Unwritten Rules
 

I just learned there is an unwritten rule, "Don't Necropost" I was unaware of such a thing, as the rules page http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/rules.html never mentions anything about "Necroposts" so I thought I'd post this thread to learn if there are any other unwritten rules, at this forum, I should be aware of in order to do my best at complying with the expected uniformity of these forums?

Thanks You
Stragonian

Not dragging up dead threads isn't a rule, it's just common sense.

common sense , yes

yesterday someone posted a RHEL/ ruby post on a RHEL4 thread from 2005
then again on a 2008 RHEL4 thread

if one is still using RHEL4 then they have much more problems than trying to use a rhel6 solution .

bringing up say a Fedora 6 old post and asking
Did you fix this, i have THE SAME PROBLEM on fedora 17

the two OS's are not even in the same species genus any more

Unfortunately, your comments are opinions and don't address the question.

Another unwritten rule is: don't try to introduce wars, drama or trolling from other communities. For example: if you feel you were unjustly banned from the Puppy forums, this is not the place to discuss your grievances.

I believe the following apply in the case of resurrecting old threads which are no longer relevant.
I have seen many instances on this site of old threads being resurrected with something relevant and no complaint (or a jokey one, between posters who know of each other) being made.

I hope that answers your initial question more completely, though it does just mean "use common sense".

My apologies. The answer is "no" then. :)

As well intentioned as they may be, necroposts get VERY confusing VERY quickly, with other well intentioned people trying to help people who haven't been on the forum for years and years etc.

???--I see nothing going off-topic......quite the opposite.

Thank You for addressing the question... No "wars" I understand, No "drama" I understand. Is the "For Example:" you are describing an example of trolling, if not what is trolling?

I have in the past ( and will do) if a search for a program or problem only brings up one or two hits
i will add a fix for it
noting that yes it is an OLD thread but for others searching
here is a fix

i do this for "Celestia" all the time

Not to necropost is not a rule because it depends on the topic of the thread. Posting something to a thread from 2004 that has problems in an now unsupported version of a distribution as topic is not useful for anyone. Posting a solution to an unsolved problem in Vim which is maybe dated 2007 is a different thing, since the solution most likely will work on recent versions (Vim isn't a fast moving target) and may be still helpful to other people.

Otherwise, the unwritten rules are most likey the same that you apply to your real world environment and are mostly already adressed: no drama, no trolling, don't start flamewars, just the basic netiquette.

Ok, this is off topic but it may help to explain or try to explain this thread better. I got a rebuke from druuna in the post http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...system-228904/ today at 05:54 AM for Necroposting and decided not to do such a thing as necropost anymore, because I was asked not to necropost. I had necroposted on that thread because ... I too was writing a script today to locate a possible "system" user and group then install that system user and group, in the event they did not exist on the system, only one answer was formatted as a script in the thread, since it was a perl script, and the original poster did not mention what scripting language, after seeing two other people Jan-Willem Arnold, and unSpawn, post to the thread nearly 5 years after the thread was created, I figured another 3 years didn't matter, and to this end, I learned what necroposting is.

After the rebuke for necroposting, I created this thread to better understand those rules that are not written, but may be a common part of the uniformity of this forum.

Definitions may help as well, I work with computers, not the culture that surrounds computers, or niche words within that culture, because as of 5:53 AM this morning I had never heard of a Necropost, Trolling, Flamewars, ect ...

Please don't go off topic over this example: but if I was to say, "Tagging Up" during a baseball game is just common sense, how many of you will now have to google, "Tagging Up" to know what I'm talking about?

So, this thread is not about Necroposting its about the other things that may seem to be common scene to a computer culturalists within this forum, but may not be known by someone who never got into the computer culture ... just computers themselves.

Thank You TobiSGD for the link, I was able to follow it to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_slang

I would see the thread you posted in as a gray area regarding necroposting. Not necessarily something I would blame you for, since you provided a solution that still works and wasn't delivered in that form.

