Forum Rules

Forum Rules for Multi Theft Auto: Forums

Welcome to Multi Theft Auto: Forums. Please follow these rules to ensure your stay here.

 

TL;DR version

Please use common sense and do not do anything which would cause us trouble and we will do our best to not cause you trouble either. Also, be nice.

 

How to contact the Forum Staff

MTA Forums are maintained by a team of volunteer administrators and moderators, later referred to as Forum Staff. Please respect their work, as they do it in their spare time and are not getting paid for it.

The Forum Staff consists of all active Moderators (section-specific Moderators and forum-wide Moderators) and MTA Team members and is lead by Lead Global Moderators. Their job is to keep these forums in check. You can find the list of Forum Staff members in the Staff section of the Forum.

 

If you need to contact us, you can use following communication channels:

• Discord (recommended for general questions): Server details | Click to join
• Forum Messages (PM; recommended for account actions requests and private queries): Staff List
• Twitter (you can highlight us in your tweets if you would like to receive a reply): @MTAQA
• Steam Group: Steam Community

 

 

A. General Forum Rules

1. This is an international forum so all posts should be in English and should also be placed in appropriate sections. Discussions in other languages are allowed, but only within the designated section.
2. By posting to this board, you agree that any content (including code snippets) posted by you will stay visible indefinitely unless decided otherwise by the Forum Staff.
3. Requests for release dates, beta tester positions and demands for information regarding future MTA features may be refused or ignored.
4. Racism, discrimination, bigotry, obscenity and illegal activities are unacceptable in any form, whether it be posts, images or signatures. This includes pornographic and racist images, violent and insulting language of any kind, and posting copyrighted content and warez. Breaking this rule may result in an immediate ban.
5. Do not disclose personal details (eg. names, addresses, telephone numbers, photos) of other users.
6. Do not insult or impersonate other forum members.
7. Do not post religious content on these boards (and on the other services we provide). This is a forum for a multiplayer mod, and not the one to discuss religions. We have no problem with whatever you believe (or whatever you do not believe), just do not drag us into it.
8. Flaming and 'flame wars' will not be tolerated.
9. Ban evasion will not be tolerated either and will be dealt with severely.
10. Backseat moderation² is not allowed. If you see that something should be done about a certain topic, post or user, please report it and leave the decision to the Forum Staff.
11. Do not post anything that is against our EULA.
12. Any advertisement, discussion or sales which appears heavily based on content from existing servers, may be subject to deletion at the discretion of forum staff.
13. Do not post any software that could be used for cheating in MTA gameplay.
    • However, if you have such software in your possession and you would like to share it with MTA Developers, please send it directly to Anti-Cheat Team members via PM (currently ccw & Dutchman). If it is an unknown cheat, we may offer you a compensation for it.
14. Do not advertise non-MTA related products, services and websites on our forums and other pages.
15. MTA-related products, services and websites can be advertised in the following sections:
    1. MTA gameservers and communities that you can play on – please use the Servers to play on section
    2. hosting companies that can host a MTA server for you – please use the Hosting solutions section
    3. paid scripting, mapping, administration, web-design and similar offers – please use the Looking for staff section
16. You can appeal a ban or a decision made by the Forum Staff member – see tips below on how to do it correctly.
    • Insulting a Forum Staff member or getting in an argument with them are not the best ways of doing so. You can expect further actions from us if you do that.

 

B. User Accounts Rules

1. The Forum Staff will never ask you for passwords to your forum account, game server or other services. Quite contrary – we urge you to keep your user account credentials safe, and if possible, to use unique passwords in our forums.
2. If you lost credentials for your old forum account and you can not use the forum’s built-in Password Recovery form, then we can attempt to recover your account manually for you. Please contact us in such a case and make sure to provide us as much information about the account as possible (eg. possible associated e-mail addresses, registration and used IP addresses / ISPs / countries, last activity dates or usage patterns).
3. It is possible to merge two or more accounts into a single forum account, provided that you own all of them. Please contact us and we will do it for you – all of the content will then be moved to that single account.
4. It is possible to rename your forum account, although only once per a while. Please read this topic to find out how to do it and how often it can be changed.
5. Users can own more than one forum account, as long as these accounts are not used for breaking forum rules or other malicious actions (eg. evading a ban, tampering with forum statistics or poll results, disrupting topic discussions).
   • Using multiple forum accounts for posting fake feedback or opinions on servers/server hosters/resources/etc. is strictly forbidden.
6. Similarly, we allow sharing accounts, with the exception of the following cases:
   • Shared account has moderator permissions – sharing such an account is strictly disallowed.
   • One of the users involved in sharing an account is banned.
   • Account is shared with an intention of personal gain by one of the involved users (eg. by tampering with forum statistics).
   • Account is shared with an intention of derailing an existing forum topic by posting off topic comments.
7. Very rarely, we may use special counter-measures against spam bots and ban evaders, such as manual account activation. When this is in effect, new user accounts may not be activated instantly.
   • Please do not create an additional account as it will not be activated faster in such a case, (unless you need an additional account). Instead, please contact us by using any of the communication channels listed at the top of this article and provide your username or e-mail address.
8. Similarly, new and junior Forum accounts must use the Forums for a period of time before being granted all Forum features. These restrictions are to combat spam and abuse.

