Perhaps it's not a problem...

I've noticed we have some member/contributors here that are either directly tied to, or closely related to the 'source' material. I know this is a public venue, but what is the official word on this sort of thing? Bloggers becoming members and citing their own blogs, 'news' sources, vaguely cited by their own authors, people revealing products and details of things, with which they bear some affiliation.

Is this OK? If so, I guess it doesn't bother me, but I thought this sort of thing was not well-received in our little ATS community of users.

No this is not encouraged as advertising one's own website is against the Terms and Conditions without properlly acquired permission.

Please alert Staff to any future examples so that they can be addressed (we can't see everything... )

reply to post by Maxmars


You're not alone on this, Maxmars. I've noticed it myself. It's often a case that OP includes very little comment - maybe one or two lines - apart from the link.

MemoryShock, i shall also be alerting with these from now on.

Peace,

MGGG

The TAC are very clear about this sort of thing... The general rule is... if you are a member in good standing for six months, you can ask us (the owners/admins) for permission to post a link to your personal, not for profit/non merchant website in your signature. We generally allow all of these.

Naturally if someone has written a good article in their blog that they believe the membership of ATS would be interested in then by all means post a snippet and a link to the article.

BUT...

If your blog is geared toward selling a product or is a merchant/for profit site (selling DVDs or Books for example) then it is not allowed. We've had several people in the past who were trying to hawk a book they wrote attempt the old "end around" by posting snippets out of their book with a link back to the site they sell the book on. These were trashed and if the person didn't stop their account was banned.

Naturally we understand that it would be a sweet deal to get the attention of the grand ATS membership to sell a book on the topics of interest here. We understand this because companies pay good money to advertise here. It is not fair for us to charge one company and allow another company to advertise for free, it's not smart business either.

PLEASE do alert anyone you see abusing the system here or anyone who plugs a link to their site in every post they make.

Thanks!

Springer...

[edit on 12-15-2008 by Springer]