While The Phantom Coder aims to be a pseudonymous place for authors to share their experiences, ideas, and knowledge, we must adhere to a code of conduct to protect us and make for a good reader experience.
- Do not name names – To avoid legal challenges and Cease and Desist orders, we must not name names! If we wish to afford our own anonymity, we need to respect that the companies we’ve worked for are protected also.
- Do not share proprietary information – we are all privy to sensitive information in our jobs, your employer should have made it explicitly clear through regular trainings what is and is not confidential information. You must make every effort to ensure that you do not discuss proprietary information.
- Do not disclose details of security vulnerabilities – the public disclosure process exists for a reason. Many companies have strict policies that prevent you from commenting on or expounding on security vulnerabilities. There are often vulnerabilities which are found in the course of your employment and are not disclosed externally.
- Please use friendly language – your posts are public and are automatically tweeted when published. Using profanity in a post can reduce its visibility and cause your message to be hidden from many viewers. Please think very carefully before you use strong language.
- Your audience is everyone, think about the language you use carefully so that you do not exclude, single out, or alienate members of your audience. On this site you are an author, people are reading your content because of what you have to say, please write in a manner which invites people to come back.
- You are a guest here and you may know the identities of other authors, please respect their privacy and do not disclose the identity of anyone on this site unless they have publicly disclosed their identity first. You are encouraged to remain anonymous to other authors to protect your own identity.
- This site is not intended as a rant site, Reddit is a suitable venue for that type of discourse. You are discouraged from ranting about or disparaging any entity. You may share incredulous stories, however be careful not to make it a complaint or rant about an entity (or person).
- Politics – this is not a political site, please refrain from discussing politics.
- Use common sense – if you need to ask if something is borderline, it probably is. If you need a second opinion, have an editor (or Phantom) review your article before publishing.