 

C. Posting Rules and Advice

1. Please use the Forum Search feature to see if your question had been asked before. Additionally, please consult the online documentation if you have problems with the mod or Lua scripting before you post.
2. If you cannot locate your topic or post, please search for it. It could have been moved to another section.
3. If you want to create a topic, please use the sub-forum which suits best for it. You can find the list of sub-forums on the main page of the forum.
4. Make sure to use descriptive titles for your topics. Topic titles which consist just of words such as 'HELP', 'Help me' or 'Please read' are not descriptive at all.
5. Please keep in mind that when you make a post, you may not be able to edit it after 2 hours since it was posted pass.
   • This is done to prevent users from removing the original post content right after they received a satisfactory reply. There are exceptions to this though – see this topic for more details.
6. Please avoid making double posts.
7. Do not post the same topic or content multiple times or re-post it to different sub-forums.
   • It is okay re-post the translation of the content which was originally in English to Other Languages sub-forum as long as this does not violate other rules.
   • Likewise, it is okay to re-post a foreign language topic to main forums, but it needs to be translated to English and posted in the correct section.
8. If there is a topic similar to the one you wish to create, please reply in that topic rather than making a new one.
9. You may bump¹ an old topic if it was created by you, or if the topic is about a problem you are also having. Please do that sparingly though, and only after some time has passed since you have posted.
   • If you intend to bump a support topic then please provide some additional details about the problem in the new post, if available.
10. Please use the [ quote] tag sparingly. Usually there is no need to quote the full message of the original poster, or the message of the poster directly above your post, so please do not do that.
11. If you need to include a source code snippet in your post, always put it inside the [ code] tag. This makes your code easier to read and provides syntax highlighting where applicable, also makes it possible to automatically provide wiki links to MTA scripting functions where needed.
12. Do not reply to spam posts or other posts severely breaking the rules, please report them instead!
    • The reason for this is, that if you reply to a spam bot, your posts will remain even after we delete all posts made by such a bot. Not only this leaves us with more work, but it may also lead to mistakenly flagging your account for removal for posting unwanted content.
    • At the same time, please keep in mind that we will ignore post reports which are related to an argument between some forum users and ask us to support either side.
13. Similar to User Accounts Rules, very rarely we may use special counter-measures against spam bots and ban evaders, which may lead to hiding newly posted content until it is approved by the Forum Staff. In such a case please wait patiently until we approve the post – there is no need to re-post it.

 

D. User Profile Rules

1. Total size of images in your signature must be within either 500x150 OR 720x80 pixels. Anything larger may be removed when noticed.
2. Signatures should use reasonably sized fonts and only a limited number of hyper-links.

 

 

E. Moderator Decision Appeals

1. Please do not contact several Forum Staff members regarding the same subject. You can contact another Forum Staff member if you do not get a reply to your first message in a timely manner (eg. within 48 hours).
2. Our Moderators are chosen from talented, respectful and active members of our community. We are confident in decisions they make.
3. However, if you are not satisfied with a certain moderator's decision, you can contact them directly about your concerns. Make sure to be polite and explain your point well.
   • If you are still not satisfied with the decision, you can ask a moderator with a higher rank to mediate for you. Just like above, be polite and try to explain your point even better.
   • See Appendix C below for a more extensive explanation of the appeal process.

