Forum Rules

Registration to this forum is free! We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If you agree to the terms, please check the 'I agree' checkbox and press the 'Register' button below. If you would like to cancel the registration, click here to return to the forums index.

Although the administrators and moderators of Ubuntu Forums will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of Ubuntu Forums, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. (developers of vBulletin) will be held responsible for the content of any message.

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.

The owners of Ubuntu Forums reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.

Official Ubuntu Code of Conduct: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/community/conduct

Posting to the Forums:

Section I - General Policy:

By registering and participating in Ubuntu Forum discussions you agree to the following policy. If you should not agree you have the right to no longer participate in forum discussions at your own discretion.

This is YOUR community. Most people have a common sense feel for what is and what is not appropriate in our forums and you folks generally do a great job of policing yourselves. We do, however, need to have a few set policies for everyone to refer to when the need arises.

While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible where acceptable, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the administrators, moderators or web-master (except for posts by these people) and hence will not be held liable.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any applicable laws (please see the backyard for specific rules for that venue). Doing so may lead to you being immediately, permanently or temporarily being banned (and your service provider being informed).

If the user continues to break policy the said users account will be reviewed by the forum resolution team and removed if need be. It is at the sole discretion of the resolution team to remove violating accounts.

The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that the web-master, administrators and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or post at any time should they see fit under the guidelines specified below. You agree that the web-master, administrators and moderators of this forum have the right to send a private message with a warning and or censor any forum user who is in violation of forum policy.

1. Respect the Forum Staff. We provide a service in our free time to keep the forum running efficiently. We will occasionally ask for input, but in some cases we will not, please respect our decisions. Also, we do edit for content, if you have an issue with our moderation, please open a request in the forums resolution center.
2. Profanity: Mild profanity/swearing is allowed in the context of general speech. Explicit profanity/swearing is not allowed, and under no circumstances will we allow any profanity to be directed toward another person. Please see the Code of Conduct:Be Considerate, and the Code of Conduct:Be Respectful for more exact specifications.
3. Forum Threads and Flaming:
• Flaming And Condescending Messages: Messages personally attacking, calling names, or otherwise harassing or being condescending to another forum member or any ethnic or religious group will be removed or moved to "The Backyard" based on the moderators decision.
• If the thread is flame-bait, it will be locked or removed without notice. Individual flame-bait may be deleted or edited at the moderators' discretion. Certain users who continue to post flame-bait or engage in other questionable practices (such as trolling) may be subject to more serious sanctions.
• If the thread turns into pure flaming, it will be locked or removed without notice. Sometimes a moderator may split the thread or delete certain portions in order to keep the discussion going.
4. If a thread is spam it will be moved to the forum jail.
5. Adult Content/Violence/Illegal Activity: Messages containing sexually oriented/violent/illegal dialog, images, content, or links to such will be deleted. Messages with links to or suggesting illegal activity will also be deleted. These actions could result in a ban.
6. Thread Drifting/Steering: Please keep discussions on topic. Non-technical and Non-3rd party project discussions belong in the Community Cafe forum.
7. Please remember that these forums are inclusive of ALL people, and we strive to maintain accessibility to everyone.
8. "The Backyard" is an unmoderated section of the forum for highly controversial discussions such as religion, politics etc. Please keep it clean and professional. "XXX" Rated posts and attacks against personal individuals or groups will be removed. Please see this forum section for additional rules.
9. Please strive to communicate with other users as effectively as possible:
• Please try to write your posts in English. We have many users from many different countries that visit here.
• When writing a post, please space paragraphs with a blank line in between them for better readability.
• Please do not write posts in all uppercase letters, as it looks as if you are screaming at the people reading your post.
• Please refrain from using "leet" speak or slang. These forums are a tool for communication, which will be obfuscated by those types of writing.
• Please do not shorten your words to acronyms or abbreviations. It is very difficult to read and understand.
• Please use color and font properties for highlighting portions of your text, and not for all of the text in your post.
• Typos and other errors can cause miscommunication between users on the forums, please preview your text before posting.
10. If you have found a post that you feel is inappropriate or that violates forum policies, please use the Resolution Center. The mailing lists are included on these forums for easy access to them, please do not report anything from the mailing lists here, as we have no control over their content.
11. Please be prudent in your use of images; they may help to explain something more clearly or indicate a problem you are experiencing better but you have to remember that not everyone has the same bandwidth. If an image is the best way of handling the information, please keep your image to less than 100kb. If you would like to post other images, please see our gallery.
12. Forum signatures have a few rules they are as follows: No Images, limited to three lines of text, 10pt maximum font size. Signatures are also not a place for inappropriate material such as flaming, slandering, harassment or religious remarks.
13. If you feel someone has violated the Ubuntu Code of Conduct you may file an open complaint with the Community Council. However, forum related issues will need to be filed in the forums resolution center. The Community Council will refer all issues back to the forums resolution center for resolution.
14. The 3rd Party section of the forums is an extension to parties who have created valuable tools for Ubuntu. These forums are given to the individuals as an act of gratitude of their work. Users are expected to follow the forum and CoC guidelines when posting in these forums.
15. The web-master, administrators and moderators of this forum will preserve forum content when possible. However editing, locking and deleting content may be necessary at the sole discretion of the web-master, administrators and moderators when policy has been violated.

