Community Standards

[Dracarris]

On 1/28/2023 at 12:08 PM, Spotty said:

If posts do not meet subforum specific guidelines you can report the post with the "Doesn't meet subforum posting guidelines" reason.

Given how many moderators frequently visit the Tech News subforum, I'd welcome a periodic automatic scan without us reporting topics in question, and additionally a bit stricter rules what is considered clickbait. As @Lightwreather JfromN pointed out, it's getting ridiculous in what ways people sensationalize and/or misrepresent very minor developments to make clickworthy TN threads out of them.

[colonel_mortis]

Just now, Dracarris said:

Given how many moderators frequently visit the Tech News subforum, I'd welcome a periodic automatic scan without us reporting topics in question, and additionally a bit stricter rules what is considered clickbait. As @Lightwreather JfromN pointed out, it's getting ridiculous in what ways people sensationalize and/or misrepresent very minor developments to make clickworthy TN threads out of them.

Things like sensationalism can be difficult at times to judge objectively, so those issues do tend to need some discussion internally before taking action. It can help to make a decision more quickly if there is also user feedback that aligns with the moderator's judgement, to validate that it is a real issue.

[Talkativetech]

On 10/16/2021 at 2:45 AM, colonel_mortis said:

Bypassing security features, restrictions, or filters (including parental filters, school restrictions, or workplace monitoring), including on your own device.

Can I ask why this is a huge deal? What if I want to learn to flash or jailbreak an iPhone/android device? Does this also apply to countries that filter content? 

 

Sorry if I sound rude, I am just curious lol

[Skiiwee29]

2 hours ago, Talkativetech said:

Can I ask why this is a huge deal? What if I want to learn to flash or jailbreak an iPhone/android device? Does this also apply to countries that filter content? 

 

Sorry if I sound rude, I am just curious lol

Its because of a few reasons. A: We can't verify your identity and that you actually are the owner of the device. B: If a device is stolen/lost and someone "Acquires" said device, its theft. C: A lot of people are looking to bypass firewalls and rules put in place by schools, work, etc to view content that they're not permitted to on that network in question. Im sure I am missing others, but these are just a few reasons we won't help in hacking/bypassing security rules and filters. 

[LogicalDrm]

4 hours ago, Talkativetech said:

Can I ask why this is a huge deal? What if I want to learn to flash or jailbreak an iPhone/android device? Does this also apply to countries that filter content? 

 

Sorry if I sound rude, I am just curious lol

Jailbreaks are fine. It's falls under hackintosh/emulator discussion. It's not something even Apple cares about anymore.

[Texas1836]

Are we allowed to offer to buy//resell someone a LMG product over the forums? (e.g. building them a custom screwdriver at LTX then reselling it to them, after meeting and talking on the forum.

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, Texas1836 said:

Are we allowed to offer to buy//resell someone a LMG product over the forums? (e.g. building them a custom screwdriver at LTX then reselling it to them, after meeting and talking on the forum.

Classifieds rules apply. Your example would be no, since it's service, not a product. Selling essentially used LMG merch is same as selling anything else. You need 100 posts to qualify and must follow subforum rules.

[cipher_hawk]

I think that this new set of Comunity standards and all of the new open sourced information 

is an amazing aproach for the future of LTT

[LogicalDrm]

5 minutes ago, Hleahy said:

I think that this new set of Comunity standards and all of the new open sourced information 

is an amazing aproach for the future of LTT

The re-write OF CS was iniated by moderation and executed by moderation. It was done way before current drama and mainly to clear some of the more commonly disputed decisions. Core principles have remained same since forums were created.

[GOTSpectrum]

No AI generated posts I understand, 

 

But can we talk about AI text generation, prompts and asking for feedback on AI-generated content? 

 

E.G. Hey guys, I'm trying to work out the best prompt for *this task* So far here is my prompt *prompt* and I got *output* 

 

Any ideas on how to improve this 

[LogicalDrm]

23 minutes ago, GOTSpectrum said:

No AI generated posts I understand, 

 

But can we talk about AI text generation, prompts and asking for feedback on AI-generated content? 

 

E.G. Hey guys, I'm trying to work out the best prompt for *this task* So far here is my prompt *prompt* and I got *output* 

 

Any ideas on how to improve this 

I think line is quite clear. If you have bot write posts for you, then its not you posting. If you want to ask advice on using/utilizing AI, developing things or discuss about things made by/with AI, those are all allowed already. Things made by AI mainly in Off Topic.

