The Official FAQ: Read this or be thrown into the brig! Arr!

[Hecubus]

Welcome new members! You may have found us because of a link on someone’s sig, or because of controversy in the community, or because you searched for pirates and found us. However you got here, welcome.

Our purpose is to liberate all user-created content for The Sims 2, and provide a place for discussion, debate, and ridicule of paysites.

We welcome your interest in the game, your experience in the community, and your enthusiasm.

Please read further to understand a bit more about us, the great paysite debate, and how the Phorum works.



Table of Contents
1. What Are Paysites and Why Must They Be Destroyed?
2. How the Booty Works
3. Forum Descriptions
4. Stuff That Doesn’t Need To Be Asked About Again, or “Necromancy’s bad, m’kay?”
5. Acronyms, Sayings, and Other Words of Wisdom
6.  Ranks
8. Caturday Guidelines
9. Current Forum Policies
10. Key Links
11. Bashing Free Content
12. About Requests
13. Trolls and N00bs
14. Hotlinking

*Thanks to Mando, Captain Berg, and Venusy at MATY for their assistance in compiling this FAQ.

[Hecubus]

What Are Paysites and Why Must They Be Destroyed?

Simply put, a paysite is any site that offers user-created content that you must pay for, whether through a donation or a subscription. If it is not freely available to all, it is a pay item.*

We believe that paysites are in violation of the End User License Agreement (EULA), which explicitly prohibits the sale of user-created content. In case you missed it on your way in, here is the EULA, with pertinent parts highlighted.

But in case the legalese doesn’t sway you, here are other reasons paysites must be destroyed:

Paysites alienate players
Not everyone can afford to pay for content that should have been free in the first place. You may also be too young to hold a credit card. This creates a situation where some players are included in an exclusive group of downloaders, while others are left on the outside. We think it’s better that we follow the rule we learned in kindergarten – it’s nice to share your toys.

Some profit off the work of those who create for the love of the game.
The two primary programs for content creation – SimPE and Colour Enable Package (CEP) – were made for free and continue to be available for free. Without these, along with various plug-ins and tutorials (all free), very little of all the custom content we have today would have seen the light of day. When a paysite owner charge money for creations made with the help from above mentioned devices it’s a slap in the face to the whole community. These programs were made on a voluntarily basis for the benefit of the community and has always been offered 100% free to anyone! We can only imagine the amount of time and effort put into the creation of a program like SimPE – but we assure you it’s not even remotely comparable to the time spent making that new, shiny hair you just paid for, no matter how good it looks in game. Additionally, most meshes are adapted from ready-made meshes from sites like Turbosquid and Poser, so most, if any, of the original work is done in the texture.

Part two of this section has to do with recolors. Many paysites sell recolors of Maxis/EA game objects, or recolors of meshes available for free on freesites. This is an affront to the originators of the game as well as the free content creators who expect their objects to be used freely by the community.

Game content for pay is an anomaly in the gaming world.
The Sims 2 community is the only gaming community where people get away with charging money for custom content. It’s pretty easy to make custom content for the Sims 2 compared to other games where players may spend months on a mod and happily offer it for free, because no one would ever expect anything else! Pay content for other games is not only unheard of, it is not tolerated by the game’s respective communities. All gaming companies have license agreements which restrict profiting off their copyrighted product, or, in the case of Second Life, have an explicit procedure for selling content.  EA does NOT have this type of procedure in place.

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Why do we say ‘destroyed’?  To be honest, we don’t want content creators who work on/for paysites to go away - there is a ton of gorgeous stuff out there. Rather, we wish for all paysite owners to see the error of their ways and go free, or post their creations on one of the many free sites already available.

Any site who frees their content will be considered “Liberated” and we will do everything we can to support and promote the site. If a paysite goes up in a fiery ball visible from space and blames us for its demise, it is a “Killmark.”



*NOTE: Some forums have strict rules about sharing free files among their members; while members may have to pay in blood or pride, no money exchanges hands, and they are beyond the scope of this site.

[Hecubus]

How The Booty Works

Paysites do not donate their stuff to us. Everything in the booty has been purchased and donated by your fellow phorum members. Therefore, we only update when items have been donated.

If you wish to help out, please follow these guidelines:

1. check out the “Shopping List” thread to see if a donation set or subscription is needed.

