The Rules & Guidelines of Scripting Help - Updated: 19/12/12

[JaTochNietDan]

Rules

1. First and foremost, the main forum rules still apply here.
2. You may only bump your thread after 24 hours has passed since the last reply.
3. If you do not get help, please re-evaluate the explanation of the issue you provided, it may not be providing enough information for people to help you.
4. If you are unsure or don't know how to proceed with solving an issue, then do not respond to the thread, it will be considered spam.
5. Use a proper thread title, it should sum up the general problem you're having in a few words. (For example, do not use silly babble like "HELP PLS HELP PLS REP+++", use "Issue with SetPlayerPos and interiors")
6. You should always be providing code! People cannot help you if they cannot see what's wrong with the code.
7. If you are requesting a script, post in the Script Request Thread
8. Do not post untested code.
9. This is a serious discussion area, no jokes/memes.
10. There is a certain "#pragma" that can be used to hide significant warnings and produce unreadable code - DO NOT advocate its use if you know what it is; it is TERRIBLE practice and we want to get rid of it.
11. There are multiple tools available for searching for object IDs - if you can't find them from there, then post in the pinned "minor queries" thread, don't start a new thread just for one object ID.
12. This forum is for questions relating to the PAWN scripting language, we are not a forum for other languages. This is commonly quoted regarding C in that this is not a C help forum, but the same is true of any other language - PHP, SQL, etc. This is quite a fine line - for example a question on how to use the SQLite functions is fine because that's PAWN; questions on how to write queries isn't.

Guidelines

• Be descriptive when making replies, explain the problem so that the person doesn't make the same mistake again. Just feeding them code is not helping them learn.
• Search before posting, why wait for a solution? You could probably find the solution much faster by simply searching!
• Help people to help you, providing enough information about your issue is crucial to getting quick and efficient help from others.
• Make sure to read the PAWN Language Guide.
• The SA-MP Wiki has full documentation on the SA-MP API, start using it!
• If your problem is with a script release on the forums, then you should try posting in the release's thread.

[Y_Less]

Summary: Name your post after the information you want, not after the fact that you want help.

You are in a SCRIPTING HELP forum. Most people can infer from the fact that you are posting here that you need help with some sort of scripting - that's free information! These titles are not descriptive and I will call them out as such:

• Please help me.

• What's wrong with this?

• Pawn problem.

If you have urgent problems (unlikely, what's an urgent scripting problem) use IRC, don't post things like this (and don't bump the topic if you don't get a response inside 24 hours - that's also against the rules):

• <some problem> URGENT!

• Help quick please with <something>.

• Fast help on <this issue>...

A topic title should summarise your ACTUAL problem, for example:

• Can't see player on class selection screen.

  People can probably tell you the solution without even clicking the link.
  

• How do I remove the GF tutorial?

  I know nothing about GF, so there's no point me clicking this and wasting both of our time.
  

• Automata entry function not called.

  Rare and interesting topic, likely to attract decent coders (or will attract me anyway).

Even these, while slightly less descriptive, give more information than nothing:

• Error 052.

  At least we can look up the error code.
  

• Server crashes on startup.

  Narrows down where the problem could be.
  

• Camera stuck.

  Gives an idea of what to search for.

If I remove your useless title, or lock your topic and link you here, and you want to PM me a better title you can do and I'll update your topic and unlock it. Note that editing the first post yourself doesn't actually work as the new title doesn't get reflected on the main topic listing after the first few minutes.

As a side-note, while not technically against the rules (unless a mod is being especially pernickety and counts it has rep system abuse), many people ignore topics with things like "REP+" in them (especially as most people who post those topics can't actually give out reputation yet).