I've seen a lot of threads of people asking others to make things for them lately. These are in violation of rule 15:
Now, you're probably wondering why we have a rule against request threads. Let me explain our reasoning.
First of all, addon authors, software programmers, sprite/texture artists, musicians, etc in this community create their work for free. They don't make stuff for any benefit beyond making their ideas come to life and the joy they get from sharing it with others. It is true that some addons are only made because someone commissioned someone else to make them, but if you're posting here, it's almost certain that you're asking for your mod for free, and if you aren't, another one of our rules forbids financial transactions to happen via the forums (this is to protect us from liability in case the commission/transaction goes wrong).
Because of this, no matter what you're requesting, it is highly unlikely that anyone will be interested in creating something for you. Ideas are a dime a dozen and there's almost always going to be something more interesting or challenging for creators to work on. That brings me to the major reason for rule 15: requesting mods doesn't even work. If we didn't have a rule against them, request threads would almost always look like this:
User 1: Hey, can someone make [your idea here] for me? It would be so cool!
User 2: That idea is so [cool/lame]. I sure hope someone [makes it/doesn't make it].
User 3: I think that mod would be [good/bad]. Good luck getting someone to make it.
User 4: I think User 5 should make this. They're great at all the skills required to do it.
User 5: Sorry, I have my hands full with other projects, and I'm not really interested anyway.
User 6: Well I think this mod would be [...]
User 7: I have this idea that could work nicely in the mod [...]
Threads would go on and on and on like this. They might get some interest at first, but eventually they would only get responses one or two times per year, never amounting to much beyond people giving themselves hope for a project that will probably never materialize.
Request threads, therefore, are nothing but clutter. They push threads that people are actually interested in off the first few pages of the forums. This makes interesting threads harder to find. Users must then sift through pages full of threads they don't care about in order to find threads that interest them, and that's a bad experience that will make people want to use the forums less.
Here's an FAQ:
"If I'm not allowed to request mods, then how will I make my cool idea come to life?"
Use the SRB2 Wiki to learn about making mods. Check the Guides section of Addons & More to see if anything that might help you is there. Ask questions about making your mod in Questions About Making Addons or on our Discord server. Modding is a learning process that takes time, but it's very rewarding once you start gaining the skills you need. Modders that make good work and help out around the community may one day find themselves being asked if they want to join Sonic Team Junior (no promises).
"That's too much work. How else can I get my mod made?"
Find a community member whose commissions are open and pay them to make it. Again, make sure you do this outside of the forums.
"What if I don't have enough money for that?"
Then save some up, or suck it up and make the mod yourself.
"But I don't even own a PC to make mods on! What else am I supposed to do?"
Ask a family member for permission to borrow their PC to make mods on. You may also be able to use a computer lab at your school or local library. Be sure you follow the family/school/library rules. If all else fails, you may at least be able to develop a pure Lua mod on a mobile device using a basic text editor.
"I only have the skills to make part of my mod. Can I make a thread searching for someone to make the other parts?"
Yes -- if you do it like this:
1. Start making your mod.
2. Once you have enough progress worth showing off, post about it in Works In Progress.
3. In your post, put out a call for anyone interested to collaborate with you.
"I don't want to request a mod, I want to ask people to give me ideas for mods I could make. Can I do that?"
Yep, that's fine.
"I have a suggestion for an existing mod. Is that allowed?"
Yes -- just make sure you offer good reasons for the change, and don't ask for big new features or entire new characters/abilities/maps to go with a mod. Be sure to make your suggestion in the Discussion thread for the mod instead of making a brand new thread for it.
Good: "Cool character, but I think their attack is too weak. Would you consider buffing it by [your change here]?"
Bad: "This character's attack is too weak, so it needs [additional ability or other feature]. Without that, there's no good reason to play this instead of [other mod]. When are you adding it?"
Terrible: "You should make [some unrelated mod] instead of working on this."
"I saw someone else make a request thread. What should I do?"
DON'T reply to the thread, even if you just want to inform the person about the rules. DO use the Report button on the post to tell us about it. We usually don't give people any discipline other than deleting their thread and informing them of the rule. (We do issue warning points and/or bans if a person keeps doing it, though.)
"Sev, your rules are stupid. You suck."
That's not a question, but whether I suck or not has nothing to do with our rules. Every one of our rules has been written by a group of forum staff, and they are what we agree works best to make the forum a good place for the community to hang out. We occasionally go through and remove unnecessary ones or revise poorly written ones. If you don't like them, you're free to request mods somewhere else (not including our Discord server, SRB2 netgames, etc).
That's all. Thanks for reading.
