Are there any ground rules for participation in the Splunk community?

Yes. They are simple, few and easy for everyone to live by:

Be nice. Treat others with the same respect you'd want them to treat you. We're all here to learn together. Be tolerant of others who may not know everything you know. Bring your sense of humor.

Be honest. Above all, be honest. If you see misinformation, vote it down. Insert comments indicating what, specifically, is wrong. Even better — edit and improve the information! Provide stronger, faster, superior answers of your own!

Be helpful. If you see a good answer to a question, vote it up. If your question has been answered, please mark it as answered. This community site depends on your participation.

What can I do here? Apps? Answers? What are those?

Right now, there are 2 basic functions of Splunkbase:

• Ask and answer questions (quickly!)
• Post and download Splunk apps and add-ons

Questions are Splunk-related questions, of course. As long as your question is:

• detailed and specific
• written clearly and simply
• of interest to at least one other person somewhere

then it is welcome here. No question is too trivial or too "newbie" so long the question is about Splunk or relevant to the Splunk community.

Regarding Apps and add-ons, these are extensions to Splunk functionality, built using Splunk's APIs and data platform:

• Apps: package together Splunk features like saved searches, dashboards and inputs into their own GUI
• Add-ons: smaller components that don't have their own GUI and may need extra configuration.
• Suites: collections of apps built to provide comprehensive IT solutions on top of Splunk. Suites may require professional services to support and install and are usually built by Splunk or our Partners.

See our official docs for an introduction to Splunk apps and add-ons.

What kind of things should I not do here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!

Also, posting an app or add-on that could be described as malware or violates intellectual property law is, of course, strictly forbidden. This will result in your banishment from the Splunk community.

And finally, gratuitous spamming will not be tolerated. At all.

Is there anything I should do before I ask a question?

Yes. Please take look around to see if your question has already been asked (and maybe even answered!) before you ask. You can search questions by their title or tags. If you end up asking a question that has been asked before, that is OK and deliberately allowed. Other users will often edit questions to include links to related or similar questions to help future visitors find their way.

Do I have to log in or create an account?

Yes. If you already have a Splunk.com account, just click on 'login' in the upper right corner. If you don't already have one, it's easy to create - click 'sign up', also in the upper right corner.

Who moderates Splunkbase?

The short answer is: you. The community is moderated by the users. The karma system allows members of the Splunkbase community to earn the rights to perform a variety of moderation tasks.

What is karma, and what are karma points?

Karma is something you earn by participating in the Splunk community: contributing thoughtful answers to people's questions, uploading apps, etc.

Karma points provide a rough measurement of your reputation in the Splunk community and how much the community trusts you.

For example, if you ask an interesting question or give a helpful answer, your input will be upvoted. When a question or answer is upvoted, the user who posted them will gain some points, which are called "karma points".

On the other hand if the answer is misleading - it will be downvoted. Each vote in favor will generate 10 points, each vote against will subtract 2 points. There is a limit of 200 points that can be accumulated per question or answer. The table below explains karma requirements for each type of moderation task.

Posting an app is a great way to build 'instant karma' (haha), giving you 100 points for every app and add-on you upload.

Karma is completely optional. Normal use of Splunk Answers — that is, asking and answering questions — does not require any karma whatsoever.

When you earn enough Karma points, Splunkbase will allow you to go beyond simply asking and answering questions and enable you to perform moderation tasks.

The following table explains karma requirements for each type of moderation task:

At the high end of the karma spectrum there is little difference between users with high reputations and Splunkbase moderators. This is very much intentional. We don't run Splunkbase--the community does!

What if I don't get a good answer?

In order to get good answers, you have to put some effort into the question. Edit your question to provide status and progress updates. Document your own continued efforts to answer your question. This will naturally bump your question and get more people interested in it.

Other people can edit my stuff?!

Yes, but the folks who have high enough reputation to edit your posts will generally only edit them to fix up obvious problems like a code sample that doesn't have correct formatting. One edit you're likely to see a lot is when you don't have the right tags on your question-- site users will frequently add appropriate tags on your behalf. Don't worry, if someone edits your post, you can always look at the history to see what was changed.