General posting guidelines

Support and Help
1

General posting guidelines

Introduction

The overall set of principles for this (and all other Ubuntu) sites is the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. Following that should cover most of the points made below.

However, we’ve found from experience that it helps to have more specific pointers relating to posting on sites such as this one. These general guidelines are meant to serve that purpose.

There is also a separate set of guidelines for making and answering tech support posts, which go into further detail on that topic.

The guidelines

  1. Respect the Staff: We provide a service in our free time to keep this site running efficiently. We are all volunteers and we have other commitments as well. Feedback is welcome in Site Feedback; this is also the place to request assistance with forum software issues. If you believe an error has been made in moderation or other staff actions, see Moderation info for users re appealing the action.

  2. Private Messaging: In general, use PMs for topics that only affect you and need to be kept private. Asking support questions via private messages is strongly discouraged. You may occasionally be asked to submit sensitive details via PM (such as serial numbers or public IP addresses), but unless this is the case, keep all support messaging public. Private messages sent to other users are also subject to these guidelines.

  3. Adult Content, Violence, Illegal Activity: Messages containing violent, sexually oriented, or illegal content or links to sites with this content 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.

  4. Profanity: Messages containing profanity may be edited or deleted. We have users of all age groups and of all tolerance levels where profanity is concerned. We wish for as many users as possible to feel comfortable using this site.

  5. Trolling, Attacks and Flaming: These are always forbidden.

    • Trolling is posting in a way that provokes emotional responses.
    • Attacks and derogatory terms of any kind are not welcome. This includes references to any operating systems or the companies that produce them.
    • Flames are messages that personally attack or call any people names or otherwise harass. These, along with any generally condescending posts will be edited or removed at the moderators discretion.
    • In particular, this is a workplace for Canonical employees for collaboration within their projects, and they have a right to an abuse-free workspace. For that reason, any attacks on Canonical or any groups within Canonical will be met with stricter discretion by the moderators. Constructive, friendly criticism is welcome, but hostile language will not be tolerated.

  6. Spam: Spam is not tolerated. It will be removed and the user along with it.

    Spam isn’t just messages containing links to commercial sites. It includes:

    • Unsolicited advertising, with or without links.
    • Self-promotion that is not necessarily commercial, when this involves creating an account in order to promote one’s blog, YouTube Channel, project, or similar, even when the project is open source.
    • Copy-pastes. Copy-pasted questions or answers from within the forum or from other web-based sources will be treated as spam. For further detail, see Support and Help posting guide, in particular the final item.
    • Multiple content-less or pointless posts. These will be treated as spam.

    You may have a link to a single personal site in your profile, as long as the content of the site linked does not include material that violates these guidelines. Remember that we are here to help one another and not engage in self-promotion, which can quickly become spam. A business site, regardless of provenance, will be treated as spam.

  7. Politics: This topic has caused serious problems in the past, and as such is subject to tight control. Discussion of the politics of open source is permissible in the Lounge. No other political posting is permitted in any form in any other area of the forum. Please find another venue for political discussions.

  8. Religion: This is a forbidden topic site wide. Please find another venue to exercise your freedom of speech on this topic.

These posting guidelines may change and evolve with time based on constructive feedback and experience. It is the users’ responsibility to check this page for updates.

Updated March 2025

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