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LowEndTalk Community Rules (Updated April 2023)
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LowEndTalk Community Rules (Updated April 2023)

trewqtrewq Administrator, Patron Provider
edited October 4 in Announcements

Welcome to LowEndTalk!

This is the discussion forum for LowEndBox.com where you can find yourself in a world of VPS offers that are less than or equal to $10 a month!

LowEndTalk.com is aimed to be a discussion forum for a complete genre of topics surrounding low-end servers/hosting and what you can achieve with them.



LowEndTalk Members Of Staff
Administrators:
@trewq / @jbiloh / @FAT32

Moderators:
@hawc / @Jord / @netomx / @angstrom / @DP / @Arkas

To contact the members of staff or for LowEndTalk/LowEndBox-related matters, please use our Help Desk.

For LowEndTalk's Selling Rules, please refer to this post.

⬆️

The "Golden Rule" of LET
  • Don’t be a dick.

  • "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - Don't do things that decades of netiquette have shown to be offensive. Don't be "That Guy". Don't break the rules. When in doubt, just don't.

  • There will always be new ways to cause trouble for people within a community, and they can’t all be listed one by one. Intent isn’t always possible to judge, and it isn’t always relative. The administrators and the moderators are the judges, respect their requests when you are told that you have stepped out of line.

⬆️

Bannable / "kill -9" Behaviors
  • Overt racism, religious intolerance, etc. All that stuff that is in every forum TOS on the planet. If most people would think it's hate speech, it's likely the mods will, too, and besides...what does that have to do with the low end vps world? False cries of racism to derail threads will meet the same fate as racist remarks.

  • Threats, harassment, doxxing, supporting terrorist activities, making public your wish for people here to die, motivating people to commit harm to themselves, etc. You're being a dick.

  • Obvious spam. We all know it when we see it.

  • Ban evasion.

  • Being a dick.

  • Shilling.

  • Posting offers or sending PMs to other community members offering your services while not having a Patron Provider or Host Rep tag. Further information on LowEndTalk's Selling Rules can be found here.

⬆️

Things Everyone Hates and Things We Do Not Allow
  • Posting multiple threads on the same topic.

  • Creating a thread and then editing the content to remove it, replacing it with "delete please", or anything along those lines.

  • Bumping threads because you're impatient.

  • Answering every thread with your affiliate code(s)/link(s).

  • Hidden affiliate links. All affiliate links must be made obvious. Affiliate link(s) must be clearly marked as an affiliate link with a non-affiliate link provided, in the same size. Affiliate links are a privilege for helpful, contributing community members. If you signed up just to spam, expect a ban. If your only posts are affiliate links, expect a ban. This includes posting links to your blog that only contains affiliate links, URL shorteners, etc.

  • The Dark Arts of Thread Necromancy. Make sure the thread you're replying to is still relevant.

  • Posting about things other than low-end Servers and/or Technology in places other than Offtopic. The category is there for a reason.

  • Signatures longer than most of your posts that fill significant portions of our screens. It should not be more than two lines, nor should it be distracting.

  • Making 👍 your 😀 thread 😂 titles 👏 super 😍 flashy. This ain't WHT.

  • Posting threads asking for members to stress test or throughput test an IP, URL, or any other network resource(s). The potential for DDoS abuse is too great to allow such threads.

⬆️

One Account Per Person

You're only allowed one (1) account.

If you are found to have multiple accounts, admins/mods will close others or close them all depending on what they think is best. If this seems arbitrary to you, (1) it's because it is, (2) it's because mods' time is valuable, and (3) you can avoid issues by choosing which one you're going to use before mods do.

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Admins & Moderators Are People Too

You'll be expected to treat us like human beings. We are not robots that experience no emotions. We are not contracted third parties. We are humans and members of this community.

If you believe that one of us has acted out of turn and made an improper decision, you can request additional information or review via our Help Desk. Please understand that "request" does not mean you are entitled to either. We may approve or deny any request without stated reason. If that flares up your paranoia, maybe this community is not a good fit for you.

