Here you can find answers to questions about how the board works. Use the links or search box below to find your way around.
Before you can post here at PGD, you will need to signup for an account, so this is what you do:-
Unfortunately, these steps are necessary to try and limit the amount of spam that is posted to the forums and other areas of PGD. If everyone is around (i.e. you're on-line and surfing the site and a member of staff is around to approve your post) the whole process can be over and done with in under 10 minutes.
Here are the basic rules and guidelines of the forums here at PGD:
1) RESPECT OTHERS USERS: Everyone posting has the right to their opinions, however each member is responsible to the way that they voice their opinions. Regardless of age or temperament, each member is expected to act in a mature and respectful manner when posting. A healthy debate is one thing, however if you suddenly find that you have come to an impasse you will agree to disagree and that will be the end of it. The Staff will not tolerate 'flame wars' and corrective measures will be taken so that the infraction does not occur again.
Should you happen to find a particular member or members of the site behaving poorly feel free to ask them to stop, but do not get into an argument or heated debate with them. Instead please contact one of the appropriate Staff members and tell us what has occurred. We will then handle the situation ourselves. Engaging in an existing 'flame war' will only escalate the already bad situation and could make you look like one of the instigators.
2) RESPECT THE STAFF: Not everyone will agree with the administrative or even creative decisions of the PGD Staff, however their word is final. If on the rare occurrence you are having a problem with a member of the staff and feel that their actions or conduct was inappropriate, contact the Staff Manager and that person will look into the matter. DO NOT start an argument with that Staff Member. You will be instantly considered a trouble-maker and your case will become far less valid.
3) NO SPAM: Like many other community sites, we take every effort to remove all instances of spam and spammer accounts from the site. If you spot this at any time on the site, please do not hesitate to report it and/or contact any Staff member so that we can take care of it immediately. We take every measure possible to prevent spam in the first place, but sometimes it can get past us. We appreciate your efforts in helping us keep PGD a 'spam free' site.
4) POST IN THE APPROPRIATE FORUMS: Please try to post in the appropriate forums when possible. We all understand that sometimes this is not always clear to every user. There is no harsh punishment for posting in the wrong place, but we may move your thread to a more appropriate topic for housekeeping purposes only. We do try to make every effort to organize each forum to be as little redundant as possible, but if you find that we have missed something or have ideas for improvement, please contact us in the Feedback forum and let us know about it.
5) USE APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE: Last, but definitely not least, we ask that you use language that is deemed appropriate to the general public. As such, swearing, cursing and any other form of dirty or nasty language is not tolerated in the forums, blogs or in any member generated tutorials.
In many cases this is simply an amplification of Rule #1. Should this be a bad habit of yours in real life, please do not carry it with you here. Taking the extra time to communicate using civilized language will at the very least make you more appealing to communicate with and often increase the likelihood that you will have your voice heard or find the help that you seek.
The site uses a system of infractions to allow staff to penalise you if you break the rules.
What does 'will extend' mean? Well, lets say you spam the forums, you'll get an infraction that will expire in 5 days. Then you spam the forum again say an hour later. You'll get another infraction, but the second one will expire 5 days after the first. Points expire, but the running total of infractions does not!
But infractions are nothing without bans, so the following bans have been put in place.
So, lets consider this scenario... you spam the forums and get an infraction for it (5 points that will last for 5 days). The next day, you spam the forums again and get another infraction... that's a 3 day ban. The ban is lifted by the system and you will still have 10 points. You behave until your points have expired and then you abuse the staff member who gave you the infractions... that's another infraction, 5 points for 5 days, but it's your third infraction... that's a 3 day ban.
Please don't make the staff use the infraction system - We don't want to bane people, so please follow the rules, don't abuse anyone, don't post spam and everyone's time here will be much better.
Posting news and other articles on PGD is highly encouraged! All that we ask is that you use appropriate language (no swearing or cursing) and try to place your article in the most correct section possible.
While posting news items, if you are writing about a new game project, we recommend that you try to find a decent screenshot which you can upload and embed into the article so that visitors and members can see what exciting new game you are talking about. It helps keep the news posting interesting and visually appealing while attracting more attention than a simple text post alone.
NOTE: While the site is currently new, we are still in the midst of establishing the needed sections for the site's content management system. If you feel that your article does not fit into one of the existing sections, please contact a Staff member and we will try to add the needed section as required. We are ALL still new to the site software so your help in keeping us organized is truly appreciated.
The PGD Blogs are available for you to post about your own projects, code ideas, different technologies or anything else that interests you as a developer, programmer, artist or just you in general. It's your blog and you can blog if you want to.
The only thing we ask is that you do not SWEAR or CURSE or use any other inappropriate language and follow the same rules you would if you were posting in the PGD Forums.
You may link to your own PGD Blog and use it as your own personal homepage if you wish. Feel free to ask others to come visit it, we highly encourage this!