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Allowed topics?

Just noticed this post (http://androidcommunity.com/forums/164198-post13.html) over on AC.
Rather than jump to any conclusions or get all bent out of shape, I thought I'd politely and respectfully ask if the XDA mods can comment on this and to see if they would kindly share (or point me to, if it is already posted somewhere) the clear and specific criteria for what's allowed and what's not.
XDA has always had a very open spirit and feel to me and I'd hate to see any legitimate and helpful technical discussions squashed just because Google or T-Mobile might not like what we're saying (provided we're not advocating anything truly illegal -- and I'm referring here to things that will land you in jail, not simply about possibly wandering astray of the terms of service).
This has always been my go-to place for answers and I don't know where I'd go if I couldn't find what I was looking for here. The contributors here are top-notch and I haven't found the same quality on any of the other Android forums.

i'm not a mod but i may have some answer for you. the post you linked is speaking of a post in which someone was specifically asking how to copy applications from protected areas of the phone. there is really no need to do that since we can move everything to the ext2 partition and never lose our apps. the person repeatedly asked for the commands to do it and mikey threatened with a suspension. then a totally different person called mikey a dousche and he got a three day vacation. simply put *I* feel that if you do not know how to get the apps from your phone, protected or not, then there is no need to ask someone how to do it as it could potentially be considered warez and we do not like to see that here. warez is any post that specifically links or describes a way to get around paying money for a service, so if this person that was asking had managed to get apps from protected places then they could have bought an app, copied the .apk and refunded the app before the 24 hour limit and never actually pay a dime. hope this helps.
P.S. i hope mikey doesn't care i told his story for him

Thanks -- I figured there was more to the story and I appreciate the explanation. Good to know that I can still think of and rely on XDA as the open forum I know and love

Mod Note: Why region specific threads are not allowed.

