Forum Charter

Sparks

Robotics Forum Charter

Welcome to the boards.ie robotics forum!
This forum is for the discussion of various topics relating to robotics, whether academic or hobbyist, theoretical or practical.


Rules
There are some (we've stolen them wholesale from other forums where they work fairly well). We will try to keep them minimal, and their purpose is to allow the forum to flourish rather than to penalise anyone.

Boards.ie as a site has some basic guidelines for how to be a better poster as well as some very basic site rules. We recommend that you read them. If you've never posted on a forum before, you might also want to look at this beginner's guide.

Apart from those, here are ours:

1. Be Civil to one another.
2. You are not the internet police.
3. Replies should be on-topic.
4. No Spamming, no Shilling, no Random Nonsense.
5. Respect formatting ettiquette.
6. If you don't like the modding, follow procedure.

What if the rules are broken?
In the event that someone breaks one of the rules above, the specific sanction that will be taken will largely depend on the context. There are several kinds of sanction which moderators may use (along with editing or deletion of posts):

1. A private word by PM with the poster to point out the problem and try to resolve it.
2. A public note in the thread itself (often referred to as a Mod Notice or a Mod Warning) pointing out the problem and requiring that it be resolved.
3. A Warning for the poster.
4. An Infraction for the poster.
5. A ban from the forum for the poster, either temporarily or permanently.

It should be noted that in exceptional circumstances, a poster may be banned from the entire site, though happily this happens extremely rarely.

Here are some general questions and answers you may have as a new user, feel free to PM any moderator if you have questions you cannot find an answer to in the Frequently Asked Questions list.

• How do I reply to a post?
• Can I edit or delete my posts?
• How can I create a poll?
• How can I attach an image to my post?

Sparks

Be Civil to one another.

This is the first rule of all the shooting forums, as well as the first rule for the entire boards.ie site, for a good reason. Most directly, it means no flaming, no trolling, no personal abuse and no bad language. By anyone. To anyone. More generally, it means that this board is for discussion, not hurling abuse at others. If you think someone is wrong, you're perfectly free to tell them so. You are not perfectly free to call them an idiot. Yes, we know passions run high on some topics, and we know it's sometimes hard to resist the urge to call someone an asshat. But we'd like to remind you - this is an internet forum. You can take a few minutes to write up a civil answer explaining why the other person is wrong. And if you do so, maybe you'll change their mind; or, more likely, you could change the minds of the ten undecided folks who are also reading here, but just not posting.

First offence here may result in a temporary ban. We're really not joking about this rule folks.

Sparks

You are not the internet police.

If you have a problem with a post, use the "Report Bad Post" button (it's marked on the left side of each post with a symbol) to report it to the moderators - and then let us handle it (this explains what happens next). Do not take it on yourself to regulate the forum, to tell folks off for breaking the forum rules, or to "learn 'em some manners". Doing so may result in warnings or infractions or even outright bans, depending on the context. It's called back-seat modding and it's not on as it poisons communities and destroys forums, so we're not allowing it in here.

Seriously folks, it's an internet forum. If someone breaks the rules, just report it and get a cup of tea. There are several moderators, one of us will take care of it in fairly short order. If you try to "learn 'em good", we'll have to take care of you as well

Sparks

Replies should be on-topic.

Although we understand that the nature of life is that threads will drift off-topic; and that off-topic replies can be of even more interest than the original topic; moderators may split threads off if the thread diverges too far from the original topic. Or just shunt posts into other threads. Basicly, we want a high signal-to-noise ratio. Everyone does. So we'll try to maintain that.

Sparks

Respect formatting ettiquette.

90% of all human communication is non-verbal and thus we need to use that remaining 10% well in order to communicate properly on the forum. So we have a very few short guidelines on some basic formatting points. Please try to keep them in mind.

• No txt spk pls, k? There are more than 160 characters available per post and you have a full keyboard to post with, so please, use it.
• Please try to watch spelling and grammar as well as using paragraphs. Simple things like this make it a lot easier to read posts.
• Please refrain from using all CAPITAL LETTERS, this is the Internet equivalent of shouting and can make posts difficult to read.

Sparks

If you don't like the modding, follow procedure.

The Dispute Resolution Procedure, that is. If you have a problem with an action of the moderators, do not get into an argument in the forum about it. That will more than likely result in warnings, infractions or bans. The right way to do it is to do the following, in this order:

1. If you have an issue with a ban or infraction, the first thing you should always do is PM the Mod(s) of the forum and ask for clarification on what’s happened. Please don’t expect an answer straight away, Mods are volunteers and are not always in a position to deal with your issue. Give it at least a day.
2. If you don’t feel satisfied with the answer, or if you haven’t had an answer in more than 2 days, you should start a new thread here in the Dispute Resolution Forum. When you start this thread, please state what forum you have an issue with, provide links to the thread if applicable (you can get the link by logging out if you’ve been banned from the forum).
3. A CMod will then investigate and discuss with you and the Mod(s) involved. They may invite the Mod(s) or any other members involved to post on the thread to clarify things.
4. After these discussions, the CMod will post their decision.
5. If you feel that the outcome to this is unsatisfactory, you may request an Admin to look things over.
   An Admin’s decision is final.

In diagram form:


Private message conversations in relation to the topic at hand are ok to publish in the dispute resolution forum in an attempt to resolve an issue. This is contrary to normal Boards.ie Guidelines that permission be sought before publication of any PMs sent or received.

Please note the sequence of steps there. There are hundreds of thousands of users on boards.ie (no, that's not an exaggeration, we're one of the largest sites in Ireland and one of the largest forum sites in the world) and so the number of complaints can be high; skipping steps just adds to the strain on the CMods and Admins, which doesn't help your case. Do not skip to the end and post a thread in the Dispute Resolution Forum without first going through the preceding steps.

Further to all that, please read this thread for examples of how not to progress your complaint.