Community/AskModerators

= Resources for Ask OpenStack Moderators =

Get familiar with About Ask OpenStack: as a Moderator you're expected to know the basic rules of the site. Who are the Moderators? Anybody with karma over 100 can edit somebody else's posts, and karma over 200 grants users the power to close posts. This means that anybody can become a Moderator: karma depends on votes, so remember to vote for others.



Be kind and welcoming to new users: there is no silly question.

The main objective of the site is to provide the best place on Internet for people to find solutions (answers) to common problems (questions) related to OpenStack. Below are some suggestions on how moderators can help reach the objective.

Titles should be clearly questions
Pay attention to the titles of the questions and make them as explicit and clear as possible. The titles need to look like questions. Good examples are:


 * Where can I find instructions on how to setup OpenStack Grizzly on VMware Workstation?
 * How to set up metadata service on a flat network?
 * Why do I get "No portal found" error while attaching cinder volume to VM?

Titles that seem like general statements, like Problem with OpenStack should be edited and transformed into precise questions: use the text of the question to rewrite the title and make it more precise. Remember the objective of the site is to give clear answers to clear questions.

If the text of the question is not clear, as a moderator, you should ask for more details adding a comment to the original question. Hopefully the person asking will edit the original question; if not, the moderator should edit it: move interesting content from the comment into the questions and delete the comment.

Get familiar with How do I write a good title on Stackoverflow.

Answers should be clear answers
Sometimes people use the space for Answers to add more details to the original question, because comments are limited to 300 characters. Remember that this is not a forum: moderators should edit the questions adding more details, copy content from the Answers (or from the comments) that is useful to make the Question look more complete and delete what becomes redundant. Remember that Ask OpenStack is about questions and answers, it's not a place for discussions or a forum.

One URL, One Question, One Answer
Remember this is not a place for discussions: if you see somebody posting multiple questions in the same Question, ask them to split the questions. We should always aim to have: One question, One Answer, One URL to rule them all.

Feel free to edit and delete the extra questions.

The evolution of a Question and its Answer
There may be times where a question has been answered but somebody shows up later and, in the comments or as a new answer, adds statements like I have a similar issue but mine is slightly different. If you believe the person is experiencing something different, kindly ask this person to ask a new question.

If you believe instead that the issue is the same at the core, use the new case to expand the validity of the question. Remember the objective is to provide the best answers to OpenStack-related questions.

Other tools are available
Sometimes people ask very wide open questions like 'how to develop a replacement for the queue manager'. If you feel the person asking the question is getting started with OpenStack, you can have people try to answer to the question but it's probably a good idea to add a comment with references to other ways to get started with developing or deploying OpenStack. One of our mailing lists and IRC channels are good compliment to Ask OpenStack. Remember: Ask is about precise questions and answers, not a good place for open discussions and hand-holding new users/developers.

Argumentative questions like 'I think OpenStack should use nosqldb' are similar to the previous kind of questions. Ask OpenStack is not the right place for debates, mailing lists are better. If you have sufficient karma, just Close questions that are candidates for discussions on IRC or mailing lists.

Maintain language consistency
The site is now available in two languages, English and Chinese, allowing to ask questions in either language. Some people may be confused and write questions in English while the site is in Chinese or viceversa. If you see questions asked in Chinese on the English site you should edit the question and switch its language to English.



= References to other sites =

http://askubuntu.com/faq

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/a-theory-of-moderation/

from https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/answering-questions-support-forum


 * Posting replies
 * Be nice. It's not your job to defend yourself, others, or even Firefox or Mozilla. Users may just be venting because their problems are frustrating. The best thing to do is to help the user get his or her answer. If you feel that a post has crossed the line, report it to a moderator by using the "Report Abuse" link.
 * Make a judgment on a user's experience based on their posts. For example, not all users know how to get to about:config. When in doubt, err on the side of explaining more.
 * Look at what OS the user is using and cater your reply to that. For example, Linux users won't have a C:\Program Files and Mac users may not be able to right-click.
 * For problems appearing after a Firefox update, try first to solve the issue. In case there are no solutions, provide a link to the previous version, if the user insists, and add a warning below the link stating that the version is insecure and can potentially compromise the confidentiality, integrity or availability of personal information.
 * For problems appearing after a Firefox update, try first to solve the issue. In case there are no solutions, provide a link to the previous version, if the user insists, and add a warning below the link stating that the version is insecure and can potentially compromise the confidentiality, integrity or availability of personal information.

http://www.jorgecastro.org/2012/04/22/improving-user-support/

http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/10647/how-do-i-write-a-good-title