Forum Policy

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Section I - General Policy:

By registering on the ScriptDev2 forums you agree to the following code of conduct. If you are unable to agree you have the right not to participate in forum discussions at any time.

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 they will not be held liable.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated material or any other material that may violate any applicable laws. Doing any of these may lead to you being temporarily or permanently banned from these forums.

Posts which violate any part of this Code of Conduct may be edited or deleted without warning.

If you were to continue to break this code of conduct your account would be reviewed and you could be banned. It is the sole discretion of the forum administrators to ban violating accounts. Accounts may not be deleted, although email addresses can be removed from accounts by request if the account is not going to be used any longer.

The IP addresses of all posts are 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 post, topic or thread at any time they see fit following the guidelines outlined 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. Be respectful of all users at all times. This means please use etiquette and politeness. Treat people with kindness and gentleness. If you do this the rest of the code of conduct won't need more than a cursory mention.

* 2. Respect the forum staff and ScriptDev2 developers. We provide a service in our free time to keep the forums running efficiently and the developers spend their personal time developing ScriptDev2. 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 send a personal message to an Administrator.

* 3. Profanity: Remember that the forums are used by people of all age groups and of all tolerance levels regarding profanity usage. When in the support areas of the forum, please try to keep your language polite and courteous and refrain from the usage of profanities. Explicit profanity/swearing is not allowed, and under no circumstances will we allow any profanity to be directed toward another person.

* 4. Forum Threads and Flaming:
[*] Flaming and condescending messages: Flames are messages that personally attack, call people names, or otherwise harass another forum member (or any person). These, along with any generally condescending posts will be moved or removed at the moderators discretion.
[*] If the thread is flame-bait (appears to be intended to start an argument or is likely to cause an argument rather than enhance discussion), it will be locked or removed without notice. Individual flame-bait may be deleted or edited at the moderators' discretion. Any users who continue to post in this manner or engage in other questionable practices, like trolling (posting in an attempt to engage people in arguments) may be subject to more serious sanctions.
[*] If the thread turns into an argument, it can be locked or removed without notice. Sometimes a moderator may split the thread or delete certain portions in order to keep the discussion going, but that is not always possible.

* 5. If a post or thread contains spam (unsolicited advertising) it will be deleted and the poster may be banned. Active users in good standing are allowed to have links to personal sites in their signatures, and in their profiles as long as the content of those links does not include abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated material or any other material that may violate any applicable laws.

* 6. Adult Content/Violence/Illegal Activity: Messages containing sexually oriented/violent/illegal dialog, images, content, or links to these things will be deleted. Messages with links to or suggesting illegal activity will also be deleted. Posting or linking to any of these could result in a ban.

* 7. Thread Drifting/Steering: Please keep discussions on topic. Non-technical and discussions unrelated to the ScriptDev2 project do not belong on these forums.

* 8. Please remember that these forums are inclusive of ALL people, and we strive to maintain accessibility to everyone.

* 9. Please strive to communicate with other users as effectively as possible:[*] Please write your posts in English. We have many users from many different countries that visit here and English is the common language of these forums.
[*] When writing a post, please space paragraphs with a blank line in between them for better readability.
[*] Please do not write posts in all upper-case letters, as it looks as if you are screaming at the people reading your post.
[*] Please refrain from using "leet" speak or slang.
[*] 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 the forum code of conduct, please use the report post function (its down at the bottom of each message). Do not attempt to moderate discussions or correct other users yourself.

* 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. Client related images are not allowed under any circumstances.

* 12. Forum signatures are limited to three lines of text, 10pt maximum font size. Signatures are also not a place for inappropriate material such as attacks, slander, harassment, political or religious remarks. The use of political images in avatars is also prohibited.
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* 13. If you feel someone has violated the MaNGOS Code of Conduct you may open a complaint with the administrators.

* 14. The web-master, administrators and moderators of this forum will preserve forum content when possible. However editing, locking and deleting content may be necessary and if so will be done at the discretion of the web-master, administrators and moderators when the forum code of conduct has been violated.

* 15. Private Messaging users for support is strongly discouraged. It is also unlikely that users will respond to these requests.

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Section II - Technical Support Policies:

When asking for technical support:
[*]There are no stupid questions. You're not a stupid person simply because you do not know how to do something, or do not have the answer to a question. Everyone was a green user at one point in time. :)
[*]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, "Boss X doesn't cast spell Y." 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.
[*]Searching the ScriptDev2 Forums is the best 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.
[*]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 checking the sources to find out specific information about the revision you have installed. For example, if you're having trouble with ScriptDev2, you can search in your SubVersion tree and look up the revision number using svn info 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.
[*]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:
[*]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.
[*]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.
[*]If the users' question has been covered in one of the community documents, please give them a description and the links.* 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. "STFU" or "RTFM" are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
[*]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 MaNGOS installation and official ScriptDev2 installation, please give instructions on how to install it.
[*]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.
[*]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 so long as it does not violate any forum policies.
[*]Please wrap long outputs from commands or other text to prevent users from needing to scroll through the content inside CODE tags.
[*]There are always more than one solution to a problem, choose the one you think will be the easiest for the user. Try to think as a green user and choose the simplest solution.
[*]Explain each step of the solution. If possible, try to teach the user while giving a solution to them. Teaching begets more teaching. :)
[*]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 change a database table, please include a disclaimer that it MAY occasionally cause data loss.
[*]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.