Announcements

[ssanderlin]

The purpose of these forums is for members to help each other learn and grow.

With that in mind, here are the current forum rules:

Respect Others in the Community - We cater to all users at any skill level and want everyone to feel comfortable here, regardless of their experience or knowledge. These forums exist for the benefit of all, members and nonmembers alike. Please bear this in mind when posting, and always be sure to treat everyone with respect -- there is no question too basic to be asked here. Personal attacks or profane, pornographic, racist, sexist, or otherwise demeaning or offensive messages will not be tolerated and will likely lead to your account being banned.

Post Responsibly - Be aware that what you post here will become part of the permanent archives and will therefore be available online for an indefinite period of time. It is extremely likely that Search Engines and other websites will link to what you wrote, making it easy for others to find. Under no circumstances will Administrators or Moderators honor requests to delete, edit, or otherwise alter your posts or username. If it is important to you to keep certain details of your life private, do not share those details here. By the same token, any user posting private information about another user will have their post deleted and their account promptly banned.

Do Not Spam - These forums are intended to be kept spam-free. Posting off-topic advertisements is completely unacceptable and will likely lead to your account being banned. In general, you can expect the Administrators and Moderators to be more lenient with long-term members who have a history of solid contribution and more heavy-handed with new members who are posting for the first time. If one of your very first posts is a solicitation, it will almost certainly be deleted.

Do Not Troll - "Trolling," i.e. posting inflammatory, off-topic, highly immature, or insulting messages to provoke a reaction from others, is completely unacceptable and will result in your account being promptly banned. However, friendly debate, socializing, and good humor are perfectly welcome here. When posting, please ensure that your message is composed with respect and maturity -- these forums are a resource for professionals, not a playground for children.

Do Not Post Copyrighted or Illegal Material - Do NOT under any circumstances post copyrighted content such as articles, binaries, or images without the express permission of the copyright holder. If you wish to reference a copyrighted item found elsewhere online, simply link to it. If you acquire permission to repost a copyrighted piece here, add the phrase "posted with permission of the copyright holder" to your post. If you choose to repost copyrighted material on these forums, you should be prepared to provide proof of permission to the Administrators and/or Moderators on demand. If you don't know whether or not something is copyrighted, assume it is. Do not post messages that invite or encourage visitors to engage in illegal activities such as hacking or piracy. Conduct that violates this rule will not be tolerated under any circumstances, as it exposes these forums to legal action. Users engaging in such conduct will likely have their account banned and may be reported to the appropriate authorities.

Use Reasonable Signatures - Signatures that include links to free content-based sites are generally fine. However, in order to prevent forum abuse by internet marketers, the following types of signatures are unacceptable: visually obnoxious signatures; signature links that go directly to sales pages, lead generation pages, or email capture pages; or links to known scams or pyramid schemes. Signatures that ignore this rule will be censored or deleted, and continued abuse is cause for banning. If your intention is to use these forums primarily as a marketing outlet, you've come to the wrong place.

Use Meaningful Thread Titles - Meaningful, descriptive titles greatly improve forum usability. Ambiguous, cutesy, or clever titles diminish forum usability. Most members only have time to selectively read a small percentage of posts, so please respect their time. If you want to be clever or cute, feel free to do so in your post content, but keep your titles as clear and concise as possible.

Stay on Topic - When starting a new thread, use your best judgment to select the appropriate forum. If a thread drifts far from its original topic, please start a new thread for the secondary topic in the appropriate forum.
This is especially important in this environment, since some of our forums are targeted at providing support. Asking other questions will inevitably lead to tangental discussions within a thread. While there is nothing wrong with this behavior in and of itself, it can make it hard for other people to follow the discussion and limit their ability to separate ine one issue from another. Please do your best to follow the rule of one thread, one topic.

Avoid Hijacking Threads - Thread-hijacking is when a member attempts to swing an existing discussion away from its original topic. This behavior can be frustrating to members who want the discussion to proceed on course. If you wish to take a topic in a new direction that would otherwise derail the original topic, simply start a new thread for your own topic.

Avoid cross-posting - Please refrain from cross-posting the same or similar message to different forums. This is considered spamming and will result in your posts being deleted or merged. Choose whatever you believe to be the single most appropriate forum for your post.

Clearly Describe Links - Please ensure that you provide a clear, concise description of the destination content When posting links to files or web sites. This will allow other members to more accurately judge the value of a link.

Link Responsibly - The same rules apply to linked content as apply to posts. This means that any links to profane, pornographic, racist, sexist, or otherwise demeaning or offensive content will not be tolerated and will likely lead to your account being banned.

Trim Quotes in Your Posts - Refrain from quote-spamming. When quoting a lengthy post or posts, please trim down the quote to only the portion(s) you are addressing in your response. This serves two purposes: decreasing the length of your post and assisting others more easily understand the context of your post.

Post in English only - The official language of these forums is English, so please refrain from posting in other languages. Since this forum (and its parent site) recieves visitors from all over the world, it is very important for us to be tolerant and respectful of contributors whose native language isn't English.

Participate in Community Policing - Although the Administrators and Moderators do their best to attentively moderate these forums, it is very difficult (if not impossible) for them to review every single post. Our Administrators and Moderators are volunteers -- this means that they have normal jobs outside of their duties here. We have tried to make these forums as open as possible, but this degree of freedom necessitates some degree of community policing. If you feel that another member is violating these guidelines in a manner that degrades forum quality, please notify the moderators. The simplest way to do this is through the Report Post icon that appears in the upper right corner of every post. This will send a message to the moderators informing them of the problem. You will have an opportunity to include a message describing the problem.

Include Relevant Version Information - When posting a question regarding client or server software, please be sure to include the relevant version information. Make sure you include any relevant service packs and hotfixes you have installed. This will cut down on unnecessary back-and-forth, since typically one of the first responses to a question is Are you running Service Pack x?.

Your adherence to these guidelines is greatly appreciated.