Suggestion: Bringing back the Script Help thread and Simple Questions thread in the ROM hacking section

[Le pug]

Spoiler:

okay... the last one was edited in there for the effect lol

A good example image... all the red circles are reason why I wouldn't click on the threads. Not only that, I have to siphon through threads of "hey help me" to figure out if I even have the capability of doing so. Rather than scrolling up and down on a thread that conveniently has the questions booked together, I have to scroll up and down on a forum to find the right thread titles to just help out... or even if there are replies. Whereas on a single thread it's easy to scroll down and read the next post and you know it won't have IM NEW TO HACKING or CHECK OUT MY HACK in it. Why is this thread still up for debate? Just create the two threads and keep your beginner's forums for the new people. The two threads could go in the main romhack forum and then everything would be fine.

 

[DJTiki]

Thinking about it more, why not both?

They both have their purposes and we are all obviously stubborn. So here is how I think of it. The Beginner's Lounge was supposed to be a comfortable spot for Beginners to ask for help. Although, I could do away with the threads specifically for advertisement on a non-existent hack or threads that ask questions repeated more than once over. So perhaps a sticky in the Beginner's Forums, which addresses common questions?

Also having the Simple Questions thread back, would also be convienent to "advanced" hackers. It isn't overly complicated and questions can be answered in a timely fashion. Plus, a lot of us in on board with the situation. Sure it may seem counterintutive to have two things of the same purpose, coexist, but we have the Quick Research and Development Thread, where each and every one of the responses, regarding the ROM finding, could've made its own thread in Research and Development, according to the rules.

This way, both oppostions are happy and its not like no one will go to the Beginner's Lounge because its the Beginner's Lounge and people have comfort speaking there., instead of some thread.

 

[Shiny Quagsire]

I'm the mod of Game Development. We have a section solely for asking questions, and no Quick Questions threads at all.

The only difference between one mega-thread and a section full of threads for questions, as far as I can see, is that the separate threads can (should) have descriptive titles, which makes them easier to browse through. All the same search options apply, but individual threads also have the benefit of being able to tell what a thread is about at a glance.

I think this might be the problem with the current subforum is that the threads aren't descriptive, and it's actually more difficult to search through the forum since it's basically the "Beginner's Garbage Bin" where all the random threads get thrown into if they're not fitting in the other topics. This is very evident with all the "Idea" threads which end up just being "Hey this is a cool idea someone should do it" threads. If the lounge was actually more enforced rather than being this loose trash can of threads it might be more accepted.

Thinking about it more, why not both?

I think this may be the only sane answer to this, simply because the current system is hard to work with for those answering, at the advantage of being much easier for the asker. It's harder to search through (and don't even get me started on the forum's search system, which is just horrible and irritating to use since it has a time limit before you can search again), and extremely disorganized in it's current state. I personally think a system similar to the Research & Development subforum would work, and in the R&D forum it's been proven to work over and over. Have your big topics in thread form, and mini questions in the Quick Research thread.

 

[Deokishisu]

Honestly, the "Scrapbox" phenomenon has happened a couple times during my many years in the ROMHacking section. Basically, it goes like this:

A beginner's forum is created. Its purpose is never clear, never really defined other than "this is where everything goes that isn't covered elsewhere". Naturally, within a few days, it is swarmed with spam and garbage, becomes difficult to navigate, and the blind are helping the blind (if people are getting help at all). The members who were previously helpful try to keep up with the deluge, wading through the nonsense in a valiant attempt to improve our pool of ROMHackers, but give up in a week or two because it's become so ridiculously difficult to find ANYTHING there. Eventually it becomes too much for the mods, and in a few months the section is deleted, the ROMHacking sections all get reshuffled and renamed (again), and we go on with our lives.

This time, the community has matured enough to see the Beginner's Lounge as what it is. We have never had such a multitude of mainstay, veteran hackers in our community be so active and helpful as we do in today's community. We have never had such a wealth of research and innovation happening in the ROMHacking section as we do today.