With the general feeling of disappointment (and even hate) around, I thought I'll take this moment out to thoroughly explain what has been done, and why it has been done.
Have a look at the list below:
Singapore Galaxy S4
Australian Galaxy S4 owners thread
Pakistani Galaxy S4 Owners Thread
Brazilian Galaxy S4 Thread
Galaxy S4 Philippines
Bangladesh Galaxy S4
Indian Galaxy S4 Owners Thread
[malaysian i9500/i9505 thread]
Ireland/UK Galaxy S4 Thread
Lebanese Galaxy S4 Thread
Sweden S4 Thread
Now ask yourself these questions:
Do you actually need these many country threads?
There are 190+ countries in the world, and with a global launch for the S4, does each and every country require it's own thread? If you answer "No", then you are biased in thinking that country A needs a thread whereas country B doesn't.
And what's to say that a single thread is sufficient per country? For example, my own state is larger in area and population than many European nations. So why shouldn't I have my own state thread? The state itself is too big, and a city based thread would be more localized. Maybe I, as a user, should create one. Or maybe a locality based one would solve all my woes.
The question here is, at what point do we draw the line? This is no easy question to answer, because try as much as we may, no one solution will please all.
Yes, we understand that when the phone launches (even during pre-launch), there is general excitement and frenzy all over. And at these times, such threads become helpful. They allow people to gather information at the time when there is no clear answer with everybody. The device is relatively new, and people are ignorant of what the best deal may be.
Fast forward to two months after launch. Do you still require region specific threads? Wouldn't it be easier if you just paid a visit to your local market or your online store to find out the current market prices, check the online review stores for the best set of accessories, contact your provider's Customer Service to find out their LTE rollout plans, etc?
XDA is not the answer to everything. Yes, a lot of people rely on researching the forum to see if there are hardware/software issues before they buy a new device. But to say that the sole purpose they joined was to find the best contract they can avail from Three, then I must say, they joined for the wrong reasons.
We aren't a consumer oriented website. We are a developer's website, but we do allow plenty of leeway to non-developers. We realize that everybody starts small, and we really appreciate the people who actually take the efforts to start. But certain things are better considered as "privileges" and not "rights".
"They shouldn't have closed down the threads. They weren't useless."
- I honestly doubt if any moderator has called any of those threads as useless. Even in my closing posts, I have acknowledged the fact that the team considers these threads as useful. It's just that, they have served their time well, and all of them have started pointing towards the more generic topics of discussion, and hence, needed to be retired from duty. [Example: In a bunch of threads, the conversation topic was the latest firmware that dropped in another country thousands of kilometres away.] Essentially, people were talking the same things, but in different groups.
"You call yourself a community. Yet you do not allow communities to exist"
- We at XDA, are a community in ourselves. When people further attempt to create communities in the open fora, they are in fact dividing the existing one. We do not need this type of segregation, when there no longer exists need of one.
How many Malaysian users frequented the Indian thread, or how many Brazilian users helped around in the Philippines thread? (Just examples used to drive the point across). People can still roam around, but do they?
"These threads helped newbie's to start with their device. The people are really helpful, and answer any questions asked."
- Yes, again, Fact Acknowledged and a virtual pat on the back for everyone who helped :good:
But isn't that the purpose with which the "[HELP THREAD] Galaxy S4 | Ask any question | Noob friendly." thread (and the Q&A section at large) was made? Imagine, if people from one community are so helpful, if everyone chimed in and helped people around, you'd actually be increasing your scope from inter-region to international.
You see a question asked, and you have the knowledge and will, you answer it, irrespective of the user being from your country or not, asking in your thread or not. If you see someone genuinely taking efforts to help someone else out, you hit the "thanks" button for them and give them a pinch of motivation
TL;DR, things don't need to be restricted to your subscribed threads. There's a largely unexplored forum out there, waiting for you.
As a matter of fact, the early bunch of pm's I received after the closures were made, were people who thought/assumed that only their own thread was closed. They failed to notice at that moment that a bunch of them were closed at the same time.
People who frequently roam around the General subfora would even acknowledge the fact that the threads had started to clog. The regional threads notice a high turnover and this results in all of them sitting at page one. This barely leaves room for other threads to be noticed.
The S4 had ~13 regional threads, and as per the forecasted trend, the Note 3 would have touched 20 regional threads by this time in its product cycle. The threads are made under the general moniker of "Availabilty and Deals", but a lot of them end up being "me-too" type threads. Country A has it, so country B should do too.
Question again, where do we draw the line?
It is also disappointing to hear the tone in some of the pm's. Much more disappointing is the fact that people call us "fascist" and compare us moderators with controversial historical figures, while all we are doing is trying to manage a forum while having a broader line of sight. Have we really wronged you so much by closing a thread, so as to be deserving of such hate?
No, we do not ban people just because they questioned a moderator's action. We simply request you to be polite and do it via pm, not as public posts. We are tolerant and will accept constructive criticism as feedback.
We haven't taken any action against misue of "official" in thread titles, while we could have very well infracted the erring OP's on misrepresentation and action without authorization. We can and we should have, but have we done so? No, we haven't. And this by itself is a testimony to the fact that we are tolerant to a really large extent.
Then you have posts like "Moderators are stupid, they don't know how to manage", which are no better than the newbie's post in a dev thread which says "My wifi broke. Fix it" without any additional details. Where is the constructive criticism in this? At the very least, work with us to solve the issues. Simply escalating problems isn't good for the community and might even worsen the situation.
Again, we are emphasizing the fact that these threads were useful. But the decision to close down a large number of these was one of the toughest ones that we have ever taken. As mentioned previously, it has been discussed to death. All possibilities, angles, point-of-views, were taken in mind before we came to a conclusion. Decisions aren't just abruptly taken.
In fact, the right decision isn't always the most popular one, as we have experienced here firsthand. We aren't looking around for threads to close in other devices as of yet. But if the need arises, and decision is to be made, then decision shall be made (on case by case basis).
In future devices, these threads aren't "banned" per se. Users are still free to create one when the device is just born/young. But do bear in mind that sometime in the future, they may get closed.
As for the Galaxy S4, this is the end of regional threads (except the ones exempted on hardware differences). Any more threads/retakes will not be allowed in the subfora. Please respect this decision.
"What do we do know?"
- As my teammates have mentioned (and as has been discussed via pm with some of you), the Social Groups feature of XDA is vastly left unutilized. You are free to create your own country, city, toy club groups. And as long as things remain within the forum rules there, they shall be allowed. Talk OT, availability, accessories, whatever you wish. Just abide by the forum rules, and report in case of problems That is all we ask :good:
If you pm me the link of the XDA social group that you have created for your country thread (provided one doesn't exist already), I'll edit the closing post and direct users towards them :good:
"Will you place links to our groups made on popular social networking sites?"
- I'm afraid we can't do that. We restrict ourselves to things concerning XDA.
We hope this clears up a lot of questions that people had in mind.
Thank you for your patience and co-operation
Moderator Team
Samsung International

