Whether you’re after a quick answer to a question or you’re looking to meet people who will bounce around ideas and get you inspired, there are certain things that you need to know if you want to make the most of any online community.
Remember: Everyone Was New Once
The first point to remember is that everyone was new once. The whole point of a forum is to learn, so for that very reason there is no such thing as a dumb question. So just ask and then bask in the goodness of knowing that hundreds of people in the future will benefit from the answers that you elicit.
Improve the Discussion
The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want them to matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said. If you have to, just move on. Save your energy for something you value.
Post Quality
In order to try to maintain a certain level of quality in discussions here, we ask that you strive to ensure that each post you make is:
Meaningful – says something of substance
Relevant – on topic and helpful, not generic advice
New – something that hasn’t already been said in the thread
What Can I Do to Make You Like Me?
Our ultimate goal here is to help people learn in a fun and welcoming environment. There are a few easy things that you can do to help us achieve that.
Be kind. No one likes a bully. When people from every walk of life get together, there are likely to be differences of opinion. That’s cool—it’s what makes the place interesting, but it also means that on occasion you might just have to walk away. We don’t tolerate name-calling or personal insults.
Be patient. Forums attract beginners, and that means beginner questions. You’ll likely come across questions that you think are stupid, but what goes around comes around. Treat people how you’d like us to treat you.
Be polite. If someone rubs you up the wrong way, reply to the content of their post rather than the tone. Easy.
Like Us Back
Every community needs growth – not just to keep things interesting, but to ensure survival. You can help us to keep this community vibrant by spreading the good word. The easiest way to do that is to share interesting posts with your peers. Invite new members to join – as many as you like!
If You See a Problem, Tell Us
It is our job that everything is clean and tidy, but there will never be enough moderators to look at every post, so we rely on you to help out. You can do that by alerting us of anything you see that looks off base. It might be a post that’s rude, it might be spam or maybe it’s just in the wrong forum. At the bottom of every post or Private Message is a ‘flag post’ icon. Tell us what’s worrying you and we’ll take a look.
If you’re in doubt about reporting something—do it. If we decide that no action is required, then none will be taken, so no harm done.
In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts in any way; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.
The Internet is Forever
Before you post, please think carefully about what you post. These days it’s good business practice to Google your company name every so often to see what people are saying about you. For that reason, if you’re asking for basic advice on how to deal with a difficult client, it would be prudent to avoid naming them.
At UX Mastery we accept that occasionally people make silly mistakes and we’ll do everything we can to help you out, but we simply lack the time to edit hundreds of posts and heavy edits or post deletions compromise the flow of a discussion. So please, think first.
Spam? There’s No Way I’d Do That!
I’m sure it’s unintentional, but sometimes spam is in the eye of the beholder. You might have just written what you consider to be the most amazing free script known to humankind. You’ve signed up to a forum with the sole intention of sharing it with as many people as possible, because that’s the kind of generous person you are. Now consider it from the moderator’s point of view. They see a new member come on board and their very first post happens to be a link back to their own site. That, my friends, looks very much like spam…
Help!
All this stuff is very interesting, but it doesn’t answer my question. How can I get some help?
No worries. There are a couple of options. Flick an email through to community@uxmastery.com and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours (on a bad day).
Terms of Service
Now for the slightly boring stuff. We have Terms of Service describing your (and our) behaviour and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.