Rules

The Webmaster Forums is a community of people with ideas and information similar to your own. You will find experienced webmasters, inexperienced newbies, hobbyists, and every age and experience level in between participating at TWF. We expect you to compose yourself in the same way that you would in a "real world" community and show respect for your fellow Webmasters. With that being said, we have outlined some specific dos and don\'ts below. By participating in the forums you are acknowledging that you have read and agree to ALL of the formalities below.

Advertising

Not Allowed

• You may not post advertisements throughout the forums. This includes new threads and replies to existing threads.
• You may not post affiliate links anywhere in the forums.
• You may not post a response to another user suggesting that they visit your site or employ you for a paid service. (Offering to volunteer for free is okay).
• You may not post articles or parts of articles copied from another site with the intent of getting traffic to your site from human visitors or search engines. You may use articles as a starting point for discussion. In this case, please link to the article rather than copying and pasting the content and include some provocative questions for the community. There is a fine line between what is and is not allowed on this issue. Moderators will use their discretion. I we feel that you are only trying to get traffic or backlinks the post will be deleted.
• You may not use the PM system or user email contacts to spam members
• You may not re-register under a new name to get around certain posting restrictions or disciplinary actions. Such memberships will be immediately revoked.

The latter two items are considered to be serious offences and will result in an immediate ban.

Allowed

• You may post an advertisement in the Market Place if you qualify for the minimum post limits listed below.
• You may use your signature to let others know about your site but may not actively point users to your signature and ask that they visit your links. More signature regulations are listed below.
• If you own a website that has **information** that is directly related to the topic being discussed, you are allowed to post a link to the portion of your site that discusses the topic. This may be an article or tutorial you wrote on a certain technique, for example. We will be selective about what is allowed in this case. If moderators feel that you are only attempting to promote yourself, and not to genuinely help the other members or answer a question, your post will be deleted.

All questions or concerns MUST be directed to a moderator or administrator via PM or e-mail ONLY. Any posts containing questions or concerns regarding moved or deleted posts will be immediately removed.

Market Place and Critiques Forums

Because of the potential for absue and past experience with spamming we have placed some posting limits on the Market Place and Website Critique Forums. The limits are as follows:

• Website Critique Area - minimum 4 posts; must review other websites before posting
• Market Place
  • Help Wanted - no limits; must be actual "help wanted" requests, not services offered or other promotions
  • Link Exchanges - minimum 15 posts and 7 days registered
  • Domain Names and Websites for Sale - minimum 15 posts and 7 days registered
  • Services and Special Offers - minimum 25 posts and 7 days registered; must maintain participation the forum to continue posting here.

  In addition:

  • You may not post a large number of short, unhelpful, repetitive, or otherwise useless posts in order to quality for the Market Place limits. This is spamming. If our moderators determine this to be the case, posts will be removed without notice.
  • You may respond to other offers in forums where you do not have the required post counts, However,
  • You may not post your advertisement as a response to another offer when you do not qualify to post your own topic.

  Signatures

  • Signatures should not be excessive in length. (about 4 lines of 65 characters)
  • You may include links that lead to your site(s) or a product page (see below policy on links).
  • You may not include links to your Market Place thread(s), links that contain Affiliate Ids, or "Donate $$$ to me" links
  • You may have a slogan. (i.e. "Top Quality Websites starting at $299.00" )
  • You may NOT include scams or unenforceable offers (i.e. ‘Earn $10,000 a month selling suntan lotion to dolphins’)
  • You may NOT use graphics in your signature.
  • You may use html in your signature within reason. You may NOT use a font size larger than the default or more than 3 different font colours.
  • You may NOT include spam links that are only there for search engines and not for humans. The search engines know that you created those links yourself and won't value them very highly anyway.

  Signatures will not be displayed on very short posts. If you are wondering why your signature didn't show up it's probably becauses your post wasn't long enough. You may NOT enter a signature link in your post to get around this restriction. Such links will be removed.

  If you have any questions about whether your signature falls within these guidelines please contact a moderator.

  Personal Behaviour

  Personal attacks on other members will not be tolerated. You are free to challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully without insult and personal attack. Posts containing name calling or other attacks will be deleted. Similarly, discussions that become overly heated or hostile in tone may be closed or removed.

  Links in Posts, Signatures, and Profiles

  Links to "bad neighbourhoods" are not allowed in forum posts, signatures or profiles. This includes, but is not limited to pornography, penile enlargement aids, shady casino gambling or pharmaceutical sales sites, link farms, splogs, and sites that have been banned from search engines. We are doing this partly to protect our visitors but also to protect our site from being associated with bad neighbourhoods and therefore hurting our own link value.

