Discussion: The Forum Posting Guide

[Forum Moderators]

This topic is to allow user feedback and requests relating to The Forum Posting Guide, since the topic itself is locked. We are not trying to be too restrictive here, but we felt that we should document "the rules of good conduct that we as moderators expect all users to conform to in their use of this forum.

If you think that we are being unreasonable or you want to comment on them, then please do so using this topic thread.

[TerryE]

I have just updated the Forum Posting Guide. The main change is to increase the emphasis on needing to search existing content and how to use the google site: modifier to do this effectively. My main reason is that with Sasquatch going on holiday, our response capacity is going to get worse, so I suspect that I will just replying a bit more often with:

Please refer to Forum Posting Guide as we need more information to answer this question.

or

Please refer to Forum Posting Guide for advice on how to search on a common issue.

or

I am sorry that we haven't been able to give you a specific response. All I can suggest is that you refer to our Forum Posting Guide for advice on how to search our knowledgebase.

or some other variant specific to the Q.

If anyone has any comments then just let me know by email or posting to this thread.

[Sasquatch]

Ehm, Terry, I never said I went on a holiday. I only said I have a week off. I was working this summer and have one week off before my school starts, meaning I actually have more time to be here . I will make my updates this week too, once I've sort them all out.

[TerryE]

Well maybe you should have the break

Well that's good for the forum and me at least. What do you think of the standard answers? Would you tweak them? I think it would be better if we adopted common responses.

[Sasquatch]

I usually make some version of that line. Like:

Please see the Forum Posting Guide and give us the info we need.

Or something similar. And as my nature is to help others, I tend to give the answer even with so less info .

[TerryE]

Its funny but you're right. Such is human nature: if people are nice about the way they ask, even if answer is easily available then you tend to go out of your way to help. The posters that get up my nose are the ones whose whole demeanour is basically one of "I can't be bothered to look, so I expect some other mug to do it for me". You get the situation where someone asks a Q and you vaguely remember a related post so instead of you spending 10 mins searching for it, you say words to the "have a search as this has come up before". Yesterday, I had a guy come back to me with words to the effect "if you're so clever arsehole, then why don't you give me the URL".

This point about using the site:forum.virtualbox.org or +ticket site:www.virtualbox.org is really useful. You get far more focused match lists than without it. When we put in phpBB3, there's a patch which includes the google API for searching. I think that we should consider adding this to the post form!

[Sasquatch]

On a different forum software I visit (MyReact I believe) there is the nice option that when you create a topic, it will list the most likely hits with that title, giving the Poster a reference of his possible problem where it's solved or he/she can continue in.

Edit:
I just remembered, it's the Ubuntu Forums software.

[TerryE]

Just to let you know the link to the User Guide in the The Forum Posting Guide is not working.

Thanks Marty, we had asked the VBox team to keep a current version of the manual at this URL but a case of deaf ears. I've updated the link to the current 2.0.4 version for now.

[markfilipak2]

I can't find how to post to this forum. I'm registered, I've searched, I've read, I found the "Reply" button here and so I'm posting here. My Question: How does one post a question on this forum? Thanks. - Mark.

[Perryg]

I can't find how to post to this forum. I'm registered, I've searched, I've read, I found the "Reply" button here and so I'm posting here. My Question: How does one post a question on this forum? Thanks. - Mark.

From the main page you pick the forum that best fits your issue and once there you click new topic.

[markfilipak2]

Thanks perryg.

Can you suggest where I can post meta-issues with this forum? My original issue was that an ISO was not working, so I searched for "Cannot boot to ISO". That returned no matches, so I searched for "ISO". That returned no matches, so tried to use the FAQ. I clicked on "Storage" and nothing happened, so I tried to post a question regarding what I was doing wrong and could find no way to post... Ouch! This is known as cascading problems.

Does "Search" work? Is the FAQ broken? I plan to live with VirtualBox for quite a while (migrating from Sandboxie), and I'm an engineer (digital hardware), so I can serve as a resource (guinea pig): an informed and experienced technoweenie who nonetheless has trouble with VirtualBox, VirtualBox documentation, VirtualBox help, and the VirtualBox forum. Are you game to help me? As I gain experience, I can give you some invaluable feedback. BTW, In addition to having 24-years of hardware design experience, I'm also an experienced teacher (USAF, DeVry University, and North Central State College (Ohio)), and I'm a technical writer.

[Perryg]

Search in phpBBS is not the best. The way to search here or any other php based forum is to use google and add site:forums.virtualbox.org.
Example : ISO site:forums.virtualbox.org
But that search is too lean and will probably bring a lot of cruft to read through. Better to use specific "question" searches.

Next ask general question in the using VirtualBox section and the other sections are more specific, such as Windows/Linux/Solaris/Mac host and guest.

[TaeWong]

Is profanity allowed in the forum, e.g. swear words?

[mpack]

One persons profanity can be another persons mild emphasis, so it's hard to give an explicit rule about that. The posting guide says that all kinds of aggressive and/or rude behaviour are to be avoided. The moderators will decide when you've overstepped the mark. Of course a good moderator tries to avoid being heavy handed, and a good participant tries to follow the spirit of the rules.

[Tyrub]

I am new to the forum as we have just started using VB. I am trying to post a question in the Forum that I can't locate specifically in doc or other forum questions but I get message "You must be a member for 1 days and have 1 posts before you can post urls." ..... I don't know enough on product to respond to a post, which is why I am asking for help ..... The forum page does show me registered, so does that mean I am a member and can post after 1 day of using forum, or is there specific webpage to become a member ????