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LET is White Hat

We do not allow discussions of how to commit illegal activities such as DDoS attacks, spamming, hacking, etc. Threads on these subjects will be closed and removed. Discussion of defense against these acts are welcome.

Just to be clear - that list of subjects includes traffic exchange, residential proxies, CPA/CPL (survey) fraud, game bots, traffic bots, any similar types of unfriendly bots, botnets, subnets so you can barrage sneaker companies in search of the latest tennis shoes, as well as anything that might cause headaches for a hosting provider or is intended to intentionally violate others' terms. To be very clear, this is not an exhaustive list. You know what is shady, greyhat, blackhat, etc. Buying likes, buying views, selling or buying proxies, shoebots, ATC, Supreme, any kind of botting or referral fraud, anything intended to violate others terms of service are all included. Same goes for asking for shady or blackhat services like IP resources or VPSes without providing justification or legitimate reasoning, just don't do it. Provider lives matter. You will be permanently banned along with any accounts related to you, no appeals, no warnings if you ask for or provide proxies, sneaker bots, sneaker/streetwear proxies, proxies of any kind, any form of botting.

⬆️

LET is Multithreaded

It's true - LowEndTalk has full multithreading support! If you find your comment is more about another comment than about the thread's title, please fork the thread by starting one of your own.

There is absolutely no performance penalty for forking. Please fork your brains out rather than derailing threads.

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LET Does Not Have Subtitles

Our language of discussion is English. This is solely because the moderators all speak English and we can't moderate non-English text, and non-moderatable posts obviously have a huge potential for problems. Please post in English. Muchos danke, mon amie!

⬆️

LET is R-Rated

We've already used the word "dick" and made a fork joke (nyuck, nyuck) so obviously this isn't Nickelodeon. However, we're not X-rated so please no full frontal tentacle hentai animated gifs, etc.

⬆️

LET is a Community

We routinely critique new offers down to the bitter penny, debate this provider vs. that, trade raw opinions, and share ways to navigate LowEndLand in an open air forum. This is great freedom.

With it comes, ah hell is this going all Peter Parker? Let's be more specific:

  • This is LowEndTalk, not LowEndWebkinz. You get to pick what you say yourself, so keep in mind what you choose reflects who you are.

  • When you pull out your big boy language, make sure it's pointed at something other than another LET member.

  • Trolls are very obvious and usually not very funny. They tend to be rather dickish and you've already learned the fate of those who are dicks.

  • We don't condone, but do tolerate things like trading and selling of various things (like transfers of great VPS or server deals) from long term community members. If you signed up today to sell something without bothering to wait, read, or participate, expect to be permanently banned.

⬆️

LET is Eternal

Occasionally people want mods to delete accounts. We don't do that because Vanilla doesn't handle it very well, it messes up threads, etc. We recommend you (a) choose an account name that doesn't identify you, and (b) don't behave in a way that will embarrass future you. FYI, only you and the members of staff (admins/mods) can see your email address and IP info.

To be clear, if you post something on LET, you should expect it to live forever.

Do not open a ticket via the Help Desk regarding your "right to be forgotten" under the GDPR. Members of staff, who are volunteers, do not deal with legal or regulatory issues.

⬆️

Warnings

From time to time, the mods will warn individuals. Usually this is to draw their attention to various rules that they are apparently unaware of. Typically warnings are for 2 weeks and then removed, but there is no automated method for this and it relies on mods noticing someone's post and looking at the warning. If you feel it's been there too long, submit a ticket.

Warnings are only visible to you and the admins/mods and not to other users. They're the first, private step on the "warning, temp ban, permanent ban" ladder. Take them as a "hey, by the way, did you see this rule" nudge in the ribs. There are various warning levels (mild, medium, severe, etc.) which are chosen based on the whim of any given admin/mod.

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Politics

LowEndTalk is a hosting first global community. There are approximately 4,258,330,202 places on the Internet to discuss politics. LET doesn't need to be the 4,258,330,203rd. The occasional political thread is unavoidable given that laws and politics do affect hosting, though we ask our users to consider that our primary focus as a community is hosting-related matters.

