Boundaries and Rules

[himanshu981]

I totally agree to Brian statements...

Site is for only PEOPLE PEOPLE and PEOPLE. This is not at all for companies. In right column of each profile we get about me and their corresponding site links if we are interested to know about them we should proceed further.

Category selection is a major challenge right now which can be solved by Joomla Forums Moderators Help because they have extensive experience in this.

National User Groups is a very good idea but it should be moderated by any global moderator not by any people.

Moreover, I think their should be a "humvee" in this people community who will administer strongly the beauty of community and will take immediate action to modify edit or delete.

Administrative Board with proper designation and duties is mandatory to run this community after all this site is incorporated in JOOMLA.ORG.

[nightshiftc]

+1 on everything Brian said, but I think maybe we should just do away with extension specific groups / photos / videos altogether whether free or not. Leave that to JED and extensions websites. Just imagine if every extension had a group, it would be pretty ridiculous. JUGs, I think, should have their own category and I like the Official Working Groups category.

[mark_up]

Agree with Brian that company groups should not be allowed. I created two, one for the company I work for and one for one of our more popular extensions, but mostly because everyone else was doing so. I'd be happy to remove them if rules against them were imposed and applied across the board.

Why not invite the ATAAW admins to help administer this new site... they've dealt with all the issues we're talking about. Why are we re-inventing the wheel?

[brian]

Thanks for contributing Mark and for confirming what I suspected that many groups were just created because everyone else was doing so.

[compass]

+1 on no companies or products....

I think what happened was just inertia from how Facebook works... their whole company page aspect....

[himanshu981]

I have an Idea to keep company information in people community if it is possible.

Make it commercial!

I mean to say there must be a membership system if any company wants to show its product showcase and tutorials and all whch they are existing doing would be commercial.

Free Membership + Premium Membership.

If it works then after financial gains Joomla Moderator Team would be more interested to work on this platform as well as hosting support can be done in a more better way.

If above is not possible then only Text and Banner advertisements can be allowed to show any commercial activity.

Pardon if it doesn't suits you all...

[caro84g]

Hi all,

I'm one of the lot who created a group for an extension (Joom!Fish). My reasoning was: there is an extension specific category, so you're probably asking for groups about extensions...

Regards, Carolien

P.S. I don't mind renaming to group to multilingual Joomla! or whatever, and this way talking with people about multilingual solutions...

[Jenny]

What about events that are commercial events and not Official Joomla Events? Aren't they commercial entities? Should they be allowed to have groups?

[brian]

Of course they should (are they actualy profit making entities?)

[Jenny]

Well is the determining factor profit or commercialism? How do we judge profit?

[himanshu981]

If the companies are using Joomla name and base to develop commercial extensions, I respect their efforts but Joomla has already given them a free space to put their extensions under Extensions.

then why it should be free at people again as Joomla is providing again space and then moderation team efforts and development and maintenance efforts. IS EVERYTHING FREE at Joomla???

[brian]

my tongue was firmly in my cheek about profit

[nightshiftc]

If the organization is not a non-profit that only takes donations, but receives payments for a product, service or events they are commercial / for profit whether they had a gain or loss at the end of the yr.

[newnectar]

Here is a proposed Terms and Conditions. Let us know what you think and if anything is unclear.

Intro

We respect other people's rights, and expect you to do the same. Since our goal is to provide the best in Joomla! Information and experience possible, we have a few requests and requirements regarding the content on the site.

If you feel any content violates any of these rules, or you need to bring it to the attention of a moderator please use the ‘report this’ link to notify the moderators.

Repercussions:

Those who do not follow the rules as stated below may be warned: three (3) Warnings are given before the repeat offenders receive a permanent ban.
Users with offensive usernames will be blocked without warning - if you need to change your username, please post a request on http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=576

Content not following the rules may be deleted or edited without warning.

We reserve the right to adjust these rules as is deemed necessary. We also reserve the right to adjust the consequences to fit the case.

