I am a little concerned about

No Business Advertising
Creating threads, posts, or signatures that serve solely to promote your business (whatever that may be, personal blogs excluded) is not allowed. Referral links and viral marketing are also not allowed.

Though I don't really have a "business" exactly, I am unsure of how this applies to me and the "Laser Cut Stand for N900" thread.

I want nothing more than to behave appropriately and be an upstanding member of the community (and I hope I've done alright in this respect so far). I'm not interested in causing trouble or operating against the rules, so if I should just stop responding here, or if the old thread is grandfathered in, or something something, please let me know.

Yes, I think we need to adjust that portion to clearly allow folks like you and craves1 and jolouis in, while keeping the credit card number, DVD ripper, and €3 iPhone vendors out. Software companies announcing their new Maemo 5 compatible wares in the Ovi Store should also be welcomed.

Care to suggest adjusted, or altogether new, text?

There's an interesting thread right now, "Secret Exit To Release Games For N900".

Judging by the posts the thread has generated some sales for the company.

It's also a bit of a technical support for people having problems with Ovi Store.

But it's clearly commercial: The very title is an advertisement, even if it wasn't intended as one (there's no way to tell).

Is the person who started that thread in breach of the new rules?

Is the representative from the company who'se posting on there about the company's plans to release another game soon, giving the game's name for people to look up, is that person in breach of the new rules for their comments?

If I were asked to start a thread like that, and the new rules were in force, I'd be nervous at least that I'd get infraction points and/or moderation for it.

Yet it's a useful thread at the moment. Maybe not when there's hundreds of new commercial games being released every day :-) but for now, it seems welcome.

What's the policy?

Thanks

All the (reasonable) interpretations point relatively in the same direction. Although I do think saying "Trolling is defined as [...]," "Flaming is defined as [...]," etc, isn't a bad idea.

I didn't know what the word trolling was when I first came here.

Any abuse of forum rules by a moderator should be reported to Reggie. Anyways, "Reserve the right to" is just jargon for "We can".

Deletion of content is very rare (usually only used for illegal material, spambots, censor bypassing, and almost never trolling/flaming.) Therefore there isn't really any reason to discuss said content.

Usually when a volatile thread gets closed, that doesn't mean discussion has to stop. It's just a way of saying that particular conversation got out of hand.

(Sorry I quoted out of order.)

No, in both places it depends what you're reverse engineering and why.

But let's say some people don't know where they stand exactly. Reverse engineering often has grey areas. For example, the efforts to make the N900 USB port work as a host port involve some amount of reverse engineering Nokia's IP (the PCB at least). Same for fixing bugs / adding features in the closed software components, such as the wifi dialogs. More deeply, getting into the closed drivers.

My question is, is all discussion about such things, where people aren't bothering to follow all the careful rules needed to keep it strictly legal reverse engineering, is intended that all such discussion be forbidden here, under the new rules?

Thanks

IMHO, It doesn't simple azat. You're not in the business too make laser cut stands. You provided a service to this community.
Now if your thread started getting bombed by Joe's laser cut stands Incorporated, a Subsidiary of World Wide Pants or suttin' that poster would be in violation of the rules and not you...

There may come a time when an industrious person like yourself may find that the services that they provide for the community have grown to the point where it becomes a viable business. If that is the case it is because this community has grown along with you... and that's a good thing. You will know what to do then.

***

This whole thread reminds me of catechism class when they covered purgatory.

"Father, if I eat meat on Friday because my mother thought it was Thursday and packed me a bologna sandwich by mistake, will we both go to purgatory or just me?"

These rules of the road are not so a Mod can put the smack down on some unsuspecting soul. Mods do enough work cleaning up, splitting, merging threads, identifying spam bots, reacting to posts that are inaccurate and perhaps misleading, answering PM's, and at times,baby sitting threads that need it.

I doubt that anyone has time to go cruising for infractions like Barney Fife with a ticket book and a quota. When a ban has to come down something is lost and nothing is gained. Most moderators I know take bans as some sort of personal failing because they think they didn't do enough to prevent it. Sadly, sometimes there is just not enough love in the world and **** has to happen.

These rules I believe are being designed so that when posting privileges for someone are restricted, it is not applied arbitrarily or based on just a "feeling" that so and so is up to no good.

I'm glad to hear there is a private mod/council area (but apparently not everyone uses it yet. Mod/council guidelines perhaps ) This area is needed because most of the time a good Mod will ask his peers for calibration before applying a sanction against a fellow member. (Mods are members too BTW. ) In many cases sanctions can not be applied until all means of mediation have been tried.

Personally I think that the tolerance for multiple accounts be revisited. There is absolutely no reason I can think of for a member to have two accounts other than to circumvent the rules in someway.
How many times did that fellow with multiple accounts vote in the last council election? When there is an opinion poll?
Someone with 2 accounts now has twice as many infractions that need to accrue before posting privileges are revoked. Is this fair to others who don't?

Just because some think IP bans are useless doesn't mean they are not a PITA. Besides there are plenty of other ways a forum can make a repeat offenders life miserable.

I see these rules/guidelines as a means to an end and not a means to make it end. Just a way to slow down the anarchy and perhaps provide a more comfortable place for many long time members and contributors to return to.

There isn't a clear distinction drawn in your discussion of this issue, though. If tomorrow Valve posted here saying they are bringing Steam to the n900, the rules frown on this.

Perhaps a forum should be made explicitly for users to post Maemo-Specific commercial announcements.

Then that particular rule can have "outside of explicitly marked areas" added to the end.

There were several reasons listed on other pages. Any time an individual wants to retain his personal identity separate from another identity, such as a personally run company or community, there is a perfectly valid reason for that person to have two accounts.

Good point about the double voting though. Perhaps a non-voting account type should be made.

Oh, well, if we're going to ban threads based on whether I'm tired of seeing them, that's easily done -- just send me a message and I'll let you know which ones to disallow!

I probably have different criteria than you do, so I'll be delighted to take responsibility!

I think it's pretty much useless to discuss this. I haven't heard about a vote, and if there was one it would be a sham.

You can establish rules until your face turns blue. They will never be of any help to get rid of forum noise. They rather signify a certain distrust towards its users and the fact that this forum world is healthy enough to being able to cope with all the things mentioned in the draft. Even without mods it would work out somehow, so don't panic and don't get lost in empty gestures of control-freakism. Also i wonder why such a move at such a time, when the maemo star (officially) reached sunset phase. We've been through the big one already, and i think it went pretty well. Not so much intervention was needed unless i missed something. Or are there any very bad news on their way?

The arguments against improved moderation and clear rules tend to rely heavily on hyperbole and extremism, such as trying to force the discussion into corners of unobtainable perfection or ridiculous labels ("fascism! no free speech! overreaction! it will have no effect! etc"). I'm really curious and want to ask those arguing from or toward extreme positions: why are you so opposed to a consensus approach? Isn't what we're doing here exactly what a community should be doing?

This isn't Anarchists Anonymous.