Forum Policy - Updated on January 3, 2013

[Paulo]

§1. General Policy
Comodo forums are an open place of communication for all Comodo users, enthusiasts, and anyone else interested in contributing to the discussion of security and trust on the web in a honest and respectful way and aims to create an environment that encourages a sharing of viewpoints, experiences and feedbacks.

Although we entrust the development of these forums to our fellow members, this is a truly multicultural environment and sometimes common sense will not be enough to promote an open discussion.

To preserve this open nature, we expect all members to follow these simple rules as long as they are willing to join these forums and we invite them to express any related concern in the feedback section. For this reason we encourage all members to periodically check this policy to acknowledge any improvement.

§2. Content attribution
Your participation in these forums indicates consent that your posts will be subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.

Please don't assume that administrators and moderators are able to moderate all posts and remember that all posts express the opinions of their respective authors.

We have several (well-loved) volunteering moderators helping us maintain the forum - and, as well-informed as they may be about Comodo's products and related information, they are not employees of Comodo nor do they represent Comodo whereas Official Comodo Staff moderators are easily recognized by their official Comodo Staff avatar. In the same vein Volunteering Moderators are entitled to their own viewpoint and in that regard should be considered as plain members.

§3. Help in maintaining the forums
If you notice novice members behaving improperly please be kind, and give them guidance and the benefit of doubt. If you see specific cases of abuse, rudeness or other violations of this policy, feel free to bring it to the attention of that member through a Private Message or to any Administrators or Moderators through Report to moderator function.

§4. Policy enforcement
Moderators and Administrators usually act together as a collegiate body to review policy infringements, clarify or accommodate scenarios not explicitly addressed by this policy. Any of them may send a private message to warn any forum member in violation of this policy or behaving inappropriately. Content which violate any part of this policy may be edited, moved to the Forum Policy Violation Board or removed from the public area of these forums. Persistent policy violators' accounts may be banned or may be prevented from posting.

§5. Posting

• Respect members.  Please use common courtesies and netiquette. Forums are intended for a many to many communication, please be considerate of other members even if you are asking help to solve a specific issue. Helping yourself means helping other members too.
  
  • Avoid linking to 3rd party resources (articles, links, sites, files, etc.) that provide contents or link to resources in violation of this policy.
  • Avoid the use of all CAPITAL LETTERS in posts. ALL CAPS is considered "shouting" and causes readability issues.
  • Avoid replying to an existing topic with barely related content (topic hijacking), instead, compose a new topic. Despite problems being similar in nature, it is often the case that they have many different causes. In an attempt to get more help for your specific problem please consider opening a new topic to describe your problem and then link existing related topics. This way if a strong relation is discovered those topics could be merged.
  • These are worldwide forums. Please understand that people to whom you are addressing a message or post may live in a different time zone and it is therefore unreasonable to expect/demand an immediate reply and remember that not everyone who posts on these forums may speak English as their native language.
  • Also, please consider that what may be acceptable in your country may not be similarly accepted or appreciated in other parts of the world. We appreciate that this may be hard to achieve - all we ask is that you consider others.
• Respect moderators. They volunteer to keep these forums running efficiently. Please respect Moderators' decisions and acknowledge that Moderators and Administrators may not be able to ask for or accept your feedback every time.

§6. Forum Topics

• Read Sticky Notices. Before you post or open a new topic please look for important topics (stickies ) in that board. Sticky topics may contain the information you need or additional guidelines to help you post in a way that will prove useful to all members including yourself.
• Search before you post. Many of your questions have been answered before. To minimize noise and duplicates, search through the forums and other materials (particularly the FAQs) before you post. Please do not to resurrect a very old topic if nothing significant will be added (necroposting).
• Choose an appropriate board. If you are a new member, browse through all the boards to find the one that most closely matches the topic of your interest. Read the board description. Choosing an appropriate board will make contents easier to find.

§7. Unacceptable account properties

• Password. Your login and password are for your personal use only. The sharing of logins and passwords is expressly forbidden. If you suspect your username and/or password has been compromised, please contact an Administrator or a Moderator.
• Login name. Inappropriate login names may be edited by Administrators or Moderators, and you will receive a warning.
• Inappropriate Content. Inappropriate content will be removed from all elements of your account profile, including your avatar, signature, website, username, and any other visible text or graphic. Inappropriate content is outlined in sections 8.5 & 8.6 .
• Multiple Accounts. In the same way that sharing account login details is not permitted, multiple login accounts to these forums are not permitted. This equally applies to login accounts set up subsequent to a ban (i.e. the individual is banned, not just the account that was in use at the time of the ban).

§8. Unacceptable behaviours and content

• Impersonation.  Members should not impersonate or represent Comodo, its employees or other industry professionals. If you have questions about a specific user's affiliation with Comodo, please address them to one of the administrators of the site.
• Flaming. Comodo forum participants have different backgrounds and views. Flaming each other helps no one and is not tolerated by Comodo staff, moderators or ordinary forum members. Hostile or derogatory messages directed to any person (flames), along with other posts written for the sole purpose of antagonizing others or starting an argument (flamebait), will be edited or removed at the moderators' determination. If a topic was opened with the same purposes it will be locked or removed without any further notice.  If any topic turns into an argument it can be splitted, locked or removed without further notice. Members who continue to post in this manner or any other questionable manner that violates these forums policy (trolling) are subject to more serious disciplinary actions. Since Comodo strives to host an open and multicultural forum these boundaries are only meant to preserve this open environment.
  