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Commercial IP-related Posts

We recommend keeping all posts relating to commercial IP transactions, such as, requests for ranges, feeling out the market or advertising available ranges be posted in THE AIO IP Related Thread. (IPv4 + IPv6 + ASN) thread. Rules can be found within.

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Giveaways

Anyone (including providers) wishing to offer a giveaway to the community, must seek permission from an admin prior to posting. Typically, we are happy to give our approval for it, but at the same time we try our best to protect the community from scams.

Once approval has been granted, the giveaway can then be shared/posted under the "Giveaways & Freebies" category.

⬆️

Provider Offers

If you see an offer that is not right for you for some reason just move on. Not everything will fit your individual needs and it may be a great offer for someone else. It is not your place to trash hosts' offers.

While a certain amount of community self moderation has always been acceptable and is still acceptable apply common sense and try to be constructive. e.g. "OpenVZ is rubbish" or "I can get this cheaper at xyz host" is of no use to anyone. If you feel that way then just move on. Do not assume your thoughts are welcome and widely accepted by the community.

⬆️



Changelog04-27-2023 - Updated rules for Giveaways (DP)


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Comments

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited September 2016

    Thanks @raindog308 for rewriting the rules in a way that better outlines who we are as a community and what we strive to be. This rewrite was inspired directly from recent feedback on the community from long-time, active members.

    This time, the discussion is left open for the time being.

  • @Jarland where have the offer posting rules gone?

    Thanked by 2pan_ia0_net wedada
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @linuxthefish said:
    @Jarland where have the offer posting rules gone?

    Separated into this thread: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/91406/rules-for-selling-on-lowendtalk

  • MadMad Member
    edited September 2016

    @jarland Am I wrong or the rule related to the signature has been changed? (no more than 2 lines, font-weight etc.)

    It seems to be more general now, I found the previous one pretty good and useful to keep the forum clean.

    Thanked by 2pan_ia0_net Halinda
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @andreamada said:
    @jarland Am I wrong or the rule related to the signature has been changed? (no more than 2 lines, font-weight etc.)

    It seems to be more general now, I found the previous one pretty good and useful to keep the forum clean.

    You are correct. As the rules have grown a bit I have been firm in requiring that they not grow much in size. I think that signature rules are easily implied by other things in a way that is more easy to maintain.

    Now they fall under "don't be a dick." I'm less concerned with measuring someone's signature in every browser to determine if it is the appropriate length and more concerned with "is this a problem?" If it is, it should be dealt with.

    Thanked by 2pan_ia0_net ouyangss
  • BeardyUnixGuyBeardyUnixGuy Member
    edited September 2016

    I stand with @andreamada. It's much easier/simpler to refer someone to a detailed forum rule, than to prove (to the violator) that he is in violation of the "don't be a dick" rule.

    How would a new LET member interpret that three-line signatures are "being a dick", when there's other forums that permit much much worse/crazier.

    @jarland, I believe that with less detailed rules, there'll be more instances where moderator involvement will be required to confirm (to the violator) that a violation has occurred.

    Thanked by 2Mad pan_ia0_net
  • @BeardyUnixGuy Exactly, I perfectly agree with you and this is what I meant. Each moderator can perceive it differently cause it's too general and may led to misunderstandings. In such cases I rather suggest to be specific.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited September 2016

    Signatures longer than most of your posts that fill significant portions of our screens.

    +

    There will always be new ways to cause trouble for people within a community, and they can’t all be listed one by one. Intent isn’t always impossible to judge, and it isn’t always relative. The administrators and the moderators are the judges, respect their requests when you are told that you have stepped out of line.

    This isn't a court of law, just a community. We have not had a widespread problem with signatures, not enough to justify a paragraph here. If we turn the rules into a book, we are not being friendly to new members. It simply cannot contain specific language about every single action that is unacceptable. Something has to be generic and reference the intent of the rules. The rules are useless if people can't be expected to read them. We should be specific about things that are regular problems and generic about our expectations for the boundaries of behavior.

    You should walk away from reading the rules knowing who we are and what disrupts our community. I do not believe the rules should be something you have to reference so specifically that an extra press of the spacebar can have you in violation.