 

F. Ban appeals

1. Please do not create a new forum account once you get banned from the forum. If you do so, you will be banned again for ban evading and the duration of your original ban will be extended.
2. Instead of evading the ban, you can try appealing it on our Discord’s #support channel.
   • If you were also banned on Discord, please do not try to evade your ban there. Ask someone to contact us for you (or use another communication method as listed at the top of this article).
3. Based on your infractions, we might decide to issue a cooling off period for your ban, during which you should not access the forums. Once it expires and you have followed our suggestions, you can ask us again to remove your ban.
4. If you are looking for an appeal for a ban from a certain MTA server, please contact the server owner of that server. We can not unban you as we have no power over that server. Easiest way to contact the server owner would be to go to that server's website or look for the contact details for that server in Servers to play on sub-forum.

 

G. Section Specific Rules

a. General MTA -> Other languages (non-English) section and its sub-forums

1. Basic guidelines. Additional rules may apply, depending on the section.
2. You can only post in these sections if you speak the language which is used in the specific section. Do not post there otherwise.
3. Additionally, English discussions are generally not allowed in those sections. Posting in English in these sections may result in a forum warning.
   • Exceptions apply – if a Moderator starts a topic in such section in English, then other users (only those who speak the language of that section) can post in English in such topic too.
   • Posting in English is also allowed (and preferred) in the General Multi Language discussion sub-forum.
4. Moderation in some sections might be limited if we do not have moderators fluent in such languages.

 

b. MTA:SA -> Support for Client & Server sections

1. Client - How to ask for help in the Client Section
2. Client - Introduction to MTADiag utility

 

c. Community -> Scripting sub-forum

1. Guidelines and formatting tips
2. Additional guidelines

 

d. Community -> Resources sub-forum

1. Community regulations & guidelines
2. Stolen resource accusations are not allowed

 

e. Community -> Other Creations & GTA Modding -> Modelling sub-forum

1. Purpose and usage of this section

 

f. Community -> Competitive gameplay / Gangs sub-forums

1. You may only post in another gang's thread to: ask for a match, arrange time for a match, cancel a match, apply to join, or to offer assistance such as refereeing or providing a server/web space.
2. You may NOT post in another gang's thread for any other reason. Arguments and disagreements should be taken up elsewhere, such as the gang's own forums, for instance.

 

g. Community -> Servers -> Servers to play on sub-forum

1. Only one thread per server is allowed. This makes it easier to find information about a certain server, as it will all be available in a single topic – just make sure to keep it updated.
2. Stolen resource accusations and other causes for fighting are not allowed. Click here for a detailed explanation.
   • In addition to above, we may take extra measures against users who are server owners and are trying to pick a fight in topics of competing server owners. Make sure to report such posts instead of replying to them.

 

h. Community -> Servers -> Looking for staff sub-forum

1. Rules and formatting for this section

 

i. Community -> Servers -> Hosting solutions sub-forum

1. This sub-forum can be used by companies who sell MTA-related hosting services. This also includes web-hosting and virtual/dedicated server hosting, as long as they can be utilized by MTA servers or for hosting them.
2. It can also be used by users to discuss their experiences with a certain host, or who are looking for a server host.
3. We have additional rules in place for entities who would like to offer hosting services to our users. You can find them here.

 

j. Other -> B.L.A.S.T. sub-forum

1. This section is reserved for off-topic fun chat. Blind spamming, however, is not allowed.
2. Posts made in this section do not count for post count or rank improvement.

 

k. Other -> Multi Theft Auto 0.5r2 and Older MTA:VC/GTA3 versions sub-forums

1. These sections are all about our older creations – MTA for GTA3 (also known as GTA3MTA) and for GTA: Vice City (MTA:VC).
2. We no longer maintain these mods, so you may not receive support for them. These mods may also not work on newer PCs at all.
3. You might notice some third party MTA derivatives that are listed in this section, which may or may not be supported by said third parties. While these attempt to recreate the experience of our older creations, they were not made by us so use them at your own risk.

 

l. Other -> Third party GTA mods sub-forum

• Rules page

 

H. Other Notes

1. If you no longer intend to visit our forums, we can remove your forum account on request. You can ask any Lead Global Moderator for an account removal. See Appendix D for details on how this is done.
2. We are constantly looking for new moderators, especially for the sub-forums in the Other Languages section which do not have any moderators yet. Remember though, you have to be an active forum member with a significant amount of contributions to the forum to even consider applying for the position.
   1. What we consider as contributions to the forum: posting useful or original content, providing help to other forum members, reporting troublesome posts and topics and helping us with organizing the forums.
   2. What we do not consider as a contribution: having a huge post count gained by posting (at best) normal content or by posting in (at best) regular discussions. Not to even mention gaining it by spammy ways.
   3. To apply, please contact a Forum Staff member via a forum PM or ask us on our Discord.
   4. However, please keep in mind that by sending your application you agree that it will be shared with other Forum Staff members. This is to ensure that your application is evaluated and handled properly.