 

No AI made posts is same as posting just google search. If you search Google, post your interpretaation of results, thats already more/better content. Same applies to AI. If you get answers by AI, you can still use them as long as its you using it as reference or source.

[soundopossum]

On 10/16/2021 at 2:45 PM, colonel_mortis said:

Community Standards

 

Generally speaking, as long as you stick to the following core principles you should not find yourself subject to disciplinary action:

• Ensure a friendly atmosphere to our visitors and forum members
• Encourage the freedom of expression and exchange of information in a mature and responsible manner
• "Don't be a dick" —Wil Wheaton
• "Be excellent to each other" —Bill and Ted
• Remember your audience; both present and future

 

The following is not an exhaustive list of the rules and guidelines that must be followed when participating on Linus Tech Tips. The rules outlined below are only the minimum expectations of members and not every issue can be predicted and addressed here, so conduct could still be considered out of line even if it isn't explicitly covered here. The moderation team reserves the right to terminate any and all accounts or remove any content at any stage without prior notice. The instructions of the moderation team must be followed at all times.

 

Industry Affiliates, in addition to following the Community Standards outlined here, should also familiarize themselves with the Industry Affiliate Code of Conduct.

 

General Conduct

• No harassment, discrimination, or abuse of any kind.
  • This includes insults and accusations (fanboy, troll, shill etc).
• No pornography, sexually explicit, or obscene content.
• No trolling or flame-bait.
  • This includes topics such as AMD vs NVIDIA, "company X sucks", and religious debates.
• No political content, regardless of your views.
  • If something spans politics and tech, the discussion must remain clearly within tech and must not descend into politics.
  • This covers all parts of the site, including status updates and the off topic subforum.
• Only one account per person, except with explicit permission from forum staff.

Spam and Non-Constructive posts

• No spamming or non-constructive posts, including:
  • Posting the same topic multiple times
  • LMGTFY (Let Me Google That For You) links or comments in the same spirit
  • Post count / Solution count / reputation farming
• No posts generated by AI
• No shortened links (bit.ly etc.) without the permission of staff.
• No thread dumping (posting a thread in the wrong section). Check the forum for the most appropriate location for your thread before posting.

Advertising and Begging

• No advertising of any non-LTT/LMG material, including:
  • No referral, affiliate, or paid links except those created by Linus Media Group.
  • Self-promotion of personal websites or content (YouTube/Twitch/etc) is only allowed on your own profile page or where appropriate (such as videos demonstrating issues for troubleshooting purposes, and in subforums that permit posting videos per subforum posting guidelines).
  • No promoting items that you are selling on third-party sites (eg. eBay, Craigslist). Trades are only permitted in the Classifieds section of the forum.
• No begging for free or discounted things, asking for donations, fundraising projects, or any similar content.

Piracy, Hacking, and other Illegal Activities

• Discussion on how to engage in piracy is not allowed.
  • Redistribution of copyrighted material, including links to third party hosting sites, is not permitted.
  • Discussion of piracy in general is acceptable (e.g. "Game X becomes the most pirated game ever").
  • Hackintosh discussion is permitted.
• Discussion on engaging in hacking or cracking is not allowed, including:
  • Bypassing security features, restrictions, or filters (including parental filters, school restrictions, or workplace monitoring), including on your own device.
• Any illegal content or discussion on engaging in illegal activities is not permitted. Canadian law applies, as well as any jurisdictions that apply to you.

Privacy

• Do not post other people's personal information (name, email, addresses, phone number, etc) without their explicit consent.
• Do not post personally identifiable information pertaining to anybody under the age of 16, including yourself, regardless of whether you have permission to do so.

Signatures

• Text only, no images or other external content linked.
• No advertising or external links other than
  • a text link to your PC Part Picker profile
  • a text link to your Folding@Home or BOINC stats page

Moderation and Bans

• Do not openly discuss the moderation of any content or user. If you have an issue please contact a staff member.
• Do not backseat moderate – if there’s an issue, please use the report function. This includes responses such as "off topic", "spam", "advertising", "status update material" etc; leave it for the mod team to handle.
• Please be aware staff cannot see private messages unless they are reported, except in exceptional circumstances.
• If you have an issue with a moderator at any time, please contact an Administrator via PM: @colonel_mortis

Subforum-Specific Requirements (including rules on video posting)

Certain subforums have additional rules specific to that section:

• Tech News – see here
• Off Topic – see here
• Build Logs – see here
• Member reviews – see here
• Guides and Tutorials – see here
• Hot deals – see here
• Classifieds – see here
• New Builds and Planning - see here.

