Sometimes people are confused about where to ask different kinds of questions. Here’s a guide to help.
What is this folder for? This folder is for board questions, suggestions, and feedback, like it says in the name. Here are some examples:
1) How to do something specific in the forum.
These can include signatures, formatting, linking, images, etc.
We also have a specific thread for help with avatars.
2) General questions about a board rule.
If you’re reading a rule, and you’re confused about what it means in general, or don’t understand a word or phrase, this folder is a good place to ask. (See below if you've got a question about a specific situation.)
3) Suggestion for the forum.
We encourage you to read back through similar threads in this folder to see if the topic has come up before. Note that some rules (like our quoting requirement or the fact that we do moderation in public) are not open for changes. It’s fine to ask if you’re not sure, of course!
4) Other questions about the forum
This might include a question about forum history, where the best folder for a particular thread might be, or to get more information about SIGs and other special groups.
What else should I know about technical questions? If you have a problem using the forum, it is very helpful to tell us how you access it. Letting us know your device (Computer? Tablet? Phone?), operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, etc.) and things like the web browser or app you use are all very helpful in troubleshooting. If you need help figuring these out, tell us what you know, and we can ask more questions.
The forum software doesn't do what I want!There are a lot of different ways to interact on the internet these days. Our choice of software and many of our guidelines and rules are designed to make long-form text conversations work better, so they're interesting and useful now but also available as references for years to come.
While we allow image and video links, they aren't the main focus of what we do in this space. Including them is often more complex than other sites designed for audio and video sharing, and
our inclusivity guidelines have additional info about important details you should share for these formats. If those are most of what you want to share, you may find the available tools and interaction frustrating. We're glad to help with technical issues, but in some cases, the answer may be "That's just not a thing we do here."
(If you're looking for tech tools that can do specific kinds of things, ask in an appropriate forum, and people may well have suggestions or ideas.)
What kinds of questions aren’t appropriate in this folder? Questions about specific board situations (or policies related to a specific board situation) should not be asked in public. That’s against the forum rules. We moderate in public, but any questions or discussion about a specific decision should be in private.
If you have a question or concern about a post in a thread, you can report the thread, and your report will show up in a staff-only folder where all staff can read it and take any appropriate steps.
How do I report a thread? Report a thread by clicking on the 'report to moderator' link at the bottom of each post. In Tapatalk, hold your finger down to get the same options you would to quote and reply, and select 'report' instead.
Either way you will be prompted for a reason. Please share at least a sentence or two about your concern, but you can write more if you need to. If there's additional information you'd like to share, you can say that, and a staff member who's available can then follow up.
Can I ask a staff member something privately? Can you ask? Yes. In practice, it’s a little more complicated.
Staff are volunteers, and have a wide range of schedules. If you send a message to only one staff member, it's quite possible there will be a delay in a response. They may not see it for days or even weeks, or it may need to be passed on to another staff member.
We encourage you to use the report tool whenever possible so that your question can be addressed promptly. If there isn't a suitable post to reference, you can report this post to ask a question in private.
On the rare occasions this is not suitable (for example, if you have a question about a particular staff member's action), please message a couple of staff members and make it clear you've done so. For message board questions, it’s a good idea to include the message board coordinator (currently Darkhawk) whenever possible.
[Edited on October 18, 2019 to change board coordinator name - Jenett]