Forum Guidelines (All) [Updated: Oct 2, 2007]

Welcome to the PortableApps.com forums! Here, registered members can chat about all things related to portable apps. There are a few simple rules to posting that should be followed:

No Self-Promotional Posting - Posting about your own software or websites in an online forum is a form of spamming and is not permitted here. If you make a self-promotional post, it will be edited and your account may be disabled. The exception is if someone asks a question directly related to your product. In addition, if you are releasing an Free, portable, open source (OSI-approved license) individual application that is not a fork or clone of an app hosted here, you may make a post when you do a release. The code for this product must be available from the page you link to in your post and your product must properly attribute contributors (so, if you're basing a launcher on a PortableApps.com launcher, for instance, you must credit this on your product page similar to the way the Acknowledgements on this site are posted). These posts must meet the following criteria:

• short - postings of a paragraph or so. no long postings
• simple, friendly language - press releases and marketing-speak have no place in the forums
• infrequent - weekly postings would not be permitted. but one or two postings a month would be fine (this limit is per company/website/entity... all programs and employees/developers that are a part of that entity are counted together)
• properly categorized - beta announcements would go in the beta forum. requests for assistance would go in the development forum.
• program-focused - the announcement should pertain to a specific software release. it should not be advertising your company/website/entity.

Note: You can, of course, pretend that you simply "found" your own software and make a posting about it, if you're that type of person. The fee for this is US$10,000.

Homepage Link - You may enter a personal homepage or blog address within your profile. This will appear as a "Homepage" link next to your username when you make posts within the forums. Please do not link to other types of sites.

Signatures - Please refrain from posting links, email addresses, character patterns, dividing lines, block tags, bold tags or any other elements to signatures as this distracts from the real content within forum posts.

Check Support Before Posting - If you're having an issue with one of the portable apps published by PortableApps.com, your best bet is to check the support page first. You can find it by clicking the Support link at the top of the page and then selecting the Support Page for the app in question.

Search the Site Before Posting - There's a chance that what you're posting about has been mentioned before. Posting about it again only serves to clutter up the forums and make it harder for people to find what they're looking for. So, before you post, use the search function on the top right of this page.

Search the Web Before Posting - If you're having an issue with a portable app, there's a chance that it may be an issue with the app itself and not specific to the portable version. So, you may find the answer to your question by simply searching the web for your issue.

Be Polite and Patient - If you're looking for help with something, feel free to post a question about it. Keep in mind, though, that this is free, open source software. Everyone on here is developing and helping support these apps in their spare time.

Post Details - If you're having a problem, post the pertinent details of your issue. What version of the app you're using. What operating system you're running on. Any extensions or plugins that may be contributing to the problem. What directory you're using it from (or if you're using the standard ones). When requesting apps, include a description of the app (what does it do) and a link to it.

Use a Relevant Subject - You'll be far more likely to get a response and get the appropriate people to read your post if you use an appropriate subject. Subjects like "problem", "error" or "need help" don't help others help you. If you have a problem, what is it? How can you summarize it? "Error in acme.dll on startup" would be a much more useful subject, for instance.

No Bumping - Don't add a comment to a post specifically to get it to move to the top of the recent posts page. This is called bumping and is frowned upon in most public forums as, by bumping a post with a nonsense comment, you push a post with a real comment further down. If people are interested in a post, they will see and comment on it. No bumping required.

No Multiposting - Don't post the same thing to multiple forums or post it more than once if your first post doesn't get a reply right away. This clutters up the forums and makes it harder for everyone to read everything.

One Account Per Person - Only one account per person, please. Sometimes on forum sites, people create secondary accounts to flame other people or to post a second message to their own topic, making it seem like there is more interest or agreement with their point of view. If your account is blocked for abuse, you may not create another one. Accounts may not be shared.

Legal Software Only - Only links to legal software are permitted. Links to pirated software or unauthorized modifications of closed source software are not permitted. Accounts used to post such links may be banned.

Play Nice - This community is only as strong as it's members. As such, everyone is expected to conduct themselves accordingly. Name-calling, insults, etc have no place here. This shouldn't even have to be mentioned, but there have been some bad apples in the past.

Thanks for reading and following the simple guidelines outlined above. I hope you enjoy the site.

PS - If you have any thoughts or comments, post them here:
http://portableapps.com/node/2229

Regards,
John