[Black Squirrel]

Evening Retro.

We're on the cusp of making some adjustments to the Sonic Retro wiki hack policy - we've been operating a system for years where only the very best and notable Sonic the Hedgehog modifications get representation on the Sonic Retro wiki. It's all down in writing - the wiki is not a personal file hosting service, it's not an alternative to the "Engineering & Reverse Engineering" board, and most crucially, it's not a means of getting your internet handle up in lights.

Unfortunately the kids aren't reading the hack policy, which means myself, Hivebrain, GerbilSoft or whoever's in the area find ourselves removing ROM hacks two or three times a week. >95% of uploaded hacks fail the hack policy, so it's been decided that from now on, we will actively discourage people from uploading their own hacks to the Sonic Retro wiki. We're not going to assess your hack for quality, we're going to remove it. So don't bother.

What will happen if you ignore this advice and waste our time anyway? I don't know, but it might not be nice!


However, while we don't want people to upload their own hacks, this is not a blanket ban on hacks altogether - making a page for a hack that isn't yours, provided it meets the current hack policy, is still fair game for the most part. Likewise we may make exceptions for special people who have produced wonderful content - chances are if you have a green badge under your name, you're probably going to be alright. This is more of a deterrence for "Red Sonic in Blue Hill Zone" - things we've been seeing constantly for the last 15 years or more.

Likewise, we are not imposing any restrictions on the E&RE forum, so you can always host it offsite and post the link there. Perhaps then people will help you shape it into something that's worth documenting. And there's always the annual hacking contests or whatever - plenty of places which don't involve me having to rename all your screenshots and categorise all your files.


We've been quite good at enforcing the existing policy, so hacks already on the wiki are unlikely to be affected.


(I've yet to update the official documentation but this will tide you over)

[MainMemory]

That's nice and all, but I doubt the people who have been giving you problems recently are the type to read the announcements board.

[Black Squirrel]

MainMemory, on 26 July 2018 - 04:02 PM, said:

That's nice and all, but I doubt the people who have been giving you problems recently are the type to read the announcements board.

This is true, but at least now I have somewhere to point them

[Clownacy]

...So, if uploading your own hack is discouraged, what does that mean for uploading someone else's? Going by the post's wording, making a page for someone else's hack is alright, but the current Hack Policy says every page needs a ROM mirror.

[Black Squirrel]

People shouldn't be uploading physical ROM files if there's not a page to put them on, so by uploading someone else's hack (with permission of course) the user would be expected to at least start a page.

(and not all good hacks originate from Sonic Retro - IIRC early versions of Metal Sonic Hyperdrive were released off-site, and that one deserves its page)


The motivation behind this is the wiki is often treated as a workaround for those who couldn't survive on the forums, and I'm past the days of quality controlling every zip that arrives on-site. You will personally never need to worry because that green title qualifies you - it's for people we don't know who upload tat.


I updated the actual hack policy (it hadn't been touched since 2010), but if there are still issues let me know. And likewise if there are any hacks which don't qualify that have slipped through, we need to know about those too.

This post has been edited by Black Squirrel: 29 July 2018 - 02:28 PM

[Ralakimus]

Black Squirrel, on 29 July 2018 - 02:26 PM, said:

You will personally never need to worry because that green title qualifies you - it's for people we don't know who upload tat.

BRB, making a bunch of trash palette hacks and making pages for them.

[AsuharaMoon]

I shouldn't be wasting a post for such a ridiculous thing like this, but... whatever.

This little kid uploaded my old, primitive and unpresentable first version of my S1 hack Sonic the Hedgehog Rocket on the Wiki without my consent or approval:
http://info.sonicret...Hedgehog_Rocket

And even with reading the hack policy, it's obvious that it shouldn't be accepted for its archiving. So that, I ask you guys please delete ALL this content completely.
Thank you.

[Black Squirrel]

Sure thing bud.

[BSonirachi]

What's not helping is that offenders often don't get the message that uploading their hacks is discouraged and will continue to do so, since nobody reminds them of the new policy changes on their talk page or anything. Then again, even if told off on their talk page, they might not always listen.