This Forum is a Space for Mutually Meaningful Dialogue

Anyone participating here is expected to be respectful of the other participant’s time, viewpoint, and person. Each person brings a piece of the Truth like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. When shared, everyone stands to benefit from bringing those pieces together. In collaborative dialogue, we gain from fuller definition, clearer direction, confirmation, and correction.

Adding Value

You contribute value just by being here if you receive any value from the experience. However, you are also valued for your experience, insights, impressions, ideas, know-how, and most of all your questions. Tech is driven by curiosity and discovery. By pushing the boundaries of what you know we can all grow.

Carl Sagan* wrote, “There really is no such thing as a dumb question.”

This is very true here. However, it is considerate to do a quick check to see if a question has already been addressed somewhere on the forum already before asking it again.

Answering questions can be a teaching moment, but an opportunity to review and deepen your own understanding of a topic. Belittling someone because of their poor wording or approach to a question is not appropriate.

If you can’t contribute anything of value to a topic or question, please wait for a topic where you can. However, expressing your shared interest is something of value.

Be Civil, Even When You Disagree

Disagreements can be moments of creative dynamic tension. Use them in the service of truth finding. Criticize ideas, not people.
Please avoid:

  • Name-calling
  • Ad hominem attacks
  • Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
  • Knee-jerk reactions

Be creative in conversation. Use intelligent questions to draw differences and flaws into the light where people can work on them together. Agreeing to disagree is not the same as losing an argument.

But if the disagreement is about something that can be proven or disproven, a friendly competition both parties win the truth and one of them can win the bragging rights.

If You See Something, Say Somthing

While the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted to this forum, they care and work to optimize its value.

Just as you depend on them to monitor and maintain this forum, they depend on you to be a responsible and conscientious member of this community. To a large extent, it is self-regulated in its own best interests.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. Replying encourages bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

Moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time.

Keep It Clean and In Good Working Order

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

  • Don’t let this long list with “don’t” in them intimidate you. If they are unclear, ask about them in Forum Feedback.
  • Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.
  • Make the effort to put things where your intended audience can find them.
  • Don’t start a topic in the wrong category; please read the category definitions.
  • 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.
  • 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 Linked Topic.
  • Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
  • Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
  • Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
  • Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

This Should Go WIthout Saying

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission.
You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

THE TEAM

This site is operated by your friendly neighborhood moderator team and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in Forum Feedback and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact the moderators.