Its one of the things which actually irritates me a lot. As many people here offer up their time to help and support people, only for them to give up right at the start because things are not a 5 second fix. If your wanting things to be easy and need no effort, then you really need a different hobby!
In light of this, we will start removing threads with no resolution or effort to resolve, which may also lead to a ban if it continues. We want this forum to be a good resource for people and have all technical threads concluded, not just a forum littered with technical issues which just ended up being a waste of space.
We are also going to start clamping down on anyone who posts generally bad advice or wants to endless debate trivial things which really do no matter. I for one , like many people here, quit other forums because of endless "pointless debates" or people who just don't or won't understand things they are being told. This has actually started to become a huge problem recently and lead to several people being perminatly banned already.
A few people recently , think its their god given right to be here and think they can act or do whatever they like. Well, nope. We are not here to become your personal slaves to use and abuse as you see fit. I can and will ban anyone who acts like that period. You earn the right to remain here for helping and supporting the community. If anyone doesn't like what we say, what we do, or how we operate, then fine, close the forum and never come back. This forum just isn't everyone's "cup of tea" . A lot of these points are already listed in the forum rules.
Developers like myself and terriblefire , offer our time for free to help people and to design projects. If you want to be involved in projects then great. Support we give is free, and we, and indeed anyone on this forum, are not obligated to give people a 5 star support service for free! If people want a full support package then fine, we will charge accordingly for our time.
We will always try to help people as much as possible. Though sending abuse demanding support will just lead to a permanent ban from now on. The same goes for people who want "one on one" technical support. The amount of times I have repeated this over the years... Post for help on the forum ! Then the next person who has the same problem can read the threads and get instant help and resolution to the issue. This is also why we are clamping down on threads and people who give up on issues. It wastes everyone's time and helps nobody else either. Technical support PMs just mean we have to go though the same conversations over and other with different people on a weekly basis. We are just not doing it anymore.
We have many great and supportive people here and I want to keep it that way. Treat people with a bit of respect which they damn well deserve.
Now I have gotten all that off my chest. Here are the new rules which may well get added to over the next few days.
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/app.php/rules#rule-1o
Troubleshooting Etiquette
Experts on this forum come in many shapes and sizes, but have a couple of things in common. Firstly, they are dedicated to keeping the Atari ST in its many forms (and other machines) alive and kicking. Secondly, they do what they do voluntarily. Please bear this in mind when requesting help on this forum, and understand that you will be expected to have followed the rules stated below:
1. Please ensure you are polite and respectful at all times during all troubleshooting requests.
2. A little self help goes a long way. If you are expecting to be spoon fed answers, you are in the wrong place, as you will be expected to post details and photos in answer to questions in order to help with your problem. Please read and understand all of the basic troubleshooting guides and apply them before requesting more detailed help, and that you have as a bare minimum a multi-meter available to carry out testing.
3. All troubleshooting topics/posts must be kept within the forum and should not extend to the PM system. This is to ensure any forum user can benefit from the detail contained within them.
4. If you resolve your problem, please make sure you fully document what you did so that others may benefit from your findings.
5. We are not here to judge. If you have soldered something, and you think that may be a problem, say so, as we cannot help if we don't know the full picture. Taking offence at the possibility of your soldering being the problem will not help you, but honesty will.
6. If you have problem with a specific product, remember that it has been thoroughly tested by the designer, and berating them for making a shoddy product that may have problems as a result of your own build process will probably result in a ban.
7. Ensure that any photos you use are not linked to external sites, but uploaded to the forum and added inline with a description of what it shows.
8. If you decide enough is enough, please do not simply give up and walk away. If you walk away, so will we. Please make a statement in your post as to the reasons, we may still be able to help in some way.
9. Do not open multiple posts on the same topic. This wastes valuable time and may result in a ban if the moderators feel you are abusing the forum