[Q] Please explain this rule

I find it funny that everyone on the XDA forums say that changing the IMEI is illegal, though they never are able to cite a law stating it is illegal to do so, just a bill. or a thread of people saying its illegal And if you do some digging you find out that it is in fact NOT illegal to change it and that no law has ever been passed pertaining to it. Then when users on here have explained why its illegal all they have said is that is illegal because you could use it to clone the IMEI of another device and essentially clone that device. But the law to stop cell phone fraud only pertains to the ESN and not the IMEI. So could someone please explain why XDA has decided to make it illegal to discuss changing the IMEI just because it *could* be used for malicious reasons, but when many people want to use it for benevolent reasons. Also XDA makes discussion of how to change it, but allows discussions of other illegal topics on their forums?
-This thread was not posted to discuss how to change IMEI, just to get more info-

Changing IMEI is illegal in some countries, there are more than 200 countries in this world

Tyaginator said:
Changing IMEI is illegal in some countries, there are more than 200 countries in this world
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I know that in some countries it is illegal, I meant in the USA, I forgot to mention that in the OP.

The-10th-Doctor said:
I know that in some countries it is illegal, I meant in the USA, I forgot to mention that in the OP.
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Yeah but xda can be accessed from any country in the world

Tyaginator said:
Yeah but xda can be accessed from any country in the world
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I know, but if they ban it for that reason, don't you think hey should also ban other stuff that's illegal in many countries like, I don't know, how to easily crack wifi passwords that use wpa? If there are posts allowed like that on here that give in depth walk through on how to do it, but leave a disclaimer saying "this is only intended to test your own network and to show security flaws" then someone should be able to post something on changing IMEI but leaving a disclaimer saying "This is only intended to show its possible to do so and only for use in countries where legal and changing the IMEI of one device you own to the same one as another device you own and not to use in illegal ways." Because its the same idea and makes no sense to ban the discussion of one of them on the forum, but allow the other to be discussed and have a thread with an in-depth walk through just because it has a disclaimer.

The-10th-Doctor said:
I know, but if they ban it for that reason, don't you think hey should also ban other stuff that's illegal in many countries like, I don't know, how to easily crack wifi passwords that use wpa? If there are posts allowed like that on here that give in depth walk through on how to do it, but leave a disclaimer saying "this is only intended to test your own network and to show security flaws" then someone should be able to post something on changing IMEI but leaving a disclaimer saying "This is only intended to show its possible to do so and only for use in countries where legal and changing the IMEI of one device you own to the same one as another device you own and not to use in illegal ways." Because its the same idea and makes no sense to ban the discussion of one of them on the forum, but allow the other to be discussed and have a thread with an in-depth walk through just because it has a disclaimer.
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Lol, u got a point bro:sly:

Oh, hey look what I found, I thought a post like this was not allowed on here, somehow it has gone un-noticed for 2 years!

Question [CLOSED]I bought a G Stylus 5G and it is locked to Cricket. Is there any way to unlock the network?

I went to one of those code websites and they quoted $95, which is out of my reach at the moment. Is there perhaps a way to d it myself? I am comfortable rooting and flashing roms so I'm sure I can handle it, I just don't know what to do.