    So my challenge to you guys would be this: If you see a signature that bothers you, ask yourself why. Is it really something you can't get over, does it truly limit your experience as a member of this community? If that is the case, seek us out and let's open a dialogue with the member involved. It's not a ban action, I would say, unless they're being such a dick with their signature that everyone and their mother knows their intent (including them).

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited September 2016

    Slight adjustment:

    Signatures longer than most of your posts that fill significant portions of our screens. The area the top of your username to the bottom of your post, if you post one sentence, should take up more space than your signature.

    That's fairly general but still easy to check.

    Thanked by 2Mad pan_ia0_net
  • BeardyUnixGuyBeardyUnixGuy Member
    edited September 2016

    Heinz said: We have not had a widespread problem with signatures because previous forum management carefully enforced rules and did all the job here to limit exaggerated signatures. And you will fuck this.

    I cannot help but agree with these two lines, although I think the second line wasn't worded very nicely.

    We haven't had a signature problem because, naturally, there's been enforcement of certain rules. Remove the rules and you open yourself up to potential abuse of signatures.

    Maybe not immediately, but it will definitely happen. Why? Simple, it's human nature.

    Heinz said: Of course you will go your own way now when forum is your personal playground

    I don't agree with this. I understand where @jarland is coming from in that we can't expect new members to have to read a novel's worth of rules prior to participating in the community.

    It's not very cool to have a new member join up only to be banned for some silly violation. We're shutting ourselves out of new members who could potentially add their own knowledge to our discussions.

    Plus, it's not like we all memorized the rules when we initially joined. Instead, most of us simply followed the "Don't be a jerk" path and slowly saw what was acceptable and what wasn't.

    jarland said: If you see a signature that bothers you, ask yourself why. Is it really something you can't get over...

    As an administrator, you probably already recognize how often I flag on any rule violation that I see. I don't do this because it's a roadblock to me finding happiness in my life. I do it solely because rules are implemented to protect against certain unwanted outcomes, and I want to prevent those unwanted outcomes from ruining the community that I'd consider myself part of.

    By removing detailed rules, you remove the community's ability to easily be vocal about something being wrong or unacceptable. Assuming most people are generally quite tolerable, that means you will now have very few people complaining about signatures since most would also probably think "Well, no one else is complaining".

    This will likely be the slippery path down to WHT-style signatures. Among other things, a person will likely think to himself "Why should I limit myself to only 3x affiliate links in my signature when $x has 10?".

    While the discussion up until this point may have focused on signatures, the opinion sticks to all rules. Make them vague and they'll be easier to read for n00bs. However, it'll be more difficult for senior members to enlighten the n00b about why something he has done/said is not acceptable within the community.

    Maybe one option would be to separate the more specific rules into a "guidelines" section. Like rules, guidelines can also be enforced by mods/community. However, the presence of guidelines will still empower the community to self-regulate itself and hopefully lead to more cases of resolution without a mod to get involved.

    Finally, if we're completely honest about things, we'll all agree that a shorter rulebook will still not necessarily mean that every newcomer will read it through (properly).

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited September 2016

    @BeardyUnixGuy Is the new change acceptable to you? I think it's very easy to test, and it does the same thing without being so technical. It's a visual thing that upsets people, so I think a description that translates into a visual image is appropriate. Basically, if the post is 50% and signature is 50% of screen real estate used by a post, it's too much.

    Signature should take less space than a single sentence post where the top of the username to the bottom of the post should be considered.

    Thanked by 2pan_ia0_net lixg
  • BeardyUnixGuyBeardyUnixGuy Member
    edited September 2016

    jarland said: @BeardyUnixGuy Is the new change acceptable to you?

    I'm unsure how much easier the new line is compared to simply "Not more than two lines".

    Also, I don't believe there's anything there to discourage excessive anchors in signatures or bad taste/style.