What about swears? 

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, soundopossum said:

What about swears? 

Excessive swearing is covered in core values "Remember your audience; both present and future". There are minors viewing this, along with those who do not enjoy needless vulgarity. Usually, you don't need to swear. It only makes you feel better.

[Levent]

On 10/16/2021 at 1:45 PM, colonel_mortis said:

Post count / Solution count / reputation farming

Can this please include begging for rep/solution counter farming in signatures as well? Its starting to get obnoxious.

[Agall]

22 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

Excessive swearing is covered in core values "Remember your audience; both present and future". There are minors viewing this, along with those who do not enjoy needless vulgarity. Usually, you don't need to swear. It only makes you feel better.

Does 'swearing' include works like 'heckin' and 'stinkin' and 'biscuit-eating' and 'dangnabbit' in that sort of context, or is it primarily limited to vulgar swear words? Genuine question to help me better understand humans.

[Bitter]

1 hour ago, Agall said:

Does 'swearing' include works like 'heckin' and 'stinkin' and 'biscuit-eating' and 'dangnabbit' in that sort of context, or is it primarily limited to vulgar swear words? Genuine question to help me better understand humans.

I'll expand, what about words that aren't swears in one language or one regionality of a language but might be considered swear or swear like in another? This is a primarily North American English based forum. There's words in Australian English, New Zealand English, or British English that are swears that aren't in NA English and vice versa. Just a "use your best judgement" case by case basis kind of thing right?

[colonel_mortis]

2 hours ago, Levent said:

Can this please include begging for rep/solution counter farming in signatures as well? Its starting to get obnoxious.

Can you PM me a couple of examples that you find egregious and would want to be disallowed?

 

In the mean time, you can ignore individual members' signatures using the x button on the signature.

 

1 hour ago, Agall said:

Does 'swearing' include works like 'heckin' and 'stinkin' and 'biscuit-eating' and 'dangnabbit' in that sort of context, or is it primarily limited to vulgar swear words? Genuine question to help me better understand humans.

31 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I'll expand, what about words that aren't swears in one language or one regionality of a language but might be considered swear or swear like in another? This is a primarily North American English based forum. There's words in Australian English, New Zealand English, or British English that are swears that aren't in NA English and vice versa. Just a "use your best judgement" case by case basis kind of thing right?

There's no hard rules here, but generally the threshold we're looking at is whether others are likely to be offended or otherwise unhappy with it. The words matter here (heckin' etc are fine, an offensive swear word in another language or region not), but also the context (using a word to describe a person is quite different to an unambiguously bad event) and frequency (one f-bomb can be ok in some contexts, but using it every other word is probably not).

 

I don't have any formulae to give you, but as long as you're not totally unreasonably, you will probably be fine, and we'll give you a heads up if not.

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, Agall said:

Does 'swearing' include works like 'heckin' and 'stinkin' and 'biscuit-eating' and 'dangnabbit' in that sort of context, or is it primarily limited to vulgar swear words? Genuine question to help me better understand humans.

43 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I'll expand, what about words that aren't swears in one language or one regionality of a language but might be considered swear or swear like in another? This is a primarily North American English based forum. There's words in Australian English, New Zealand English, or British English that are swears that aren't in NA English and vice versa. Just a "use your best judgement" case by case basis kind of thing right?

 

Excessive was the word I used. It means filling post with any kind of such words. Making them kid-friendly doesn't really lessen the impact. Think, why are you using them? Usually to show displeasure towards something or someone. In both cases, using excessive bad language will give certain feel of the text, often aggressive one. Which will result in aggressive, taunting and even trollish replies. So in order to keep things calm, think whether you actually need to use any swears of any kind, or are you just using them to make yourself feel good.

 

That said, I have generally using "ducking" as replacement and reminded about both keeping it family friendly and to cool down.

[Levent]

1 hour ago, colonel_mortis said:

Can you PM me a couple of examples that you find egregious and would want to be disallowed?

 

In the mean time, you can ignore individual members' signatures using the x button on the signature.

 

Honestly speaking, its not just a user having it in 72 font size in their signature. It is turning into a dick measuring contest, someone who just joined sees that in someone elses signature immediately proceeds to beg for in their own signature as well. I guarantee you its going to turn to XDA developers here where everyone will have rep begging/whoring texts in their signatures. If idea here is to help people unconditionally then it shouldnt be constantly force fed into everyone's face.

