Guidelines

This page describes how we treat each other here. It is short on purpose — most people already know what is meant, and nobody reads a long rulebook.

The one sentence

Write in a way that makes others want to answer.

Before you post

• Check whether the topic already exists. A reply in an ongoing

conversation is worth more than a second thread beside it.

• Pick the category it belongs to. That is the order everyone else

searches by.

• Give your topic a title that gives it away. "Question" says nothing;

"Why does the export stop on large files?" says everything.

When you reply

• Answer what is written — not what you assume.
• Argue with the point, not the person. A wrong assumption may be

corrected plainly. Whoever held it is still welcome here.

• If you have nothing to add, you need not write. Agreement is what the

vote is for, not an extra post.

• Assume the kindest reading a sentence can carry. Online there is no

voice and no face; most of what reads as curt was merely brief.

What does not belong here

• insults, contempt, and attacks on people or groups
• advertising and repeated self-promotion unrelated to the topic
• anything that breaks the law
• other people's personal data — addresses, phone numbers, private messages,

pictures without consent

• text and images you do not hold the rights to

If something catches your eye

Report the post instead of settling it yourself. A report goes to the moderators, not to the author, and a public telling-off usually turns one annoyance into two.

What happens if someone ignores this

Moderators can hide posts and, if it keeps happening, withdraw access to this community. The normal case, though, is a quiet word — the point is to keep the conversation, not to get rid of people.

This page may change

If a rule is missing, or one of these gets in the way, say so. Rules exist here to make things easier; where they do not, they belong changed.