This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

The aim of this forum is to facilitate on-going constructive communication between all Delphi programmers. This is an appropriate forum if you need help with Delphi or if you have any suggestions to raise.

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules, merely guidelines to aid the human judgment of our community and keep this a clean and well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.

Please include your Delphi version, and other pertinent details, if asking for assistance as this will assist potential responders and improve your chances of receiving helpful replies.

Be aware that forum members have a wide range of programmer experience, from the complete newbie to the 30 year veteran, so do not assume the poster has the same knowledge level as yourself. If you are unsure of the experience level of the poster, and therefore the level of detail required in the answer, tactfully ask. Likewise, if you are posting a question it is beneficial to all if you include your experience level (if not apparent from the question).

Limited forms of advertising are permitted. Please see the Advertising guidelines below.

Improve the Discussion

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Spend time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

• Name-calling
• Ad hominem attacks
• Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
• Knee-jerk contradiction

Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Discourse provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s leave our community better than we found it.

Respect Privacy

We all need to respect the privacy of others and ourselves. Please don’t post email addresses, telephone numbers, physical addresses, or anything that can be used by spammers, scammers and others who misuse this information.

These forums are public and this information should not be displayed. Posts may be removed if they contain such details.

Although it is not a requirement to enter your full name for your profile, this is a small community and we encourage you to use a name or nickname that helps others recognise you.

It isn’t even necessary to sign your post, as your username is displayed before the text of your message.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

• Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
• Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
• Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
• Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of the New York Times.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

• Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
• Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
• Don’t post no-content replies.
• Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
• Don’t sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law.

Simply acknowledging copyright does not give you the right to post something that is copyright.

Please observe other people’s privacy and do not give out contact details without their permission, even if they are members of this forum.

Powered by You

This site is operated by your friendly ADUG members and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the site feedback category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.

Advertising

Some forms of advertising is welcome as long as it is appropriate to the group. This would include products and services that would be of particular interest to Australian Delphi users. Formal job advertisements are not appropriate on any category except Jobs. Members and outside agencies are asked to submit all job advertisements via Advertiser Information. If you are unsure whether your advertising is appropriate please check with the ADUG Treasurer at treasurer@adug.org.au.

Advertisers should especially take care to ensure that the subject line of their message is appropriate and descriptive. It should make clear what is being advertised, and if it is location specific then the location should be made clear. Remember that list members come from all over the country, and overseas.

Terms of Service

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.