Well, staff members have surely noticed that I'm making a lot of reports for posts like e.g. unfinished level series, levels posted in the Level Designer forum (sometimes even without code tags), and destructive or redundant comments on the LDP. What also occurs is users who want things to be updated for the SM63 designer, or who think they've discovered a glitch which is in fact well, well known. Those users can't be actually blamed or even punished for doing such things, yet they make posts which are just totally unnecessary, and therefore should be deleted.
And what happens with many of those reports? Sometimes other members reply to the post, picking up that it's a spam level topic, and then the topic in the Level Designer forum gets locked, or other members (especially newer members who don't care about using the Report button themselves) teach the poster above about what's wrong with his post, making the report itself redundant. The latter case also involves posts outside the Level Designer forums (postcounting, bumping welcome topics, being off-topic and all that). Sometimes my report is simply closed down without anything happening. And every time these things happen, it makes me displeased or even a little bit angry. About comments on the LDP, the following has even more relevance now since posts are counting there.
Take a look at this one:
http://www.runouw.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=48972Why is this still here?
Or an example on the LDP:
Yurimaster wrote:Nicomenya199 wrote:This level is a ♥♥♥♥
Please, do not be offensive like this when giving an opinion about a level. At least give a reason of why you have such opinion, and be less rude.
I don't see any reason why this couldn't be also told through PM. If users don't see it because they disable their "Notify me on new PM's" function, it's just their own fault.
So, what I wish for is simply some stricter rule enforcement against those troll topics or any redundant / unnecessary posts - from both regular users and staff (note: this pertains deleting those posts, not stricter punishments against users). Regular users, if you feel like a post meets the requirement (already said / being totally n00bish / postcounting or being off-topic / breaking rules otherwise), report it. If you feel like the poster hasn't meant to do anything bad and should be teached about it (being unexperienced and stuff), ask the staff to do it within your report, or do it directly by PM, yet
don't post this within the topic. And staff members, deal with reports also in case if there are further replies. If those replies are about the bad post above, delete them / edit them accordingly.
About newbies or n00bs posting levels in the Level Designer forums or posting levels in the Level Series subforums (which are often not meant to be series at all), I may understand if you want to keep this stuff at some place and if you want to preserve your postcounts. For these and glitch topics etc. I'd suggest a separate subforum which includes all these topics for archive purposes (except from levels which would fall through the filter of approval on the LDP, like in the example above).
At last, I'd like to ask for some tweaks for the General Rules, so maybe we don't have to be bothered with all too many bad posts in the future. Especially I'd like to see a special section called "Levels".
A possible suggestion: show Levels- Single levels (in other words, topics only dedicated to your level) are to be posted in the specific Level Portal forums (SM63 and LL) and not in the Level Designer subforums or anywhere else. Always put the level code into [code][/code] tags.
- If you want to create a topic in the Level Series or Level Collections subforum, be sure to have at least three complete levels for that.
- Try to make your levels as good as you can, and especially avoid mistakes such as cutoff, enemy spam, floating items and little effort in general. That way you'll avoid your level being deleted / disapproved.
- Your first five levels on the Portal will have to be approved by Level Moderators. This means that you shall not post your level doubly and triply (believe it, it has been posted successfully and we'll look into it) or circumvent the approval system by posting it somewhere else, disregarding the first two rules. If you already have five approved levels or if you're posting in Level Series / Level Collections, levels can still be deleted if they don't fit the requirements.
- If more than a week passes without your level being approved or disapproved, feel free to ask a moderator or level moderator through PM.
- Don't post any topics about new things you'd like to see on the SM63 designer, because Runouw's only focus right now is Last Legacy.
- All general rules also apply for commenting on the portal. Let your comments have a sense and when providing criticism, do it constructively, and especially avoid pointing out things that others have already said before. For more specific rules on how to comment on levels, view this thread.
When reading through this, remember that this is supposed to make the forums a better place with less spam and other annoyances. Thank you and discuss.