Okay, so one of these hasn't been posted in awhile, and honestly I don't have a copy of the old one.
So I thought I'd just post a new one for all of the new folks in the forums.
First of all - Welcome. We're glad you're here. Honestly. It's through community participation that the forums are alive and kicking.
Rule #1 - Welcome. We want you and others to feel welcome.
Rule #2 - Google before posting. Liferay has been around for a long time, and honestly some issue that you think you alone are facing has likely hit someone else before you. The forums contain a great deal of accumulated knowledge, and you'll likely find some relative details.
Rule #3 - Go back and re-read rule #2. You'd be surprised how often the same questions come up in the forums because folks didn't start from google first.
Rule #4 - Mind your category. Post your question to the appropriate category. If you don't, you might not hook up with the person with the right answer. For example, if you post your theme question to the JSF category, don't be surprised if you don't get a response because the JSF guys are focused on JSF, not theming.
Rule #5 - Have patience. The forum is not a live support group, there is no one sitting at a terminal waiting for your question to come in. Folks will answer when they have time and if they have something to offer. You could get a response in minutes, but it could also be hours or days or sometimes more.
Rule #6 (Olaf's Rule) - Don't cross post. If you post here to the forums and to StackExchange, you will get a different set of answers and the knowledge provided in each are lost to the other. If you do have to or want to post in both, it is important that you provide the cross links in the posts so someone coming along later can find the details.
Rule #7 - Context is everything. When posting, remember that you have all of the context and the community has none. In order for the community to help, you have to provide context. A screen capture of a red error message saying "failure occurred" and asking how to fix, there's just no context there and no one can help with that. The best questions have not only the request for help or info, but also version details, relevant log details, code fragments (if appropriate), the list of things you've already tried, and all other context so someone on the other side can make sense of what you're looking at. Screen captures of the red error message is rarely helpful, and screen caps of log output is almost as bad (because responders cannot highlight important lines). If you find yourself adding a screen capture to a forum post, just stop and ask yourself whether that is actually useful to a person trying to respond to your post.
Rule #8 - Spam should be eaten, not posted. Liferay uses spam filters to block junk. Sometimes the automated filters let things through, but there are still moderators that will remove junk, spam and ads. We filter out bad posts and junk URLs and all kinds of things which may lead a forum user down a dark hole.
Rule #9 - Participate! Please, go ahead and participate. Whether it is just a "yeah, I was wondering that too" sort of response, over time and experience with Liferay you too will be able to move from a question poster to an answer poster. This has value not only to the community, but also to yourself. As a job hunter, when you are looking to land that next big Liferay-related job, you can point the interviewers at your forum contribution history. It demonstrates not only that you know about the product, but also highlights your team participation skills and willingness to share your knowledge, skills that are important to the hiring managers but are difficult to write into a job ad or a resume.
Rule #10 - Kharma happens. Seriously, what you send out you will tend to get back. So be nice to each other.
Oh, yeah, and go back and read rule #2
Got other rules? Let's discuss them!
So I thought I'd just post a new one for all of the new folks in the forums.
First of all - Welcome. We're glad you're here. Honestly. It's through community participation that the forums are alive and kicking.
Rule #1 - Welcome. We want you and others to feel welcome.
Rule #2 - Google before posting. Liferay has been around for a long time, and honestly some issue that you think you alone are facing has likely hit someone else before you. The forums contain a great deal of accumulated knowledge, and you'll likely find some relative details.
Rule #3 - Go back and re-read rule #2. You'd be surprised how often the same questions come up in the forums because folks didn't start from google first.
Rule #4 - Mind your category. Post your question to the appropriate category. If you don't, you might not hook up with the person with the right answer. For example, if you post your theme question to the JSF category, don't be surprised if you don't get a response because the JSF guys are focused on JSF, not theming.
Rule #5 - Have patience. The forum is not a live support group, there is no one sitting at a terminal waiting for your question to come in. Folks will answer when they have time and if they have something to offer. You could get a response in minutes, but it could also be hours or days or sometimes more.
Rule #6 (Olaf's Rule) - Don't cross post. If you post here to the forums and to StackExchange, you will get a different set of answers and the knowledge provided in each are lost to the other. If you do have to or want to post in both, it is important that you provide the cross links in the posts so someone coming along later can find the details.
Rule #7 - Context is everything. When posting, remember that you have all of the context and the community has none. In order for the community to help, you have to provide context. A screen capture of a red error message saying "failure occurred" and asking how to fix, there's just no context there and no one can help with that. The best questions have not only the request for help or info, but also version details, relevant log details, code fragments (if appropriate), the list of things you've already tried, and all other context so someone on the other side can make sense of what you're looking at. Screen captures of the red error message is rarely helpful, and screen caps of log output is almost as bad (because responders cannot highlight important lines). If you find yourself adding a screen capture to a forum post, just stop and ask yourself whether that is actually useful to a person trying to respond to your post.
Rule #8 - Spam should be eaten, not posted. Liferay uses spam filters to block junk. Sometimes the automated filters let things through, but there are still moderators that will remove junk, spam and ads. We filter out bad posts and junk URLs and all kinds of things which may lead a forum user down a dark hole.
Rule #9 - Participate! Please, go ahead and participate. Whether it is just a "yeah, I was wondering that too" sort of response, over time and experience with Liferay you too will be able to move from a question poster to an answer poster. This has value not only to the community, but also to yourself. As a job hunter, when you are looking to land that next big Liferay-related job, you can point the interviewers at your forum contribution history. It demonstrates not only that you know about the product, but also highlights your team participation skills and willingness to share your knowledge, skills that are important to the hiring managers but are difficult to write into a job ad or a resume.
Rule #10 - Kharma happens. Seriously, what you send out you will tend to get back. So be nice to each other.
Oh, yeah, and go back and read rule #2
Got other rules? Let's discuss them!
