{% hint style="info" %} How to read this document
For information on how to read this document, see this page. {% endhint %}
This document outlines the rules for participating in The Coding Den.
{% hint style="danger" %} The scope of this document
This list is meant to offer guidance to members for what is and is not considered appropriate conduct in the community, as well as create an enforcement framework for moderators. We strive to describe this in as much detail as possible, to offer the best guidance we can.
However, this document does not limit moderators’ enforcement authority. The highest level objective for moderators is to maintain order and stability in the community. To this end, moderators may limit any conduct and remove any content that causes disruption as they see fit, whether it violates a specific rule or not.
We furthermore reserve the right to make changes to this document at any time without prior notice and/or further explanation. Rule changes are announced in the server.
By joining the community and participating in it, you affirm that you have read, understood, and accept these rules as they are written, in full and unconditionally. You furthermore affirm your commitment to making a reasonable effort to follow them at all times. {% endhint %}
This server is meant to be utilized in public environments like schools and workplaces. Therefore, it is forbidden to post any content that could be considered Not Safe For Work.
ℹ️ Examples
Examples of prohibited content include, but are not limited to:
- Inappropriate, taboo etc. language
- Sexual activity
- Recreational psychoactive drugs
Be courteous to your peers; respect them, remember the human behind the screen, don't use taboo language like slurs, and so on.
TCD is meant to be a community open to beginners and professionals alike. This, however, does not mean that the server should be utilized as a primary source that supersedes proper use of documentation and search engines. It is also not meant to be used as a means to have your code written for you. As such, the following kinds of conduct are not welcome:
- Help vampirism
- "Flesh relay"/"human terminal" behaviour, i.e. taking inputs from the community verbatim, tossing them at the computer, and spitting the output back without any independent effort or processing
- Dumping AI-generated code on the community to fix, without independent effort to understand the problems and fix them
This list is not exhaustive, and other behaviours similar to the ones mentioned above are equally prohibited despite not being enumerated here. The one thing they all have in common is that they are examples of not respecting the community's value. Read more about the concept in the Community value relationship section.
Please keep all questions within the server, do not Direct Message members with them. By sending your questions in the server, you maximise the number of people that see them and therefore maximise your chances of getting an answer.
This is a community, not a free audience. Posting advertisements or promotional, recruitment, "for hire" etc. notices in the community is prohibited. Advertising and promotion is often characterised by money being involved, but this is not a requirement to be regarded as advertising; in other words, advertising or promoting a free product or unpaid position is still advertising. See Examples below for more information.
ℹ️ Examples
Examples of advertising include, but are not limited to:
- Selling or offering products or services
- Searching for tutorship or students
- Searching for "coding buddies" or "coding partners"
- Searching for employers, employees, volunteers, startup partners, etc.
- Posting links to your own content on YouTube, LinkedIn, Medium, blogs, etc.
- Posting referral links
- Posting surveys for market, academic etc. research
As noted above, in each example, whether money is involved or not is irrelevant. Advertising a free product or unpaid position is still advertising.
All of these behaviours are examples of community value theft. Read more about the concept in the Community value relationship section.
✅ Exceptions
Discord invites that point to certain select guilds are exempt from this rule. These guilds and invites are listed in https://github.com/TheCodingDen/gists/blob/master/guild-invite-filter-exclusions.yml.
TCD uses English as its primary language for communication.
General-purpose link shorteners like bit.ly and tinyurl.com obscure the destination of a URL, which makes it impossible to discover where a link goes and thus creates a security risk.
Shortlinks from services like these will be automatically deleted and will result in a warning.
👮 Enforcement notes
Shortlinks that obviously lead to the final redirect target are permitted, for example using https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ instead of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ or https://dis.gd/moderation instead of https://discord.com/moderation. In these cases, it is obvious that the ultimate destination is for the same service, and no unexpected redirects will happen.
In brief, any shortlink that causes an unexpected or unpredictable redirect, i.e. deliberately obfuscating its true destination, is subject to moderation under this rule.
Use coding shares services like GitHub Gist, JSfiddle, Codepen or similar for sharing code with others. Do not upload source code files, ZIP, binaries, etc. This is for security reasons, primarily in order to prevent spreading of malware.
Uploading most types of files will result in their automatic removal by @Zeppelin.
✅ Exceptions
The only file types allowed to be uploaded are listed in https://github.com/TheCodingDen/gists/blob/master/file-filter-exclusions.yml. File types are added to this list on basis of either lack of ability to be malicious, presenting significant value for collaboration (excluding source code files), or any other significant and valid reason as determined by staff.
Any file type not present in the aforementioned list will be automatically removed.
Using TCD as a vector for attempting to commit academic dishonesty, or attempting to help someone with it, is strictly prohibited.
ℹ️ Examples
Examples of academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to:
- Asking someone to do your homework for you
- Asking for help with exams, quizzes, tests, etc.
