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openSUSE Forums Terms and Conditions

By having an openSUSE Account (also known as a Novell ID), you agree to the following Terms and Conditions:

* The openSUSE Legal Documents, which outline the rules which govern the activities, content, and software available on all openSUSE web offerings, including these forums.
* The Novell Privacy Policy, which outlines Novell's obligations to your account information and its privacy.

openSUSE Forums Terms

By using your openSUSE Account (also known as a Novell ID) to post on the openSUSE Forums (through web browser, NNTP client, or otherwise), you agree to the documents above, but also to the following openSUSE Forums Terms and Conditions. These forum specific terms supercede any similar terms outlined in the openSUSE Legal Documents or Novell Privacy Policy. Members may not create or use secondary accounts for deceptive purposes including but not limited to: circumventing the T&C, rejoining the community after being banned or blocked, circumventing staff actions or directions, or posting as different persons

Privacy

Your e-mail address is kept private and is used to send you forum notifications and e-mails from openSUSE Forums staff.

Private member account information (your username, password, e-mail address, or otherwise) will not be disclosed by staff members on the forum or to any third party without your consent or due process of law. However, the openSUSE Forums staff cannot be held responsible for any unauthorized access to our server. Logging in or visting the forums while logged in to openSUSE or Novell services automatically creates your account on our forum server. The openSUSE Forums staff will remove your member account on the forums server upon request. To request this, contact a staff member privately, or e-mail forums@opensuse-forums.org for assistance.

openSUSE Forums uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain any tracking information or personal data, and only serve to enhance your use of the forums.

Board Content

Neither Novell/openSUSE nor the staff of openSUSE Forums is responsible for any of the content posted within the openSUSE forums. With the exception of Forum Annoucements, all posts represent the views and opinions of the member who posted it and are not the official views of the openSUSE Forums. Neither Novell/openSUSE nor the openSUSE Forums staff vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness, legality, or usefulness of any post content and are not responsible for consequences resulting from use of the information in forum posts. In recognition of the diversity of backgrounds of the members and in the interests of community harmony, religious or political comment is not allowed.

Any member who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact the openSUSE Forums staff immediately by e-mail, private message, or by using the "Report Post" button on every post. If staff determine that removal is appropriate, openSUSE Forums staff will make every effort to remove objectionable content within a reasonable time frame.

Thread/Post Ownership

All data stored in the forum databases (including all posts and polls) are the property of the openSUSE Forums. The administrators have the right to maintain, in their original form, all posts made in the forums as a historical record of forum activity. openSUSE Forums staff have the right to remove, edit, move, or close any topic at any time according to forum and staff policy.

Advertising/Spam

Members who wish to post advertisements for any kind of good or service (free, paid, digital, or otherwise) must contact the openSUSE Forums staff for approval. Posted advertisements that have not received staff approval, whether or not an approval request has been made, will be removed and the member may be banned.

The staff of the openSUSE Forums reserve the right to determine what content is and is not acceptable under this policy. All staff decisions are final.

Signatures

Signatures may contain up to 256 characters (including spaces) at the forums' default font size and one image. All images must be under 100 pixels wide by 40 pixels high. Links to external sites shall not contravene the clause on Advertising/Spam. Members in violation of this rule will be given an opportunity to adjust their signature within guidelines. If the appropriate action is not taken within 2 days, the signature will be removed by staff.

Cross-Posting

The openSUSE Forums staff do not allow "cross posting", where a user posts the same or a similar thread in more than one forum. The thread that was posted in the least-relevant forum will be removed. The openSUSE staff may combine the threads if both threads have responses.

Contacting Staff

Staff may be contacted for any reason using the forums' private messaging (PM). However, staff members will not provide private openSUSE Linux help; all Linux help requests must be posted in the appropriate forum. For details on openSUSE Forums staff, please visit the staff information page by clicking the "View Forum Leaders" link at the bottom of the main page.

Language Issues

English: Welcome to the openSUSE Forums. Usually, business in our forums is conducted in English, however many of our community members speak other languages. If you prefer to use a language other than English, please feel free to do so and hopefully someone will get you a reply.

Danish: Velkommen til openSUSE Forums. Normalt foregår alt i vores forums på Engelsk, men mange af vores staff'er taler andre sprog,ligesom mange af vores forum brugere også taler mange forskellige sprog. Hvis du foretrækker et andet sprog end engelsk, skal du være velkommen, og vi vil gøre vores bedste for at svare på dine spørgsmål.

Finnish: Tervetuloa openSUSE Forumeihin. Tavallisesti käytämme englannin kieltä, mutta monet SysOPimme puhuvat muitakin kieliä. Samoin monet Forumien käyttäjät. Voit halutessasi käyttää muuta kuin englannin kieltä ja me teemme parhaamme, jotta saisit vastauksen näihinkin kysymyksiin.

French: Bienvenue dans les forums 'openSUSE'. L'anglais est de préférence utilisé dans ces forums. Cependant, certains membres parlent d'autres langues. Si vous désirez utiliser une autre langue, sentez vous libre de le faire, il y aura surement quelqu'un pour vous répondre.

German: Willkommen in den openSUSE Foren. Normalerweise ist Englisch die Standardsprache in den Foren. Viele unserer staff sprechen jedoch auch andere Sprachen, genau wie viele Forumteilnehmer. Stellen Sie Ihre Frage also ruhig auf Deutsch; wir werden unser Bestes tun, damit Sie auch in diesem Fall eine Antwort erhalten.

