- Joined
- Mar 2, 2012
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- RMMV
As some of you have already noticed, the Commercial / Classifieds forums are now no longer visible to some people.
This part of the forum was created for the benefit of our members who wanted to pay for resources to be made or offer their skills to make resources for money, and to encourage them to make commercial games.
Over time, people who were not forum members began to abuse this provision. They saw it as a place for free advertising. Most of them posted and left, never returning to follow up on interest or update their portfolios. Many of them had no idea what RPG Maker was all about (we actually had people posting 3D resources as well as resources that would just not be used in an RPG Maker game). It was clear that they had no desire to be a part of the community and interact with our members. The other concern was that none of us knew anything about these people - we could not vouch for them, we had no recourse if they scammed someone. We decided that the forum would not be used for free advertising by people who wanted nothing to do with RPG Maker or the community any more.
So we put some rules into place to stop the sign up - advertise - disappear posters. This was as simple as asking people to take part in the forum before posting their ads, by making 10 meaningful posts. Everyone concentrated on the '10' and no-one considered the 'meaningful' and we still had to deal with people who simply wanted to come here to advertise and not be a part of the community.
So we changed the rules slightly to make sure only people who WANTED to be a part of the community could advertise there (in the Offers section). This was immediately met by the same people abandoning that part of the forum and posting their portfolios in the Requests forum, as responses to commission requests. If we don't want people to advertise in Offers if they are not forum members or do not own the programs or know how they work, then we also do not want them responding to individual requests for the same reason. Of further concern is that there have been a number of commission disputes recently that we've been asked to assist with. Allowing people who don't want to be a part of the forum to fill and request commissions is inviting more of that.
Stopping people using our forums as free advertising when they want nothing else to do with us is not going to disadvantage our members. We have plenty of good artists, musicians and scripters right here in the community who are available to take commissions. And there are lots of other places where you can still go to search, if you can't find exactly what you need here. If it comes to choosing between a resource provider who is a long-standing member of the community and one who only has a single post, the community member gets our support every time. We want to give them a better chance.
So, in short ...
The commercial / classifieds section is, and has always been, for the benefit of our forum members. We are now enforcing that more strictly. If you are not a forum member and don't intend to be a forum member, you cannot benefit from those sections of the forum (do not go to other parts of the forum offering or requesting services for payment). If you do want to be a part of the forum, 30 is the magic number now. However, all posts and posters will still be subject to the same requirements - you need to have at least one engine, and know how your resources should be formatted, and your posts should be related to game development and/or RPG Maker.
Most of our forum members will not be affected by this change at all - only the very new ones who don't have the minimum posts yet, or the few who are coming here purely to advertise or recruit. I hope this helps you understand why we're taking a firmer stance on this now.
This part of the forum was created for the benefit of our members who wanted to pay for resources to be made or offer their skills to make resources for money, and to encourage them to make commercial games.
Over time, people who were not forum members began to abuse this provision. They saw it as a place for free advertising. Most of them posted and left, never returning to follow up on interest or update their portfolios. Many of them had no idea what RPG Maker was all about (we actually had people posting 3D resources as well as resources that would just not be used in an RPG Maker game). It was clear that they had no desire to be a part of the community and interact with our members. The other concern was that none of us knew anything about these people - we could not vouch for them, we had no recourse if they scammed someone. We decided that the forum would not be used for free advertising by people who wanted nothing to do with RPG Maker or the community any more.
So we put some rules into place to stop the sign up - advertise - disappear posters. This was as simple as asking people to take part in the forum before posting their ads, by making 10 meaningful posts. Everyone concentrated on the '10' and no-one considered the 'meaningful' and we still had to deal with people who simply wanted to come here to advertise and not be a part of the community.
So we changed the rules slightly to make sure only people who WANTED to be a part of the community could advertise there (in the Offers section). This was immediately met by the same people abandoning that part of the forum and posting their portfolios in the Requests forum, as responses to commission requests. If we don't want people to advertise in Offers if they are not forum members or do not own the programs or know how they work, then we also do not want them responding to individual requests for the same reason. Of further concern is that there have been a number of commission disputes recently that we've been asked to assist with. Allowing people who don't want to be a part of the forum to fill and request commissions is inviting more of that.
Stopping people using our forums as free advertising when they want nothing else to do with us is not going to disadvantage our members. We have plenty of good artists, musicians and scripters right here in the community who are available to take commissions. And there are lots of other places where you can still go to search, if you can't find exactly what you need here. If it comes to choosing between a resource provider who is a long-standing member of the community and one who only has a single post, the community member gets our support every time. We want to give them a better chance.
So, in short ...
The commercial / classifieds section is, and has always been, for the benefit of our forum members. We are now enforcing that more strictly. If you are not a forum member and don't intend to be a forum member, you cannot benefit from those sections of the forum (do not go to other parts of the forum offering or requesting services for payment). If you do want to be a part of the forum, 30 is the magic number now. However, all posts and posters will still be subject to the same requirements - you need to have at least one engine, and know how your resources should be formatted, and your posts should be related to game development and/or RPG Maker.
Most of our forum members will not be affected by this change at all - only the very new ones who don't have the minimum posts yet, or the few who are coming here purely to advertise or recruit. I hope this helps you understand why we're taking a firmer stance on this now.
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