Project:Forums

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Gentoo Linux Forums
Description The Gentoo Forums are a source of support for the Gentoo user community. It allows users to post support questions that can be answered by developers and other users alike.
Project email forum-mods@gentoo.org
IRC channel #gentoo-forums (webchat)
Lead(s)
Last elected: 2023-11-11
Member(s)
Subproject(s)
(and inherited member(s))
(none)
Parent Project Gentoo
Project listing

The Forums are a main source of contact for the user community to interact with the Gentoo developer community as well as other users. The primary purpose of the Forums is for users to post support questions. Many developers use the Forums to recruit testers for their packages and to make community announcements. Security vulnerabilities (GLSA) are also announced and archived. There is a collection of FAQs that covers installation and administration of Gentoo Linux.

Roles

There are four main roles within the Forums project listed in the table below:

Title Description
Administrator Can manipulate user accounts: (un)ban existing accounts, activate new accounts, install, delete and edit templates. Inherits all abilities of Global Moderators.
Global Moderator Can edit, delete, move and lock threads from any part of the forum.
Language Moderator Can edit, delete and lock threads in an Language specific forum.
Arch Moderator Can edit, delete and lock threads in an Architecture specific forum.

Participation

Moderators are recruited from the Forums user community. There is a list of qualities that are used as factors in the candidate selection:

  • Report Guideline violations
  • Threads/posts that need to be moved to a different subforum
  • Demonstrate a professional attitude and willingness to help

New Moderators are selected on an as-needed basis. Candidates are chosen by consensus and asked to participate. Architecture specific Moderators are usually selected from the pool of Developers that are assigned to that arch team. All Moderators must read and follow the Forum Guidelines.

You can also help out with translations on the Forums, see the Translator Guidelines for more information.

You can contact us by posting questions in the Gentoo Forums Feedback forum, via e-mail (forum-mods@gentoo.org) or #gentoo-forums (webchat) on Libera.Chat.

Account removal requests

Due to the damage deleting an account does to the database, we do not delete accounts that have been used. Instead we offer account anonymization:

  1. The user name is changed to the database ID of the account.
  2. The email address is changed to: forum-mods@gentoo.org
  3. The password is set to a long random string.
  4. Any IM contact details are removed.
  5. The signature is removed.
  6. The avatar is deleted.
  7. The account is disabled.
  8. The profile website is removed.

We also email the original address on the account confirming that the above actions have been taken.

Email anonymization requests to forum-mods@gentoo.org from the email on the account to be anonymized. If that is not possible, quote the email address on the account.

A Private Message from the account to be anonymized to an active Admin works but that will only been seen by the individual admin.