Section II - Technical Support Policies:

When asking for technical support:

1. Try to give information in the title of your post, instead of using a title like "it's broken," use a title that is specific, such as, "Unable to get sound to play in Firefox." A clear title will attract more views to your thread, as it gives a clear indication of the content of the post to the people that are willing to help you. Ultimately this will allow you to get more help of a better quality.
2. Searching the Ubuntu forums is a quick way to see if someone has had your issue and if it has been answered. There's a good chance your question has been answered before, and you can get the information you want quickly.
3. When requesting help, please include as many details as you can. Include as much information as you know. If people are asking for version numbers, consider using Synaptic to find out specific information about the packages you have installed. For example, if you're having trouble with Firefox, you can search in Synaptic and look up the version number to give the people helping you more information. If you do not know how to find out the information that a user is requesting of you, you might want to ask them how to find the information they have requested. Attach screen shots or other files if you think it might be useful.
4. There are no stupid questions. You're not a stupid person simply because you do not no how to do something, or do not have the answer to a question. Everyone was a green user at one point in time. :)
5. It's always nice to let the people that help you know that you appreciate their help. It's extra nice if you then share that information to another user that has the same question you just had. If your question is resolved (which is hopefully always the case!), it would be helpful for other users and the people helping you to label which procedure worked for you by quoting or clearly referring to it. Giving feedback as to what procedures worked not only makes the person helping you feel a sense of accomplishment, you will also be helping any other user with your same issue searching for an answer.

When answering technical support issues:

6. Be considerate to the person asking the question. We were all a green user at one point. Yes, some users are harder to help than others, but please be respectful to all users.
7. Try to avoid acronyms and jargon when giving instructions. New, or "green" users may not be able to follow you, and many will not ask you for an explanation in order to avoid looking stupid. RTFM, "Go look on google" are two inappropriate responses to a question. If you don't know the answer or don't wish to help, please say nothing instead of brushing off someone's question.,Politely showing someone how you searched or obtained the answer to a question is acceptable, even encouraged.
8. If the users' question has been covered in one of the community documents, please give them a description and the links. Some useful sites to point green users are: ubuntuguide.org, wiki.ubuntulinux.org, the forum HOWTOs, and wiki.ubuntulinux.org/HowTo. You can also show the user how to search the forums or tell them about the forum search utility. If you wish to remind a user to use search tools or other resources when they have asked a question you feel is basic or common, please be very polite. Any replies for help that contain language disrespectful towards the user asking the question, i.e. "STFB" or "RTFM" are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
9. Always assume the the user has a default installation unless you're told otherwise. If you tell people to use an application outside of the official Ubuntu installation, please give instructions on how to install it.
10. Always assume that the user is a green user unless you're certain the user is not. Please remember to give detailed instructions some users do not know how to get to a terminal yet.
11. To avoid confusion and auto-formatting issues, please use [CODE] tags around terminal commands. If an image speaks a thousand words and can show exactly what you mean, by all means, include an image.
12. Please wrap long outputs from commands or other text to prevent users from needing to scroll through the content inside [CODE] tags.
13. Please remember to do things the Ubuntu way. There are always more than one solution to a problem, choose the one you think will be the easiest for the user. Automatic package installation (using Synaptic, Aptitude, or apt) over manual installation. DEB over source. Please never instruct users to do anything that might break their system, this includes using --force and -ignore-depends when installing a DEB. Try to think as a green user and choose the simplest solution.
14. Explain each step of the solution. If possible, try to teach the user while giving a solution to them. Teaching begets more teaching. :)
15. If you're uncertain if a procedure is correct, please tell users so. If your procedure has inherent risks, please tell users what they are. For example, if you're teaching someone how to resize a partition, please include a disclaimer that it MAY occasionally cause data loss.
16. Replies to questions that ask for help running legitimate software (albeit closed source or proprietary) that do not answer the question, but instead instruct the user that they should not be using that software on the grounds that it is not free serve only to frustrate and confuse the user and will be removed to make room for answers to the question the user asked at the moderator's discretion. The goal of this forum is to first provide technical assistance and then to educate users on the benefits of free software.

