Forum Rules

Hi. I am a relatively new member, and I’m not sure about what the rules are. I’ve read the topics in the bar at the top of the page, but I’m still unsure about some rules. Here are some questions:

  1. Are there rules about necroposting?
  2. Should I report swearing, or is it allowed?
  3. Are there any other rules which I should know about, but aren’t in the guide topics?

Hi @chibi_matoran,

Welcome!

There is no rule about reviving old topics. This forum is still new, so old here isn’t really very old yet :smile: [quote=“chibi_matoran, post:1, topic:13075”]
Should I report swearing, or is it allowed?
[/quote]

You should report/flag swearing.

The guidelines are a work in progress. As things come up they will be added.

Guidelines
How to use the Forums

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Thank you for your help! :slight_smile:

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@albionsrefuge It’d be nice if you could stick a bit about posting code into the guidelines so people will know it’s against the rules.

Also, I’ve noticed that some “not so bad” cusses get censored, turned into squares, but the “really bad” cusses don’t for some reason. What’s up with that?

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Hey Chibi,

About necroposting - I generally ask someone to create a new topic if they need help. It’s easier to keep track of everything that way :slight_smile: I think I may be in the minority doing that, though.

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Posting code isn’t allowed? Oops…

I have posted code snippets to help people; but I refrain myself from giving themselves the answers.
http://discuss.codecademy.com/t/boolean-codes/8492/3
http://discuss.codecademy.com/t/17-28-java-french/9195/7
If these posts of mine have broken the rules, please censor/remove them. I also have made other posts which didn’t have code, but gave instructions about how to fix it and included names of functions. Are those allowed?

I guess nobody reported the vulgar posts.

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@chibi_matoran Well, posting code snippets to help people is fine normally, it’s when people are posting answers for every lesson uninvited and stuff like that, that there’s a problem.
I don’t see anything wrong with your answers :slight_smile:

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Thank you for your response. So, if someone asks for answers, are people allowed to post code, or is it still not allowed? If the latter, should the post asking for answers be reported as well?

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That’s a good question, and kind of hard to answer :slight_smile:

If the person is trying to explain the code, or has a reputation for being helpful in the forums, I don’t report it unless there’s something else wrong with the post. If someone comes into the forums brand new, sees a question asking for an explanation or something, and says “here’s my code that worked for me”, that’s the type of post that I report.
In general, look at the attitude of the post. If it’s rude or sloppy or off topic, then it’s likely to be the type to flag.

Posts asking for answers, I only sometimes flag. I actually haven’t thought about what to do with those much. I guess they should probably be flagged :slight_smile:

@albionsrefuge What do you think?

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And of course you mean posting complete answers without explanation, not just code :smile:

We’ll likely get around to adding that at some point.

Somewhere there must be a list of censored words.

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I wouldn’t flag someone just for asking, I would just respond with something along these lines, “I’d like to help, please post your code so I can see how far you are.”

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I just saw another user give away an email address; on another site I’m on, this isn’t allowed. Should I report posts which give away email addresses?

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I’m going to bump my topic up, because I have a relevant question. Back when I first asked about necroposting, I was told that no rules existed because the forum was new.

https://discuss.codecademy.com/t/forum-rules/13075/2?u=chibi-matoran
^^^

However, the forum has aged since, and today, I encountered a post on a four-month-old thread that was asking another question. According to jibblyj:
https://discuss.codecademy.com/t/javascript-help-cant-figure-out-what-is-wrong-with-this-line-of-coding/12756/6?u=chibi-matoran

Have necroposting rules changed since I originally asked about them?

In fact, when I was posting this, I saw a warning that the topic was old.

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HI Chibi,

There is no rule about necroposting. There is currently a warning message when posting to anything older than 30 days. That is mostly to give the poster a nudge to rethink whether adding to the old thread is what they really meant to do.

There may be a bit of confusion but that is because there are different scenarios.

Necroposting an answer that doesn’t add value is the only instance that is close to being frowned upon.

Case 1: You find a thread where someone has asked a question, and has already received a good/correct answer.

  • Posting an answer there will get you a frown.
  • Posting because you wanted to discuss the question or answer would be fine.
  • Posting because you have the same question but the answer doesn’t work for you would usually be better handled by starting a new thread.

Case 2: You find a thread were the OP did not get an answer that solves their problem yet.

  • Posting an answer to that would be fine, just as long as you realize that the OP may have finished the course and will never see your response. It might be worth checking their profile to see if they have been on the site lately. If you like helping out in the forums, and you find an old, unanswered question, a quick “Do you still need help with this?” would save you the time of a full blown answer.

Case 3: The topic isn’t exercise related and you just want to talk about that topic.

  • Definitely go ahead and post to any of those.
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