Community guidelines

WestScript works when people can trust what they read and feel safe replying. These guidelines apply to posts, profiles and replies. Moderators use them when they review content, and the terms refer to them.

The short version

• Write what you know, and say where your knowledge stops.
• Credit the people and projects you build on.
• Make links honest about where they go.
• Argue with ideas and code, never with people.

Never allowed

The following is removed as soon as we find it:

• Illegal content, or instructions meant to help someone break the law.
• Malware, phishing pages, and links built to trick readers into giving up passwords or personal details.
• Deceptive or harmful links, including link text that hides the real destination.
• Harassment, hate speech or threats against anyone.
• Other people’s private information, such as addresses, phone numbers or private messages.
• Impersonating a person, a project or an organisation.
• Plagiarism and copyright infringement.
• Any sexual content involving minors.

Code people might run

If your post asks readers to run something, explain what it does first. Point out commands that delete data, change system settings or need administrator rights. Code written to damage systems or quietly collect people’s data has no place here.

Your own work, properly credited

Publish work you wrote or have the right to publish. Short quotes from docs, papers or other posts are fine when marked and credited. Copying an article in full, or most of it, is not. Translations and adaptations must say so and link to the original. Code samples you borrow must follow their licence and name the source.

Links

Linking out is normal and welcome: to documentation, repositories, specs and your own website. Each link should lead where its text says and be useful to the post. A post that exists only to carry links does not belong here.

Profiles

Writers use their real name or one consistent pen name. The portrait, bio and website on a profile must be about the writer. People replying may use any name that does not pretend to be someone else.

Replies

Keep replies on topic and civil. Corrections, questions and examples from your own setup make a thread better. Spam, self-promotion, personal attacks and off-topic replies are not approved; a moderator reads every guest reply before it appears.

What moderators do

Moderators may remove posts or replies that break these guidelines, and may close a blog after serious or repeated problems. The response fits the problem: an off-topic reply simply stays unpublished, while a phishing link is taken down at once.

To report something, use the contact page, choose Report a post or comment (or Copyright notice for your own copied work) and include the link. A person reads every report.