Community Content Policies and Guidelines

Requirements and best practices for contribution.

Introduction

To post or reply to messages on the Liferay Forum, or to blog on the Liferay Community Blog, or contribute any other content to the Liferay Community, you must understand the guidelines and agree to the policies stated in this document. These guidelines and policies applies to any and all areas of the Liferay Community. To learn more about what our community is all about, visit the Liferay Community Ethos.

The TL;DR (Too long; didn't read)

  • Our community's content is written by you, and for you. Treat fellow community members and site staff with respect, and empathy.
  • No spam (unsolicited advertisements), phishing, illegal activity, adult content, copyrighted content, or profanity
  • No trolling, attacks, or flames
  • Job postings are OK in the right category (see below)
  • Disclose any financial or other relationship you may have to content or products or services you are recommending.
  • Make it easy for people to help! Choose the right category, and include relevant content.

About Contributing

The purpose of the Liferay Community Site (Forums, blogs, wikis, etc) is to provide community support for using Liferay Projects such as Liferay Portal, Liferay Social Office, and others. We also want this to be a place where community can develop and we can enjoy one another's company. To achieve this, we strive to maintain an atmosphere that can be enjoyed by all and we ask all members of the community to be respectful at all times. This means please use etiquette and politeness. Treat people with respect. If you do this, the rest of the code of conduct won't need more than a cursory mention.

All posts made to these forums, all blogs made to the community blog, and all wiki pages authored or edited by community members express the views and opinions of the author of each post. Those liable for the content of posts and private messages are the ones submitting the material, and not the administrators, moderators, webmaster, the Liferay community, Liferay, Inc., or anyone else.

This is a moderated community, but only in the sense that we act to deal with content that violates our content policies when we become aware of it. The staff of the community attempt to edit or remove any objectionable or illegal material as quickly as possible. However, with the volume of activity we have on our site it is impossible to review every message.

Users agree not to post anything abusive, rude, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, advertising or marketing related, or sexually-oriented. Material that suggests illegal activity or contains illegal content is also forbidden. We do not support circumventing TOS, EULA, etc here. Such threads will be closed and offending users will be penalized with infractions and warnings. Given that our community features like blogs and forums could be used by people at home, work, or school we want to ensure they will not encounter material that will cause them problems or cause their access to our site to be limited, so all content should be safe for all contexts.

Users posting any content that violates this code of conduct may receive a warning or an infraction that creates a record of the behaviour and will be associated with the account (this record is only visible by staff), may have their posts edited or removed, may have their account or IP address banned temporarily or permanently, and could have a report filed against them to their internet access provider or local authorities.

Finally, you agree that community staff have the right to remove, edit, move or close any post, topic, thread, or other content at any time they see fit following the guidelines outlined below, or the posting tips which you can find here. You agree that the staff of this community have the right to send a private message with a warning and/or censor any forum user who is in violation of forum policy.

