community guidelines
Last updated November 17th, 2013
At Engadget we strive to maintain a positive, worthwhile community free of noise and trolls. As much as we'd like to let you do whatever you want, let's face it, online communities are all about the people who use them, so it's in everyone's interest that there are some general rules and guidelines for everybody to follow.
General usage guidelines
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Be respectful.
We're all in this together! If you can't politely deal with someone's differing opinion, you should just find another place to hang out. We are all here because we love gadgets, and that love may take many forms.
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Contribute.
The site is here for people to participate in and contribute to, so as you might expect we can't have anyone posting stuff that's illegal, defamatory, threatening, deliberately misleading, or otherwise prohibited. If you're really unsure about whether something crosses the line, feel free to get in touch.
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Be yourself.
Always good advice, but in this case we mean that your account is for you, not you pretending to be someone else or to impersonate someone.
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Be transparent.
If you're using Engadget to represent a company you work for, just be transparent about your affiliation and intentions. If your goal is to foster community and conversation: welcome! But you're just out to post commercial messages and drive sales, you should really speak with our sales team.
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Posting to the site
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Be positive and constructive.
That doesn't mean you can't complain about a product, but do so constructively (in other words: say it a way that benefits everyone). If you just have a chip on your shoulder, well, maybe you should find another site to use.
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Be cool to your fellow users.
Life is too short to take this stuff so seriously — remember, this stuff is supposed to be fun! Flamebaiters are never welcome. Also, protip: don't flood threads.
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Don't use link shorteners.
There should be no mystery about what you're asking someone to click on. We may choose to expand shortlinks from services like bit.ly, TinyURL, etc. — or we may just remove them entirely.
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Zero spam policy.
One strike and you're out. This also extends to gratuitous self-promotion. If you have a web site, promote it on your profile page!
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Copyright
We respect copyrights here at Engadget, so we ask that you please not upload anything to the site that shouldn't be there. If you see something on the site that infringes on your copyright, please contact us and we'll look into it and take appropriate action.
tl;dr
Long story short: don't be lame.
Failing to be a good member of the community can result in termination of your account. We'll usually give you a warning first, but we reserve the right to terminate your account without warning if we think it's necessary.
But let's be real. If you're a troll or a spammer you know it, we know it, and you know that we know it, so don't act all surprised when we cut you off. And if you're someone who just makes an honest mistake, then odds are we'll be able to figure things out.
Finally, it kind of goes without saying, but your use of Engadget is subject to these community guidelines, as well as our Terms of Service.