Ask fedora guidelines

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This page lists the good practices while using Ask fedora:

Please feel free to add more points to the list. If you need to discuss something with the forum moderators, find us at #fedora-ask on Freenode, or check out the list of moderators.

Video

Watch a 5 minute video that'll help you get started with using Ask Fedora:

• On Vimeo
• On YouTube
• On Archive.org

List

• Go through the "sticky" posts!
• Go through the Commonly asked questions! - These cover things like Skype, Multimedia codecs and other common questions that new users have.
• Use correct tags: Make use of existing tags instead of adding new ones. This increases the visibility of your question. Remember that tags are without spaces, so “fedora16″ is not the same as “fedora 16″. The latter actually breaks up into two separate tabs “fedora” and “16″ which is illogical. Don't use generic tags like "fedora" or "problem". Every tag has to individually make sense.
• Tags must be meaningful: Tags must not start with #. This is not twitter or facebook. Multi word tags must be underscored ex:login_screen. Tags must be in English. Avoid too narrow tags ex: intel_2200_xee is too narrow. Avoid creating new tags.
• Search before you post: Search the interweb and then Ask Fedora itself before posting your question.
• If you have more than one question, post them separately: Do not write a post that says “many Fedora questions” and ask them all together. You’re to ask each question separately.
• Frame a question: It's Ask Fedora after all.
• It is perfectly OK to answer a question that you asked: There's nothing stopping you from answering your own questions. When you do, please post your answer separately, and not in the question description.
• Post in the appropriate language specific group: We have support for different languages in Ask Fedora. Make sure you select the appropriate language in the left top of the page. The default is English. Please write complete words and not SMS lingo here ("please", not "PLS"). This is not messaging, there is no shortage of space. Please use single, correct punctuation. "!!!" doesn't mean anything.
• File bugs in bugzilla: If it is a package related issue or you are requesting an update for some package, do so directly via bugzilla. If you haven't done that before, refer to How_to_file_a_bug_report
• Ask questions in a useful manner Here’s a great post that tells you how to ask good questions. Here are some more tips on getting answers.
• Provide information about to help people help you better: People can't help you if you do not provide specific information on the issue you face. Some commands and logs that you should look for information to provide with your questions:
  • lsusb: Information on USB devices
  • lspci: Information on PCI devices
  • dmesg: Kernel messages
  • uname -a: Current running kernel
  • How do I View Logs on Fedora, for example :
    • /var/log/Xorg.0.log: X server errors, for example when you don't get a display on boot
    • /var/log/messages: Kernel and more common errors
    • ~/.xsession-errors or journalctl _UID=…: User session errors (~/.xsession_errors isn’t used in Fedora 19 GNOME or later; use journalctl with your user ID, as reported by id—and yes, that is an underscore!)
    • /var/log/pm-suspend.log: Suspend/resume logs
  • Google: All of the above logs and commands can be learned from the internet.
• Use the tools: When you want to post information along with your question, please use the tools, such as quoting, code snippet etc. If folks can’t read your questions quickly, they are not likely to answer them.
• Is that an answer?: Only post answers when you're providing a solution to the asked question. For everything else, comment on the appropriate question/answer. Having a thread of conversation as answers just confuses people looking for information. Use comments. Only post an answer when you have one.
• Please do not append "[Solved]" to your question summaries: Please do not add the tag [Solved] to your question summaries. If you received an answer that solved the issue, please mark the answer as correct and reward the helper with karma. There is no need to modify the question summary.
• Subscribe to questions you ask/answer/comment: A lot of answered questions are not marked so because the original person asking the question hasn’t responded to follow up queries!
• Reward your helpers: This is most important. Mark answers as correct, vote up a good question, vote down a bad one, comment for queries. This will make it a better, more knowledgeable forum. Use your votes!. Do not rename the question to add a "Solved" tag. Do not close answered questions. Just pick the answer you like as the correct one instead.
• If you see someone not using the forum correctly, point it out: Comment telling them what they're doing wrong politely. Hint: Use "Please mark an answer as correct." instead of "Mark an answer as correct."
• Do not take offense at being down voted: Down voting implies that someone doesn't think your answer is good enough, or complete. This isn't personal at all. What this actually means is that you have the opportunity to learn something new. Please do not take offence if your answer is down voted. It's how the forum is designed to work.
• Last but not least be polite and refrain from ranting: Ranting makes people not want to help you. There isn't anything else to it. If you're polite, folks will want to help you.

ScreenShot

AskFedora

Short cuts

• build#xxxxx links to http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=xxxx
• bug#xxxxx links to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=xxxxxx
• rhbz#xxxxx links to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=xxxxxx
• wiki:someURL links to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/someURL
• packagedb:packageName links to http://bugz.fedoraproject.org/packageName
• question#XXXX links to another question on the forum

Moderator responsibilities and guidelines

• Ensure Ask Fedora is free of spam. If you are deleting spam, ensure that the user posting the spam is blocked as well.
• All questions, answers and comments must follow the Fedora code of conduct.
• Encourage users to be helpful and participate actively.
• Enforce user guidelines listed above.
• Be helpful to our community.
• Ensure that questions are tagged appropriately.
• Delete duplicate questions if they are exactly the same and have been posted by mistake.
• If questions are very similar in content, you may close the duplicate question but MUST leave a comment pointing to the original question.
• Do not close questions just because they are answered. Leave it open unless there are special circumstances that warrant closing.

Page maintainer

Ankur Sinha 'FranciscoD' Héctor Louzao 'hhlp'