Thread Starting Guidelines

When you decide to make a new post where you are requesting help or information from other members of these forums, such as technical support or modding help, it may be of help to follow these guidelines. By doing so, you will make sure to maximize the amount of replies you can get, as well as the effectiveness of such replies.

1. Pick a good subject/title: Subjects tell a lot about the thread. “Help MEE!!” will not be very purposeful; “Object Causing CTD in New York”, however, will likely get people to at least check your topic more. It will also direct people with proper knowledge of the issue to your topic, since they know from the get-go what it is about.

2. Give details: Whatever you are asking, give details. You get a CTD? When did it happen, what were you doing, were you alone, were you on your server, did you already experience this bug, what have you modified, can you post your FLSpit error log, what is your system configuration, have you already done any sort of troubleshooting?… Try to ask yourself what sort of questions people may ask to narrow the problem and answer them directly in your first post. This can DRASTICALLY speed up the process to find a solution.

3. Spell properly: This may be hard for foreigners, but try as best as you can to write your posts in proper English. Spelling mistakes, grammar issues and such can be overlooked every once and then, and people will not have an issue with someone not mastering the English language posting with mistakes, but SMS-type or chat-type messages are a BAD thing to do. This is a forum, not a shoutbox! If you write in “txt” language, you will get far less replies. Not only does it make reading your post hard, it also may show you have no interest in putting efforts to write a proper post. Hence, people might not want to put effort in replying to you.

4. Answer effectively: As your topic progresses, don’t just say “no” in reply to whether something worked. That is completely counter-productive. Try to find more details to give, as just saying “no” simply ends this possible solution with no further possibility of continuing down that path.

5. Search: The forums are large. Try to use the Search button to find information about your subject. It is very likely that someone has already experienced a problem similar to yours. If you have made sure your question has never been answered, then you can post. It is also a good idea to say you have already searched on the forums.