Community Guidelines

MITx offers these discussion forums as a place for you to grow your understanding of learning topics and your connection with other learners. Please review the following considerations before you join the discussion.

DO:

  • Please be civil. Treat the conversation as if it were face-to-face. Hold yourself to the same standards of behavior online that you would follow in a real life discussion.
  • Use meaningful titles for your posts. Keep them factual. When voicing an opinion or point of view on a topic, please support your opinion with relevant facts, and remember it’s one point of view among many.
  • Please vote. If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the channel it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular channel, downvote it.
  • Moderate using voting or reporting based on post quality or accuracy, not based on opinion. Well-written and interesting content can be worthwhile, even if you disagree with it. If you have a contrasting point of view try to share it with the community in a productive way.
  • Consider giving constructive criticism or an explanation when you downvote someone else’s post, and do so carefully and tactfully. When you do, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
  • State your reason for editing a post. Edited submissions are marked by an [edited by author] note. For example: a simple "Edit: spelling" will help explain. This avoids confusion when a post is edited after a conversation is built around it. If you have another thing to add to your original comment, say "Edit: And I also think..." or something along those lines.
  • Read over your submission for mistakes before submitting, especially the title of the submission. Comments and the content of text posts can be edited after being submitted, however, the title of a post can't be. Make sure the facts you provide are accurate to avoid any confusion down the line.
  • Read these rules and guidelines before posting for the first time. Read it again every once in a while.

DON'T:

  • Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or words like urgent, important. It's implicit in posting something that you think it's important.
  • Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
  • Please don't use uppercase for emphasis in your posts or comments. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put *asterisks* around it and it will get italicized.
  • Do not post empty or useless responses, such as just lol or cool. Only post responses when you have something to contribute. You can use “up voting”.
  • Please do not conduct personal attacks on other learners.
  • Do not post content that contains personal, identifiable information or content embarrassing to others.