Best Of

Welcome to the SonicWall Community! An open resource where Community members can connect, learn and share best practices, knowledge and skills with one another. The following principles exist to ensure that the Community continues to provide a collaborative and welcoming environment where everyone can contribute.

Yes there will be disagreements, differences and debate and that's ok, but be respectful. If we can offer you any guidance it's this:

1. The internet is forever. Don't say anything you don't want public for all time.
2. Don’t say anything to someone here that you wouldn’t say to them in a bar if they were much bigger than you.

The Community is here to:

• Encourage free sharing of knowledge. (Like a library or super wise family member.)
• Respect fellow members as human beings, the diversity of our members’ backgrounds, perspectives, education, and experiences.
• Be supportive of one another.
• Be polite and friendly.
• Be tolerant and considerate.
• Act professionally, ethically, and with integrity.

Unacceptable Content

• Spam.
• No profanity, abusive, demeaning, discriminatory, defamatory, or harassing behavior. 🚫
• No personal attacks. 🛑
• You may not use this community for commercial or advertising purposes.
• You may not post content which infringes the intellectual property, privacy or other rights of third parties.
• Content copied and posted without the permission of the content owner (e.g. text, photos, videos, etc.).
• Personally identifying, confidential, or private information.
• Content designed to drive traffic to, increase the search rankings of, generating revenue from, or gain any other personal benefit.
• Posts which are of duplicate content, whether from a single account or across multiple accounts from the same user.
• Trolling or other forms of disruption. 
• Obscene or pornographic imagery or other offensive materials.
• Information about unreleased products or any other embargoed materials.
• Discussions about warnings, bans or any other private Moderation action taken against a user.

Other Considerations

Keep it organized - every post has a home.

Do your best to put content in the correct product categories so that others can easily find it. This ensures everyone can focus more on solutions and less on cleaning and organizing. We know there are both tidy and untidy geniuses out there, we don't judge.

• Choose clear and concise titles for your posts.
• Avoid duplicate content. Search for your question first to make sure it hasn’t already been asked.
• Post in the correct product category and include relevant tags.
• Stay on topic - if you want to talk about something else, create a new one, or if it is not topic related to a product feel free to post to the Water Cooler.

See Something Say Something

Just like if you see an abandoned bag in an airport, please report inappropriate or suspicious. If you see any offensive, abusive, patently false, or otherwise inappropriate content (including posts, pictures, and videos), please click on the “Flag button” that is displayed on every post. 

• Use the “Flag” button on any post that you believe is inappropriate or out of place and our moderators will review.

The more you give, the more you get back.

SonicWall employees will be on the Community to participate and contribute where they best can. Remember this is a peer-to-peer support community – inclusive of customers, users, partners, and employees. It is a place to get answers and knowledge from other Community members.

Use the “Unanswered Questions” section to identify where you can show your expertise and contribute valuable content to the community.

If you can’t find a question, ask! There are no bad questions - those exempt from this policy are duplicate questions or those that violate our terms and conditions.

Moderation Policy

The Community does have moderators who will join in the conversation from time to time.

• Moderators can edit, or remove content they deem fit to maintain the quality of content in the community.
• Moderators will be on the lookout for inappropriate, offensive, or off-topic posts. We reserve the right to remove any content for any reason we deem fit.
• Moderators will also be on the lookout for individuals who are not behaving appropriately in the community. We reserve the right to terminate any membership temporarily or permanently as we see fit.

Agreement:

By registering as a member of the SonicWall Community, you agree to abide by both the SonicWall website terms and conditions and these guidelines. In return, SonicWall commits to comply with the terms of the SonicWall privacy policy.

Discussions

If you are looking to share information or gather opinions on a topic or a problem (rather than get a specific answer), a “Discussion” should be used.  Discussions are open-ended and are meant to encourage collaboration and engagement. When most people think of online message boards, this is the content they are thinking about.

Questions

 A “Question” should be used when you are seeking a specific answer to a question or problem. For questions, the desired outcome is an answer that has been marked as correct either by the original author or by an administrator. Once a question is marked answered, other members of the community can benefit from the shared knowledge. Responses to questions can also be marked “Helpful” if they are valuable, but maybe don’t fully resolve the issue.

 Polls

Polls are quick surveys that allow users to vote for 1 option that they prefer or mostly agree with.  The strength of polls is their ability to help make important decisions by simplifying the response to a choice. Once the votes for a poll are in, the author of the poll can then see what decision needs to be made without having to sift through various comment responses.

Please note that not all content types are not available to all community members some can only be posted by users with certain permission levels. 

Community members are able to type their comments and submit them by hitting the “Post Comment” button. That comment will immediately append the bottom of the discussion, question, or poll, adding it to the conversation.

Discussions

To create a new discussion, click on the New Discussion button at the top or bottom of any category.

This button will lead you to /post/discussion. Here’s what you will encounter on the new discussions page:

1. The discussion title is what will show at the top of the post once it’s been submitted. It will also identify the discussion on the category index.
2. This is the Advanced Editor, which assists the user in formatting the text of their post, inserting images, and attaching files.
3. This is the field where the user will type out the main body of their post.
4. Tags mark a discussion with certain keywords so it is easier to search for within the community. By default, up to five tags can be used on a post.
5. Once the user has finished typing their post, clicking the Post Discussion button will immediately publish it. Clicking Save Draft will store the post under “My Drafts” in a user’s profile menu. Preview will show the user what the finished post will look like when published. Cancel will bring the user back to the category they were viewing previously.

Types of Posts

Discussions

Polls can be enabled from your dashboard on any plan level. When creating a poll, the user is presented with a few new options:

With this form, the user can input the different answers for their poll. They can also choose to make a poll anonymous, which prevents others from knowing how specific users voted. Once the poll has been submitted, other members are allowed to vote once.

The Ask A Question option is for users looking to get a specific information. The screen for posting a question looks identical to the New Discussion screen. When a question is asked, the bottom of each subsequent comment will have an option to mark it as an answer.

Selecting “Yes” marks the post as an answer within that discussion and pins it to the top, right under the initial question.