• Offences based on age, sex, race, location, political affiliation, religion, cultural background or any other criteria. Opinions are welcome, but they may not escalate into flaming and rudeness against Comodo, its staff, other forum members or any other party. Comodo is truly global and so are its forum members. Cultures, opinions and traditions differ, and Comodo forums are a place for cooperation, not clashes. We do not allow hate speech. In the same vein, we do not permit the usage of explicit language on these forums and do not allow the posting or solicitation of sexually explicit material.
• Spam. Comodo maintains an aggressive no-spam policy. Spam in any of the Comodo forums will be deleted without warning. Note that informed discussion about Comodo and competitor offerings or any related hardware, software or services is welcome and encouraged in these forums - whereas fraudulent, misleading or malicious postings related to the above are not. The Comodo forums define “Spam” as any text, graphic, attachment, or link that contains or refers to any of the following: commercial advertising, product or service promotions, requests for personal or corporate donations, or sites that provide compensation for a referral (affiliate link). Double posting and crossposting are not allowed. Comodo will never spam any forum user, although spammers may try to create this impression. We also do not permit user name or email harvesting on these forums.
• Illegal or inappropriate content. Comodo is focused on building trust on the internet. Members discussing or inciting illegal activity, posting or requesting anything illegal or inappropriate will be warned or banned as appropriate.
• Adult Content. This includes signatures, websites, images, language or any form of posting that would be deemed inappropriate for viewing by minors.
• Live Malware and possibly hazardous resources. Comodo is in the business of helping secure the internet, not distributing malware. These forums are not the appropriate place to attach to or link live malware (viruses, trojans, rootkits, etc) and other resources that could be eventually misused for illegal purposes.  In general, a link to the download site for 'malware' tests/demos and other 'proof of concept' applications are acceptable, provided they are not intended or designed to cause harm to a computer nor they could be possibly misused for other illegal purposes.
  Members willing to fight malware will be allowed to post about such hazardous resources only in the Malware Research board which is visible only to Malware Research board members, Administrators and Moderators.
  Members who are willing to fight malware may apply for access to the Malware Research Board, provided they will not misuse any related resource for illicit or inappropriate purposes. Please PM Melih the CEO of Comodo if you would like to join.
• Post Poisoning. Post-Poisoning is the repetitive disruption or deflection  of the focus or intent of a thread or threads by any or all of the following methods;
  
  • Repeated posts that are not pertinent to the topic that is being discussed (off-topic posts).
  • Posts that are designed to deflect the topics original intent to the posters private agenda (thread hijacking).
  • Posts that repeatedly state a similar concept within the one topic (redundant posts).
  • Multiple posts that repeatedly state a similar concept across multiple topics (cross posting).
  • Posts containing language or images that are rude, offensive, insulting, abusive, or confrontational  (indecent posts).
  • Posts that give detrimental advice (sabotaging posts).
  • Posts that attack other members or entities (ad hominem attacks).
  Although the forum moderators cannot know the intent of a post, post poisoning often refers to a post that appears to intentionally create disruption. Examples of post poisoning may include the following scenarios:
  
  • Repeated posts on the same issue after the issue has been acknowledged or addressed.
  • Repeatedly injecting off-topic posts into a topic of limited scope.
  • Posting the same issue in several different topics.
• Copyrighted material. Posting copyrighted material without permission/attribution or posting links to sources of pirated material (warez) is prohibited.  Remember that all individual postings are copyrighted.
• Hyperlinks. Posting of shortened or obfuscated links is not allowed. Comodo Forums are about security and does not want to jeopardize members and visitors in any way or form by providing modified links. Direct download links must be marked as such. A forum user should not click on a link and have an unintended download begin.
• Personal Messages. PM's must remain private unless approved by all parties concerned and the Comodo forum moderators. Publicly disclosing content from personal messages without strictly following the below procedure will be reviewed and, if found to be in violation, will be subject to serious disciplinary action.
  To share publicly;
  
  • All parties (including anyone named in the PM) must PM an online Moderator to notify them of their intent to publish a PM as a publicly viewable post.
  • All parties must include a copy of what is intended to be published in their PM to a moderator (This also forces persons A and B include person C in the arrangement).
  • All parties agree to then wait until a confirmation PM has been received from a moderator.
  • Once all PM's are received, a moderator will PM all parties with their decision.
  • All parties consent to the PM in question being discussed between the Comodo forum moderators.
  Moderators may withhold permission if;
  
  • The PM in question names an individual that has not granted consent to publication.
  • The PM in question breaches any of the forum's T&C relating to public posts.
  • All copies of the intended post from all parties do not contain identical information.