Frequently Asked Questions

How do I ask a question?

Once you’ve joined, just type in your question (and the topics that describe it) and press “Ask Fluther”. Here’s a good example:

Question

Be specific: How deep should I plant my summer squash?

Details

Add depth: I have a small garden in Northern Vermont, and my summer squash have never grown well. What should I do?

Adding a description is optional.

Topics

Use commas: Los Angeles, cooking, horticulture

What is “your fluther”?

Your fluther is the group of people that you’re interested in following. They can be friends, or just people you find intriguing.

Not interested in everyone’s questions? By creating your own fluther, you can filter the whole site based on people you've hand–picked: it’s guaranteed to be fascinating!

How does Fluther know what I know?

One of the neat things about Fluther is we route questions to the people we think will answer them.

Here’s how we decide what to send to you: we combine the topics in your profile with the way you’ve used the site in the past. The longer and harder you use Fluther, the better it works!

Fluther Guidelines

Fluther is a collective of people sharing answers, insights, and advice. Please respect the time and energy of the people in the community.

Browsing the site is the easiest way to get a sense of our culture and of what kinds of questions and answers are appropriate.

What makes a good question (or: how do I make sure it doesn’t get moderated?)

Well-written, genuine questions provoke the best and most thoughtful answers. Obviously, make sure you spell-check, try to use proper capitalization and grammar, and select appropriate topics.

  • If your question is a legitimate query for a solution, like "Why is my bike tire always going flat?", or "How long should it take for my xbox to return back from service?", or "Which is a better name for my new business?", it will most likely stay.
  • If your question is more open-ended, like "Is there any other cookie as good as a chocolate chip cookie?", it may be moderated. In general, if your question inspires thoughtful discussion, and/or is particularly creative, and shows effort (so make sure you add details and give examples!), it probably won't get moderated.
  • If your question is an attempt to connect with people (as opposed to an attempt to figure something out), like "Where is everyone from?" or "How old is everyone?" or "Are the Jonas Brothers lame?", or it's a yes-or-no, this-or-that question, it will probably be moderated — those questions are better suited for the chatroom.

We also reserve the right to remove borderline questions that won't clearly provoke useful or thoughtful discussion depending on the overall quality and types of questions of the day.

Take a look at this list of great questions to get an idea.

What else might get moderated?

Our trusty moderators may remove anything that is:

  • Tragically misspelled
  • Totally open-ended or poorly thought out
  • Trolling (or thinly masked propaganda)
  • Self-promotional (No peddling, promos, or marketing)
  • Egocentric attention-grabbing
  • Hateful, abusive, or bigoted
  • Deceitful
  • Vague, confusing, or generally non-sensical
  • A personal attack
  • Off-topic chatter or an inside joke
  • Excessive txtspeak ("ZOMG r u 4 real?!?!?!!? LOL")

Of course, we also remove the obvious stuff:

  • Illegal content
  • Spam, or anything that smells like it
  • Pornography, obscenity or obviously NSFW (Not Safe For Work) content. R-Rated is okay as long as it’s not on the front page and you mark it as NSFW)

Other important etiquette

  • If you want to make a joke in an answer, wait until at least one helpful response has been given.
  • When you do make an off-topic comment, please put it in --whispers-- (see the formatting guide).
  • The Fluther members are referred to as "Flutherites"

Self–promotion

The moderation team generally removes anything that vaguely resembles spam or self-promotion. In rare cases, however, we will allow an established member to post a question such as "Will you help me out by taking this survey" or "Will you look at my portfolio and make suggestions", but it’s best to ask permission first.

How does moderation work?

We have a team of volunteer moderators who are members just like you. They are appointed by andrew, the community leader and co-founder. They are notified when other members flag content, and may decide to moderate that content. For questions, if it doesn’t fit in with the guidelines of the site, or is similar to a lot of recently-asked questions, it may get pushed back to editing. The user who asked the question will be notified via email (so make sure you verify your email address!) about the reasons for removal, and then the user has the opportunity to respond. If there’s indecision about whether a question should be moderated, the moderation team discusses it. Our moderation team sleeps, too, so if we don’t respond to your flag right away, be patient. If you have questions about the moderation process, feel free to contact the mod team or the community manager, augustlan.

The current moderators are:

Why was my question removed when these other, similar ones weren’t?

Sometimes the moderation team misses a question. Sometimes a question that doesn’t look like it will breed thoughtful discussion does, and it stays. We’re also a little more lenient with new users as they get acclimated to the culture.

Asking Great Questions

Here are some tips to help you get the best responses and earn the respect of the collective:

  • Be Specific

    • "Who likes Saabs?" isn't nearly as productive as "Why will my 1994 Saab only start when it's out of gear?"

  • Be Genuine

    • We understand that some people want to ask a question just to see how Fluther works. However, having hundreds of questions like "What's 1+1?" brings down the quality of the site. Please ask questions that you really want people to answer.

  • Add Great Topics

    • Topics are the backbone of Fluther's matching technology, so adding the appropriate topics will ensure your questions go to the right people. For example, the question "How can I help my parents adopt a healthier diet?" might have topics like food, health, diet, family.

Of course, when all else fails just remember to respect the collective and use common sense.

p.s. In case you’re looking for it: here are our terms and conditions.
Have questions or suggestions about these guidelines? Let us know.

Banning

If we believe that a user has consistently or flagrantly acted against these guidelines, we may ban that user from Fluther.

Multiple accounts

Provided that it is not used to game the lurve system, deceive, confuse or cause trouble, we allow multiple accounts for a user. Acceptable cases for this would include a person creating an “alias” to ask a more personal or embarrassing question that they do not wish to associate with their “normal” account.

We do not allow a Fluther member to hand their account name over to another person under any circumstance, simply because it breaks the environment of a community with set, fixed identities, each with their own personality and history. Your account name is you, and nobody else can have it.

Markup

We use a limited version of Textile for markup in questions, comments and responses. Here’s the list of markup options:

Phrase Markup

  • _emphasis_ → emphasis
  • *strong* → strong
  • --whisper-- → whisper
  • -strikeout- → strikeout

Links

  • "link":http://www.fluther.com → link

You can also use shortcuts for Google, Amazon, and imdb. Just remember to use brackets for multiple keywords:

Punctuation

  • "quotes" → “quotes”
  • 'quotes' → ‘quotes’
  • it's → it’s
  • em -- dash → em — dash
  • en - dash → en – dash
  • 2 x 4 → 2 × 4
  • foo(tm) → foo™
  • foo(r) → foo®
  • foo(c) → foo©