  We may also remove links that have keywords rather than a human-centered description as the target text. If it looks like something that might show up in blog spam it is probably not allowed and will be removed by moderators. Links from forums do not carry very much link value in the first place. It is probably not worth your while to attempt to manipulate your links from this forum to get higher search engine rankings.

  No Offensive Content

  Explicit, obscene or vulgar language, graphics or behavior will not be tolerated at TWF. Discussion forum posts that contain such material or link to sites that contain such material will be immediately removed. This includes, but is not limited to, pornography, illegal drugs, and any racist, X-rated, or otherwise offensive content.

  Any post containing material in violation of this rule or linking to a site in violation of this rule will be immediately deleted and the user will be disciplined immediately. If you genuinely need help with an adult website you are developing, please DO NOT link to your site. You may try to replicate the problem on a clean domain or describe it in as much detail as possible.

  TWF may be more broad than other communities in our definition of offensive material. If you have any doubts about whether your post or site may violate these guidelines, please ask a moderator before posting.

  Avatars

  Avatars are small images that can be included in your user profile. The images are a privilege that the administrators of TWF have allowed. Avatars can be, at the sole discretion of the TWF administrators, be removed from the community temporarily or permanently. Avatars are images that are meant to reflect on your personality in some way. All avatar images must be no larger than 80 X 80 pixels. Animated images are not permitted. Avatars fall under the same guidelines as printed text and must comply with those guidelines.

  Duplicate Posts

  Do not post the same topic more than once. Duplicate discussions will be deleted. If you do not know where your post belongs, either ask a moderator or post the post once in the forum you feel it best belongs in. A moderator will then move the post if it belongs in another forum.

  Copyrighted Information

  Information copyrighted or owned by any individual or entity other than the member should not be posted on the forums without the consent of the owner. If such an event occurs, the individual posting the information shall be held solely responsible. The Webmaster Forums shall not be held responsible for member-posted information that may violate copyright law. Material deemed to be copyrighted will be removed by moderators.

  Enforcement

  Repeated violations of these guidelines will be dealt with by the administrator. The punishment involved depends on the offense(s) and other posting activity of the member. If, for example, the member involved attempts to participate in forum discussions without breaking rules, we will be more lenient. In this case, members will either receive a warning message or be placed in a probationary users group that restricts permissions in the forums. Members who do not attempt to make meaningful contributions to the forum will be banned without warning. Severe violations, including posting X-rated material, spamming by private message or personal contact forms, and regsitering multiple accounts to get around posting restrictions will result in an immediate ban.

  There is no excuse for repeatedly violating the TWF guidelines. As always, the moderation team is available if you have any questions about what is and is not allowed.

  Private Messaging

  Members are expected to check and read private messages. TWF Staff may use private messaging to communicate important policy information such as Enforcement procedures. If you receive a warning via PM that you do not read it is not our problem.

  Republishing Your Words

  There is a huge amount of knowledge in the forums and as TWF grows, additional resources will become available as part of a content- or blog-based information section. As we continue to grow, we may reference your posts throughout the network and use discussion topics for the basis of new articles and features. We also reserve the right to quote your discussion forum posts in newsletters, throughout the site, and in TWF promotions. When republishing your quotes for wide distribution, we will identify you only by your TWF member name. Sites posted in the Critiques forum may also be used as illustrations in design articles.

  We promise to be sensitive in this effort. We will not republish anything you write that we think could be deemed personally endangering, inflammatory or embarrassing to you without your consent.

  Personal Information and Cookies

  Within these forums, we collect personal information including your email address, and we log your IP address for all activity. This information will not be sold or rented to any third party entity. The community software uses cookies to track certain information including read posts, forums, and, at your option, to log you into the software automatically. In order to protect you, all email addresses are verified before registration is finalized.

  The Very Legal Fine Print

  The Webmaster Forums or its assigned agents also reserves the right to prohibit or delete discussions that are thought to violate applicable law or that may be harmful to other members, the sites that comprise The Webmaster Forums, or the rights of The Webmaster Forums or others. That said, The Webmaster Forums does not have the practical ability to restrict conduct or communications that might violate these Guidelines or the Terms of Service prior to transmission on AOL or the Web, nor can we ensure prompt removal of offending discussion forum posts.

  The Webmaster Forums is a private forum that is open to the public. The public is allowed to and encouraged to post comments to invoke discussion. However, because this is a private forum, we may ultimately censor any posts made if we choose to do so. The Webmaster Forums has quite strict guidelines for acceptable content. Posts or links to sites containing offensive material may be removed by the moderation team. By posting, you are subjecting your post to these guidelines.

  In addition, the Webmaster Forums reserves the right to change these regulations at any time. Members are expected to be aware of any changes and follow the rules and guidelines at all times.

  Last Updated: July 5, 2008