Gaming (General) Charter: Hyper Edition. Read before posting!

Welcome to the boards.ie Gaming (General) forum. This is one of Ireland’s oldest and finest gaming related forums run by gamers for gamers. The primary focus of this forum is for the discussion of computer and video games on any platform.

Retr0gamer and Johnny_Ultimate moderate this forum at the moment.
Retr0gamer, Sierra Oscar and johnny_ultimate are the Category Moderators.

Gaming (General) is just that - a general hub for any discussion about games. That includes games that may be exclusive to a specific platform. However, as you’re likely aware the wider Computer Games category has other forums for housing particular areas of discussion. We’ve broken them down here, with a brief description of what goes where. If, for example, you have a question about your Xbox hardware, then the Xbox forum will be your best port of call.

If the mods here feel your thread is a better fit for another forum, we’ll likely move it (that may include separating posts from an existing thread into a new one - for example technical issues related to a particular format). There’ll be a temporary redirect link left so everyone will know where it has gone. Don’t worry if this is the case - all the other forums are full of friendly, helpful and knowledgeable posters who will be happy to help out

The general site-wide rules apply here as they do everywhere on boards.ie. You can find them here.

If you feel you that you have received a ban or infraction unfairly, please follow the complaints procedure as outlined in this forum

We have some forum specific rules in place to make sure the forum runs as best as it can.

Check them:

Stay on topic:
Now this rule is flexible. As long as everybody’s happy bunnies and the topic naturally drifts off to some other interesting thing, we don't care. However if a mod posts a warning which includes the phrase "back on topic" that means you talk about the topic in hand.

Selling stuff in the forum is not allowed:
Please use www.adverts.ie.

Piracy:
No piracy discussion - whether that’s where to download games illegally or any boasting that you have pirated. Those sorts of posts will receive infractions. Exceptions will, of course, be made for games that are actually about pirates.

While discussions of mod-chips are acceptable in some cases, they are more suitable for the Console Modding forum, and threads may be moved there.

No list threads:
Threads that are just endless list of game names, soundtrack videos etc… will be locked. There’s no discussion to be had, and odds are the topic has been covered dozens of times before. At the very least, put effort into the reasons behind your choices if starting a potentially list-like thread.

Swear filter:
Do not bypass the swear filter. Bypassing the swear filter is an escalating offense (Yellow Card -> Red Card -> Ban)

Spoilers:
Sometimes you'll want to ask for help on a particular level of a game. But other users may be even worse than you at the game and not want to have the surprise ruined. Boards comes complete with spoiler tags which hide the text unless you highlight it.

For example if I want to hide the text "There is no ending for Pacman on the Atari 2600, it just resets the score to zero", I'd type [*spoiler]There is no ending for Pacman on the Atari 2600, it just resets the score to zero[*/spoiler] (remove the *). This would then post as . Or you could just click the handy spoiler tag button on the ‘new post’ screen!

Reporting posts:
If you there's something on this forum that really needs a moderator to look at it then use the Report Post feature. When you do an e-mail is sent to the moderators and we will have a look at it and take action if necessary. You won't be named at any stage. Do not abuse this feature. This will cause us annoyance.

This is important: if somebody is clearly trolling or trying to incite other posters, DON’T RESPOND. Report the post - we may not get to it immediately, but we will get to it. Responding on thread will drag it off-topic, and you may even ended up getting warned or infracted yourself.

Quoting articles from elsewhere:
Do NOT post full articles. It’s not fair on the author or website, and is basically copyright theft anyway. Only post a paragraph or two of an article, then you must name the publication (Eurogamer, GameSpot, IGN etc), and link to the full article (or a full URL with the site name is fine).

Regional bypassing:
Absolutely no discussion on how to evade restrictions on geographically locked content. This includes posts that describe the use of Proxies, VPNs and browser add-ons, along with questions like "How do I watch the US Netflix on my console?"
Absolutely no discussion on “Game Sharing” or “Account Sharing”.
Absolutely no discussion on purchasing products that require the use of a false address. This includes buying from different regions' digital marketplaces (e.g. Steam, PSN, Xbox Live) or anywhere that requires a fake address.

Format wars:
‘Format war’ or ‘fanboy’ nonsense of any sort is not welcome here. That includes uses of phrases like ‘PC Master Race’, ‘console peasants’ or accusing people of being ‘fanboys’ / ‘fangirls’ / ‘fanpeople’ (just to be politically correct) of any particular hardware. The mods will take action against anybody trying to kick off a console flame war, and based on past experience we will lock any ‘PS4 vs Xbox One vs Wii U vs PC’ threads or any derivatives.

At the very least offending comments will be deleted. Clear attempts at trolling or repeat offenders will receive cards and potentially bans. ‘I was using it ironically’ is not an excuse - at the very least, it’s not a very good one.

New forums:
While a handful of games and genres currently enjoy their own forums, generally new forums are not created for individual games anymore unless they are already massively popular or this forum is over-run with discussion of them. The mods usually don't support new games forums if they don't think they'll last but have no veto over their creation.

Do not post here asking for a new forum to be created. Do this in Forum Requests.

Atari Jaguar:
All polls should contain an ‘Atari Jaguar’ option. It has been foretold.

If you have any questions about anything in the charter, please feel free to drop one of the mods of the forum a PM.

Special thanks to Shinji, the original moderator of this forum and general fountain of gaming knowledge. You can read his words of gaming words of wisdom at: http://www.eurogamer.net/, and here http://www.gamesindustry.biz/

Special kudos also due to Amp, who was responsible for the previous incarnation of this charter. And thanks to Mr E, Don’t be at Yourself and the other mods who refined it over the years.

So that's it. Enjoy your time here. Remember, it's all about the games