O’Reilly Community Guidelines

Your online participation with O’Reilly is subject to these Guidelines and our Terms of Service.

• Be respectful of others

  Each of our community members is unique. Other members are likely to have abilities, expertise, interests, and ideas that are different from your own. We ask you to respect all community members at all times. Don’t put down the opinion or advice given by another member. Respectfully explain why you disagree with someone. Address the points they’ve raised in a way that you would like to be addressed. Personal attacks and accusations of wrongdoing are not acceptable in our community. If you feel that you’re being attacked, address the points raised and not the tone or manner they are delivered in. Report wrongdoings to us by private message in the forums or by email. Respect others’ work, as well: don’t copy and post content from another source without the express permission of the owner of the content.

• No advertising

  Posting with the intention of marketing a product is not permitted. This includes linking to your personal website or a website you are affiliated with for the sole purpose of generating traffic to the website or improving search rankings. Be sure any links you post specifically answer a question or are directly relevant to your post and the topic being discussed.

• Post relevant content

  Make sure that your post is relevant to the topic being discussed when you post to our forums or comment areas. Don’t post the same message in multiple places, as this will cause confusion and be interpreted as spam. Our forums, comment areas and reviews are publicly viewable, so don’t post personal or private information including order numbers, phone numbers or addresses.

Specific Guidelines for Posting Product Reviews

We encourage all product reviews, positive or negative, as long as they include an explanation of the rating chosen. A review that says “This book sucks.” will be removed. Similarly, a review that says ”This book rocks.“ will also be removed. Think of product reviews and other comments as guides for other users of our sites. Reviews can be brief, but they must contain specifics.

When posting a product review that you have also posted on a personal website be sure to post the entire review. Truncated reviews that require our readers to visit another website to finish reading the review will be removed. As long as the entire review is posted you may include a link to your website at the end of the review with a mention such as "Review originally posted at… "

Need help?

If you have questions, concerns or suggestions we encourage you to post them publicly in Get Satisfaction or privately by emailing