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited September 2016

    Re-opened for CIVIL conversation. This will absolutely NOT be the meeting place for the resident "I hate anyone in leadership of this forum" club. I know who you are, I remember the things you say, and I will apply historical context that others will not necessarily witness at first glance. This community belongs to its members and my role is to protect their interests from the admin layer. It does not belong to the people who only pop their head in long enough to fling shit and disappear for another month.

    BeardyUnixGuy said: I'm unsure how much easier the new line is compared to simply "Not more than two lines".

    Fair. Thoughts @raindog308 @Ishaq @Amitz?

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider
    edited September 2016

    To add my two cents to the discussion: I've already had to request from two providers that they shorten their signature, since the rule change went into effect.

  • @BeardyUnixGuy is right. Let's make it "not more than two lines, not distracting in a dickish way".

  • That rule was fine, yes.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    Signatures longer than most of your posts that fill significant portions of our screens. It should not more be than two lines, nor should it be distracting.

    Adjustment made.

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • @jarland, "It should not more be than two lines"?

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @BeardyUnixGuy said:
    @jarland, "It should not more be than two lines"?

    Multitasking strikes again ;)

  • First of all let me give a long overdue thanks to @raindog308 for creating these great new rules!

    Regarding the signatures: I still believe in the old rules. This is mostly because we started with something along the lines of 'No more than two lines'. That led to discussion. So, a couple of cycles of discussion later (amongst each other and with members in violation of what we though was acceptable) we came up with the rules as they were.

    I really appreciate the simplicity of 'No more than two lines and it should not stand out'. I just hope the community is ready for it now. So let's try it!

    Thanked by 2jar pan_ia0_net
  • MadMad Member

    Thank you for the adjustment, it looks good now. Some rules need to be defined clearly rather than applying common sense cause it may vary from person to person.

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • Love the sense of humor.

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • Can we please have some minimum comment number requirement to prevent new users from simply opening a new discussion? Maybe like 10 comments?

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • @BeardyUnixGuy said:
    Can we please have some minimum comment number requirement to prevent new users from simply opening a new discussion? Maybe like 10 comments?

    That's just a recipe for a ton of garbage comments. I'd much rather have the ability to filter out toxic users.

  • @impossiblystupid, nothing to stop us filtering them out during those first comments as well.

    If the person is going to drop 20 stupid comments in one go, then they're bound to get caught. So, if they want to make a first post that'll actually stick, they will need to drop some 20-ish reasonably decent comments.

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • @BeardyUnixGuy said:
    nothing to stop us filtering them out during those first comments as well.

    Unless I'm missing something, there's no way to filter them out with this forum software. Even something like an old-school Usenet killfile would be preferable to the limited intervention that the Flag option offers.

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • I don't think we need rules for any of these last few. Community reactions take care of it pretty well. Lot of cynical smartasses around here.

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • @impossiblystupid, originally, I read your "filter" and "get them flagged/banned/removed". But I see now that you mean actual filtering out of messages etc. I agree we don't have that and I doubt we ever will. My point is simply that, to me, additional discussion requirements (such as 20 comments before 1st discussion) is worth it even for just a 5% improvement in the quality of discussions. I'd rather the guy gets flagged for stupid comments in other discussions than for him to open a brand new discussion. Hope I make more sense now.

    @alown, you are quite right but remember that 'cynical smartasses' on LET are still a limited resource. Eventually they will likely get tired of assisting with gatekeeping. There may be others to replace them but it'll always remain a limited resource nonetheless.

    Thanked by 1pan_ia0_net
  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @BeardyUnixGuy said:
    Can we please have some minimum comment number requirement to prevent new users from simply opening a new discussion? Maybe like 10 comments?

    Decreases the size of the end of the funnel that new users come in through for little benefit, IMO. Threads already stay on page one for a long time, so there's no excess of threads.

    Thanked by 2joepie91 pan_ia0_net
  • Few things I want to clarify:

    • Do not be hostile/rude to new members, if they have broken a rule flag the comment/thread and step away. We don't need you to represent staff or use harsh tones.

    • If you see SPAM, please do not quote it or even acknowledge it. Just flag it and step away. You make our lives harder cleaning up your quotes as well as the SPAM.

    Thanks.

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