Moderators violating rules

I wanted to link to my website in my signature so I looked through the forum FAQ to make certain it's allowed which it clearly says you can link to your website so I did.

Now a moderator wiped out my signature site-wide.

Where can I report a moderator that is violating the forum rules and can I have confirmation my link will not be re-removed if I add it back?

If you don't allow links in signatures, why do the rules say you do?

Either allow me to link to my website or update the rules to no longer say it's allowed.

This is simply absurd, please let me know where I can report the moderator to someone higher up.

Thank you

While linking to your site is allowed, advertising isn't. Your site is a commercial one where you sell a product, thus a link to it is an advert (particularly given that you added the link off the back of a thread about increasing sales of your product). You sort of end up under two conflicting rules here and the mod took the decision that the no-advertising rule took precendence.

I will say, the mods here have always been very reasonable, particularly the one who removed your signiature, so I would suggect you aproach him direct and see if you can reach a compromise before you start raising complaints. If you really want to push this then I guess you'd raise your complaint to the site admin, which would be Brad Jones, but I'd suggest that you're likely to catch more flies with honey than you are with vinegar. This is a pretty tight community and I think most of us would support the mod so you'd risk alienating us all if you get into a slanging match.

Good luck with your product, though. I took a look out of curiosity while your link was up and I can see why people would want to buy it (though I didn't check the price). I thought your site looked a bit unprofessional (not bad, just a bit cluttered) so I'd recommend putting some effort into making that look a bit "cleaner" but I also noticed you were the number 2 ranked result when I searched for your type of product on google so you're clearly doing something right. I will say that the number 1 result of the google search had a very slick and professional looking shop front on their site.

Also... for future reference... the appropriate spot to post this would have been in Forum Feedback... by having it in chit-chat... well...

-tg

edit - I jsut stumbled upon the other thread... the reason for the removal was clearly stated...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

While linking to your site is allowed, advertising isn't. Your site is a commercial one where you sell a product, thus a link to it is an advert (particularly given that you added the link off the back of a thread about increasing sales of your product). You sort of end up under two conflicting rules here and the mod took the decision that the no-advertising rule took precendence.

I will say, the mods here have always been very reasonable, particularly the one who removed your signiature, so I would suggect you aproach him direct and see if you can reach a compromise before you start raising complaints. If you really want to push this then I guess you'd raise your complaint to the site admin, which would be Brad Jones, but I'd suggest that you're likely to catch more flies with honey than you are with vinegar. This is a pretty tight community and I think most of us would support the mod so you'd risk alienating us all if you get into a slanging match.

Good luck with your product, though. I took a look out of curiosity while your link was up and I can see why people would want to buy it (though I didn't check the price). I thought your site looked a bit unprofessional (not bad, just a bit cluttered) so I'd recommend putting some effort into making that look a bit "cleaner" but I also noticed you were the number 2 ranked result when I searched for your type of product on google so you're clearly doing something right. I will say that the number 1 result of the google search had a very slick and professional looking shop front on their site.

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To be honest, after a long search I found it impossible to find "rules", only "FAQs" which I then assumed where the only rules, and the FAQ clearly states you can link to your website in your signature.

I'd recommend to the site owner to put the rules somewhere easy to find, because even trying to actively find them I couldn't.

Is it the fact I answered the user's question asking what I sell that's the problem (if I had just put my link in my signature and not responded to that user would I then have been within the rules)? If it's against the rules I have no problem not linking to my site, but as I said the only rules I could find where the FAQs which clearly state linking to your site is what the signature can be used for.

Just out of curiosity, which of my 2 websites are you referring to? Also, what did you search for to get my website in number 2? I don't think I ever managed to get my site in position 2 so I really want to know which of the 2 sites you're talking about (you can give the initials or PM me since it's against the rules) and what your search terms were.

Thanks

Thread moved to 'Forum Feedback', which is where questions about site usage etc belong

I'm sure Brad will read this thread, and comment if he has something to say.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aab1

Is it the fact I answered the user's question asking what I sell that's the problem (if I had just put my link in my signature and not responded to that user would I then have been within the rules)?

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No, as I mentioned in my reply 20 minutes before your post (and mentioned by FunkyDexter above 10 minutes before), the problem is that you were selling.

Links for the purposes of selling are advertising, and our rules state that advertising is not allowed.


In case you still haven't found the rules, they are available via the "Acceptable Use Policy" and "Terms of Service" links at the bottom of all VBF pages.

Thanks for clarifying, in other forums the rules are normally at the top of the forums and are labeled "Rules" which is what I was looking for.

We link to the Acceptable Usage Policy in our footer on every page. We do this on every one of our forum. We also provide the link when asked.

I believe the mods have addressed the issue, so I don't believe any further clarification is needed from me. We look the other way for basic links, but if they are applied with marketing material ("selling") we generally remove them. This is pretty standard on any major forum, so even if the rules were not easily found, the removal should not have been much of a surprise.

Brad!

Quote:

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We link to the Acceptable Usage Policy in our footer on every page

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I will say, Brad, that I went looking for the AUP myself before I posted and couldn't find it. I can see it now you've described it but it didn't occur to me to look there previously and I went though exactly the same process as aab1 (I checked the faq). Maybe adding a link to it in the faq would be a good idea.

the link to the AUP is immediately following the banner ad at the bottom... easily missed... I almost did... I went straight to the piece just below the copyright, where the Terms, licencing, about, etc are all located. I only found the AUP after scrolling back up and looking specifically for it...

-tg

I've eventually found it but only after Ctrl+F'ing it.

For me it appears just below this line of code which shouldn't be appearing at all I assume:

var _ = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://secure." : "http://ib."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + _ + "adnxs.com/ttj?id=780800' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

Am I the only one that sees that just above the AUP link?

Thanks

Nope, I see it too! The Acceptable Usage Policy is located under the big advertisement at the bottom of the page and above the Attachment 94135

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

I will say, Brad, that I went looking for the AUP myself before I posted and couldn't find it. I can see it now you've described it but it didn't occur to me to look there previously and I went though exactly the same process as aab1 (I checked the faq). Maybe adding a link to it in the faq would be a good idea.

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Me too!

Should I be concerned that everyone feels a need to read the rules.... ;) :D

Brad!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brad jones

Should I be concerned that everyone feels a need to read the rules.... ;) :D

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Yes, we could have an epidemic on our hands! It is probably a rare thing on other forums.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brad jones

Should I be concerned that everyone feels a need to read the rules.... ;) :D

Brad!

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Concerned? Maybe.
Surprised? Absolutely not!

Link to AUP added to FAQs

Given this rule:-
•You will not post any Content that is knowingly false, misleading, or inaccurate.
I think you need to ban everyone who's ever posted in Chit Chat

I had not noticed it at the bottom either. I did look for it a while back but could not locate it. I even tried doing a search for AUP which came back with 0 matches. Never once thought to look at the bottom of the page. Would expect it to be at the top. On most sites this is one of the first things you would see.

I found where the AUP was by reading the FAQs.....

l;)