After running the forum for more than a year, we have decied to have some formal guidelines to make the forum a better place for everyone.
For the past year, the community has been a friendly and lovely place. As more and more people start to post here though, we figure it’s better to have some simple guidelines. We’ll keep it simple:
Search and think before you post
Always search before you post a new topic.
If something is similar, add to it rather than opening a new one.
Before hitting the post button, ask yourself:
- Is the title concise and clear?
- Have you provided enough context information for others to answer your questions, reproduce your bug, or understand your feature request?
Only post if you can confidently answer “yes” to both questions.
Be nice
You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:
- Name-calling and personal attacks.
- Dismissing other ideas if you don’t know about it or haven’t done research on it.
Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.
Keep it tidy
Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:
- Don’t start a topic in the wrong category. Each category has its description written underneath it.
- Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
- Don’t post no-content replies.
- Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
- Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.
Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a New Topic.
Write in a way that’s easy to read
Please avoid the following:
- Write in non-English languages, unless under a specialized category;
- Use non-standard spelling and grammar;
- Write in all capital letters (consider using bold formatting);
- Excessively use slang or terms the general audience have trouble understanding.
Let others hear you by using @
The surest to make sure you’re heard by someone is to @ him/her. If you need help, don’t hesitate to @ Thao or Erica. For more technical issues, you can try @'ing Shida.
If you have any questions about the guidelines or the forum in general, send Erica a PM.
If a post or reply doesn’t follow these guidelines, we’ll send a PM as a first warning. If the warning doesn’t work, we reserve the right to delete replies and unlist/delete posts.