Section III - Forum Staff Policies and Expectations:

Staff duties are based upon the following:

1. Dealing with Profanity:
   Mild profanity/swearing is allowed in the context of general speech. Explicit profanity/swearing is not allowed, and under no circumstances will we allow any profanity to be directed toward another person. If you feel a user is out of line please contact an administration with the details, they will issue a warning to the user.
2. Dealing with spam and potential "jailed" posts:
   If its a user trying to advertise something move the post to the jail, once the post is moved the user will receive a private message letting them know we have removed their post. Posts that are used to flame, harass or harm another person should be reported to an administrator asap. We do not encourage staff to partake in conversation in these types of situations and the administration will handle the issue.
3. Editing of posts:
   When a post breaks guidelines and requires editing in order to bring it back under compliance with the rules, the moderator shall first copy the un-edited post to the jail and then edit the original post, thus preserving the original content should an issue become larger. The moderator should also PM the author and specify which guideline(s) the post did not follow.
4. Thread Closing:
   If a thread has run it's course and posts have begun repeating themes a thread may be closed - if possible, announce that the thread has run it's course before closing so that people may add closing statements - don't forget to thank all users involved in the discussion. If a thread has become a situation where people are simply too personally involved in the issue a thread may be closed and / or jailed. If a thread is a duplicate of another thread, it may be closed (please provide a link to another open thread on the same topic.)
5. Jailing of posts/thread:
   If a post/thread would require over half to be edited in order to bring it under compliance, or if editing the violations would result in a nearly blank post/thread, the post/thread should be moved to the jail instead.
6. No images or advertising in the signatures unless the advertising is directly related to linux in some way, you can make the informed decision. If you see a signature that needs moderating, contact an administrator they can edit it and contact the user via private message. Avatars should be kept clean and inclusive of all people. No porn, racist images, or rtfm types of images. If the user has one of these private message them and ask them to remove the avatar. If the user does not voluntarily remove their avatar contact an administrator to have the avatar removed.
7. Adult Content/Violence/Illegal Activity:
   Messages containing offensive / sexually oriented / violent / illegal dialog, images, content, or links to such will be moved to the backyard or jailed depending on the information it contains, use your best judgement. Messages with links to or suggesting illegal activity will soft deleted by an administrator. These actions could result in a ban for the user.
8. Religion/Politics threads:
   Clean conversations should be kept in the backyard. If you find a thread regarding religion/politics and its not already in the backyard please move it.
9. RTFM/I hate linux/I hate Microsoft threads:
   As the community grows these types of threads will be more prominent. We need to make sure we can try to steer these conversations into a positive discussions, however in many cases these threads will only end in hurt feelings and will be locked. If the thread cannot be steered into a clean discussion the staff member who locks it needs to be fully supported by staff.
10. Thread Steering:
    It will become necessary to steer threads away from becoming damaging towards the poster and other users. Our policy is that we do not allow threads to veer too far off topic, even in community chat, to areas where it would be very easy to get ugly fast; for example, "I hate Linux" threads. Please do your best to keep posters from getting too personal during heated debates.
11. Keeping an open mind:
    Sometimes you will be faced with a thread you might not agree with it's imperative you keep an open mind towards all inclusive people, and keep a neutral focus when replying. It is our duty to steer the conversations back into a positive nature without engaging in negative behavior.
12. Signatures:
    While we do not have guidelines for staff signatures, please try to keep them moderate and within reason.

It should be noted that, like all things, these rules will continue to change and evolve with constructive feedback from users and from experience. It is our hope that these policies will create open, honest, and civil discussion. As always, we welcome feedback about any concerns that you may have so feel free to post in the forum discussion section of the forums. It is the users responsibility to check forum policy for updates.

It should also be noted that this is a privately owned and operated site by Ubuntu-Geek; therefore posting here is a privilege rather than a constitutional 'right' to free speech and freedom of expression, we ask that the forum rules are followed at all times.

Public forum data is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
Last Updated 2/17/2006 - 12:56pm EST