 

If you fail to comply with these rules, your post or topic may be immediately deleted from this board without a warning and/or you may face additional consequences depending on the severity of your actions.

Thank you for your understanding.

-- MTA Team

 

 

 Appendix A – Glossary

• ¹ Bumping a topic happens when a user posts in a topic solely with an intention of putting it at the top of the list of topics in a sub-forum.
• ² Backseat moderation is an occurrence when a person who is not a moderator tries to act like one, eg. by posting messages such as 'This topic is dumb and should be locked' or 'This user should be banned' and so on. It is a generally unwelcome behavior on Internet forums.

 

Appendix B – List of possible moderation actions for rule violations

• A Private Message with a complaint from the Forum Staff member (usually this is the only thing that happens, providing that user is co-operative with us)
• Forum Warning (expires over time, can be seen in a user's forum profile; having 3 or more warnings at the same time disables user's ability to post)
• Posting Restrictions (any new posts or topics made by a user may require an approval by a forum moderator)
• Temporary Forum Ban (user can not access the forums during a specified period; each further ban has a longer duration)
• Permanent Forum Ban (same as above, except that it does not expire over time; has to be appealed in order to be removed)
• Global Ban on all of our services (given to extreme cases of rule abusing, using exploits, hack or cheat tools, or posting potentially dangerous resources; generally disallows user from accessing any MTA-related service, including playing the mod itself)
• Abuse Letter to user's ISP abuse department (last resort if user is still causing us problems)

 

Appendix C – Moderator Decision Appeal process

1. Forum Staff member made a decision which you did not like or think that it might have been biased.
2. You contact this Forum Staff member about it, stating why do you think this decision is wrong and what should be done instead.
   1. Forum Staff member adjusts their decision and now both of you are happy about it and no further action is needed. ✓
   2. Alternatively, they sustain or adjust their decision, but you are still not satisfied with it. X
3. You contact a second Forum Staff member with a higher rank than the one who made the initial decision. You explain the situation well and ask this Forum Staff member to review the situation again.
4. Second Forum Staff member evaluates the situation from both yours and original Forum Staff member’s point of views. Once that is done, they give their decision (which is final) as well as an explanation to this decision which should hopefully satisfy all of the parties.

Notes:

• If the original decision is going to be changed, a Lead Global Moderator should be notified about it by the second Forum Staff member before any changes are made.
• As mentioned above, the appeal should be made to a Forum Staff member with a higher rank than the original one (or another Lead Global Moderator if there are none available). It should not be made to the Forum Staff member with the same rank/level.

 

Appendix D – Forum Account Removal process

• If you decide that you no longer need your forum account then we can remove it for you.
• Keep in mind though that we reserve the right to not remove your posts when your account is removed, as they might be still useful for other forum users.
  • Whether your posts will remain or will be removed, will be announced to you by a Forum Staff member who will handle your case.
  • This depends on the amount of the posts on your account and their actual content.
  • If your posts will remain, you will have a choice of them being listed either under your nickname, or under a “Guest” nickname.

 

To remove a forum account:

1. Send a PM on Forums to a Lead Global Moderator (alternatively, you can send it to any Forum Staff member and they will forward it accordingly) asking for an account removal.
2. A Forum Staff member will handle this request and will attempt to verify whether you are the rightful owner of the account. This might be done in various ways and not all of them will require any interaction from your side.
3. Once verified, you will receive a response, giving you terms for removing your account.
4. If you agree to these terms, you will be asked to confirm the removal by sending an e-mail message from the same e-mail address that is associated with the forum account to an address given by the Forum Staff member. Such an e-mail should at least contain the forum username and the account removal request.
5. Once you have sent an e-mail message, you will receive an e-mail message stating that your account will be removed after 14 days, provided that you will no longer access the account during that time. Once you receive this message, you should log out from the account on Forums and no longer try to log in to this account again. Simply log out using the Forum Log Out feature and you are done.
6. After 14 days have passed and the account was not accessed during that time, it will be removed by the Forum Staff member and you will receive an e-mail message, stating that forum account was removed.

If the account is accessed any time during the removal period then the process is cancelled.

**********
Changes (10 July 2023):

Updated the Forum Rules to reflect the removal of the ban appeal option for Global Bans. For more information see our post on that.

