Unwritten AntiOnline rules
I got inspired to write this by someone (can't remember who) proposing to write the unwritten rules for AntiOnline (AO in short).
Well, here is a start:
the written unwritten AO rules
AO is an internet community excisting pretty long going back to the late ninties. Some members are around here since that early stage (the forum didn't exist then). The unwritten rules are part of the ever moving and dynamical microcosmos AO is. I think Negative once described it as such and so I'm taking this image to explain the unwritten rules.
AO survives due to it's members. Posting and sharing knowledge, feelings, tech news, ... is the main action here on the forum. In order to do this the way it should be, there are excellent tutorials by various members here. For example the Asking Smart Questions thread from pwaring:
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=231720
the Ennis ultimate faq: http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=218093
And negative's tutorial index: http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=133897
However this is not the focus of this post, there are faq's and newbie tut's enough laying around at AO, written by various respected members.
The focus of this post are the unwritten rules.
These are formed by the 'feel' that is current. When joining a community like this one (pay attention lurking on forums is bad for your health) makes you part of one big vibe / feeling. Not only are you part of it, you also constitute it. In other words the members think and feel and therefor you should evaluate what is appropriate and what not. This takes some AO experience. Let me explain with some examples:
- In the past there were some threads like the longest thread and w00t and such on. Well these threads where at a given point 'in' and more or less appropriate while it's perfectly imagable that they are not for the moment, so posting into or bumping these threads can be a bad idea.
- Post gaining, useless post gaining is not appreciated however the evaluation of what is post gaining and what is not seems to differ from time to time, always use common sense and keep in mind what I said earlier the 'feel' of AO constantly changes.
- The same goes for the antipoint assignments. Things that are not completly clear:
Wether to add your name or not? Some people argue that you should never add your name even when assigning positive app's. This way 'revenge' or 'thanks' positive or negative app's are less possible. Other argue always to add your handle. To accomplish the same goal. You see different opinions about that. The same goes for the forums where you should assign ap's. in the past Cosmos was a place where you could easily gain or loose many points. Negative however asked recently not to assign points in the cosmos forum anymore. From the point of view of this forum this is correct. The points should somehow reflect the focus of the site and that is security, so should the points.
- The points are subject of discussion and offcourse the way to banning, so be carefull with those. Alliances between members are not tolerated and are taken action upon. e.g. banning. There were high profile bannings in the past.
- Post contents, 2 years ago it was perfectly possible to post program sources to compile that would destroy all info on your harddisk, now I think those posts would get negged badly. Ao made a turn to the admin side. And some people are really picky on all that even smells lile skriptkiddie stuff. So try to avoid thatn your post seems like skriptkiddie stuff.
- One way to avoid that last thing is to pay attention to your style, spelling and grammar, I know my English is bad too, but a minimal in paying attention to what you type is appropriate.
- Keep in mind whenever you gain a status like senior member or get high antipoint rates that there were people before you and that they probably made it possible for you to gain that status. So respect is at it place when required. However this is offcourse not absolute, everyone makes faults.
At least I do ;)
- I recapitulate the most important thing to keep in mind: this site evolves constantly and at some day some posts will be possible and others not, that's the price you have to pay when joining a dynamical webcommunity. However posts that does not comply with the style idea I mentioned and are pure and only skriptkiddie stuff will never be tolerated just like that.
Next read and search, the moderators get sick of moving and deleting threads cause people post them in wrong forums.
The final thought on this all is: have the curage to use your own brains.
thx
Re: Unwritten AntiOnline rules
Quote:
Originally posted here by VictorKaum
The focus of this post are the unwritten rules.
These are formed by the 'feel' that is current. When joining a community like this one (pay attention lurking on forums is bad for your health) makes you part of one big vibe / feeling.
Also pay attention to the fact that not lurking on forums but jumping straight in can be bad for your health. I see it constantly happen that a newbie enters and asks if we could help him hack this or that. Then he wonders why he got flamed and tells that someone told him this is a hacking site. So just a couple of days lurking would have saved him.
Another point I find important is not posting to very old threads. There is a reason why some dates blink. Just start a new thread, no one wants to read those same old posts again and again.