Private Messaging

DO NOT SEND SUPPORT REQUESTS VIA PM, unless expressly invited to do so. Using PM to actively solicit work is not allowed. Post, in accord with the rules in the correct forum. Abuse of the PM system in this way can lead to your membership being removed.

Content and Behavior

* Joomla! Community Code of conduct - For the full document visit http://docs.joomla.org/Code_of_conduct
* Keep all commentary civil, and be courteous at all times. Constructive criticism is welcome, but insults directed towards other users or the site admins will not be tolerated. Coarse/insulting language will not be tolerated. o This is not the place to settle a commercial disagreement for custom development or to be a 'wall of shame'. Any posts deemed to be of this nature will be removed. Settle your disputes in private please. o This social network is centered on Joomla, Open Source software and other Internet and computer matters. It is not a place to promote ideological, religious, or political matters. All such discussions will be deleted/closed.
* Offensive, Provocative, and Defamatory Content, Personal attacks, defamation, harassment, spam, offensive content, inappropriately aggressive behavior, or other illegal activities are prohibited. o Do not discuss illegal activities. Our server is hosted in the USA and so is subject to US law. Please do not expose us to any unnecessary legal liability. Do not link to any site that contains adult content, sexually oriented material or might otherwise be considered offensive. Any post containing an inappropriate link will be deleted and the poster will receive a warning. Do not propose/link to any site that contains warez/copyrighted software/materials that can be downloaded illegally. Do not post content or take any action that infringes or violates someone else's rights or otherwise violates the law. If you repeatedly infringe other people's intellectual property rights, we will disable your account when appropriate.
* Do not astroturf or pretend to be/represent somebody else. Your account will be deleted if found to be in breach of this rule.
* Use your own words. If you wish to use the words of somebody else, quote them, citing the source. Plagiarism is unethical and is illegal in many countries.
* No commercial advertising is permitted.
* Do not post anyone's identification documents or sensitive financial information

Advertising and Promotion

Promotion of services, products or companies should be reasonable and is only allowed in your personal profile. Promotion of any kind is strictly prohibited in groups, videos and pictures.

Groups

People.joomla.org is about people, not companies and the focus should be on enabling discussions and not promotions.

* Groups are encouraged to have several administrators,
* A group's purpose should be related to Joomla!,
* Duplicates are not allowed,
* Groups in the "extensions" category should be created in the optic of enabling user discussion and collaboration on a particular extension. Those groups are not to be used to advertise nor promote the extension and therefore may be "owned" by anyone,
* Groups in the "extensions" category should be named as followed:
extension name
or if in the JED
extension name [JED]
* Groups in the "companies" category should be created in the optic of enabling user discussion and collaboration on a particular company. Those groups are not to be used to advertise nor promote the company and therefore may be "owned" by anyone,
* Groups in the "companies" category should be named as followed:
company name discussions.

Note about Group Ownership for companies and extensions:
Those groups are opened forums giving the ability to any user to post and participate in discussions about extensions and companies. Therefore, group ownership is not critical. We do encourage that groups elect/add several administrators to animate their content. If you have a request concerning a conflict in group ownership, please contact a moderator who will treat your request individually. Moderators may reserve the right of ownership at any time.

Thumbs

You may not use thumbs for personal attacks, inappropriately aggressive behavior, or harassment. Without notice to you, we may, but have no obligation to remove or add thumbs. We may also remove accounts that engage in thumb abuse.

* Account Responsibility
* You are responsible for all content posted and activity that occurs under your account (even when content is posted by others who have access to your account). Please guard your account password diligently!
* Only one account/profile per person is permitted.
* We reserve the right to remove or reclaim a username if we believe appropriate (such as when a trademark owner complains about a username and it does not closely relate to the user's actual name)
* Account name squatting is not allowed.
* Joomla! is about people, domain names in login names are not allowed.
* If we disable your account, Do not create another one without our permission.
* Do not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).
* When registering, a valid email address has to be used. Disposable email addresses are not permitted. If found, we will remove the account in question.
* Failure to abide by these rules may result in an editing, negative moderation or deletion of your post. We reserve the right to ban abusers from the site. We reserve the right to change these rules at any time.
* We can remove any content or information you post if we believe that it violates this Statement.