2. Send a PM to either CatofWar or Ash Redfern if you want to donate an item or set. Send a PM to Ash Redfern if you want to donate a sub. They will let you know if it is still needed, and how to send it. NOTE: If you are offering TSR, please send your PM to Dusdeedawn.

3. We accept donations via email and from filesharing sites; we will instruct you upon acceptance of your offer.

The Sims Resource/TSR: We have several people who already provide donations for this site. Therefore, we update as the donations arrive. Asking for TSR updates is a sure way to NOT get one.

Keeping Quiet About Your Donation

The reason we ask donators to PM us - and why we only indicate our gratitude in the most general of terms - is because we know many paysite owners read this phorum for exactly that purpose.

We do everything we can to insure our donators' safety, and Pescado is constantly tweaking the system to catch possible 'traps', but we cannot protect donators if they speak freely about their 'conquests'.

Also know that among our safety procedures is a waiting period (varies by site). A file downloaded when it's released by the paysite, then instantly shared, is more likely to be tracked to the filesharer than one shared after a time delay. For example, if EagerDonator shares a file that was only released a few hours ago, the siteowner can look to see the six or seven subscribers who got the file, and narrow down the filesharer (and possibly ban innocent members in an effort to ban the 'evil mean thief pirate who steals food from the chilluns'). So...we will wait a day or more, ensuring that there were enough other downloaders.



Until EA makes them stop charging, paysites will continue to be ever-increasingly paranoid....so we have to think like them and be one step ahead. We don't 'get' the paysites by having the files as soon as they do...we 'get' them by remaining open, spreading the truth, and reducing the amount of money these paysites generate.

Downloading from the Booty

Depending on your browser and the thickness of your internet tubes, you may have various speeds and quantity in your downloads from the Booty. DO NOT USE A DOWNLOAD MANAGER. It won't help, and it just annoys Pescado...and you don't want to annoy Pescado.

Please note that at busy times, the downloads will take longer. Also, many items are stored in sets, which are, by their very  nature, larger than individual items. Be patient.

Also: like any large network, PescadoWorld does sometimes go down for maintenance. But unlike most networks, Pescado doesn't bother with a "we're down" message. It happens, he does his thing, and we may lose access for a bit.

RARELY is anyone ever banned - and when it happens, it's because of a systemic attack; to prevent such annoyances, Pescado MAY ban a group of related IP addresses. If that happens, consider sending one of us a message at SimsCave/S2C/Insim. We're everywhere!

Looking for Booty from an Old Paysite?

Check Inactive Sites first. And if the site is dead, check the Sims2Graveyard.

Where is all the Sims 1 stuff?

We're a TS2 shop - check out SimsCave and CT Occasions for TS1.

[Hecubus]

Forum Descriptions

ARR! Or Arr? That is the question!



Hopefully this will clear up any query of where you should post that need to know question, or informative post.

ARR! should be used for statements of fact and informal (but informative) conversation about Pay sites. Please search to see if the site you want to talk about already has a recent thread or if the information you have has already been given.

Arr? is for thought provoking questions about the latest rumor, question about that ever present Peggy hair gap or why Candrew needs to just stop. In simpler terms this phorum is for those WTF? posts. Please search to see if your question has been asked before.

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The Treasure Chest is pretty self explanatory. This is the central hive for information on the booty. We have several stickied topics that include topics such as Requests, Booty updates and one to talk about the Booty. Please read each title and only post in the proper thread.  


Sharkbait is the forum for all other stuff. We do like a little lighthearted crap every now and then (Hey even Pirates like to laugh and joke!), but remember to post it in Sharkbait and not the other forums. Just remember that if it does not fit into Arr!, Arr? Or Treasure Chest, than it is probably fodder for Savage’s fishes and should be in Sharkbait. Now this is not an invitation to fill up Sharkbait with posts such as “THNX” and “Hi I am New.” If you would like to thank us, do it in this thread. We do not post introduction threads in any forum. We will eventually figure out who you are without one. Also, do not be offended if your thread ends up in Sharkbait.



Crew Quarters is a special section just for members' self-sims and the hilarity that ensues when pirates play with other pirates (in game, of course. Gah, you've got a dirty mind!). Feel free to post your self sim, but expect to be tortured.

