Welcome to the phpBB.com General Discussion forum (GD).
phpBB.com is primarily a support forum for the forum script. General Discussion is a "bonus" forum for discussion of non-phpBB related topics with other phpBB.com users. While we would like to encourage all types of discussions, please note that GD is not an "Anything-goes"-forum:- General Discussion is not the support section, neither for phpBB nor for anything else. Please see Where to post what for further details. The Moderator Team might on a case-by-case basis accept non-phpBB related support questions if the question is considered by the Moderator Team to be interesting beyond the actual support question. This could e.g. be the case when the non-phpBB support question contains elements of discussion.
- This forum is called General Discussion - not - General Chat.
There is a clear distinction between discussion and chat. Things like "omg my hair is dead!!!!", "I like ice cream!"... or other random, pointless chat topics are not welcome here. Be sure that if you are going to reply, you have something worthwhile to say. Replies like "omgomg loL!" aren't worthwhile. - Survey-topics
This forum is for discussion, not for your personal surveys and polls. "Do you have a cat?!?!!!"!, "What's your favourite html editor???" and similar topics are not allowed, unless your own contribution contains at least some reasoning. - If you want to discuss a current news article, please observe the following rules:
- When quoting the original article, please make sure to respect the principle of "fair use", i.e. only a short excerpt of the relevant article should be quoted.
- quotes from articles should be encapsulated using the BBCode quote function
- link to source is mandatory; however, please note that it's not allowed either to just post links (e.g. to blog articles, newspaper articles etc.) without personal reasoning. You may use links in order to backup your reasoning, but you may not turn a topic into some sort of press/blog review. Links and replies without any use other than adding fuel to the fire, will be removed.
- news should be reasonably current. Discussing several weeks old news is not allowed
- own contribution is mandatory. "What do you think?"-, "Yet another example for..."-, "OMG"-postings are not sufficient. Your own contribution should contain at least some reasoning
- news topic titles may not be deliberately misleading
- Controversial topics
Discussion of controversial (news) topics can sometimes turn into a heated debate. That's not a problem as long as the Forum rules are fully respected. In particular, you may exercise extra caution to not insert any off-topic comments about other users who replied before you. Refrain from making general statements ("all..." , "always...", "clearly"), be careful with exaggerations and don't assume that there's only one truth... - "Hello I am new here"-topics
Welcome to phpBB!
While it is in principle always nice to say hello, we kindly ask first-time visitors to refrain from "Hello I am new here"-topics. Otherwise we would likely end up with hundreds of them every day. - "Thank you"-topics
If you want to thank the developers or the phpBB team in general, please refer to this topic: viewtopic.php?t=10385 - When replying, be sure to read the entire topic. Why? When reading these discussions, it gets annoying seeing different users replying with the same thing on each page.
- Generally, after a topic has been "dead" for a period of time, bumping topics is not recommended. However, if the discussion is still relevant or new developments have surfaced, a bump would be fine.
- As a small tip, it's best to have a look around before posting. Use this time to collect a general idea of how everyone else posts. This should give you a better understanding. If you have questions regarding where a topic may go or if it even belongs, feel free to PM a member of the Moderator Team requesting guidance.
- Board-wide rules apply to General Discussion, too. Any type of spam in particular is not allowed. If you notice a spam topic, please do not reply to it, but report the topic by clicking on the corresponding icon.
- Please note that in GD signatures are disabled for registered users.
All we want is discussion!
Please note that violation of the Forum rules by another user does not mean that you don't have to comply with the rules either. Contact a Moderator Team Member instead or simply use the “post report” feature to report the post.
We do realize that the above Guidelines may look intimidating to some of you. That's not our intention, but we do need some rules in order to keep the forum welcome to all users. If you believe your topic has been unfairly locked/removed, you may of course send a PM to the Moderator. If you are unsatisfied with the resolution, you are welcome to contact the Moderator Team Leader.
Thanks.
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1.0.0: original version
1.1.0 / 12.12.2007: beautifications
1.2. / 13.4.2009: non-phpBB support questions / fair use
