What can and can't be posted in General?

Now, the title of this topic is a bit more open than what I'm really asking, but it'd be good to get an overall "what you can and can't post" list for the general section.

Essentially I've been making a Minecraft mod and as I'd like to test it out with a small bunch of people (i.e. not the entire MC forums) I'd like to post it in general, asking for bugs and feedback. Besides, I haven't made a single post on the MC forums to date, so I don't really want to start there anyway. So basically, if I post a topic like that in general would it get locked? There's been a few cases of these things getting locked while others are allowed, so I'm just not too sure.

I guess it depends on how related to CC your mod is. If it's a peripheral mod I don't see any problem, but if it's main idea is not related to CC and there's only a 'feature' to communicate with CC (peripherals) then it might get locked.

For me it seems like you can post anything, but if it's a creation of some sort it must be related to CC. I still wonder why CC OS discussion topics* are not allowed anywhere but you can create your program's discussion topic* without getting it locked.

* topics created before program/OS release.

MKlegoman357, on 06 May 2014 - 11:47 AM said:

I guess it depends on how related to CC your mod is. If it's a peripheral mod I don't see any problem, but if it's main idea is not related to CC and there's only a 'feature' to communicate with CC (peripherals) then it might get locked.

For me it seems like you can post anything, but if it's a creation of some sort it must be related to CC. I still wonder why CC OS discussion topics* are not allowed anywhere but you can create your program's discussion topic* without getting it locked.

* topics created before program/OS release.

Yea, it's not really that CC related.

The description "Discuss Anything and Everything Relating to Anything and Everything" suggests that this isn't an issue, however. Maybe that needs to change.

I tend to try to understand the intent behind a post if it is questionable. There are a few posters who only seem to be interested in advertising their unrelated websites, so those generally get closed or removed.

I've addressed OS discussion topics a few times, but it boils down to correcting the issue of them flooding the forums. Before the OS section was created, OS related posts started taking up more and more of the first pages of both General and the main Programs section. At one point shortly before the section was created, it was halfway down the first page of General before you found a non-OS topic. We decided to clean them up, so all OS-related posts were placed in the OS section. Being a Programs subsection, code is required for a topic to remain unlocked. It may not be the best solution, but I do think it is better than the flooding that happened previously.

I don't want to discourage high-quality content anywhere on the forums. I don't mind allowing posts that might bend the rules a little bit, so long as they are good posts. The low-quality quick and easy attention grabs ("look at my website!", "talk about my vaporware os!", "what's your favorite rehash of a common subject we already have a topic about?") do tend to get locked, of course. I'd say go ahead and post it if you think it's worthy of attention at this point. You've been around long enough and contributed good content, so I'm not too worried you'll have poor judgment on this. Essentially, I'm a lot more willing to let something fly that might not otherwise if it looks like the OP put a lot of effort in to crafting the best topic they could. There was a post recently that was essentially just an idea topic, but because there was a noticeable amount of effort put in to the first post, I let it stand as its own topic.

As always, if one is perceiving unfairness in moderation (some topics being locked/deleted while similar ones are left alone was mentioned above), I'd be interested in having a conversation about it. Feel free to PM me about these sorts of things. I do miss stuff occasionally, so I may not have seen the other topic, or if I decided to handle them differently, I may explain my reasoning. I try to be fair and reasonable in dealing with these things, though I understand it isn't always perceived that way.

Thanks to both oeed and Lyqyd for this topic, it will definitely help me in deciding where to put my topic later :)/>

Lyqyd, on 06 May 2014 - 06:52 PM said:

–snip–

Ok, thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

//a bit offtopic
Would a topic for idea patent get locked?

idea patent?

Yes, like you've got a really good idea and do not want anyone to come up with it before you finish it, so you'd post it in sth like idea patent topic and … yes that :D/> patent
You were first, you get the credit for that idea, nobody else could use it

Yeah, that'd get locked as soon as I noticed it.

I'm going to go ahead and lock this topic before it turns into a Q&A session about what I will or won't lock.