One: don't do anything as root. Root is the system's account, not your user account. If you need to run a service or application, make a new user for that! I've never needed root for anything other than system administration tasks, like apt-get or adding a user. Also, don't run multiple applications as the same user. If you have a web server, a blog, and a forum, you need three users. The web servers can talk to the backend servers via UNIX sockets or TCP.

Two: don't pass -f. Do you even know what -f does, or are you just cargo-culting it? If you need -f, rm will tell you. Don't use it until then.