I know where you are coming from Deufeufeu but what Destructobot says applies here.
I reckon I our best bet is to all chip in a knock out a basic but fairly all encompassing guide (or at worst a mess of links to read), there will always be people who miss stickies (either because they are not too bright or because experience tells them they are never updated) but notice the lessening of basic questions when FAQs are posted elsewhere.
I have that guide I have been working on bit by bit for a while now and a whole load of links I have come across with useful tidbits in and there are several other competent rom hackers that frequent this place (I personally reckon as far as English language general DS hacking (I have seen more on forums for Advance Wars, pokemon and the like elsewhere) goes this section is the most active on the net.)
As for requests most translations are major efforts which if I were to assume some posts were representative of the population at large (I know they are not) would suggest others do not.
To this end I would support a rule to the effect of you must show you have something done i.e. you need a translator or more experienced rom hacker to further what you have done. I have no qualms deciphering a complex pointer system, determining compression for someone and maybe even chipping in a bit of ASM but making a simple, relative, 8 bit table does tend to be pushing it.
The other problem I see is people get apps like advance map, Deufeufeu's editors, Kenghot's editors, pokesave.... or even more general stuff like Crystaltile2 and tahaxan or even more general stuff still like the tahaxan file formats page and do not take the time to learn the underlying reasoning. I would never propose a moratorium on such applications/documentation though.
So: GBATemp rom hacking intro project anyone, I suggest GBA, DS, Gamecube and Wii. I spend a lot of time reading rom hacking stuff all over the net and as of right now I know of nothing that has consolidated info on any aside from some reasonably in depth gamecube stuff. Going by romhacking.net the GBA is only just coming in to the mainstream, DS is too close to piracy, GC is non existent and as the filesystem for the wii has only been figured out for a very short space of time that has not exactly been done at all.
Some stuff off the top of my head that would probably need to be covered:
file system (DS mainly) and by extension common formats (SDAT, narc and common graphics are the big three in my opinion)
Now on to the big one, as I see it rom hacking is 90% data representation so it needs to be covered and needs to be covered well.
graphics, from how they are coded to how they are stored (link it to formats). Palettes need to be covered but I am not sure how (I often see them treated separately (guilty of this myself) but I do not think they should.
Sound: basic SDAT hacks and reasoning behind them is a must with more advanced stuff (what actual formats: IMA-ADPCM and the like able to be left for later). Probably a section on replacing a US/Eu rom with the Japanese soundtrack and the need to alter filesystems.
Text: tables, pointers and how to derive them (relative search, brute force, corruption). Simple and complex examples required.
ASM with regard to cheating: sometimes considered outside the domain of rom hacking but I do not. Often provides a nice avenue in and if you tie in changing stats of characters/weapons.... that also is a nice intro.
ASM proper: tracing via emulation and less subtle stuff like corruption and maybe stuff like OAM handling (for VFW and menu hacks mainly), strings.
Now who to write it for, three groups as I see it:
Those new to it. Unfortunately this means two types: completely new people and coders with no prior experience of hacking (a coder should not what a string is and the basics of representation but tracing and reverse engineering are perhaps beyond them)
Those experienced on other systems wanting to come to these systems:
There are similarities to other systems but I have never seen an SDAT file outside of nintendo systems.
Experienced hackers: I have been doing this for a while but I do not know half the specs of various formats off the top of my head. Seeing stuff others do is always nice as well.