Many newcomers to the forums don't bother reading our rules before posting. If you haven't read them yet, please click here and take a few minutes to do so.
Now, you're probably wondering why we have a rule against request threads. Let me explain our reasoning.
First of all, addon authors, software programmers, sprite/texture artists, musicians, etc in this community create their work for free. They don't make stuff for any benefit beyond making their ideas come to life and the joy they get from sharing it with others. It is true that some addons are only made because someone commissioned someone else to make them, but if you're posting here, it's almost certain that you're asking for your mod for free, and if you aren't, another one of our rules forbids financial transactions to happen via the forums (this is to protect us from liability in case the commission/transaction goes wrong).
Because of this, no matter what you're requesting, it is highly unlikely that anyone will be interested in creating something for you. Ideas are a dime a dozen and there's almost always going to be something more interesting or challenging for creators to work on. That brings me to the major reason for rule 15: requesting mods doesn't even work. If we didn't have a rule against them, request threads would almost always look like this:
User 1: Hey, can someone make [your idea here] for me? It would be so cool!
User 2: That idea is so [cool/lame]. I sure hope someone [makes it/doesn't make it].
User 3: I think that mod would be [good/bad]. Good luck getting someone to make it.
User 4: I think User 5 should make this. They're great at all the skills required to do it.
User 5: Sorry, I have my hands full with other projects, and I'm not really interested anyway.
User 6: Well I think this mod would be [...]
User 7: I have this idea that could work nicely in the mod [...]
Threads would go on and on and on like this. They might get some interest at first, but eventually they would only get responses one or two times per year, never amounting to much beyond people giving themselves hope for a project that will probably never materialize.
Request threads, therefore, are nothing but clutter. They push threads that people are actually interested in off the first few pages of the forums. This makes interesting threads harder to find. Users must then sift through pages full of threads they don't care about in order to find threads that interest them, and that's a bad experience that will make people want to use the forums less.
Here's an FAQ:
"If I'm not allowed to request mods, then how will I make my cool idea come to life?"
Use the SRB2 Wiki to learn about making mods. Check the Guides section of Addons & More to see if anything that might help you is there. Ask questions about making your mod in Questions About Making Addons or on our Discord server. Modding is a learning process that takes time, but it's very rewarding once you start gaining the skills you need. Modders that make good work and help out around the community may one day find themselves being asked if they want to join Sonic Team Junior (no promises).
"That's too much work. How else can I get my mod made?"
Find a community member whose commissions are open and pay them to make it. Again, make sure you do this outside of the forums.
"What if I don't have enough money for that?"
Then save some up, or suck it up and make the mod yourself.
"But I don't even own a PC to make mods on! What else am I supposed to do?"
Ask a family member for permission to borrow their PC to make mods on. You may also be able to use a computer lab at your school or local library. Be sure you follow the family/school/library rules. If all else fails, you may at least be able to develop a pure Lua mod on a mobile device using a basic text editor.
"I only have the skills to make part of my mod. Can I make a thread searching for someone to make the other parts?"
Yes -- if you do it like this:
1. Start making your mod.
2. Once you have enough progress worth showing off, post about it in Works In Progress.
3. In your post, put out a call for anyone interested to collaborate with you.
"I don't want to request a mod, I want to ask people to give me ideas for mods I could make. Can I do that?"
Yep, that's fine.
"I have a suggestion for an existing mod. Is that allowed?"
Yes -- just make sure you offer good reasons for the change, and don't ask for big new features or entire new characters/abilities/maps to go with a mod. Be sure to make your suggestion in the Discussion thread for the mod instead of making a brand new thread for it.
Good: "Cool character, but I think their attack is too weak. Would you consider buffing it by [your change here]?"
Bad: "This character's attack is too weak, so it needs [additional ability or other feature]. Without that, there's no good reason to play this instead of [other mod]. When are you adding it?"
Terrible: "You should make [some unrelated mod] instead of working on this."
"I saw someone else make a request thread. What should I do?"
DON'T reply to the thread, even if you just want to inform the person about the rules. DO use the Report button on the post to tell us about it. We usually don't give people any discipline other than deleting their thread and informing them of the rule. (We do issue warning points and/or bans if a person keeps doing it, though.)
"Sev, your rules are stupid. You suck."
That's not a question, but whether I suck or not has nothing to do with our rules. Every one of our rules has been written by a group of forum staff, and they are what we agree works best to make the forum a good place for the community to hang out. We occasionally go through and remove unnecessary ones or revise poorly written ones. If you don't like them, you're free to request mods somewhere else (not including our Discord server, SRB2 netgames, etc).
That's all. Thanks for reading.