BGG Forum links require BGG account

[MacroeniSalad]

There are a lot of game rules that are hosted in the forums of BoardGameGeek. Unfortunately, BGG requires an account to view forum attachments. This means that none of these game rules pdf files are viewable to persons that do not have (nor wish to create) a BGG forum account.

This is not a problem IF there are alternative rules posted at another host, however this is not always the case. Which means, there are some games which are basically inaccessible on BGA.

Case in point: Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done

Please make sure a set of rules is available for every game on BGA.

[Tisaac]

There are a lot of game rules that are hosted in the forums of BoardGameGeek. Unfortunately, BGG requires an account to view forum attachments. This means that none of these game rules pdf files are viewable to persons that do not have (nor wish to create) a BGG forum account.

This is not a problem IF there are alternative rules posted at another host, however this is not always the case. Which means, there are some games which are basically inaccessible on BGA.

Case in point: Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done

Please make sure a set of rules is available for every game on BGA.

Tell that to the publishers, they are the ones that should make their rulebook available to all, not bga.

[Nastaa]

Please make sure a set of rules is available for every game on BGA.

In many cases I found that the rules in pdf are available also somewhere else (with different languages available sometimes), but the direct link to pdf was just not necessarily added to the BGA game page (anyone can add it there).
Just a quick research on internet with keywords like name of the game, pdf, rules will often be enough. And if you want to avoid others to do this step (or yourself in the future), you can add the direct link to pdf on the BGA game page.

[Joseph2302]

If the rules are posted in a location other than BGG, and that location is freely accessible, then 100% we should add a link to those rules as well as/ instead of the BGG link

However, many games only seem to have their rules uploaded online on BGG, and we can't do anything about that in that case. It's up to the publishers to put them somewhere else e.g. their own websites, so we can link them here.

[KongKing123]

If I encounter this situation and no public link is available, I usually take the BGG rules, upload them to PDF Host and add a link to that on the BGA game page.

There was another thread about this: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90734. As I posted there, BGA should really just take care of this themselves.

I do believe taking this out of the community's hands and providing direct links would greatly improve the general site experience.

I don't see why BGA couldn't host rules that are published on an unofficial site like BGG, or link to rulebooks hosted on the publisher's site. Broken links or new rules could still be reported by users, moderators would just need to vet them.

The icons do differentiate between direct links and indirect ones.

[voriki]

If the rules are posted in a location other than BGG, and that location is freely accessible, then 100% we should add a link to those rules as well as/ instead of the BGG link

As well, never instead.

We have to take into account that some external links may not be permanent, and those rules could be removed someday. Unless the rules were hosted on the publishes own domain ofcourse.
BGG however we can be quite certain about that those links don't just disappear like that.

[Phantasy4]

Was about to make new post but found this thread.

I'm bit annoyed too. It doesn't make quite sense that many rules on pdf filed is linked to Board games greek site with a login.
Why can't BGA store .pdf files here in same directory as games data?
It should be new rule when devlopers adds new game, they needs to store rule and its languages.

They doesn't take much space on the server.