So, what exactly do we consider "piracy talk"?
1) Discussing "rom files" and "specific dumps". "Roms" (while technically correct) has a nasty connectation to it. When you say "I'm trying to get Pokemon Platinum roms to work" that has a much different implied meaning than "I dumped my Pokemon Platinum cart using NDS Backup and I can't get it to save properly". The former says "I used Google to find an illegal rom image of the game and I can't get it to work" .. the latter says "I'm using CycloDS in a legal manner to run my own backups". When you say "I'm using the (E) dump" (or even spelling it out completely) that says "I'm not using my own dump" - which again, implies piracy. Have you noticed that flash cart developers never refer to games by their names? Always by "scene release" number? There is a reason. Referring to a game as "3142" is a lot better than referencing the full name.
2) Discussing games that have not yet hit street date. GTA and Pokemon Platinum are examples of games that "leaked" before street date. And the former had issues with all flash carts. This lead to "massive" piracy talk on the TC forums which surely attracted the attention of Rockstar AND Nintendo. Saying you can't get "Game X" to run - and the game isn't even out yet - is akin to putting on a pirate hat, a peg leg AND hoisting a jolly roger flag into the air. There is NO OTHER WAY to take this discussion other than BLATENT PIRACY. The GTA "discussion" took it further; people pointed to cracks, patched roms and even BLATENT posts on how to crack certain copies of the game. 100% intolerable. Several bans were issued, several infractions were issued and threads were locked and/or deleted.
3) Discussion that APPEARS TO and SMELLS LIKE piracy. Yes, this is a very GRAY area and as such, we mods tend to take a more gentle hand than with people posting links to roms, etc. Let me give you an example.
"i just downloaded gta from a good site and it doesnt work"
Ok, that might be a little blatent - but you get the idea. This is better:
"Game 3123 gives two black screens when hitting AUTOSAVE"
See how there is NO reference to downloading, piracy sites there? As a bonus, the name isn't revealed (trust me, the TC team knows what you mean) AND you actually gave some USEFUL information about what doesn't work. Finally, what *I* would like to see:
"I dumped my copy of game 3123 using NDS Backup Wifi, it's untrimmed - and using the latest beta firmware v1.54b4, it two black screens after the autosave".
The team (and those here that want to help you) now have all the information. We know the dump is "legit", we know it's not tainted by "hackz0rs", we know HOW you got it, what beta build you're using AND exactly what happens - and when. We also know that if you dumped it yourself that you aren't using some sort of "beta" or "alpha" that some disgrunted ex-employee of Rockstar stole and released as a retalitory strike.
Now -- all of this sounds great, but I guarentee that 5 minutes after I post this, each and every rule here will be broken. Myself, as a mod, am going to get MUCH MORE involved with moderation here, and I'm going to do my best to enforce these concepts (unless of course, TC tells me different - but I suspect they won't). There are far too many "useless" posts with regards to compatibility issues - and many of the "useless" posts are filled with piracy references. My guess is - if we fix the piracy posts, that "useless" postings will go down too.