Modification to "article as spam" rule

We've just made a small modification to the advertising rules. Under "What is not allowed" you will now see the following point:

TWF rules wrote: You may not post articles or parts of articles copied from another site with the intent of using them to get people to visit your site or your signature links. Regularly contributing members (25 posts or more) may use articles as a starting point for discussion. In this case, please link to the article rather than copying and pasting the content.

(new sections emphasized)

We commonly refer to this as the "article as spam"/"Spam as article" rule. This modification came after someone posted a large number of parts of articles scraped from other sites this morning. What we mean here is content that:

a) has been originally posted elsewhere
b) we suspect is being used to increase the length of a post so your signature will show
c) incorporates links to sites you control and/or affiliate ID's and/or
d) includes basic content only and no questions or inquiries meant to start discussion.

If you want to start a discussion about an article posted elsewhere, that is fine. As the last part of the rule states, you may link to an article and use it as a starting point for discussion. In this case, the content should not be posted to the forum in its entirety, and there should be some questions or comments that encourage others to respond. We also wouldn't have a problem if you posted the same question on other forums - that's not what this is about.

As always, we are doing this to make TWF a better place for you and other webmasters. Keeping the forums as free from spam as possible is one of the best ways we can do that. Thanks for your participation.