I have never felt that a free-for-all section was a good idea for anyone. Those who actually do need help get climbed over by the torrent of "this would be cool" and "do this for me" and "how do i script" people, or people who apparently are unable to read or look around before posting an idea or a question. Or, my personal favorite group, people with no filter or objectivity and post broken and horrible garbage ideas.

My suggestion:
It is absolutely true that the Simple Questions and Script Help Threads were necessary for a healthy ROMHacking community. It is also entirely true that they were too general. We need several, more specific help threads that members can feed their questions into. They need to be moderated heavily so that spam posts and incorrectly placed questions get removed or merged into the appropriate threads.

I have a few ideas for the threads, any other ROMHackers may want to chime in on what else needs to be added or changed.

READ THIS FIRST Thread - A thread explaining the basic terminology of ROMHacking, and linking to important resources that we all use. This should provide a general overview of ROMHacking, and point to the specific help threads when explaining that section of the hacking process. This shouldn't be locked, in my opinion, so that it can be added onto in an encyclopedic fashion, or have members proofread what we have in the first post and suggest corrections as quality control. This allows the thread to be a living, breathing document.
The Script Help Thread - Self Explanatory
The Technical Help Thread - Help with tools. I had originally thought it should be the A-Map Help thread, with the amount of people who can't get the whole movement permissions/level scripts/OWs/etc. right, but thought that'd be WAY too specific. I figured that these should be separate from the tools' thread themselves, as they detract from development, bugs, and suggestions for new features.
The ASM Help Thread - Help debugging or proofreading ASM routines. This is not a request thread, of course.
The Graphics Help Thread - For help creating, indexing, inserting, and using graphics. Tiles, sprites, titlescreen graphics, you name it! No requests allowed, of course.
The Idea Thread - Self Explanatory
The Music Help Thread - For help creating, looping, inserting, and using music.

Delete out the current Beginner's Lounge, and put a new forum called the "Help Forum" or something. Sticky these help threads. Either close the forum so that no new threads can be made, forcing people to use the help threads, or encourage people to post threads ONLY if it's another type of help thread that can be widely utilized and isn't already covered by the other threads. This way, if one thread is inundated with a specific type of question to the detriment of other types covered by the thread, it can be separated out into its own thread. Or, if there's something we forgot to address in a thread, new threads can rise to take its place. These new threads would be approved on a trial basis, and if they're not well-used or particularly helpful during their trial tenure, they are merged back into the main thread, or a directory post is added to the main thread's first post detailing the useful questions and answers that that trial thread had had.

We have to remember that, though many of the older hackers are in college now, this site and this genre attract young teens and children who need to have their hand held in order to find things. The quintessential "noob" will not benefit from a free-for-all Beginner's Lounge type of section, they will simply add to the muck that has already formed. With a structured system of help threads, and a robust and accurate member-driven overview thread, we can better help those who need it, and put a stop to the Scrapbox riptide that we seem to be trapped in. It is my hope that those in this thread will ponder this proposal, and add onto it so that we can better manage the ROMHacking section as a community. In my view, structure is really all we need.

 

[DJTiki]

If we have the Beginner's Lounge still, we can just have more enforced rules, especially for Ideas. I would really like it if smaller ideas were on its own thread somewhere in the ROM Hacking HUB or a sticky in the Lounge and larger, more detailed explanations can stay within the Beginner's Lounge. That'd be cool.