[Skiiwee29]

3 hours ago, Levent said:

Honestly speaking, its not just a user having it in 72 font size in their signature. It is turning into a dick measuring contest, someone who just joined sees that in someone elses signature immediately proceeds to beg for in their own signature as well. I guarantee you its going to turn to XDA developers here where everyone will have rep begging/whoring texts in their signatures. If idea here is to help people unconditionally then it shouldnt be constantly force fed into everyone's face.

We don't allow begging or asking for rep to be given. If someone is explicitly asking for their post to be marked as solution etc, this is considered reputation farming, which is covered in the Community Standards.  We do allow for people to have a line in there signature with a general statement such as "Mark the solution as solution". But it can not be directly asking, like "If my post resolved your issue, please mark it as solution". This would break the rules. 

 

If you feel something is egregious or violates, as always, we encourage you to report it so we can review. 

 

Spam and Non-Constructive posts

• No spamming or non-constructive posts, including:
  • Posting the same topic multiple times
  • LMGTFY (Let Me Google That For You) links or comments in the same spirit
  • Post count / Solution count / reputation farming
• No posts generated by AI
• No shortened links (bit.ly etc.) without the permission of staff.
• No thread dumping (posting a thread in the wrong section). Check the forum for the most appropriate location for your thread before posting.

[LogicalDrm]

7 hours ago, Levent said:

Honestly speaking, its not just a user having it in 72 font size in their signature. It is turning into a dick measuring contest, someone who just joined sees that in someone elses signature immediately proceeds to beg for in their own signature as well. I guarantee you its going to turn to XDA developers here where everyone will have rep begging/whoring texts in their signatures. If idea here is to help people unconditionally then it shouldnt be constantly force fed into everyone's face.

Changing wording of the rule to be clearer (old T&C for those who remember) doesn't make difference. Veteran members break rules daily. New members join without reading them. Same goes with pinned threads and messages.

 

Overall, this isn't major issue. It happens, and it annoys handful.

[josefah]

 

Quote

 

Spam and Non-Constructive posts

• No spamming or non-constructive posts, including:
  • Posting the same topic multiple times
  • LMGTFY (Let Me Google That For You) links or comments in the same spirit
  • Post count / Solution count / reputation farming
• No posts generated by AI
• No shortened links (bit.ly etc.) without the permission of staff.
• No thread dumping (posting a thread in the wrong section). Check the forum for the most appropriate location for your thread before posting.

 

I was recently flagged for posting an "AI generated post" Which according to this I did not do. 

It was a reply, not a post. It wasn't a bot replying, it was me to save time typing up instructions on increasing the log level to verbose. 

 

it was neither "spam or non-constructive" it was relevant to the issue at hand and exactly what needed to be done to get more information on the issue at hand. 

 

 

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, josefah said:

It was a reply, not a post.

A reply is a type of post. Unless expressly stated otherwise, the Community Standards apply to all content on the forum.

If you want to discuss the post further reach out to the moderator who contacted you about it.

[josefah]

7 hours ago, Spotty said:

A reply is a type of post. Unless expressly stated otherwise, the Community Standards apply to all content on the forum.

If you want to discuss the post further reach out to the moderator who contacted, you about it.

I don't see it in my history, but again, it wasn't spam or non-constructive. It helped the poster to get me information to help assist with their issue. Which it did and I was able to find a link to their exact issue using the information from the instructions I posted. 

I agree with the rule, but in my opinion, it should be reviewed more thoroughly, and the use case should be taken into consideration. I'm not using it for attention or clicks or whatever. I enjoy assisting people and passing on my 15 years of troubleshooting experience. 

 

ChatGPT can be an invaluable troubleshooting tool when used correctly. I use it daily as an IT engineer. After verifying that its answers are correct, of course. 

[colonel_mortis]

5 minutes ago, josefah said:

I don't see it in my history, but again, it wasn't spam or non-constructive. It helped the poster to get me information to help assist with their issue. Which it did and I was able to find a link to their exact issue using the information from the instructions I posted. 

I agree with the rule, but in my opinion, it should be reviewed more thoroughly, and the use case should be taken into consideration. I'm not using it for attention or clicks or whatever. I enjoy assisting people and passing on my 15 years of troubleshooting experience. 

 

ChatGPT can be an invaluable troubleshooting tool when used correctly. I use it daily as an IT engineer. After verifying that its answers are correct, of course. 

If you don't remember the moderator involved, feel free to send me a PM instead.