theprez98's Top Ten List of Guidelines To Making Your Stay A Pleasant One
The Remote-Exploit forums have four very simple rules (http://forums.remote-exploit.org/sho...d.php?t=5676):
* Do not post about breaking into networks that do not belong to you and for which you have no permissions
* Posts like - "Oooh! look!! I've cracked my neighbours wireless AP" or "How do I hack a network!?" are not needed here, thanks.
* Search for related previous postings, before creating a new thread
* Please don't bother with spam meassages - they will be removed/moved/edited/deleted - thanks
This post is intended to provide some additional guidance beyond the original four rules. Please note--the following are not hard-and-fast rules, but rather guidelines that I have seen work over the years here and in other forums I frequent. In some cases I have cut and pasted entire posts from other forums; see the source links for the original post). Also, please note that the admins and other moderators of this forum may have their own set of guidelines, therefore the following represents my opinions only.
10. Use of English/SMS/AOL-Speak (source: Chris @ http://www.netstumbler.org/showthread.php?t=12814)
Make an attempt at proper grammar and spelling when you post. The meaning of your post is much more likely to come across as you intended and you will not look foolish (or if you do it will be for the content of your post, not the presentation ).
This isn't AIM, IRC, ICQ, SMS or any other real time chat application. In those type of services a person often needs to quickly get their response across otherwise it gets lost in the sea of other responses. It also helps a conversation flow to quickly get a response out. This forum isn't real time. You have the luxury of time to formulate a response and the ability to directly quote the person you are responding to in order to clarify the reason your response is relevant.
We are a community. Supposedly a community of intelligent people. This forum shows up on Google for certain technical queries. That means that people outside of our community will come here seeking knowledge from time to time. Do we want the impression they get of Remote Exploit to be juvenile punks with no basic communication skills? I don't want that.
Emotion is difficult to convey in the written word. It is even more difficult when you have to wade through a paragraph of ub3r 1337 h4x0r speak dat ur n07 int3re5ted in neway. Your post is much more likely to be misconstrued if you don't take the time to spell out what you mean and formulate a coherent thought.
Finally, it makes you look ignorant if you don't use proper grammar and spelling. It's as simple as that.
9. Wireless Network Access (source: Thorn @ http://www.netstumbler.org/showthread.php?t=9896)
Under a number of State and Federal laws, accessing a network without permission of the owner is ILLEGAL. This board is NOT the place to be asking about illegal access of wireless networks. Most other countries outside the US have similar laws.
If you have come here seeking information on illegal activities, take this as a warning. Those who come in requesting information on theft of services will not be tolerated. The thread will be closed and the offending member may be banned at the discretion of the Admistrators and Moderators.
8. Use of Non-Standard Colors and Font Sizes
The use of non-standard colors and font sizes is unnecessary in most cases. If you need to make something stand out, try bold or italics.
7. The ‘I’m new post’ (source for #7, 6 and 5: aFR @ http://www.netstumbler.org/showthread.php?t=9306)
It is good to be eager to integrate into the forums and make your presence known. The best way to do this is by making an intelligent first post, asking an intelligent question, or contributing a meaningful comment to a conversation. Nothing is more annoying than reading a post that says ‘Hi, I’m new here, Ok. Bye’. ‘I’m new’ posts are generally not received well by forum users, and it’s an easy way to get on everyone’s bad side on your first post.
6. Lurking
Now, in most forums lurking is considered a bad thing. We encourage new users to lurk before making their presence known. Lurking provides you the advantage of being able to figure what’s going on before you enter the conversation. Spend your first week laying low and getting the lay of the land before making your first post. This will probably save you a fair amount of grief, as it takes very little time around here to figure out what is and is not acceptable on the board. There’s no rush, take your time.
5. Doing Things for Yourself
One of the most magnificent features of an online forum is that as time goes by, there is generally more information available. What this means is that your best resource is the search feature. Most of the topics created on a daily basis have been addressed previously, you can learn more than you think by taking the time to search for your answer before posting your question. Doing things for yourself means taking the assembled body of knowledge on this forum and the Internet in general and applying it to your issue to learn something new. Before you ask a question, learn as much as you can about the issue so that your question is asked more intelligently.