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Remember: search is your friend and try to place your threads in the appropriate area. Do not be offended if your thread is moved.

[Hecubus]

Will you have the store items?

No. EA holds rights to sell their content and we will there not host the store items ever. We are not that type of pirates, so if you come looking for store items or torrents then you have come to the wrong place.

Stuff That Doesn’t Need To Be Asked About Again, or “Necromancy’s bad, m’kay?”

What is necromancy? It's posting on a thread that's been dormant for more than a few weeks, only to post an "I agree" or "I didn't know this until now" statement.  It's only okay to raise the dead if you have something new and interesting and relevant to say or add to the conversation. In this case, that was not so.

While newbies are not forbidden from discussing things that have already been discussed, if you are accused of committing necromancy it is generally because what you had written did not add anything different or important to what had already been said before. If you notice that a thread was last posted in more than a month ago give it some real thought before you decide to post in it (e.g. "Is what I'm about to say needed or necessary?"), and generally try to stick to the current topics of conversation if you aren't sure.

It's also considered necromancy if you make a new thread to discuss an old topic.

Who runs this site? JM Pescado. He’s an old guy, programmer, system admin, and general pain in the ass. He is the self-defined Fat Obstreprous Jerk of the community. But he tells it like it is. Pescado’s favorite thing? MOAR FIGHT. Pescado also runs MATY.

Why does Pescado hate me? He hates everyone. It’s easier that way.

I downloaded something from the booty and it borked my game/doesn't work right! Yeah, that happens a lot. We are only concerned with the archive itself, and we make sure no corrupt archives are released. However, we bear NO RESPONSIBILITY for bad workmanship on the part of the original mesher/creator. Your best bet is to delete the item completely, and watch the source site for possible updates.


TSR:
Who’s in charge: Steve Bonham, an Englishman who founded and owns TSR; Thomas Isaacson, the site manager; and Spaik, the artist manager.

FAs/SAs/RAs: stand for Featured Artist/Select Artist/Retired Artists. FA content is primarily pay; SA content is primarily free.

Earnings: We know they earn a lot, and we know FAs are paid for their creations. We also know that there appear to be different arrangements depending on the artist.

Why we make them cry: We have a team of dedicated donors; we have foiled several attempts at stopping our filesharing activities; we continue to give them butthurt.

Threads about TSR: A general thread is here, one about Atwa is here, and one about Aikea and Geyldh's defection is here. Please don't start new TSR threads unless you have new information that could not be posted in a previous thread!

Does Inge support paysites? Inge, is the owner of the Federation for Free Sims Sites (FFFSS) and Dinnerbell, creator of some non-awesome yet useful hacks. Shit Stirrer extraordinaire, she sees Sims 2 conspiracies everywhere - even places they aren't! However, she is also good at sniffing out issues we woldn't have found otherwise, and along with Peter, have kept SimPE going. See this thread for some great background.


What is up with the Craptastic Peggy Hairs? The quality is indeed terrible. Fortunately, Peggy's not the only game in town. For great free hair, see Nouk, Renegade, Carnaby, XM, and MTS2. Oh, and if you have epilepsy, stay away from her very blinky, sparkly site.

Where can I get the reflective floors/walls? Please see this thread.

What happened to SFV? Please see this thread. Many of the members are now at The Sims Cave.

Who are the staff members and are they really moderators?
Staff members are:  CatofWar, Dusdeedawn, Ash Redfern, and Missbonbon.
They have some moderator access to the Treasure Chest, but other than that, they’re just knowledgeable members who take care of the booty. Ash does have some moderator ability on the main forum but PMBD is vastly self-moderated.


Once again, SEARCH before you ask. Really.