The rules can also be tweaked to address these issues. There can also be one sticky for the Simple Questions Thread and another one for commonly asked questions. So that'd be three stickies, each serving the end goal of organizing the Gargabe Bin that is the Beginner's Lounge. And perhaps making Idea threads or whatever can be subject to approval(but this has its own problems, I'm sure). :)

 

[daniilS]

Spoiler:

Honestly, the "Scrapbox" phenomenon has happened a couple times during my many years in the ROMHacking section. Basically, it goes like this:

A beginner's forum is created. Its purpose is never clear, never really defined other than "this is where everything goes that isn't covered elsewhere". Naturally, within a few days, it is swarmed with spam and garbage, becomes difficult to navigate, and the blind are helping the blind (if people are getting help at all). The members who were previously helpful try to keep up with the deluge, wading through the nonsense in a valiant attempt to improve our pool of ROMHackers, but give up in a week or two because it's become so ridiculously difficult to find ANYTHING there. Eventually it becomes too much for the mods, and in a few months the section is deleted, the ROMHacking sections all get reshuffled and renamed (again), and we go on with our lives.

This time, the community has matured enough to see the Beginner's Lounge as what it is. We have never had such a multitude of mainstay, veteran hackers in our community be so active and helpful as we do in today's community. We have never had such a wealth of research and innovation happening in the ROMHacking section as we do today.

I have never felt that a free-for-all section was a good idea for anyone. Those who actually do need help get climbed over by the torrent of "this would be cool" and "do this for me" and "how do i script" people, or people who apparently are unable to read or look around before posting an idea or a question. Or, my personal favorite group, people with no filter or objectivity and post broken and horrible garbage ideas.

My suggestion:
It is absolutely true that the Simple Questions and Script Help Threads were necessary for a healthy ROMHacking community. It is also entirely true that they were too general. We need several, more specific help threads that members can feed their questions into. They need to be moderated heavily so that spam posts and incorrectly placed questions get removed or merged into the appropriate threads.

I have a few ideas for the threads, any other ROMHackers may want to chime in on what else needs to be added or changed.

READ THIS FIRST Thread - A thread explaining the basic terminology of ROMHacking, and linking to important resources that we all use. This should provide a general overview of ROMHacking, and point to the specific help threads when explaining that section of the hacking process. This shouldn't be locked, in my opinion, so that it can be added onto in an encyclopedic fashion, or have members proofread what we have in the first post and suggest corrections as quality control. This allows the thread to be a living, breathing document.
The Script Help Thread - Self Explanatory
The Technical Help Thread - Help with tools. I had originally thought it should be the A-Map Help thread, with the amount of people who can't get the whole movement permissions/level scripts/OWs/etc. right, but thought that'd be WAY too specific. I figured that these should be separate from the tools' thread themselves, as they detract from development, bugs, and suggestions for new features.
The ASM Help Thread - Help debugging or proofreading ASM routines. This is not a request thread, of course.
The Graphics Help Thread - For help creating, indexing, inserting, and using graphics. Tiles, sprites, titlescreen graphics, you name it! No requests allowed, of course.
The Idea Thread - Self Explanatory
The Music Help Thread - For help creating, looping, inserting, and using music.

Delete out the current Beginner's Lounge, and put a new forum called the "Help Forum" or something. Sticky these help threads. Either close the forum so that no new threads can be made, forcing people to use the help threads, or encourage people to post threads ONLY if it's another type of help thread that can be widely utilized and isn't already covered by the other threads. This way, if one thread is inundated with a specific type of question to the detriment of other types covered by the thread, it can be separated out into its own thread. Or, if there's something we forgot to address in a thread, new threads can rise to take its place. These new threads would be approved on a trial basis, and if they're not well-used or particularly helpful during their trial tenure, they are merged back into the main thread, or a directory post is added to the main thread's first post detailing the useful questions and answers that that trial thread had had.

We have to remember that, though many of the older hackers are in college now, this site and this genre attract young teens and children who need to have their hand held in order to find things. The quintessential "noob" will not benefit from a free-for-all Beginner's Lounge type of section, they will simply add to the muck that has already formed. With a structured system of help threads, and a robust and accurate member-driven overview thread, we can better help those who need it, and put a stop to the Scrapbox riptide that we seem to be trapped in. It is my hope that those in this thread will ponder this proposal, and add onto it so that we can better manage the ROMHacking section as a community. In my view, structure is really all we need.

Man, I would create a second account just to subscribe to the ASM thread twice.