About the new forum rule

[Lucario]

When creating new threads about dolphin, always provide a) your PC specs (CPU, RAM, GPU, Operating System, ..) b) information about the Dolphin build used (version/revision, source, ..) c) Dolphin settings d) detailed description of what you're trying to do (e.g including the name of the game you tried to run). Ignoring this rule will get your thread closed and have you warned off.

bold: "ALWAYS", a, b, c, AND d? Like when someone has kind of situation not relevant to PC spec, Dolphin rev, etc. and it will have to type down all the details given by the abc's? There are certain situation where there's no need to list every single details covered by the abc's about the problem given by a thread starter.

Let's see some examples:

1) http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=20426
Will someone actually answer Nullf0x's question without need to know any more details?
Yes. That was me. I could have post the obvious solution but it was closed because of the new forum rule. (Nullf0x created new thread and filled out the unnecessary details and just found the solution some hours ago anyway)

I am surprised how that thread ended up being closed because of UNNECESSARY DETAILS ARE NECESSARY by the new rule.

2) http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=20371
Is it actually necessary to spill out specs, Dolphin's settings, and such about that kind of situation??
NO. (assumes that thread starter is not expert at Dolphin's extraordinary settings of course)

Somebody seemed to know the answer and yet thread starter was forced to type out its PC specs.

That new rule is kind of harsh, imo

New rule should be like: Thread starter SHOULD at least write details that is RELEVANT to its situation in the first place and if thread starter obviously BEING FRICKIN LAZY about writing down the details that you believe it will CAUSE SOMEONE TO ASK THE THREAD STARTER FOR THE "GENERAL DETAILS" ABOUT ITS SITUATION, staffs can close user's thread anytime.

Y' know, use some common senses!

[Starscream]

There are certain situation where there's no need to list every single details covered by the abc's about the problem given by a thread starter.

When you're dealing with an emulator that is solely based on people's PC's, that information must be there to properly diagnose the problem. Period. Just because you think the information is unnecessary, that does not mean that it actually is.

[NaturalViolence]

SS did this because those were the 4 questions everybody was asking the OP in nearly every thread in the support forum before the rule was implemented. This saves us a lot of time.

New rule should be like: Thread starter SHOULD at least write details that is RELEVANT to its situation in the first place

They never do. And they never know what is relevant. Therefore we always just end up asking the 4 questions anyways.

[Lucario]

Okay but please don't close the topic and/or warn the thread starters carelessly when they know what they're doing. Especially in the Controller forum.

[Runo]

@OP
People should have relevant information on their signature, unfortunately we do not live in a world full of rainbows and infinite mana so that doesn't happen, and this rule is needed. Also, from what I see common senses are indeed being used, adms won't close a thread about Dolphin's homepage showing as plain HTML (http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread...319&page=3) because the athor didn't say his specs for example.

For the first example you posted, I'd ask at least for his Dolphin version to know what I'm dealing with, even tough it seems the answer is obvious you can't just assume things, what if the poster in that thread was using an older dolphin version, the wiimote interface was very different, you'd give him instructions on how to set it up and he wouldn't find things and it would take a lot longer to solve the problem.

This may not be the best example, but you see what I mean, we just have to see the entire problem scenario to help a person solve a problem, and yes maybe sometimes it could be filtered, I wouldn't need to know that guy's GFX card for instance, but noobs won't know how to filter this kind of things in most cases and I learned I can't expect common sense from them, so it's easier and better just to make a rule like this and let the common sense come from the admins/mods on how to apply it.

[Lucario]

I'd ask at least for his Dolphin version to know what I'm dealing with, even tough it seems the answer is obvious you can't just assume things, what if the poster in that thread was using an older dolphin version, the wiimote interface was very different, you'd give him instructions on how to set it up and he wouldn't find things and it would take a lot longer to solve the problem.

New Dolphin users had no idea about why wiimote have abnormal behavior with Dolphin, and that's understandable. We can assume it's running the latest Dolphin revision or latest stable release and we will give instructions what to do about its problem. No need to ask the starter about what Dolphin build it's running on in the first place. I mean, they should at least have the latest Dolphin builds or otherwise they will get no supports from us. It's better than quickly close the thread and block others from posting the solution about it.

I think the new rule is not helping much for something else not related to Dolphin's performance.

[Starscream]

Lucario: Seriously, you have no idea what you're taking about. Lets leave this to the people who know what's going on.

[Lucario]

Sorry I don't good at English and I don't quite understand everything here

[Zee530]

Well for new members we could add fields during registration to supply their specs and dolphin version and this could be hardcoded into their sig, so all they have to do is supply settings when opening a thread

[Runo]

I mean, they should at least have the latest Dolphin builds or otherwise they will get no supports from us.

Yeah but that's far from being the reality man.

And I like Zee's idea, if there's fields to be responded maybe more people will do it.