Rules of the r/TechSupport

Any and all rules are subject to r/TechSupport Moderators discretion, any and all rules could be punished by a temporary or permanent ban.

How our bans work: Almost all our bans are permanent which can be appealed after two weeks. A permanent ban is only truly permanent if we explicitly state that you do not have a right or chance to appeal. Bans can be appealed after two weeks after the the date of the ban.

Table of Contents
  1. Read all the rules
  2. No Incomplete posts
  3. No Password or Account issues
  4. No Offering Rewards
  5. No Recommendations
  6. No [Meta] Posts About Tech/Jobs
  7. No Private Messages or Moving to Another Service
  8. No Violating Privacy of Others, Piracy, or Breaking Terms/Agreements
    1. Grey market (Blackmarket) product codes
  9. No Unsupported/EOL Systems
  10. No Public Service Announcements
  11. No Soliciting
  12. No Spam, Trolling, Insults, Jokes, or Posts Unrelated to Tech Support
  13. No Posts/Comments by a Company or an Employee on Behalf of a Company
  14. No Potentially Malicious Links

Read all the rules

This is self-explanatory.

No Incomplete posts

Posts consisting of the following are considered incomplete:

  • Posts with empty body, only a link in the body, title copied into the body, and/or lack of information in the body.
  • Posts with “Help” or non-descriptive titles.

Please make your title and contents descriptive. Incomplete posts may be removed.

No Password or Account issues

We cannot assist with password or account issues. No matter the reason.

You must contact the relevant company for support, as no one else can help you.

This includes issues such as:

  • 2 Factor Authentication
  • Google, Apple, Microsoft, Instagram, Facebook or any other account
  • Issues with account lockout on any of the above platforms (and all others)
  • Account loss on any of the above platforms (and all others)
  • BIOS or Windows Passwords
  • Being banned on a platform such as Fortnite.

No Offering Rewards

This community is volunteer-only, so no offering reward/compensation for help. This includes but is not limited to Amazon gift vouchers or PayPal transfer. Please do not take advantage of the community.

No Recommendations

We are not a recommendations or advertisement subreddit. Do not ask for recommendations.

Commenters may only recommend products that are part of our recommendation whitelist. Hardware recommendations should be kept to a minimum.

Recommending products not in the whitelist may result in your comment or post being removed and a ban imposed. If you want anything added, please message the mods and we will consider it.

You can also view a blacklist of products we do not recommend, and recommend you uninstall or stay away from.

No [Meta] Posts About Tech/Jobs

No [Meta] posts about jobs (tech support related or not) or technology in general. Such as “I have a interview help me” or “I want a product that can do XYZ” or “How does the Internet work”

Google is your friend

No Private Messages or Moving to Another Service

Any and all communication not kept public and is moved away from the subreddit or Discord/IRC channel is prohibited.

Do not suggest or ask to move to another service or to private message. Private messages and other services are unsafe as they cannot be monitored. Doing so will cause you to be permanently banned from r/TechSupport.

You may advise them of other relevant subreddits if their question would break our rules such as asking how to build a PC.. go to /r/BuildAPC

No Violating Privacy of Others, Piracy, or Breaking Terms/Agreements

We do not support users that violate other’s privacy, or break terms and agreements. Doing so might result in a ban.

This includes:

  • Bypassing home network controls
  • Bypassing any parental controls
  • Piracy or issues caused by it
Grey market (Blackmarket) product codes

No piracy or so-called “grey-market” product codes. This includes suggesting, hinting, or in any way implying to someone that piracy or the use of these licenses is an option. If a Windows key is abnormally cheap (think $10-30), it is probably one of these, and is forbidden on the sub.

Sites selling these keys include but are not limited to:

  • Ebay
  • kinguin
  • r/microsoftsoftwareswap

No Unsupported/EOL Systems

See our Supported Operating Systems page for a list of operating systems that we do not support.

We do not provide support for EOL (end of life) software. Software that is EOL has lost all support from the developer and therefore all consumer communities as well. These operating systems and various softwares are no longer receiving security patches. Running them is unsafe and we recommend users install a supported version as soon as possible.

No Public Service Announcements

No public service announcements unless relevant to an issue (it must be a comment).

If you wish to create a post then message the mods first and get approval otherwise you will be banned.

No Soliciting

No soliciting of any kind. This includes (but is not limited to) asking for us to link to your subreddit, forum, bulletin board, newsgroup, Facebook page, etc. We’re here to help with technical issues, not market for others.

No Spam, Trolling, Insults, Jokes, or Posts Unrelated to Tech Support

Posts and comments containing (but not limited to) the following will be removed and a ban can be imposed: blog spam, link spam, referral spam, joke responses, memes, novelty accounts, trolling, unethical behavior, and personal insults.

Posts not containing a tech support issue will be removed. Off topic comments will be removed.

Please stick to the issue being addressed in the post. If not you might get a ban.

No Posts/Comments by a Company or an Employee on Behalf of a Company

Employees of companies with social media presences for marketing or damage control are not allowed. Violations will be dealt with harshly.

Do not post any potentially malicious links. We will consider Dropbox links, Google Drive links, or Google Photos links to be potentially malicious.

We recommend against any URL Shorteners as they can hide malicious links.