[Hecubus]

Acronyms, Sayings, and Other Words of Wisdom

ATS - Around the Sims (paysite)

BBS - The Official Sims 2 Bulletin Board

BFBVFS - Big Fiery Ball Visible From Space. What happens when your game/neighborhood implodes

BLS – Be Less Stupid (defunct forum)

CN - Carla Niven (paysite)

BTW - by the way

EA - Electronic Arts, the company that made The Sims 2

EP - Expansion Pack

FFSS/FFFFSSSS/FFFSS - Federation For Free Sims Sites (forum)

FTW – For The Win

IIRC - if I recall correctly

Insim – Insimenator
 
MATY -  More Awesome Than You (best hacks/fixes in the known universe)

Maxis - original owner of The Sims/The Sims2; acquired by EA a few years ago

Maxoid - customer or tech support person at EA

MSS – My Sim Site

MTS2 – Mod The Sims 2

Necromancy's bad, m'kay? - don't bring up old/defunct threads

Phorum – another nickname for this site

PMBD – Paysites Must Be Destroyed (and it’s not PSMD or PMTD or any other misspelling of our acronym)

The Rule of Six – all ages increase in increments of six; therefore, there is 6, 12, 18, 24, etc. If you are chronologically 17, you are 12. If you are chronologically 43, you are 42. It sucks when you’re young, but it’s great as you age.

Rum – the drink of choice for all pirates; rum at the Phorum is legal at any age

RL - Real Life

RTFM - Read The Fucking Manual

S2C - Sims 2 Community (forum)

SP - Stuff Pack

STFU – Shut the Fuck Up

TSR - The Sims Resource (paysite)

Troll - Anyone who comes in to spam a thread, pick a fight without substance, make threats (usually in the worst grammar possile), or is clearly 12.

VBT - Very Bad Thing (often the action that caused a BFBVFS)

WTF - what the fuck?

[Hecubus]

Ranks

To be perfectly honest, ranks don’t mean much here. There are a few people who have titles because they do the actual work of the booty. Others have titles based on Pescado’s level of “affection”, if you will. But there are no ranks to ‘achieve’ here.

You can usually tell who is a staff member, however, since they will usually have 'pirate' as their title or some variation thereof.

[Hecubus]

Caturday Guidelines

Everyday is Caturday at the Phorum, with some guidelines:



- cat macros should be used only as an appropriate response to a troll, horrible fight, or a breakout of silliness

- cat macros are NOT always the appropriate response

- don’t quote someone’s cat macro so that it appears multiple times in a thread; rather, remove the link and simply refer to the image using your words

- cat macros are not an excuse to type incessantly in ‘Chatese’; please use sparingly

[Hecubus]

Current Forum Policies

PMBD is a topic-specific forum. While some general sims discussion does happen here, we really are pretty narrowly focused on the Free Sims For All movement. We are, in essence, an activist site. With rum.

Use the search function and check the stickied posts before asking questions or starting new threads. A lot of the time the answers to your questions can be found by doing one of these two things.

If you have a question about the game or something non-sims related, ask it in the Ask a Pirate thread. Do not start new threads purely for such questions.

Some 'showing off' is fine - see the 'worship me' thread – and of course, we encourage people to self-promote in their sig lines and www links. But we're not much in the business of general creator/play discussions.

We do not restrict language; however, dropping 'fuck bombs' in every thread probably won't endear you to us. We do appreciate good grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Caps look like you're shouting, so unless your keyboard is fubar'd, resist the capslock.

While some personal information about people - including full names, addresses, and phone numbers - might be available on various sites such as whois, please do not post them here. We do not wish to be held accountable for someone's harrassing behavior.

We do fight here, especially with trolls and paysite owners who come to harrass rather than discuss. However, before you slam someone, be sure they're really trolls or harrassers. For more on trolls and n00bs, please see this post at the end of the FAQ.

No requests. Why? Because random threads asking for an item is not only annoying and whiny, it clogs up the forums and makes you a target for ridicule. If you HAVE to ask for an item that we may have MISSED in our travels, please post it on the Requests thread. Otherwise, be patient. We DO check paysites for new releases on a regular basis and hope for kind donators to share them.

We frown upon new threads just to say "I'm new." You WILL be mocked, ridiculed, and spammed with kittehs. If you simply MUST introduce youself rather than simply becoming part of the Phorum, then check out this thread, and you are not too likely to get stomped on.

Sometimes people sign on with a user name that's really a lurker name and want to change it later when they start being active. That's cool ...but know that you can change your user name in your profile! Click on the button under the Phorum's title cleverly marked "Profile". However, don't change your name every few days on a whim...that annoys us greatly.

[Hecubus]

Key Links

We always get asked about these sites, so here are the links, BEFORE you ask:

MATY - for Awesome hacks/game fixes; PMBD’s sister site. See their FAQ here, which includes links to the Directors' cuts and other important info.

