moderation-policy.md

The Node.js group is a tool to announce cool things you've built, discuss cool things you're working on, and get help with things that are confusing you. It is a great forum for swapping knowledge. It is part of Node's large, loose network of resources. But it's not the only one – there are other resources that might be a better place to seek help or ask questions:

• Stack Overflow is a great place to get help with specific technical questions about Node! If you post a question there, please wait a few days before crossposting it to the list, as many of the people who answer questions about Node on SO are also here. Also, crosspost with a link rather than the whole text of the question, to keep things tidy and to keep discussion of the issue in one place.
• The development of Node itself is largely handled through Github. If you think you've encountered a bug in Node itself, it's best to file an issue there.
• Likewise, the development of npm is handled by the npm team, also on Github, and npm bugs should be filed there.
• For a more conversational approach to figuring things out, #node.js and #libuv on freenode IRC are great realtime resources for help with Node.

That said, here are the rules governing the list:

1. No personal attacks or harassment. This group is governed by the Conference Code of Conduct, and violating its terms will get you barred from the list permanently, at the moderators' discretion.
2. No spam. Self-promotion is fine, and major updates of projects to which you've contributed merit a mention, but this is a technical forum, not a marketplace.
3. Large chunks of source will work much better if posted to a requirebin, jsbin, gist, or generic pastebin of some kind.

In addition, there are some more informal guidelines that, if followed, will make everyone's lives more pleasant:

• There are certain arguments that recur with monotonous regularity. Bikeshedding is a major part of hacker culture, but there is no one true solution to any of the problems that are regularly brought up on the list (promises vs callbacks vs coroutines vs generators vs CPS transforms vs ∞, JavaScript vs CoffeeScript, etc). What works best for you may not work well for somebody else.
• Not everybody comes to Node with the same background. One of Node's touted advantages is that it unifies server-side and front-end developers. Sometimes people need a little help crossing the gap. Be charitable.
• Even though Google Groups makes it easy, it's a little weird to revive a message thread that's more than a few months old. Start a new thread that summarizes the old one if you want to revisit a dead thread.

These rules and guidelines will be enforced at the moderators' discretion. We will do what we can to ensure they are applied consistently and fairly, but having a useful forum trumps arguing over precise observance of the rules. The final say about moderation decisions sits with Node's maintainers, but TJ is busy, so be reasonable.

This policy augments, rather than supersedes, the old posting guidelines. Most of what's on that page pertains to these guidelines as well.

I think part of making the community better is encouraging good contributions, in addition to moderating poor contributions.

A lot of other online communities have certain days where different behavior is encouraged, e.g.

1. beginner day
2. stupid question day
3. bragging day
4. gripe day

I think we could start with one, which I'd call module monday. Every Monday you advertise the latest module you've been working on. Advertise one or many, on Monday it's all good!

We can add more after a few weeks.

I like the way this is shaping up -- I'm spending time this week on other documentation. So this will be something that I'm working on including on nodejs.org directly.

The way things start off is excellent, I think most of those will be links to the other pieces of documentation around how to participate in those communities. So don't worry about trying to enumerate how to determine if something is or isn't a bug etc.

Self promotion will be difficult to manage versus notable upgrade -- but most people already understand the ick factor we're looking to alleviate. Jacob's idea of a module day is interesting, I'm not opposed to something like that.

I also wonder about how much we care to direct people to archives and help them learn to see if their question has already been answered -- without trying to recreate SO.

For posterity, here is the message sent to rejected posts (which I will update here if it changes):

Hey there! The moderators, for whatever reason, have decided that your message didn't fit the criteria for the group. If you check https://gist.github.com/othiym23/9886289 it should be reasonably apparent why your message didn't get through. Reasons your message may not have been accepted, in addition to the reasons listed in the moderation policy:

• post is insufficiently related to Node.js
• post is overly / overtly commercial
• post is mean, inflammatory, rude, or purely opinion
• post is prolonging a thread that's run out of gas
• post is prolonging a flamewar
• multiple posts about the same topic from the same poster

The moderators agree that some of these are judgment calls, and are willing to take the heat for said judgment calls. If you want a human being to complain at, direct your ire at othiym23@gmail.com (Forrest L Norvell), who promises to hear you out, even if he won't always have time to fully engage.

I've subscribed a couple of weeks ago and put some feedback on nodejs/node-v0.x-archive#8691 (comment) based on my short experience.

Mainly about shortening the delay between sending a message and the moment it's posted on the list (this is often a couple of hours or even a part of the day, probably only experienced by European and Asian users and not so much in the Americas, since all moderators are located in the US) and relieving @othiym23 of the burden of having to moderate seasoned mailing list users over and over again.

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