PHP Freaks

Please take your time to read these rules and guidelines before posting. Penalties for breaking them may be up to and including banning from the site and/or forums depending on the severity. Moreover, decisions may be taken at any time with or without notice.

If you disagree with a decision taken by a moderator, please try to solve the problem privately with the moderator first. If you cannot reach a satisfactory solution then you can contact an administrator. In that case, the decision taken by the administrator is final and is not to be discussed further.

These rules may be updated at any time with or without notice and it is your own responsibility to stay updated. The latest time this document was edited can be found at the top of the page under the headline.

If you do not agree with the rules and guidelines outlined below, then you are not allowed to use the service provided by PHP Freaks.

Rules

1. NO ADVERTISING OF ANY WEBSITES, SERVICES OR PRODUCTS IS ACCEPTABLE IN THE FORUMS. Any posts in violation of the rules will be deleted with or without notice, and you may be warned, and or banned from the site.
   
   Allowed exceptions:
   • You may post adverts seeking web development services, or advertising your availability to provide such services in the PHP Freelancing Forum. Read the Freelancing Posting Guidelines for additional instructions on using that Forum.
   • You may include links to websites you wish to promote in your signature, so long as these are done in a simple and non-distracting, text only manner. Pictures/images are not allowed.
2. NO PORNOGRAPHY OR LINKS TO PORNOGRAPHIC SITES IS ACCEPTABLE. This includes requesting critiques of Adult websites.
3. Do not make threads or posts asking for your username to be changed or deleted. The answer is NO. If we allowed this, then people would ask for name changes all the time, and nobody would know who anybody was. The only exception to this is if you somehow managed to create a username with personally identifiable information.
4. Do not ask for threads or posts to be deleted. Our goal is to build a community, not tear it down. Exceptions to this are if you somehow managed to "double post."

Guidelines

4. Search for your problem. There is a very good chance someone else has asked the same question as you. Many times. So before you post a question, ESPECIALLY a "how do I" question, make sure you've checked the following resources:
   • The manual for any language syntax questions
   • The tutorials
   • Googled (http://www.google.com)
   • The pinned topics in the various forums. Often these address FAQ's.
5. Don't ask someone to write or re-write a script for you, unless you are posting a message to the Freelancing Forum. The forums are not the place to request XYZ script. This is a community of people learning PHP, and not a script location service. Try searching SourceForge, PHP Classes, HotScripts, or Google.
6. Pick the right forum for your question. If you have a Database-only question, post in the database section (MySQL/etc). If you have an OOP question, post in the OOP board. If your question doesn't relate to programming, post in the Misc board. We've also turned off polls in most boards. If you have a question that requires a poll, post it in the Polls board.
7. Ask good questions! Consider the wording of your question carefully, be specific about your problem(s), and make sure that you have actually asked a question. Use punctuation and spelling to the best of your ability. Run on paragraphs without sentence breaks, and full of misspelled words limits your chances for a reply.
   
   Including some or all of the following information will increase the chance you get an answer:
   • Your PHP version, platform (operating system), and webserver
   • Your hosting company
   • Pertinent php.ini settings (SafeMode=On, for example)
   • Error messages if any are generated
   • Code snippets, enclosed in the php bbcode tags (either [code] or [php]).
   • MySQL, Postgresql or other database table definition(s).
   • Links to the script(s) you are having problems with.
8. Allow a few hours for an answer. If it's your question, make sure to check "Notify me when a reply is posted" and the board will email you when people reply to your message. If you haven't received a response to your message after a few hours, you may bump your question, by replying to it yourself. Just posting *bump* is sufficient.
9. Some problems are hard to diagnose. If someone requests more information, clarification, or asks you to add debugging code, don't dismiss their requests if you expect to receive additional responses.
10. Try out suggestions. If you need clarification of a reply, post a followup reply in the same thread. If you make changes, make sure to post the changed code in a reply, so that everyone is clear what changes you have implemented.
11. Please enclose your code in [code] tags. This will make your code easier to read for people because of the syntax highlighting and the monospaced font.

Various things not to do

12. DON'T Describe your question or problem as urgent, super important, must have by tommorrow etc... The people who are answering your questions are contributing their time and expertise for free. If you have an urgent problem and need priority help, consider advertising in the Freelancing forum.
13. DON'T Post 3rd party scripts (not written or customized by you) in the PHP Help areas. Post them in the "Third Party PHP Scripts" topic area
14. DO NOT send a PHP question to other members, Gurus, PHPFreaks Recommended members, Moderators, or Administrators privately. Part of the benefit to the community of asking your question, is that any answers you receive may benefit others who are following the thread, or those with similar problems who find it in the future while searching. Ask your question in the forums. If someone should PM you asking you a question, please explain the rules to them, or just ignore them. Or offer your services to them for a modest fee.
15. DON'T Post your entire script unless it is short. Make an effort to pick out the problem areas, and post those sections instead. Only post entire scripts if you are asked for them in a followup reply.
16. DON'T ask the same question in more than one Forum, or in the same forum more than once. Use the bump method described previously.
17. Do not use the edit post feature in a way that will be disruptive to the topic itself. If you remove the contents of the post like that then succeeding posts may look stupid or make no sense whatsoever.

Those are the basic rules of the forums. Also, please treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. Glad to have you here! If you have any questions, feel to contact a staff member.