👮 Enforcement notes
It is permitted to assist with homework if the asker formats their question as any other technical question in the community, i.e. a specific issue with an expected outcome, steps already taken and so on. In other words:
❌: "Can someone tell me the code to make a binary search tree"
✅: "I'm trying to make a binary search tree, but my values keep ending up in the wrong order. Here's my code (code attached). I should get 15-10-5, but I get 10-15-5. Can someone tell me where I'm going wrong?"
Staff will moderate asking for help with exams, quizzes etc. regardless of whether the asker claims that the test is open-book. This is because there is no way for staff to reliably verify the accuracy of such claims.
We do not allow discussion around or helping with the development of software that can be characterised as any of the following things:
- Illegal (i.e. in contravention to any applicable laws, terms of service agreements, or any applicable contracts not otherwise specified)
- Harmful to any entity, including hardware, software or person
- Immoral or unethical
- Otherwise objectionable for any reason
This rule is broad by design and enforced on a case-by-case basis. Staff reserve the right to classify individual programs as prohibited at their sole discretion.
See Examples below for examples of programs you cannot discuss or get help with developing in TCD. If unsure whether your question is affected by this rule, kindly consult staff for an opinion.
ℹ️ Examples
Subjects covered by this clause include, but are not limited to:
- Discussion about Discord client modification
- Assisting with reverse engineering
- Name and URL sniping tools
- Sneakerbots or other scalping tools
- Spam tools
- Malware (viruses, "token stealers", "cookie loggers", etc.)
- Cheat programs for online video games, exams etc. ("autoclickers", aimbots, tools to fill and submit forms automatically, "auto-joiners" for video conferencing software, etc.)
- Bypassing technical protection measures (DRM, anti-cheat, rate limiting, memory integrity, CAPTCHA/bot detection, etc.)
- Piracy ("cracking", etc.)
- Web scraping
✅ Exceptions
Programs that technically fall within the above provisions, but are allowed despite this, are:
- Rooting Android devices, jailbreaking iOS devices, bootloader unlocking (for user's own devices)
☝️ Reasons for this line-drawing
The reasons for why we have prohibited certain programming subjects are as follows:
- We cannot reliably decide whether someone is making these types of programs with good or ill intent.
- Methods used in designing said programs are the same regardless of claimed good or ill intent.
- We want to respect the industry, the work of people and the greater humanity.
{% hint style="warning" %} Infosec topics and discussion
For topics of information security, we are partnered with a community that is specifically equipped to draw lines for and moderate discussion around the subject. See the #infosec channel for an invite to this community. {% endhint %}
Your profile features (display name, avatar, banner, description, connected accounts, or any other observable feature of your Discord profile) may not contain any content that is:
- NSFW
- Intended or prone to causing controversy (such as impersonating public figures)
- Otherwise objectionable for any reason
Your nickname may not contain any characters that aim to reduce legibility (such as zalgo text).
👮 Enforcement notes
Inappropriate nicknames may be changed by staff at their discretion. Nicknames such as “dehoisted” or “sfw” may be issued to members with inappropriate display names. If your nickname has been changed by staff, you are free to change it, as long as your new nickname is appropriate.
"Covering up" inappropriate profile features that can be changed per-server (like nickname, profile picture or About Me) by replacing the inappropriate content in the server-specific version only is not sufficient; for example, covering up an inappropriate username with an appropriate nickname is not accepted.
Staff are free to require changes to inappropriate profile features as a condition to continued participation in the community. Failure to comply within a reasonable timeframe may result in temporary or permanent removal from the community.
TCD abides by Discord's Community Guidelines and Terms of Service, and requires members to do the same. See https://discord.com/guidelines and https://discord.com/terms.
Some channels may have specific rules applied to them. Before posting in a channel, please read its topic in order to see if it has any such rules applied to it.
If you see any of our staff members actively moderating a channel, please stay out of their way until the situation has been resolved. Any members interjecting in active cases of moderation are only making the job harder for the staff of TCD.
Staff have the final say on moderation matters, i.e "rule lawyering" is not permitted. If you wish to lodge a general complaint about the conduct of the moderation team in a given situation, you may do so via Modmail. You do not need to do someone else's bidding on being treated unfairly in chat, and this will likely be perceived as interference by the moderation team.
{% hint style="warning" %} Appealing punishments
For information on how to appeal punishments, see this section in the "Moderation policy" document. {% endhint %}
There are certain topics that can be considered volatile, controversial and divisive where TCD, being a programming community, is not the correct forum to discuss them in. These subjects may have communities dedicated to them, and they are better discussed in those.
Examples of time-old topics that are covered by this rule include, but are not limited to, matters of:
- Politics
- Religion
- Divisive sub-cultures like furries
- Gender and sexuality education
- Mental health support
- Ongoing global armed conflicts
TCD moderators have the right to intervene in and shut down any conversations on these kinds of topics and redirect them to more appropriate fora.
Do not use automated tools, e.g. ChatGPT to generate answers to questions posted in the community. These tools often produce an incorrect answer with the confidence of a correct one, which can easily mislead people.