The 1st Rule of forum.mql4.com

Looks quite simple to me. Three things may happen when you post on here: 1) You get ridiculed and are none the wiser, 2) You get pointed in the right direction. 3) You are shown the door.

I'll get my coat :( 

I think I understand where you are going with your opinion ubzen.  It appears the point that you are making is that sometimes when people are asking about something complicated like "How do I write optimal-f money management" (Your example) the asker is not wanting the code per se, but rather a skeleton and letting themselves fill in the rest of the body of code.  Not knowing anything about that management system (being a newbie myself), the asker is looking for answers such as: check the account, in the init() you should do a blah blah blah... And discussion like that is pertaining to the MQL 4 language and auto trading.

A typical newbie is  not always asking for the job to be done for them, but rather a general plan to follow, and as they get better they will be able to make the original plan better, or even get to the point where asking for help is unneeded.

If I am wrong please correct me. But if I am interpreting your point correctly, I agree with you.  I would like to hear some other opinions as well.

It's always a question of a Moderator having to make a judgement call.  We currently have 8 rules to govern the Forum,  they aren't exactly comprehensive,  we have to do the best we can with what we have and not all Moderators will read and interpret the rules in the same way.

You are referring to this . . .  "Any discussions except of concerning MetaQuotes Language 4 and auto trading are forbidden. Such topics will be deleted."    this can be interpreted in at least 2 ways,  it might mean there are 2 subject areas of acceptable discussion,  MQL4 and Auto Trading  OR  it might mean  there is one acceptable subject area,  Auto Trading using MQL4.

 

Looking at the way the MQL5 Forum is being pushed I suspect that the former is what was intended,  if it were the latter then discussing MQL4 Indicators  (not Auto trading)  would not be permitted.  Having said this we must also bear in mind that this Forum is the MQL4 Forum so discussing Auto Trading using Ninja Script would be considered off topic. 

So then we would need to decide what was OK to discuss in terms of Auto Trading,  well what would certainly qualify would be questions about the practicalities of using EAs such as how to get the smiley face, etc.  what I don't think would qualify would be questions that were also applicable to manual trading strategies,  "should I use a trailing SL"  type questions.  This is up to the designer of the strategy, the user,  to decide upon and is,  in my opinion,  outside the purpose of this Forum.    

There is a saying . . .  ask a stupid question,  get a stupid answer.  I would like to think that in the majority of cases where a pertinent question is asked number 2 is what happens in response.  The quickest way to get help is to help yourself,  a user who won't even try to do that is wasting their own time,  literally.  Sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind.

I've always interpreted it as the former. But you know, spend enough time thinking like a programmer, words like "and" takes a literate meaning. like if( true && true ) :P. I didn't want to be breaking any rules, surely not the first commandment, and thats why I wanted clarify.

As always, your insights are much appreciated. 

And how is life any different? Think about it. Within a work-place, another-forum, church or even family-members, one have to learn to work with people of different personality types. When I'm asking for something from someone, I anticipate every possible response from |sorry|yes|no|. A public forum on the world-wide-web shouldn't be an exception where one always gets the answer they want.

Honestly, the purpose of this thread was just to clarify the meaning of the 1st rule. Is a question like "how do I develop a safe expert advisor with mql4?" vs "what would you consider a safe expert advisor?" appropriate to ask here. The fact that such questions are subjective unlike codes could turn some members off. I was just wondering if any of these questions breaks the 1st rule. Or is it more of if this person mentions mql4. Or is it more of if this person provides mql4 codes. Thats all.

Now you can bet if you ask a question like that, people are going to give you answers you probably don't want to hear nor expected.

I am very new here and I really respect the hard work done by RaptorUk as moderator. The contributions of WHRoeder but also including Ubzen or deVries and many others helped me and many others to learn a lot of things. RaptorUK is right about the rules to follow and the different interpretation that can be made. But we as a moderator was clearly also asked to contribute and to maintain a positive atmosphere in the forum. And here is the problem, too often, as patrick007 said : " You get ridiculed or You are shown the door".

My opinion is as follow : try to ask to programming questions about MT4 and/or auto trading in general. I you don't want to answer to a question, simply ignore it.

OK, I'll chime in.

1. Mq4 and auto trading. There is  Mq4 and auto - everyone agrees that is fine here.
2. Mq4 and auto trading. There is  ninja and auto - Raptor and I agree, off topic.
3. Mq4 and auto trading. There is  any platform and auto - Shall we talk about Turtle Trading strategy, or break out, or which is better? How do we define better? Do we want this forum to be exactly like forexfactory, forex-tcp, or babypips?
   
4. Mq4 and auto trading. Shale we talk about the weather?
   
5. I take the AND literally.

6. for(i=1, i < 10, i++){ ...

   "This doesn't work" - Maybe you should compile it. "This won't compile" - sometimes anyone can't see it. How the question is worded makes a difference.
7. How do I 'once per bar' 'open an order' 'find the last high' Search, book, doc, all answer it. The person not only wastes their own time, their wasted ours. They deserve the ridicule IMHO.
   
8. How do I  compute drawdown - Answered. Is there a complete EA - answered. Non-obvious, complicated - I'll sometimes post a complete solution.
9. How do I do X - non-trivial. Where is your code attempt? We're not going to do it all for you. If they are not lazy or wanting a hand out they will respond and we have a discussion. If they are - they should leave until they grow up.
   
10. We should be adults here. Not trying to teach a first grader. Not giving handouts to those that wont work.
11. "I you don't want to answer to a question, simply ignore it." Until about 6 months ago, there were no moderators here doing moderating. If you'll enforce the rules, then we can ignore them.
    

Thank you for weighing-in. As always, your contributions are much appreciated.