MTS2 – for terrific tutorials and content; the biggest free site in the community

Insim – home of the Insimenator and other terrific content

SimsCave - A filesharing site that also offers up hard to obtain non-pay files.

The Sims2Graveyard - This site is a repository for the content from sites that are now in Davy Jones' locker; it also contains hacks and much-loved content from creators who have left the community, like Squinge.

Oh yes, and in case you missed it earlier, here’s the Booty.

[Hecubus]

Want to bash content from free sites?

Don't.

Sure, there's some stuff for free out there that is craptastic. However, just like you don't tell your Aunt Helen how awful the sweater she knitted you is, we don't talk smack about free creations.

What's the difference? Money hadn't changed hands. When you pay for something, you have an expctation of quality. When someone gives you something, you have no expectations.

We may not personally like every free item, but we admire anyone who creates and is happy to give the product of their hobby to fellow fans.

Take your complaints elsewhere.


(This point has been made within other parts of the FAQ, but since it came up AGAIN, we decided to make a separate paragraph for it. See what you've driven us to?)

[Hecubus]

About Requests
We encourage you to post requests ONLY ON THE SHOPPING LIST THREAD.  This policy is intended to prevent the spawning of random threads begging for stuff. AND....a request does not mean we will get it in the booty right away; it is simply a signal to us that it's an item of interest.

We will continue to update the more popular sites as often as we can - but remember, your making a request on the Shopping List does not mean it will be there in five minutes.

To current members: when you see a new request thread, point them to the Shopping List AND encourage them to read this FAQ.

[Hecubus]

Trolls and Noobs
The addition of this section serves both as a warning and a method of handling the more annoying encounters we face. Out of the scope of this particular post are paysite owners who come to argue; that's a whole other deal - we do try to have conversations with these people, because it's interesting to challenge them on their assumptions.

Trolls
What is a troll?
For the purposes of this phorum, a troll is someone who comes only to annoy or harass the phorum members with spam threads, strange necromancy, or random posts/PMs meant only to 'flood' a forum. Typically, trolls come because we were mean to their idiot girlfriend; they hit hard and fast, sometimes with seemingly intelligent posts but more often than not with stupid one-liners or offensive pics.

Handling Trolls
1. DO NOT RESPOND.
2. Find one of the booty staff; they will then find Pescado.
3. Continue to not respond.
4. If you're the 'first' on the scene, consider PMing members who are on the board and warn them that a troll is posting new threads/necromancing/etc. Let them know help is on the way.
5. Don't discuss the trolls on other threads. Consider carrying on conversations as normal. Make it up if you have to - just ignore the trolls. If they appear in an active thread, move to another. However, do not overcompensate with spamming; normal conversation is more likely to work than the negative attention of filling a thread with random (albeit funny) conversations.

What Happens To Trolls?
Pescado bans their IP. He also burninates their posts, and in some cases will have to burninate some threads.


N00bs
What is a n00b?
There are folks who come honestly to the phorum but make really stupid posts; typically, they post an intro, or a beg for a particular item, or commit necromancy out of their ignorance of our FAQ.

Handling N00bs
1. Post a link to the FAQ and explain their action is against our policies. Be polite and encourage them to behave better in the future. MOST n00bs will apologize, change their posts, or go away.
2. Don't dogpile, unless the n00b continues to act like an utter idiot. If they don't apologize; if they fuss and whine; if they argue about our rules, then all bets are off.

[Hecubus]

What is hotlinking?
Bandwidth theft or "hotlinking" is direct linking to a web site's files (images, video, etc.). An example would be using an [img] tag to display a JPEG image you found on someone else's web page so it will appear in your post.

Bandwidth refers to the amount of data transferred from a web site to a user's computer. When you view a web page, you are using that site's bandwidth to display the files. Since web hosts charge based on the amount of data transferred, bandwidth is an issue. If a site is over its monthly bandwidth, it's billed for the extra data or taken offline.


When to hotlink at PMBD:
DO hotlink images from paysites. Most paysites either already milk their customers for enough cash to cover it already, or they will go down. This is a win for us and causes butthurt for them.

When NOT to hotlink at PMBD:
DO NOT hotlink images from free sites. Save the pics and upload to image-hosting services such as Photobuck or Image Shack.