Italian: Benvenuti nei opensuse Forums. In genere in questi gruppi usiamo l'inglese ma se preferite usare una lingua diversa, potete ugualmente inviare i vostri messaggi, e cercheremo di fare del nostro meglio per rispondervi.

Spanish: Bienvenido a openSUSE Forums. Normalmente la información en nuestros forums es en Inglés, aún así muchos miembros hablan otros idiomas. Si Ud prefiere usar un idioma diferente, por favor, hágalo y probablemente haya alguien capaz de contestar en su idioma

Swedish: Välkommen till openSUSE forum. Normalt använder vi engelska i dessa forum, men många staff och användare talar och förstår flera språk. Om du så önskar kan du ställa din fråga på något annat språk (tex svenska, skandinaviska eller finska). I så fall gör vi vårt bästa att svara på det språket eller på engelska.

Securing Your Personal Information

Before posting, think about what you are posting and who will be reading it. Do you really want your complete configuration listed? How about your email or postal address?
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Unfortunately, an open NNTP forum structure such as ours is available to the world and there are people out there who do mine email addresses and other data from our forums and other such forums/newsgroups on the internet. An email address is an integral part of an NNTP header. Short of creating a closed system (which wouldn't be 100% effective) we can't prevent such data mining from our forums. If you use the web interface, your email address is disguised automatically on both the HTTP and NNTP interface. If you use the NNTP interface, you should take a few precautions and there are a few simple things you can do to reduce your risk. First, many NNTP users disguise their email address by putting in obvious deterrents to email address mining. For example: If my email address were freddy.farkle@opensuse.org I could add characters which fool many email address mining bots. I could change my address to something similar to: freddy.DELETE.THIS.farkle.AND.THIS@opensuse.org. Of course, there is nothing to dictate you must use a real email address so if you prefer not to let your email address be known, you can use anything as long as it is in an email address format. Feel free to use something@something.com or even freddy.farkle@opensuse.org! :-) It probably isn't wise to product public product license information etc. or email addresses in the body of messages either. Watch the information that's in your posted configuration files!
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Though we don't consider it a security risk, you should be aware that by using our forums, you are allowing your IP address to be known to forum staff and other forum users.

Using NNTP (newsreader) to access these forums

Q: Which interface should I use?
A: The NNTP (news) protocol was developed specifically for internet messaging. The HTTP (web) protocol was developed specifically for serving up information. openSUSE offers both NNTP and HTTP access. Most of the time it comes down to user preference. NTTP has a speed advantage but HTTP usually is thought of as having a convenience advantage and there are "bells and whistles" built into HTTP you can't get with NNTP. If you have port 119 blocked at your firewall, you won't be able to use the news (NNTP) interface and we suggest either downloading the groups in an off line reader using an ISP at home or using the web interface.

Q: I'm interested in trying the NNTP interface, which News Reader should I use? A: Any newsreader that supports the RFC standard should work with our newsgroups. There are many news reader applications available which will allow you to access our newsgroups for both online and offline reading on various platforms. Here are a few links to help you decide which reader to use:

www.newsreaders.com
KNode
Pan
Agent
Virtual Access
XanaNews
Mozilla
Outlook Express
Xnews
Sophax
40tude Dialog
And many others

Q: How do I set up my news reader?
A: Though each newsreader differs in it's method of setup, there are some general guidelines to consider. The name of the news server to specify is forums.opensuse.org This server is on port 119 and does not require authentication and is not a 'secure' news server. Once you have the news server defined in your reader, you will need to subscribe to individual news groups to be able to read and post messages.

Q:Is my NNTP user ID recognized in the web interface?
A: If your email address in your newsreader matches the email address you set up in vBulletin you will be recognized on both sides as the same user. If you prefer not to have your real email address in your newsreader, you can use the following syntax for an email address in your newsreader: userid@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org and your user will still be recognized.

Q: Is there an archive of old forum data?
A: The answer to this is yes and no. openSUSE does not keep an archive of forum data however, our server has enough storage space to keep the messages for quite a long period of time. You should be able to get what you need by searching the online forums. If you would like your own personal archive, any "off-line" news reader (see above) can pull the messages down and archive them on your local hard drive. From time to time we make changes to our forums but will always make an announcement in our news forum as well as post an announcement in any forum that will be closed and will leave the data on our server in a read-only mode for a specified period of time after which the data will be deleted.

Q: Is it safe to use my email address in my postings?
A: Unfortunately, an open forum structure such as ours is available to the world and there are people out there who do mine email addresses from our forums and other such forums/newsgroups on the internet. An email address is an integral part of an NNTP header. Short of creating a closed system (which wouldn't be 100% effective) we can't prevent such data mining from our forums. However, there are some things you can do to reduce your risk. one of them being the obsfucation of your email address as outlined above in your newsreader. Other things like not including private data in the body of your messages will also help

Q:Are there any special considerations when using NNTP to read/post in the forums?
NNTP is a secondary interface to our forums and doesn't support all the options and activities available in the main web interface. Threads on the web can and will be moved and closed. Be aware that if you choose to use the NNTP interface you will not notice this and messages posted to a moved or closed thread may be deleted without notice.

Q: Ok, I'm ready to give it a go. What's the best way to test this thing out?
Once you get your NNTP client up and running, head over to the GENERAL forum in this thread and post a test message or two. This helps keep test messages from showing up all over the forums. Good luck!

Forum Staff

You can "meet" the forum staff on their openSUSE Team page. Staff volunteers here to make our forums work optimally for everyone.