[jasonlambert]

We have been working on a number of changes to forum policy over the past few days that all users need to be aware of, these are outlined below:

Signature Language
All signatures must now be in English. Although we have had an "all posts must be in English" rule for years, signatures had gone un-noticed until it was mentioned recently. If your signature is not currently in English please could you change it.

Negativity
Something we (myself, the Mods and TP's) have been discussing for the past week or so is the number of "negative" posts that have been occuring recently. To clarify what exactly we are talking about, I'll give a few examples of negative orientated topics: "worst distro", "do you hate microsoft", "i hate life", "what sucks more, microsoft or BSD" etc etc. To summarise, a negative topic is any topic that is likely to generate a lot of responses of a negative nature, almost borderline trolling. Please expect these topics to be locked on sight from now on, if you are reading this, please take this as a hint not to post them any more

Spelling of Microsoft
This is actually a last minute request by me and we don't have a formal rule about it, at this stage. I'm going to make this a polite request, and see how it goes from here. So, whats this about? - Although I can sympathise with those of you who may have had frustrating experiences with Microsoft software in the past, please consider that not everyone has such extreme anti-Microsoft views. Microsoft is not spelt microshit, microshaft, micro$oft, microcrap, or any varient thereof, it would be really appriciated if you could take this into consideration when writing your posts.

We also have some Trusted Penguin and Moderator changes on the way, I'll post about them once they have all been fully confirmed.

Feedback welcome.

J.

[lakerdonald]

The real thing there that I like is the Micro$$$oft rule, as it annoys me to no end to see it $pelled like thi$$$$.
Cheers Jason.

[benjamin20]

is it ok to relay a negative experience of something or is that also wrong. im not speaking of retardedness but a legit negative experince.

is it ok to poke fun at certian things from time to time or is that also unwanted. things like that windows rg flash animation are things im talking about here.

[bigtomrodney]

High five man. Cheers for the new rules.

[jasonlambert]

Originally Posted by benjamin20

is it ok to relay a negative experience of something or is that also wrong. im not speaking of retardedness but a legit negative experince.

Each topic would be considered on a case-by-case basis, I would say that If there is a good story behind it then I don't see why not

is it ok to poke fun at certian things from time to time or is that also unwanted. things like that windows rg flash animation are things im talking about here.

The problem with most of those flash animations is two-fold; firstly they have done the rounds and most people have seen them several times already; secondly the underlying message of them is "windows is crap" which is the sort of negative stuff we're trying to move away from.

J.

[borromini]

I think applying these policies will take the whole forum to a higher level eventually - sorry if this sounds too 'cliché' (less crap, more useful stuff). So I only see advantages... and more work for the mods

Maybe asking users to do a minimum of research, or make a motivated start post could also help (as part of the overall policy then?). I'm a member of tweakers.net, a Dutch forum that works like that, and I must say, it helps, and it cuts a lot of crap sometimes...

When it comes to the signatures: will an original quote + translation do? I like my Italian signature too much to wipe it honestly...

[Giro]

I agree with the negative posts there have been alot and they are pointless. Not sure why signatures have to be English (posts seem obviouse)?

[Vergil83]

Could we also get a reiteration of signature length of 4 lines. there have been increasing number of like 10 line ones.

[jasonlambert]

Originally Posted by borromini

Maybe asking users to do a minimum of research, or make a motivated start post could also help (as part of the overall policy then?). I'm a member of tweakers.net, a Dutch forum that works like that, and I must say, it helps, and it cuts a lot of crap sometimes...

User's are always encouraged to search before posting we also have an asking good questions post in the Linux Newbie section.
I had a look over on tweakers.net, the policy you're talking about, is it the one on this page? or is there an extended one somewhere else?

When it comes to the signatures: will an original quote + translation do? I like my Italian signature too much to wipe it honestly...

We did discuss translations, the end result was we did have some concerns about what a non-signature said, if we are unable to read it.. and for the same reason we have English only topics, we ultimatly decided to go with a policy of English only signatures as well. I am aware that several people, yourself included, already have non-English signatures, I am sorry for any inconvienence this may cause.

[jasonlambert]

Just to re-iterate: the maximum length of a forum signature is 4 lines, if you have more than 4 lines in your signature can you reduce the length of your signature please. It helps to keep topics readable