Anyways, the one thing any user/member of a forum, chat or blog should know (and this includes more or less everything that was mentioned here besides necroposting) is Netiquette. If you keep this in mind you are almost ever on the save side.

Thank You TobiSGD for the additional link on Netiquette.

From my point of view the issue is more of a way to logically support a user with some issue.

10 year old post also has to be taken into context. A lot has changed in that time.


If for example a dead thread has some issue and now you feel that you want to post about your "close to" issue then we have to read the entire deal and try to figure out what is going on. If you had simply posted to a new post everyone who reads it will start off with a single starting place. We do get confused sometimes. OK, just me.

What a user might think is close may not be in fact close at all. Now you get people quoting this confusing thread and it then makes it worse.

If you had added something that was useful to a topic or a solution to the original issue then there should be no issue.

I'd think you could have sent a PM to a person and ask them why they scolded you in public. They could have done that also.

Every social group has unwritten rules.

In Sociology, those are called "norms and mores."

In no functioning social group can every rule be written; requiring every rule to be written is to ask for dysfunction.

I was taught early to "lurk before you leap." The reason for that caution is to learn the unwritten rules so that one does not transgress them.

To demand that every rule be written says more about the one doing the demanding than it does about the social group and often indicates a desire to sail close to the wind.

Just my two cents.

Another unwritten rule............

Don't spit into the wind. :tisk:

You don't tug on Superman's cape,
you don't spit into the wind.
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
and you don't mess around with Jim...

I've never tugged on superman cape, but I have looked for kryptonite ... you know ... just in case.

On a more serious note, typically, once I'm made aware of a cultural's paradigms, I often do what I can to function within it. However, without an understanding of what that culture expects, I can only operate based off of personal experience, and observations. Answering questions even long after they have been asked was never apart of the normal paradigm of my life, so I had no way of knowing the paradigm for it within this forum, and the evidence subjected there was no time limit, as two other people had posted answers 5 years after the original question was posted, without rebuke

Since I have been made aware of such a thing as necroposting, I started this thread to get an ideal of any other social normalities expected within this forum, in short my question is ... "What else do I need to know, in order not to upset people?" Unfortunately, I didn't realize many of the people would focus on the supporting information, (ie, the necroposting) and overlook the question, which upset me at first. However, I realized I have a habit of providing the supporting information to a question leading to the main question, where as nearly every other person on the face of the earth, states their question then provides their supporting information. My hope is to gain a better understanding of the things that upset people in this forum, as to encourage the well being of its community and not upset it.

I am asking that people share the unwritten rules? When any society operates with an unwillingness to share its rules, it's being operated under an esoteric / exoteric ideology. ( google it) or what is commonly refers to as a cult. As only a few individuals are privileged with esoteric understanding and therefore are "chosen" where as all the others within that society are not privileged with information available to the "chosen" or exoteric masses, which is the ideal environment for prejudice.

When someone demands that all the rules be clearly defined, it typically denotes a person or group of people desiring equal treatment, because to discern what is "equal treatment" the parameters within that society of "equal treatment" must be clearly defined, as long as rules are not clearly defined, it provides a social environment for the practice of prejudice. An unwillingness to define those rules typically indicates a desire by that society, to wrongfully exercise authority over an individual, or groups of individuals, for the practice of prejudice, to favor one person and deny favor to another.

Therefore, if the rule "Don't Necropost" is not clearly define, then how will that society exercise its enforcement of that rule without prejudice. In fact, all that society is left with is enforcement of that unwritten rule "with prejudice", either showing favoritism towards one person or denying favoritism towards another, because the parameters for Necroposting are subjective within that society, and no equal definition can be observed, only leaving ... prejudice.

... Now where did I put that kryptonite?

one of the beautiful things about LQ is that you can get solutions to all kinds of answers
http://www.webelements.com/krypton/
should help you in your quest

I think you put more in it as there is actually. The rule "Don't necropost!" is not a written rule because it is not really a rule, as I explained already in a previous post, it depends on the thread and on what you do contribute to the thread if a necropost is a good thing or a bad thing.