[magnoliaweb]

The Lithmus test we used in compiling these Terms and Conditions is PEOPLE not companies. We look forward to your ideas to help us finalize this phase of the Rules and Boundaries.

Thank you

[brian]

What do you mean when you say optic? What do you mean by "animate their content"? I thought my command of the english language was pretty good but I don't understand that. Also please take into account when writing these rules that a significant proportion of the sites users do not speak english as a native language so the language used should be kept as simple as possible.

As for extensions.
How can we have an extension that is not in the JED. Surely if it is not in the JED then that is because it has failed one of the approval criteria and the people site should not be supporting/promoting it in any way.

Companies
I'm not going to comment about companies again. I think I;ve already expressed my opinion about them already as have many others.

[himanshu981]

Promotion of services, products or companies should be reasonable and is only allowed in your personal profile. Promotion of any kind is strictly prohibited in groups, videos and pictures.

Does it mean that I can put my complete portfolio and developed extensions with support screenshots in my profile by creating some albums?

Groups in the "extensions" category should be created in the optic of enabling user discussion and collaboration on a particular extension. Those groups are not to be used to advertise nor promote the extension and therefore may be "owned" by anyone,

EDITED: Oops its already mentioned above.

You have not mentioned here about JUGs whether they are still on City level or this time National level.

How can I rely on any person if he is not inputting his efforts in his created any JUG City or State or country. It should be categorized by Joomla Team like Joomla India. If anyone wants to create a city level group then it can be created BUT still ownership issue persists in case of inactivity of admin of the same group.

[himanshu981]

What about events that are commercial events and not Official Joomla Events? Aren't they commercial entities? Should they be allowed to have groups?

Didnt find any details regarding Events...

[brian]

How about this as a nice and simple guideline

If you can do it, or already do it, on your own web site then it has no place on people.joomla.org

Hard to write and enforce as a rule, but a good idea for a guiding principle.

Shame this has been sidestepped

[newnectar]

How about this as a nice and simple guideline

If you can do it, or already do it, on your own web site then it has no place on people.joomla.org

Hard to write and enforce as a rule, but a good idea for a guiding principle.

Shame this has been sidestepped

How would you define it though? Anybody can reproduce virtually anything on their own website.

Conceptually, we are enabling discussions and collaboration between people. We do not promote a particular company, event or extension, instead we are promoting the interactions, flow of ideas and team dynamics.
Anything that can be discussed on the forum should be allowed on the people.joomla.org as well. That includes companies, extensions (whether JED or not), events.

Note on events: they can only be created by users and some events are great discussion topics. That leaves us with two cases:
1) events created by users are really "content" and rules on content apply
2) events created as groups for discussion should follow group rules

We are also discussing the possibility of simplifying what is being displayed on the frontpage by only showing items belonging to groups. There is way too much activity to display everything in a qualitative way. Filtering to only group activities, pics and videos would
- simplify the activity stream by focusing on the actual conversations (by removing A and B are now friends and such)
- remove any videos and pics created inside user profiles (which would shield promotional items that should only be accessible in profiles)

Keep in mind that moderating a tool like Jomsocial (the way it is now) is not as easy as moderating this forum. We are actively working on improving the tools.

We are reviewing and discussing all your inputs, thank you for all your comments!

[brian]

Sorry I disagree 100%. You cannot allow extensions banned from the JED to be allowed on the people site.

