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Policy on links to custom Unity Packages?
I recently saw this post:
https://answers.unity.com/questions/1428057/hearth-based-health-system-help.html
Where the OP is asking users to download his unity package in order to review his code. I think there's potential risks here. Is this allowed? I couldn't find an explicit rule about this in the moderator guidelines, so I'm asking just to be sure. Are threads like that allowed? Should they be taken down? The user stated he would edit the post to include the code instead, but he haven't up to this point.
Answer by Owen-Reynolds · Nov 04, 2017 at 05:22 PM
For the past few years there hasn't been a cohesive moderator community. The mod guidelines are out-of-date (they don't account for the Help Room area) and each moderator follows their own personal feelings, often contradictory, as to what to do. So all you'll get is opinions.
(blank line)
The original way UA worked, all questions with links were Rejected. Not merely for having a link, but since they were never appropriate. If you couldn't get to it down to a plain-text code snippet, a description and maybe a screen shot, it wasn't a general interest Q.
The Forums area, I believe, has long had a "take a look at my on-going project" area. I assume they have their own rules about including the project.
The Help Room (which is where that Q is now) was really intended for naive users who didn't know what they were supposed to know. "How do I get 3D models?" "Where does void mean in a script?" "Can Unity make a game like XYZ?" Some users frequently post "Help me finish this script" Qs. That's been discussed as not something we want to encourage (once you've gotten some help, you should realize you can just learn C#.) But nothing came of it (see my 1st paragraph.)
The current Help Room rules allow anything, which would include that Q. The idea is it's just a chat room, there's no harm done including just whatever, and it avoids "how come you rejected my Q? I'm going to throw eggs at Unity headquarters." But the intent of the Help Room is probably to reject that Q and suggest it go to the appropriate forum area. Unless it looks like it was from someone who doesn't know any better. There might be 27 really basic problems and the title of the Q was originally going to be "Help!"
Answer by meat5000 · Dec 08, 2017 at 03:05 PM
Generally, links and attachments are accepted in modern days. You must use your judgement and evaluate the user's legitimacy. If you believe the User to be illegitimate then you may report the Post or tag someone official for help. You can also PM through the Forum for more direct attention.
Generally, to evaluate a User, you will need to look at the accuracy of their Post to see whether its something that would have to have been worked on and not just copied off a website. Perhaps take a snippet and post it to Google to see if it produces an older question from which content has been copied (I see this a lot). Does it make sense or is it a bit garbled; Is it Coherent?
Next you should look at the User's activity to evaluate their level of involvement in the community. Do they answer questions with real and thought out information? Do they make relevant comments and not just verbal diahorrea?
If a User looks credible its a safe bet but be aware that it can be easy to reproduce this appearance.
But say a new user copies some scripts, which they are encouraged to do, foolishly mashes them together, gets thoroughly confused and asks a slightly incoherent "what did I do wrong" Q with a link to the code. That fails those guidelines, but seems like what the Help Room was made for.