faq.md

FAQ

• Can I talk about TOPIC?

  Yeah, sure, if it's interesting and people feel like talking about it. Don't try to force people to talk about it, though, or you'll just annoy everyone.

  Political topics and religious topics are fine to discuss provided you're willing to actually discuss and not just shout that you're right. However, keep in mind that you walk into all of these discussions knowing full well that you may have to walk out, concede defeat, or admit you were wrong. If you cannot handle these topics gracefully then we strongly advise you don't bring them up.

• I used to have write access but it went away, why?

  Some owners routinely prune the access list to keep it small and manageable. If you haven't used chat recently, this might include revoking your write access. Don't take it personally, the access list is just a royal pain in the ass and the smaller it is the less likely it is to cause our browsers to grind to a halt.

• What is pinging and why does everyone hate it?

  Pinging is the noise created by sending a message to a user by mentioning them with @username. Not everyone finds this annoying, but it's discouraged behavior because many abuse it to simply draw attention to their questions by pinging the three to five most recently active users in the room. Doing this will probably get you banned immediately.

  Pinging is useful for clarifying who you're speaking to if part of a discussion with multiple people where you need to reply to a specific, old message, but otherwise it's often unwanted noise and you can just refer to someone by name without the @.

• Why hasn't anyone answered my question?

  This is a chatroom, so we're here to hang out and chat about stuff. Stuff sometimes involves programming, sometimes it involves kittens, but either way, questions belong on Stack Overflow. So, while you're allowed to ask a question once you've completed whatever a room owner has asked you to do upon joining, we're here to chat, not answer questions. As such, while the regulars may bounce ideas and problems off each other, new users generally have to earn the right to ask a question. Doing this is pretty easy, however: hang out and chat.

  In general, we encourage you to post your question on Stack Overflow where many eyes will see it as opposed to just the handful active in the room. If the question is interesting, go ahead and post it, but do not bother people after you've done so. Remember that you're not entitled to an answer and we're not required to help you.

• Why is access to the room restricted?

  Short answer: after many attempts to get the room under control and stop people from just turning it into a giant help vampire haven, it was made into a gallery room. This allows us to filter out problematic users, trolls, and people who treat chat rooms as an alternative to Stack Overflow instead of the casual/informal hang-out that it is.

• Why is JMRboosties's avatar so damned weird?

  We don't know, but everyone agrees it's damn weird.

• Where can I submit room feedback?

  We have conveniently created a Google Docs form where you can submit feedback: Android Room Feedback.

• I think your rules are (stupid|bad|unfair) and you shouldn't have banned me for breaking them.

  That's not a question. You may feel free to request a write access appeal via the feedback form and someone will probably review it. Keep in mind that if you acted like a douchebag and broke the rules and argued you should be the exception to the rules, because everyone tries to argue that, then anything short of an apology probably won't carry much weight.