I've said my pieces,offered to help etc. I wont waste my time

[naseemj2]

Your question make sense how to limit spamming not to stop spamming because all of us we know that we cannot stop spam unless we shutdown our network.
Spamming suggestion
1) Joomla forum requires points or voting system such as digg that best answer should move up with help of JUGs voting, and spam will filter below, or even exposure seeker dump them down.
2) Second star rating under user name is another encouragement for spamming, I am affirm some Juser are encouraged just to post anything because they know they will get few stars.
3) Star rating or Joomla senior level should be based on answer or solution someone submit and that solution is again evaluated by user as if solution (answer) help them and it is correct answer based on our knowledge, person gets votes.
In short phpbb forum needs some re-modification, it defiantly grows more user but not quality of education, I have to admit many time I got answer from durpal and isn’t durpal forum does not have any star rating system?

“Regarding second question those who are not allowed in JED” is definitely not a encouraging idea this will divide Joomlars into group, rest you know very well.

“Dispute Resolution ideas” I do not want to prolong my story if I do not have any knowledge.

Please pay attention what I meant to say Exposure seeker and you will find enough examples within forum.

[lafrance]

Well will keep it short

Brian is right there no other way.
This happen for many factor brought prior of the launch not been applied.

Also on developer behalf.

I know a few each month donating to OSM

So here the other side of the coin Brian

Should those developer not be reward by having a group when they give to the project a portion of there revue sale?

I am glad I do not have to make the decision

Company group I would say no

Extension that are GPL listed on jed they should be allowed.

Without developer developing extension joomla would be pretty boring

Pierre

[mandville]

i can see Brians point of view, banned from JED= banned from Joomla.org

naseemj2 - people.joomla does not use phpbb or the stars level?

edit to correct banned speeling

[alledia]

Thumbs up with a small clarification:

banned from JED= banned from promoting your products on Joomla.org

[lafrance]

@alledia

Is it not people.joomla.org part of joomla.org

[mlipscomb]

I've taken the time to read through all the responses, formulate my own opinions, be active in the beta site and try to both subjectively and objectively quantify what the social site is. Here are my personal findings... please take these with a grain of salt and a matter of opinion, not suggestion. I'll try to answer the "Who, What, When, Where and How" as I see it.

Who "People" are in the Joomlasphere:
The ecosystem that makes up the entire Joomla! community. This includes the guy sitting at home on his couch installing Joomla for the first time; the small business owner that needs a brochure-type site; the large company that wants a new ecommerce store; the programmer that is writing his first extension; the programmer that is writing his 500th extension; the designer that is creating their first template; the designer that is creating their 500th template; the company owner who provides Joomla-based services or products; the site developer that purchases Joomla-based services or products; the Trademark owners and protectors; the official Joomla project leaders (elected and appointed).

What people.joomla.org should be able to incorporate:
Ideas, discussions, thoughts, events, guidance, suggestions - total collaboration - from all of the "Who" above. I do not think it is wise to exclude any sub-set of what makes up the Joomla community. Would it not make sense to allow all interested parties the right to contribute? Does it not foster open communication and further transparency in all ares of the project and the community that enables it's existence?

When should a line be drawn for exclusion?:
As a diverse community things that are said and done that are acceptable in one culture may not be acceptable in another; opinions and meanings can easily get lost in translation. For this simple reason, no heavy-handed moderation is logical. There are globally accepted ideology throughout the entire project that should remain in place: No personal attacks, no foul language, no stalking, no pornographic or adult-oriented material, no threats, no linking to stolen or "warez" sites, no unauthorized usage of Trademarked or Copyrighted materials, nothing that qualifies as "illegal" in the United States (where the site is hosted).

The community should be able to self-moderate on these principles - a "Report" button is available on everything in the site.

Where should the dividing lines be for "Official" groups, "JUGs" and other groups?
I have a different opinion on groups than most that have responded so far. I believe groups should be setup in the following manner:
To start with - all group creation should be moderated to prevent accidentally creating groups in the wrong area until the ability to restrict group categories is implemented/created (not an option currently in JomSocial, but may be in the future.)