Paying off the phone usually does the trick...

blackhawk said:
Paying off the phone usually does the trick...
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The person I purchased it from told me it was network unlocked. I did not find out it was not unlocked until I inserted my sim into it after it was delivered.
If I had the money to pay it off I would not be here asking if there's a chance this can be done.
{Mod edit}

I have a bit of experience with this given I have a Cricket model and I was going to sell it on eBay. Cricket themselves told me that the DEVICE itself is locked to the purchasers ACCOUNT until 6 months of service has been paid for. After which the network can be unlocked and the device sold to anyone. They told me the device wouldn't function for another Cricket account even if I wanted to just give it away to a friend. I'm not sure a code is really going to solve anything, given it sounds more like an IMEI lock within Cricket's database, and only once prereqs are met will they lift those restrictions.
Take this with a huge grain of salt, of course. Half the time I'm not sure Cricket's support has a clue what they're talking about. All I know is, tons of people are scooping them up for $49.99 from their website as "new customers" and then immediately trying to sell them.
To anyone else wanting to pick up one of these second hand, the safest way is to make sure it's the 6GB 256GB model. These aren't sold at any carrier, and are fully unlocked directly from Motorola. Picked one up myself a few weeks ago for slightly under $200.

Moderator Announcement
Discussions of or support to "bypass" a carrier lock are not accepted on XDA. Please don't bring us into trouble by starting such requests. XDA Forum Rules (excerpts):
9. Don't get us into trouble.
Don't post copyrighted materials or do other things which will obviously lead to legal trouble. If you wouldn't do it on your own homepage, you probably shouldn't do it here either. This does not mean that we agree with everything that the software piracy lobby try to impose on us. It simply means that you cannot break any laws here, since we'll end up dealing with the legal hassle caused by you. Please use common sense: respect the forum, its users and those that write great code.
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Additionally, I cleaned this thread, removed a few posts and edited one as it started to derail. We expect even our newest members to be familiar with the Forum Rules, as they've agreed to adhere to them when they registered i.e. they should actually be from in their minds. This private website might differ from the common social media but XDA places great value on member conduct as expressed in rule no. 2 of the Forum Rules. We don't tolerate personal attacks or post in a demanding, argumentative, disrespectful or self-righteous manner at all. A repetition might lead to other consequences to an account than just a friendly warning.
In conjuction with above, please do not reply to any offensive post at all; please just report a post and leave the rest to the moderators team. Thanks very much.
Regards
Oswald Boelcke
Senior Moderator

Question [CLOSED] any help much appreciated

some lowlife sold my teenage kid a t mobile sim locked oneplus 9 this past weekend after claiming it could be use on att ugh cant believe someone would take advantage of someone like that.
idk anything at all about this sort of stuff so im stumbling my way thru this like a blind man thru a maze
i called t mobile twice last night and they didnt seem to care at all about the situation so a google search led me here
is there anything we can do to get this thing unlocked so it can be use on att? any help and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. i dont mind paying if necessary
regards

the account originally associated with the phone must be in good standings. must also be paid off. if you can confirm those through imei etc, then try going into settings, about phone, scroll down until you see network unlock. go for the permanent option.

That was the first thing we tried

so the phone is not financially compromised and the original account is in good standing? run the imei number on a blacklist checker. most likely your son bought a paper weight.

┤Thread Cleaned + Closed├
Please do not throw accusations at each other. If there is any suspicion of illegal activity, just hit that report button and we'll be happy to investigate. In any case: don't try to moderate it yourself.
2.3 Flaming / Lack of respect: XDA is about sharing and this does not involve virtual yelling (flaming) or rudeness. Flaming or posting with a lack of respect is unacceptable. Treat new members in the manner in which you would like to have been treated when you were a new member. When dealing with any member, provide them with guidance, advice and instructions when you can, showing them respect and courtesy. Never post in a demanding, argumentative, disrespectful or self-righteous manner.
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@Imbmfk Imagine your device was stolen, I'm sure you would appreciate that the people who took it would be unable to use your device. I do understand that this can bring problems on the second hand market but this is of no concern to XDA. I assume you speak the truth but even then our community will not be able to assist as any unlock solutions would be considered illegal. Which takes us to:
9. Don't get us into trouble.
Don't post copyrighted materials or do other things which will obviously lead to legal trouble. If you wouldn't do it on your own homepage, you probably shouldn't do it here either. This does not mean that we agree with everything that the software piracy lobby try to impose on us. It simply means that you cannot break any laws here, since we'll end up dealing with the legal hassle caused by you. Please use common sense: respect the forum, its users and those that write great code.
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I can only advise you to get in touch with the seller and/or the platform your son has bought the device on.
Thank you all for your time, have an amazing day and stay safe out there!
Timmy
Forum Moderator