A reminder on links - read this before joining or posting

[RedRox]

If you have under 5 posts and you have embedded links to "health and diet" advice, supplements and programs or any commercial looking site, either in the body of your posts or more specifically within your signature, you will be banned immediately and your posts removed. I have a zero tolerance policy on this even if it is well meaning. No commercial links are allowed in signatures. Period. If I see someone with 1 or 2 posts and a link in their siggy, they are gone. No warnings, no questions asked. Buh-bye now! Don't let the door hit your posterior on the way out!

[southbeach33]

I will be journalling on my South Beach diet experience through a blog in Blogger. Can i put the URL in my signature?
Please advise. Thanks.

[RedRox]

As long as it's not a commercial site in anyway it should be fine. Thanks for asking though!

[RedRox]

PM me if you have any questions about this policy. I am locking this topic to prevent off topic postings on unrelated issues/questions which are better posted in other areas.

[Magna]

Adding to the earlier posts, new members should avoid including commercial links in their profiles, signatures, or anywhere else. Don't rely on a mechanical rule that once you have five posts or more, you're no longer a new member. If you appear to be posting "filler," to get your post count up, we will still consider you a new member. Among other things, anything not very closely related to SBD, or showing no real interest in SBD is filler. Remarks that could just as easily have been posted almost any other discussion board are filler. Remarks that were cut and pasted from other places on the board, or from other boards, are filler. Generic "hello" or "interesting" or "thanks for the info" posts are filler. That's not a complete list - other things could be "filler" too.

A site selling anything is commercial, but even sites that don't directly sell things could be commercial. Some blogs or news re-posting sites don't sell anything to the public, but exist mainly to generate ad revenue by getting people to click on links or look at pages, instead of to get some kind of real message across, share information, etc. Those ad-driven sites are commercial. But other sites could be commercial too, if the point of the site is to make money.

There's a special section called "Promote Other Site Here" where commercial links are allowed. But the same rules that apply to the rest of the board apply there too. It's not a free pass to post links to pharmaceutical or pirated software sites, for example.

In short, if you are a new member, no commercial links anywhere or you will be banned without warning. The moderators have to use their judgment on this so if you're not sure what's allowed, send a PM to one or more of the moderators and ask first. In particular, if you include a link in your signature, you are risking being banned and having all your posts deleted. This is especially true for new members - if you include a link, even if you don't think it's commercial, you risk a ban.

The point of all this is to ban spammers, delete spam, and keep the boards free for discussion about SBD, or other normal discussion and conversation by members. We're not trying to ban bona fide members or interfere with conversations the members want to have, whether about SBD or anything else. So please help us with this and we'll do our best.

[Magna]

The site was recently down, and when it was brought back online there were some changes. One thing to be aware of is that in some cases Infolink software (apparently put in with the site owner's permission) automatically links ads to keywords or key phrases in posts. They appear double-underlined, with both the words and the underlining in green. (You may see a link like that in this post, for example.) Those are automatically done by the website, so it's not the posters' doing. This is different from posters adding their own embedded links.

At the same time, we have no control over what the ads or links are, so proceed with caution. Just because some ad is linked to doesn't mean it's appropriate for SBD, or that anyone here endorses it.

[Magna]

There is a pattern of spammers posting basically meaningless messages, then later going back and editing links in. The messages have no real relationship to the conversation or SBD. Sometimes they're on the same general topic, but seem to be clipped out of an article. If you see a post meeting that description, please report it. (The moderators will have a look at it and make the call.) Meaningless, random, or gibberish posts may be deleted and could result in the member being banned.

Just a reminder: off-topic postings and misleading people about who or where you are violate the Board rules. New members who appear to be lying or misleading people might be banned. In all likelihood, the moderators won't warn you or wait for you to violate any other rules - you'll just be banned immediately. To avoid this, if you're a new member and for some reason posting from an unusual location, you should give some kind of explanation. If your profile or signature says you're from one place but you're posting from a different place, you should probably explain that too.

[Magna]

A couple of other things to note: Don't include links to websites whose addresses have been shortened, compressed, or disguised in any way, or websites whose addresses don't readily identify them. If anyone posts a link to a website, it should be absolutely clear, before someone clicks on it, where it's going to take them. If it's not clear where a link goes, we're not going to click on it ourselves. We'll assume it's to a commercial or malicious site. In fact, if you are a new member, we might assume any link goes to a commercial site or some other bad site.

Also, any new member name, signature, avatar, link, etc. that appears to violate the website rules may result in an immediate ban. Among other things, this could include names, images, or signatures that appear to be commercial or pornographic.

We deal with a lot of new members and their posts, and we can't conduct a full investigation of your particular link, etc. to see if its on the up-and-up. So please err on the side of caution. If you have any questions about what is allowed, send one of the moderators a PM first. Again, our goal is not to ban legitimate members, but to eliminate spam so the members can enjoy and use the site.

[Kimboroni]

There is a pattern of spammers posting basically meaningless messages, then later going back and editing links in. The messages have no real relationship to the conversation or SBD. Sometimes they're on the same general topic, but seem to be clipped out of an article. If you see a post meeting that description, please report it. (The moderators will have a look at it and make the call.) Meaningless, random, or gibberish posts may be deleted and could result in the member being banned.

Because of this pattern that Magna mentioned, be aware that if you are a new member and post a general message, the moderators reserve the right to remove your ability to edit your own posts and also to use a signature, until we determine if you are a legitimate poster or not.