**********

Changes (8th November 2021):

• Added a new rule in B. User Accounts Rules which adds certain user restrictions to recently created and junior Forum profiles

Changes (29th June 2021):

• Added a new rule in A. General Forum Rules regarding advertising and posting content heavily based on other servers

**********
Changes (6th October 2019) (qaisjp):

• remove duplicate entry

**********

Changes (23 January 2019):

Refreshed the Forum Rules again so that they hopefully better reflect our current needs. They should also look better visual-wise.

• changed the layout of the Forum Rules to suit our IPS board more
• added ordered lists to rules sections and content to make it easier to refer to specific rules (eg. E-1 for people contacting multiple Moderators at once)
• added a paragraph about Forum Staff and means of contacting us to the Forum Rules
• replaced IRC references with Discord
• changed order of main rule paragraphs, merged some points
• added a note about bounties for Cheating Software in A-12
• added a note about not sharing user personal details (A-5)
• added a note regarding user's passwords security in B-1
• added a note about changing usernames (B-4)
• added a note about restrictions when editing own posts and topics (C-5)
• split and re-phrased notes regarding our anti spam-bot measures into B-7 and C-14
• added previously written Section Specific rules which were already enforced but not listed and re-ordered the entire section
• added full processes for Moderator Decision Appeals and Forum Account Removal in Appendices C and D to make these processes be more transparent to users
• re-phrased A-4, tweaked A-14, A-15, B-2, B-3, B-5, minor tweaks in A-3, A-10, C-1
• other grammar tweaks and re-wordings over the entire article
• added a note about global MTA ban appeals (F-6)

**********

Changes (12 May 2018):

• Added a link to new rules for the Hosting solutions section

**********

Changes (10 October 2016):

• Grammar fixes. Also made minor adjustments to the layout of the Forum Rules so that they show correctly in new forum software

**********

Changes (12 May 2015):

• Added a note regarding sharing moderator applications with other Moderators

**********

Changes (23 April 2015):

• Made it clear that re-posting same topic or content multiple times to different sections is disallowed (with an exception)

**********

Changes (31 March 2015):

Forum rules have been greatly rewritten to become more clear and straight forward to our users.

Summary of changes:

Various changes

• Added a TL;DR note at the top of the forum rules as a summary for lazy users
• Added a list of potential moderator actions for rule violations, also introduced a posting restriction moderator action
• Added information about moderator applications
• Major stylistic changes - grammar fixes, rewordings and moving some rules to new (or other) paragraphs

New and improved sections and rules

• Added a new rules section (User Accounts) along with a note, stating that we will never ask for users' passwords
• Added an information about our way of handling of new forum accounts (including a potential manual account activation)
• Added notes about recovering old forum accounts and merging posted content from multiple accounts
• Made it more clear that users should not create new accounts to evade a ban
• Listed scenarios in which account sharing is disallowed, otherwise it should be considered as allowed
• Added a note about account removals

• Added a new section with posting tips for forum users (Posting Advice)
• Added a note encouraging users to post their topics in correct sections
• Added a note suggesting use of code and Lua tags when posting code snippets
• Added an information about publicly posted code snippets
• Listed scenarios in which users can bump topics (also added an explanation of the phrase 'bump a topic')
• Added an explanation for why users shouldn't reply to topics/posts made by spam bots

• Added a section about the forum staff members who maintain the forums
• Described ways of contacting moderators
• Added a note about moderator decision and ban appeals and also the ways how to do them (and how not to do them)

• Added a note about insulting and impersonation - both are not allowed on these forums
• Made clear that posting obscene and religious content on the forums is not allowed

• Made adjustments for rules for the Other Languages Section:
  • Disallowed posting of users who do not speak a certain language in specific international sections
  • Disallowed posting in English in the International section (with exceptions).
• Added notes about MTA0.5 and Hosting Solutions forum sections and made tweaks to rules for other forum sections

**********

Changes (1 September 2013):

• made it clear that using multiple forum accounts for posting fake feedback and opinions is disallowed

**********

Changes (7 May 2012):

• backseat moderation is disallowed

**********

Changes (15 March 2012):

• added more tips to general advices (topic titles, double posting, using quote tags, dealing with spam posts)
• made it clear that ban evasion and posting cheating software are forbidden
• multiple forum accounts are allowed
• made rules for signatures less restrictive
• added section-specific rules for Other languages and Servers to play on sections
• added notes about ban appeals (forum/irc)

Updated.

Updated.