4. Social Behavior
Leave your attitude at home and don't be a jerk! Play nice with the other children. Most likely, the members of this forum do not care how 1337 you think you might be, or what webpage you defaced. Really, they're just trying to learn something new. Act appropriately, express yourself intelligently, respect the opinions of others, and you'll be fine.
3. Crap in=Crap out
The quality of the answer you receive will be directly proportional to the quality of the information you provide. The solution to this problem is for you to provide as much information as possible. If you're not sure whether to include something, err on the side of caution and include it.
2. CONTRIBUTE!
I find it very rude when people join the forum, post a new thread, and ask for someone to email them the answer. This is a community forum. The point of such a forum is knowledge for everyone, not just you; so the community-friendly way is to ask for and get your answers here, where others can then learn if they have the same questions as you. By asking a question in an open forum, you're contributing to the overall body of knowlege.
The second way to contribute is to update the BackTrack Wiki (http://backtrack.offensive-security.com/). Every bit of information you provide will help someone else with their problem. Even if your contribution is to confirm that your particular wireless card works, please do it. The more information the better the Wiki will become.
The third way to contribute is to donate money. Creating BackTrack comes with costs such as hosting, bandwidth, software and so on - not to mention the hundreds of man hours the developers invest regularly. Go to http://www.remote-exploit.org/donations.html to contribute. Please note: As a moderator I am a volunteer for the forum; your contributions will go toward the developers, not me.
1. SEARCH!
I will guess that 90% (or more) of the questions asked in this forum on a daily basis have already been asked and answered. In fact, most of those questions have been asked and answered in this forum, sometimes as recently as today or this week. Sometimes more than once. You will benefit greatly from your stay here by using the forum search function. Complement that by using a healthy dose of Google.
Conclusion
Follow the official rules (http://forums.remote-exploit.org/showthread.php?t=5676).
When posting, consider the above-listed guidelines.
You will be an uber-leet BT2 user in no time.
"\x74\x68\x65\x70\x72\x65\x7a\x39\x38";
Addendum #1: How to Ask Questions the Smart Way (Source: ESR).
If you are new to either BackTrack, Linux, or these forums, read this document in its entirety before asking your question. When you do inevitably ask a dumb question, I will ask if you have read this document, and your inevitable answer will be no. So do yourself a favor and read it. Even if you're not a noob, consider reading it, it will improve your question-asking abilities.
"\x74\x68\x65\x70\x72\x65\x7a\x39\x38";
All,
Please re-read the following two guidelines as we have had quite of bit of this stuff lately.
We're not looking for English or grammar specialists, but please make a decent attempt at this. Your Shift key is there for a reason, use it. If you use Firefox, a spell-checker is available as a plug-in. Use it.Originally Posted by theprez98
My RTFM keys are getting worn out. People are asking questions without doing very basic and simple research. This is lazy, and does nothing to help yourself. Do not start a new thread asking a question if you have not already used the following resources:
http://forums.remote-exploit.org/search.php
http://wiki.remote-exploit.org/
http://www.google.com/
A good post would go something like this:
Get the point? Good.I searched the forums for information about xyz, but couldn't find anything relevant.
I also searched the Wiki, and found vxy, but that doesn't apply to my situation because of abc.
A Google search found zzz, but I tried that and it didn't work.
Now ask your question here.
If you're a frequent offender of these basic guidelines, consider this your warning.
Have a great day.
"\x74\x68\x65\x70\x72\x65\x7a\x39\x38";
Good morning folks,
In the last few weeks the mods have been pretty busy with work, mostly people being rude to one another, and an increase in spam. Some of the older members are just as guilty as the newbs. We also see an increase in people trying to do the moderators' jobs for us. We ask you to do one thing: when you see a questionable post, report it. We will get to the bottom of it.
As the release of BT4 Beta approaches (and don't ask, I don't know when that will be), there will be another spike in traffic to the forums. This can be a good thing as we bring more people into the community. These new people will eventually make some great contributions. I don't want to turn them off with unnecessary bickering and fighting.
Take a moment before you write a post and think about how someone might react to it. If you're just fanning the flames, you might want to reconsider. As we approach this new Beta release, we the other moderators ask for a return to civility on the forums. Believe me, we'll all be better for it.
"\x74\x68\x65\x70\x72\x65\x7a\x39\x38";
Posting Permissions
