why should they still be allowed to use the forums for their own gain?
Servers Only - This is not a place to advertise clans/free server hosting/hosting companies.
SA-MP Scripting and Plugins
Don't Post Huge Scripts - If you have more than a few lines of code (or logs, or anything not prose), do not put it in your post directly, use pastebin.com instead.
Include All Source Code - Scripts or other programmed things released on these forums MUST include ALL source. If you do not wish to include the source code that is your right, and you are free to release binary-only versions elsewhere, this is only a condition for releasing programs here.
Post In Release Threads - If your problem is with a script release on the forums, then you should try posting in that script's (or plugin's) thread.
PAWN Only - This forum is for questions relating to the PAWN scripting language, we are not a forum for other languages. This is commonly quoted regarding C in that this is not a C help forum, but the same is true of any other language - PHP, SQL, etc. This is quite a fine line - for example a question on how to use the SQLite functions is fine because that's PAWN; questions on how to write queries isn't.
Scripts Only - You may not redistribute the SAMP server/client executables. Only upload scripts and supporting files/folders.
Scripting Help
Provide Details - If you do not get help, please re-evaluate the explanation of the issue you provided, it may not be providing enough information for people to help you.
No Useless Replies - If you are unsure or don't know how to proceed with solving an issue, then do not respond to the thread, it will be considered spam.
Provide Code - People are not psychic, if there's an issue in your code they need to see that code. If you are worried about people stealing it, don't be - its nothing special! If you are unwilling to provide code and want help in private, post here and be prepared to wait a long time and pay a lot of money.
Do Not Post Untested Code - If you are replying to a problem and you haven't confirmed that your code will work, you are likely to make the problem worse, not better.
Script Requests - If you are requesting a script be made for you, rather than help with your coding, post in the Looking for scripters/helpers? Post here! Thread.
Banned Code - There is a certain "#pragma" that can be used to hide significant warnings and produce unreadable code - DO NOT advocate its use if you know what it is; it is TERRIBLE practice and we want to get rid of it.
No Object ID Requests - There are multiple tools available for searching for object IDs - if you can't find them from there, then post in the pinned "Minor Queries" thread, don't start a new thread just for one object ID.
Check Documentation - The SA-MP Wiki, the PAWN Language Guide, and the General Reference Thread contain vast amounts of useful data - check those first.
Do Not Request Private Help - The point of this forum is to ask for help, get help, and share that help. The help is shared by the fact its posted in a thread that other people can search on. Posting you need help, then keeping it private (via Skype or whatever) goes COMPLETELY against the "community" thing that we've established here. If you want help but want to keep it private... then you can ask in private and NOT on these forums.
Scripting Discussion
Do Not Request Help Here - This is not a scripting HELP forum, this is a scripting DISCUSSION forum. If your question has been asked before (in fact if you are asking a question at all), post it in Scripting Help. In fact, post in Scripting Help anyway and if a mod thinks it would be better here they will move it. This includes "I'm not sure if this is the right place but...", posts.
Plugin Development
No Memory Hacking - The explanation for why we don't allow it isn't simple.
Reporting Rulebreakers
If you notice a forum member who is breaking those rules, please report it by clicking on the Report Post button . As mentioned above, DO NOT post in the topic stating that you think there is a rule violation going on. For one thing, you are not a moderator so even if you're right YOUR post is off-topic and thus also breaking rules, so you can get in trouble for reporting other people in that case. The other possibility is that you are wrong, and the post is not breaking any rules, in which case all that remains is one post that is perfectly fine, and another post that is off-topic and incorrectly accusing another user of breaking rules. In that case, who do you think will receive an infraction? Submitted reports that are wrong are simply discarded - we do not give out infractions for an inaccurate report.
Penalties
There are three main types of penalties for breaking rules - a warning is basically a "don't do that again" slap on the wrist, a ban is reserved for serious or repeated rule breaking, "infractions" fall between these two and can add up to a ban. Every infraction type has a points value and an expiry time, if you get 10 infraction points at once you will be automatically banned. The categories are quite generic, so messages will often come with an additional explanation from the moderator that gave the penalty. The point costs and expiry times (i.e. how long it takes to lose those points from your total) are:
By:JorryDagle wrote:Generic Infraction Points Given Expiry Time
Posting in wrong forum 2 30 Day(s)
Thread Bumping 2 30 Day(s)
Inappropriate Language 3 30 Day(s)
Signature Rule Violation 3 30 Day(s)
Useless, unneeded or offtopic post 3 30 Day(s)
Posting more than one server advertisement in a month 5 30 Day(s)
Discussing cheat programs 5 30 Day(s)
Inappropriate Post Content (Offensive/Adult/Other) 5 60 Day(s)
Insulted Other Member/Flaming/Trolling 5 60 Day(s)
Spammed Advertisements (Existing member) 5 30 Day(s)
Trying to increase post count with 1 line posts 5 60 Day(s)
Spammed Advertisements (New User or Bot) 10 30 Day(s)
