[Brian Turner]

Background

Simply put, sometimes people will join a forum, dump their link in a post, and leave a link-rich signature on their profile.

I wouldn't call it "spamming". But it's not great manners, and it adds nothing to the community as a whole.

This place exists to allow people with different specialist backgrounds in business, marketing, webmastering, webhosting, webdesign, and professions, to add to a wider knowledge to help others.

In return for their generosity, members are not simply able to gain a postive personal and business reputation, but are also given signature links: so that human users can find their websites, and search engines be provided with meaningfull links to help rank those sites.


Signature Link Policy

With that in mind, all members must now reach a minimum of 20 posts before they can have an active signature. This has been applied to all current members without prejudice.

You can set your signature before or after reaching 20 posts - but the forum software itself it will add signatures to your posts until you have exceeded 20 posts.

Further regulations with regards to signatures will be provided in the new Acceptable User Policy.


User Titles

User Titles can also now be customised after 20 posts.


Links

The "Offers and Requests" board has long since served as a hole for spammy promotional posts.

While I have nothing against bona-fide members posting bona-fide offers, the vast majority of posts on that board are by new members who have no intention of joining in with the overall business community here.

Therefore vb code for the "Offers and Requests" board has now been disabled, and links will no longer show as active on that board - for *any* member.

If this seems unfair to existing members then I am open to other suggestions.


Feedback

Feedback is always welcome - if you would like to recommend changes to any of the forum's policies then feel free to make your suggestions.