• Official Working Groups: Any group that performs duties or manages a site of the project. The group owner should either be a site Admin or the Team Leader of the working group. These groups should have admins as the team members for those arms of the project and anyone should be able to become a member of the group to discuss options, make suggestions or easily communicate with the team. Some discussions may be deemed inappropriate by the group leaders and will need to be taken to a private discussion - that's the nature of having people in leadership positions. But, it simply makes sense to have an open and visible line of communication to the teams that lead our community.

• Officially Recognized User Groups: Any group that has been approved by Open Source Matters and an "official JUG". An appointee from OSM should be the group owner in the event that the JUGs leadership changes. The registrant on file of that group should be the group admin, but may appoint other active members of the JUG as additional admins. Any site member should be able to be a group member.

• Area User Clubs: Any group that is not an "officially recognized" JUG. These can be created by anyone with an interest to collaborate with other users in their geographical region. Any site member can join; admins of the group should be nominated by members of the group.

• Topic Groups: A topic group of members with a similar interest. Topics could include things like Graphic Design, Servers, Ecommerce, WoW Joomla-based Sites, etc. These groups can be suggested by individuals in the community and Admins of the group should be nominated by the members of the group. The group owner should be a moderator of the site. No commercial promotion of any kind should be allowed in these groups.

• Commercial Product or Service Fan Clubs: Any commercial entity that would like to have a "Fan Club" should be allowed to have one. This fosters discussion and growth of the community. It also supports the promise made to designers and developers that made the step to GPL. All fan clubs that are created must be for products that a) Are GPL licensed with no per-domain usage restrictions b) Abide by OSM's requirements for Logo and Name usage. Fan clubs cannot invite other site members to their group. Members of fan clubs can invite their friends - if you don't want the invites, don't have the member that's inviting you on your friends list. Commercial Fan Clubs have the right to promote their products and services to their fans.

Side note: I also think it would be great if the term "Admins" for groups was changed to "Group Leaders" - sounds nicer, right?

How should events be handled?
I believe any member of the site should be able to create events. Eventually it would be great if groups could create "group sponsored" events. This would allow even commercial fan clubs to promote their own events (think: "X New Extension Launch Party") but only available to the fans (members) of that group. Currently that is not a built-in option, but I think it's a logical step. Official Joomla! events have their own place in other areas of the family of sites, but it's great to promote those on the social site is well. They should only be created by admins of the site or team leaders of the Official projects.

The same goes for photos and videos as my suggestions for events.

Keeping in mind that the site is in the beta stage (though there are already 1500 members) I'm sure it will experience some growing pains. Also keeping in mind that front and back end moderation tools are not completely integrated (if you ever built a site based on JomSocial you'll understand this one) the site will have to rely on "self-moderation" by it's users, group admins and site admins.

I think that the team that has made this possible has done an outstanding job so far and this site is a huge evolutionary step for the project. Lets see if we can't find other ways to help grow the site without making it a bureaucratic fiasco. (Not that anyone is, just thinking Keep It Simple!)

[Jenny]

Who "People" are in the Joomlasphere:
The ecosystem that makes up the entire Joomla! community. This includes the guy sitting at home on his couch installing Joomla for the first time; the small business owner that needs a brochure-type site; the large company that wants a new ecommerce store; the programmer that is writing his first extension; the programmer that is writing his 500th extension; the designer that is creating their first template; the designer that is creating their 500th template; the company owner who provides Joomla-based services or products; the site developer that purchases Joomla-based services or products; the Trademark owners and protectors; the official Joomla project leaders (elected and appointed).

That is just so perfectly stated Matt. It is everyone.

I think that the team that has made this possible has done an outstanding job so far and this site is a huge evolutionary step for the project. Lets see if we can't find other ways to help grow the site without making it a bureaucratic fiasco. (Not that anyone is, just thinking Keep It Simple!)

I can't agree more with you on that. Again perfectly stated.

[carson3511]

Don't they have their own sites - this is a site for PEOPLE

Brian, just because the domain has the name PEOPLE in it doesn't actually mean that a company cannot be listed.
That's like saying only Twits can use Twitter, or only people that own/read books can use Facebook.