General Policy

  1. Respect our Community Staff: Feedback is welcome in the Community forum, this is also the place to request assistance with community software issues. If you believe an error has been made in moderation or other staff actions, please post politely in this forum or email the forum staff at community@liferay.com and help us understand your perspective.
  2. Adult Content, Violence, Illegal Activity: Content containing violent, sexually oriented, or illegal content or links to sites with this content must never be posted and will be removed and privately saved as evidence. This includes content that violates the rights of copyright holders or the rights of trademark owners. Content with links to or suggesting illegal activity will also be removed. Posting or linking to any of these could result in a ban.
  3. Trolling, Attacks and Flaming: These are always forbidden.
    • Trolling is posting in a negative way that provokes emotional responses.
    • Attacks and derogatory terms of any kind are not welcome. This includes derogatory references to other people, places, groups, companies, or things.
    • Flames are messages that personally attack or otherwise harass. If content appears to be flame-bait (appears to be intended to start an argument or is likely to cause an argument rather than spur or enhance discussion, as in trolling), it may be locked or removed without notice. Individual flame-bait comments in a post may be deleted or edited at the moderators' discretion.
    • Negative views and opinions on Liferay and its community, when politely and constructively expressed and done so to invite rational and intelligent discourse are always encouraged and never censored, and are in fact welcome if the purpose is to improve the community or Liferay as a whole.
  4. Thread Closing. If a forum thread turns into an argument with no apparent direction or logical conclusion in sight, it can be closed to further comment or removed without notice. Sometimes a moderator may split the thread or split and delete portions in order to keep the discussion going, but this is not always possible.
  5. Spam (unsolicited advertising), phishing attempts, malware, viruses: Spam or phishing attacks will be deleted and the account posting it will likely be banned. It is also likely that it will be caught before being posted by automation software. If you believe your post was incorrectly marked as spam, please inform the moderators / forum staff via community@liferay.com.
  6. Job Postings. Gainful employment is valued in our industry and solicitations for Liferay-related jobs are acceptable when done so in the Jobs in the Liferay Community forum, which gives potential applicants a focused place to monitor for future employment opportunities. This area is for posting job openings, not for advertising services like training or consulting. Posts for the same company and/or same job must not be repeated within 90 days of the last attempt. Repeated posts for the same Liferay job or same company and Liferay job type are subject to deletion, warnings, and/or bans. Posts that solicit for Liferay-related jobs in other forum areas may be deleted or moved to the proper category. Posts for non-Liferay-related Jobs will be deleted, and repeated postings of this type may subject the posting account to warnings and/or bans.
  7. Signatures. Signature content must conform to the same guidelines as all content in this code of conduct and should be short (it is recommend to be 4 lines or less). You are allowed to have links to personal sites in your signature and in your profile, and may post them in threads as long as the content of the site linked does not include material that violates this code of conduct and if you are not posting any other form of advertising. Simply posting single-line or very short messages or replies in order to get more copies of your signature on the site or drive up your posting count is unacceptable, and continued unwelcome behavior of this type may result in warnings and/or bans.
  8. Profanity: We have users of all age groups and of all tolerance levels where profanity is concerned. Any profanity (even in foreign languages) will not be tolerated and may result in warnings and/or bans.
  9. Politics and Religion: Discussion of the politics of open source is permissible within the Liferay Forum, but no other political or religious postings are permitted in any form in any other area of the community.
  10. Report Posts: If you have found a post or receive a private message that you feel is inappropriate or that violates the forum code of conduct, please use the flag function to notify staff, or contact staff via community@liferay.com.
  11. Screenshots, Stack Traces, and/or attachments: Be prudent in your use of images and/or attachments; they may help to explain something more clearly or indicate a problem you are experiencing better but you have to remember that not everyone has the same bandwidth. If an image is the best way of handling the information, please use thumbnails or keep your image to a small size and less than 100kb. See the below guidlines for tips on great posts.
  12. Links: You may post links to sites with content that is acceptable according to this code of conduct. This is most useful when giving tech support and explaining a topic and then linking to a wiki page or Liferay blog with more information. You may also link to your personal site. Do not reply to a message for the sole purpose of including your signature linking to your blog or company, or for artificially driving up your number of posts.
  13. Avatars: Images must comply with the content guidelines of this code of conduct. Political avatars are not permitted at all. Religious avatars are permissible if it is not ostentatious, disruptive, provocative, or for the purposes of proselytising. Political avatars are not permitted at all.
  14. Multiple Accounts: Users may only have one active account. If you feel you have justification for requiring a new account, please contact an administrator to discuss your situation. Users who have multiple accounts without approval of an administrator may be warned and/or banned.
  15. Closing Explanations: Staff are not required to do so, but are requested to post an explanation in a thread that is closed when time permits. This is a non-exhaustive list of reasons a thread may be closed, but will give the general idea:
    • The thread has run it's course and posts have begun repeating themes
    • The thread has degraded into an argument
    • The thread topic is a duplicate of another current and active thread
    • The thread is very old.
  16. Staff: Liferay, Inc. provides community tools like the liferay.com blogs and forums as a free service to the Liferay Community, and staffs the forum with moderators both from within and outside of the company. Users who have demonstrated a consistent attitude of friendliness and kindness and who have shown a pattern of helpfulness in their posts may be contacted and invited to serve.
  17. Staff posting and moderating in the same thread: This is generally discouraged, although it is not possible for staff to avoid threads which may in the future violate this code of conduct and require moderating. Exceptions include when no one else is available or when content very clearly violates the code of conduct.
  18. Appeals: If you have a complaint about a staff action or believe an action was taken in error, please contact community@liferay.com.

Forum Posting Guidelines

First, some general advice for getting your question(s) answered: make it as easy as possible for people to help you! Most people do it out of some undefinable altruistic (dis)order, so be sure to respect that people (even when not answering) spend time reading/solving your issue. Please use the language you are most comfortable conversing in (for technical topics). If you wish to post in English (as many community members can speak and read it), but you fear your English is not good enough, try to find a forum in your language (there are 17 and counting!) or find a friend that can help you with this. Here are more tips and guidelines for posting in the Liferay Community:

  1. Search first. Before posting, please search for existing posts which may answer your question. You should search the Liferay Forum, Liferay Wiki, the Liferay JIRA issues database, StackOverflow, or use internet-wide search engines like Google to find your answer.
  2. Liferay Documentation. If you cannot find an answer with the above searches, check the official Liferay Documentation, which covers many aspects of using Liferay and related projects. Be sure to read any relevant chapters before posting a question that may already be answered!
  3. Use of native language. Feel free to create content or post on the forum in your preferred language. Note that the forums have different categories for different languages, so be sure to choose the appropriate category. If your preferred language is not represented, contact community@liferay.com to propose a new set of categories for your language! Currently, liferay.com blogs do not support multiple languages. You can create multiple blog entries in different languages, though if you intend to do this on a regular basis, please contact community@liferay.com.
  4. Marketplace app questions. If you have a specific question about a non-Liferay app, you should direct your question to the authors of the plugin, using the supplied links on the Liferay Marketplace for that particular app. For Liferay-authored apps, or questions about the Marketplace itself, please choose the appropriate category in the Marketplace forum.
  5. Choose the right category. Please choose the most appropriate language and/or sub-category to post in. Posts that are unrelated to the particular forum sub-category are subject to moving and/or deletion at the moderators' discretion. Choosing the right category will maximize your chances of getting a resolution or discussion going. liferay.com forums are used heavily and experts only monitor specific categories, and will not notice your question if you do not choose wisely.
  6. Choose a good subject. How would you describe the question in less than 40 characters! Make it easy to understand.
  7. Include enough relevant information, including:
    • Liferay version
    • Liferay Components
    • Which Marketplace plugins you're using
    • Any custom portlets, hooks, ext plugins in use
    • Relevant portal.properties or portal-ext.properties overrides
    • Your browser, database, app server, and OS details
    • Screenshots (if applicable) - you can post these to image sharing sites like imgur.com and refer to them via links.
    • Steps to reproduce (Ideally: minimized, easy-to-follow steps that will make it easy to help. If necessary, make sure to include any special setup steps
    • Actual Results (what Liferay did after performing the above steps, and expected results (what Liferay should have done)
    • Source code and stack traces. For questions that include Java (or other language) source code or stack traces, make an attempt to limit the length of them (they can be rather long), but if you're not sure, feel free to post the entire trace, just be advised that super-long stack traces may be a deterrent to someone investigating and helping you out. Another option is to attach the full stack trace as a text file, and include a relevant excerpt within a [code][/code] tag pair, or post the code to code hosting sites like Github Gists or Pastebin.
  8. Mark as a Question. If your question is truly a question, ensure that you tick the Mark as a Question checkbox. If and when you receive a good answer, be sure to mark it as an answer! This will inform others that it has been answered, and also give a little credit back to the person that took the time to answer you. Failure to do this will cause many that are looking to help to ignore your non-question question!
  9. Cross-posting. Don't post the same question in multiple categories. Doing so will subject your multiple posts to deletion or consolidation, and repeated efforts to cross-post will result in warnings and/or bans.
  10. Thread Hijacking. Don't post unrelated questions in an existing thread (also known as thread hijacking). Please begin a new thread for your unrelated question. Repeated offenses may result in deletion and/or warnings and/or bans.
  11. Zombie Threads. Don't revive old, dead threads with only remotely relevant information. Instead, start a new thread with a reference to the old/dead thread (if applicable).

Blog Posting Guidelines and Policies

Blogging has been around forever, as have the written and unwritten rules, so this should not be new to any of you. Here are some of the written rules:

  1. Content must adhere to the generic content policies above.
  2. Be courtous and respectful.Don't use foul language, don't be mean, don't disrespect, don't hate, don't pre-judge, etc.
  3. Don't post advertisements for your business or post job offers. Job offers can go to the forums (see above for details).
  4. Check your syntax and spelling. No one will take u srsly if u write like a txt msg to your bff. Also, be careful when copy/pasting large amounts of code from outside. Consider using GitHub Gists to house your code, and embedding the result into your blog.
  5. Don't use your blog to post questions about Liferay that belong in the forums, unless you already have an answer and wish to educate. Blogs are for well-formed thoughts about a particular subject, not for getting help connecting Liferay to your corporate LDAP server.
  6. Cite your sources, don't use copyrighted content without permission, give credit where credit is due.
  7. Respond to comments! Be sure to read and respond to follow-up comments.
  8. Profile picture. If you have not yet added a profile picture, please do so before blogging. Seeing a list of anonymous faces in the blog stream is just sad :)
  9. No tricks! (Such as continuously updating your entry's Display Date so that your blog is always at the top of the list).
  10. All blogs and posts are subject to deletion with no warning if you violate these rules, but you'll probably get a warning first.

In Closing

These policies and guidelines may change and evolve with time based on constructive feedback and experience. It is our hope that these policies will foster helpful, honest, and civil interaction. It is the users' responsibility to check this page for updates. These Forum Guidelines is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license and is attributed to The Ubuntu Forums.