The rules of basic netiquette apply to any forum, chat, blog, ... (well, to the most at least) and therefore don't need to be explicitly written out.

Then there are the technical unwritten rules, which weren't addressed yet in this thread, but are somewhat self-explanatory: If you post commands/code/scripts or output of commands/code/scripts use code-tags (not fancy colors or fonts), if you quote someone use quote-tags (only quote the parts of lengthy posts that you are referring to). This is quite logical and shouldn't be needed to be explicitly written out.

There is no esoteric/exoteric ideology and there are no prejudices. This is a technical forum, so try it with logic.

I fear that that request can't be met.

One reason the "unwritten rules" in a social group are unwritten is that they are developed through custom, usage, and habit, and they morph over time as the environment changes. They become so accepted that few members of a group even know that they exist, let alone are able to articulate them, though they can recognize when someone has transgressed them because it "just doesn't feel right."

An outsider can spot them, but the insider cannot, hence "lurk before you leap."

Group dynamics is a much murkier study than programming. There's no "if . . . then." There's only a series of "if . . . probably this . . . maybe that . . . possibly something else . . . ." And what holds true for an aggregate does not hold true for individuals.

First Rule of Fight Club applies. ;)

(Serious answer: try to imagine yourself asking this anywhere else. That should give you an idea about the reasonableness of your request. And of your most recent post).

Please change that decision.

The unwritten rule is that "necroposting IS allowed", provided:

• The new answer is still relevant and helpful, and the necroposter has read
  the already given answers and knows what he is talking about.

Can't be done. If I write the unwritten rules, they cease to be unwritten.

Another unwritten rule may be that, if someone new to LQ breaks an unwritten rule, they are treated gently especially if their intention was helpful ...

Most people, even in real life, volunteer "Social Norms, Unwritten Rules, ect ... what ever you would like to call them" without ever having been asked to share them.
The only thing I'm doing that may seem a little unusually is asking, instead of waiting for them to be volunteered.
Examples of unwritten rules in real society, people often volunteer without ever being asked.

- Don't ask to barrow money from me before pay day.
- Don't talk to the boss when he's mad.
- Put the seat down when your done.
- If mama aint happy ... nobodies happy.
- Droids are not known for tearing peoples arms off when they lose .... let the woockie win. ( Ok, this one is not found in "real life" )

Netiquette Guidelines: found it to be very informative, although areas within it may need edification to apply to this or any other forum.
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

Definition found to be helpful considering the topic:
Drama: Silly, stupid, or idiotic dramatics that take place in internet interactions between people that would never happen in real life or real person-to-person interaction.

Flame: A concerted personal derogatory attack on a person usually in a discussion group or forum.

Flame War: When one person is attacked or flamed in a discussion group they may retaliate in a like manner which results in a flame war.

Necropost: To post, as on a forum, to revive a long inactive discussion thread.
Added by Anisha Kaul: unless the new answer is still relevant and helpful, and the necroposter has read the already given answers and knows what he is talking about.

Trolling: Posting outrageous messages on message boards, newsgroups, emails, ect ... to generate many irate responses, or similar conduct.

Some things I've learn from investigating this question throughout the internet:
Don't be surprised when people choose to philosophize over a question, rather then answer it.
Don't spell words with all capital letters, the words are shouted at visually impaired people who use devices to read internet media. [ http://www.aph.org/edresearch/lpguide.htm ]
Do your best to spell correctly, grammar nazies love to discredit others based on misspelled words, and bad grammer.
People don't like to be told there opinions are opinions even when they are expressing an opinion. ( Now that's odd ... at least that's my opinion. )

Do not take photos of genitals and post them.
Do not make make pedophile arrangements.
It is allowed but frowned on to hate on dead people, like Steve Jobs for example.
No running in the forums.
Give noobs a break.
Don't feed the trolls

On this forum this has a different reason. LQ is an international forum with members all over the world. For many of the members English is not their first language. So misspelled words, text/sms/leet-speak makes it unnecessary difficult to follow the discussions here.