I do agree that there needs to be moderation against mass abuse but if a PERSON wants to create a group for a company or extension specifically and those groups have people voluntarily joining those groups and discussing the use of that extension or companies services, then what's the bad in that? If it relates to Joomla!, leave it alone. If it doesn't belong, then so be it and get rid of it.

Think about it, what if Facebook told every member that all company pages we getting deleted, all posts about anything commercial or promotional would be moderated, and that you can ONLY talk about personal stuff at their website? Think about it. That would be completely ludicrous.
This is a social networking website. Let people be social with each other. The "PEOPLE" will find what interests them and also will not be a part of something that they have no interest in.

I agree that the front page "Recent Activities" should go away. Since this is so public and it shows every activity that happens on the site (mostly), I would suggest to the site team that part be removed entirely. That is where the spamming of people's posts can be easily removed by removing that entire section of the site. There is a nice enough recent activities section on everyone's profile that should suffice for seeing which of your friends just joined which group or became friends with.

One thing that utterly shocks me about all this the most is that nobody seen this coming? REALLY? And only just now it is being discussed, AFTER the site has launched? Makes absolutely no sense to me.

Personally, as popular as this site is becoming, there is a reason that it's growing so fast. And I would caution the amount of moderation imposed or you'll end up seeing an entire community of people whining all over again as they have done in the past. Maybe it's time to let the "Community" be a "Community".

I really like the buzz that is going on and I think this site is just the boost that the project needed. Don't ruin it with politics and personal power agendas. I think this site can be a HUGE success. But I think that if the site team and moderators go after it with a Gestapo mindset then you might as well consider this a dead social networking site because I truly think it would really hurt it more than it makes people feel great like they do right now about it.
Just my thoughts for what it's worth.

[Hazzaa]

I usually tend to stay out of these discussions simply because they tend to go nowhere. Many will have opinions and many will simply agree only to have a voice. I was asked why I felt I had a right to talk if I wasn't willing to post. I was asked by the members of two of our extensions why I had not created a group for my extension as everyone else has. Simple answer is I saw this coming. Who can do what, what you can say and not say and rules be created after the fact. Plain simple truth is you have 3 choices.
1. Let this community police itself.
Yes I will agree keep it Joomla but but let it be, let it grow and let it flourish. The Joomla community is big, strong and for the most part respectful of one another
2. Keep the path this thread is going, change the rules as you go and upset a lot of the community to where you have nothing to police
3. You currently have 1500+ members. Shut the site down. Meet among the rule makers and make the dang rules. Set them in stone and reopen the site. You WILL certainly upset MAXIMUM 1500+ members. Next week you will upset 6000 members and in 1 month you will have 100,000 members all upset.
You are further ahead with options 1 and 3
Personally I think you make these rules too complex and they won't be followed.
As the rules are now, no one reads them. Create a method to force people to read like scrolling to the bottom before you can click OK
75% of people are not going to read the rules. It's the nature of the internet. Police it like you do the forum and you won't have the comfortable flow of a COMMUNITY. As per Carson's comment, JUST because it has the word PEOPLE in it it should only be fore people. IT'S a dang community. business ARE made by people. Advertising IS done by people. As for the comment "If you can do it on your own site".... Sorry I can do everything on my site including buying jomSocial and build my own community BUT how does that make me MORE involved with Joomla?
I began trying to be helpful in the forums a few months back (maybe a year) and found the politics a little too much. Thus I stuck with my own community forum and kept my support to there. I felt POJ was cool and I would make another effort of bringing my expertise to help this community. AND HERE WE GO AGAIN.
I am sorry this sounds negative. It really is not meant that way. It's meant to display that if you go too far with this discussion and the policing of this "COMMUNITY" of people, you will chase more people off than you will pull in.
On Monday I will post a 30 page set of rules if that will help.
Have a great weekend all