testmy.net forums can be a fun place to talk, but there are a few things we would like you to know. Having a few key pointers in mind when posting will make everyone's experience here at testmy.net a much more pleasant one.

[r.1.01] Before you post...

[r.1.02] First, if you have a question it's usually a good idea to search our forum before you ask the question. Many questions can be answered simply with a quick search of our forum. (just a heads up)

[r.1.03] Warning. Your postings on this public forum will become public. Your text will be available to anyone with an internet connection.

[r.1.04] The basic ground rules for discussions on testmy.net are simple: be polite, use common sense, don't break the law and don't post any message that even hints at advertising.

[r.1.05] We don't intend to censor messages based on the opinions expressed within posts, but we will enforce the policies outlined both here and on the Forum. We reserve the right to remove, modify or move posts at our discretion and without explanation. Please contact a mod or admin if you do not understand any of the rules, guidelines or policies outlined below.

[r.1.06] Suspension of your account is a definite consequence of not adhering to these guidelines.

[r.1.07] In addition to the rules posted here, you are required to read any individual forum rules which may be posted at the top of specific forums as Important threads or Announcements. By using this forum, you further agree to abide by testmy.net's Terms of Use. testmy.net staff assumes that members have read them, and will not take ignorance of any rules as an excuse for not following the rules, policies, and guidelines outlined here, and in the forum specific rules. These rules may be changed without notice and all members are expected to check our rules and policies every so often to make sure they are up-to-date with the current policies.

[r.2.01] General Forum Rules:

These rules apply to all Forum categories.

[r.2.02] You are responsible for any posts originating from your user name account.
[r.2.03] All publicly displayed messages are limited to the English language. This includes posts, titles, signatures, as well as any attachments or other forms of public display.
[r.2.04] Signature Spam (a post that was made in hopes of showing a signature, as determined by moderators) is forbidden in all forum categories.
[r.2.05] You may not post commission, referral or affiliate links anywhere on the forum.
[r.2.06] You may not post to instruct users to check their e-mail, check their PM, or inform them that they've got mail or a new PM, or any variant thereof.
[r.2.07] Cross-Posting is not allowed here. Cross-posting refers to posting new duplicate threads or posts, or the linking to threads or posts they have already started.
[r.2.08] You may not solicit any external source to post on this forum regarding your company, services, or products; or any company, services, or products you are or may be associated with.
[r.2.09] You may not post on behalf of any banned member in any public manner. This includes all forums, private messages, signatures, and e-mail features.
[r.2.10] You may not post words or URLs that are censored by adding spaces, dots, or substituting characters; or by any other means in an attempt to defeat any censors put in place by testmy.net. Please contact us if you feel a word or URL is unjustly censored.
[r.2.11] You may not link, in any manner, to sites or images containing pornography, sexually explicit, gross violence, or are determined by moderators to be detrimental to the community.
[r.2.12] You may not bump threads. Bumping can refer to posting useless information, posting one-liners or any other action to deliberately keep a thread hot or to bring it to the top of its forum. Moderators will use their discretion, depending on the nature of the post, as to whether to take action or not.
[r.2.13] You may not use discussions to recommend, praise, or belittle other products or services, or any company; without first hand experience of those products or services. This includes companies recommending other companies. Any post not meeting a moderator's criteria will be removed without notice.
[r.2.14] We take the "Be Polite" rule very seriously! We do not tolerate any rudeness. Any member who is intentionally unpleasant or disruptive may be banned without warning.
[r.2.15] Any posts that encourage illegal intent will be removed and the account disabled.
[r.2.16] Public posts debating these rules and/or moderators' enforcement of such, will be removed without comment. We encourage feedback however and invite you to either post in this special section of our forum or contact Damon.

[r.3.01] We don't care about your products and services:

[r.3.02] You may not publish or discuss any information regarding your product or services, or future (possible) products or services, or any product or services you are, or have been, associated with. This includes, but not limited to suggesting your own services, or services of partners, clients, employers or friends.
[r.3.03] You may not post any messages that is commercial by nature.
[r.3.04] You may not post any message that directs others to any pages at your own commercial web site, including informational pages. A commercial web site is defined as a site that receives any type of income.
[r.3.05] You may not direct others to contact you regarding your product or services or future (possible) products or services, or any product or service you are, or have been, associated with.
[r.3.06] You may not solicit the membership for feedback or suggestions on your product or services.
[r.3.07] You may not solicit users for any project or purpose external to the forum; public, private, or commercial. Most importantly our member base is not a resource to be "mined" by individuals, groups, or businesses, for profit or not for profit. Further; If you SPAM our members in any manner, your account will be disabled. Do not contact anyone that is not explicitly expecting you to contact them.
[r.3.08] You may only discuss details about your company and/or product offerings when the thread starter or poster has made direct reference to your company and stated something untrue or misleading, or something which clearly needs clarifying. The response must be in direct reference to the point discussed only and contain no added promotional information and/or fluff. It is advisable when in the above scenario to contact us first.

[r.4.01] External Links, Affiliate Marketing Links, Signature URL's and test results from the competition

[r.4.02] Note to anyone wishing to post affiliate marketing links: this is not saying that links in general aren't allowed, the point is that links that are linking to external resources are to have the same standard as the content hosted here at testmy.net. The page being linked to can't have popups, warez, illegal content, spam, or excessive advertising. The link also may not be a link to any affiliate program, furthermore the link may NOT forward to any affiliate program or have links within the page that link to affiliate programs. If you are caught linking to affiliate programs in our forum not only will you have to deal with repercussions here at testmy.net you will also have to deal with your affiliate program owner because you will be reported for illegal linking (almost all affiliate programs disallow linking to the program in forums or in sites that you don't personally own). Many affiliate programs will drop a publisher if they see activity like that and 99.99% of the time they will withhold 100% of money owed to you because of being in violation of program rules. It's not worth it... so DO NOT post links to affiliate marketing schemes, you will only hurt yourself. Mods and Admins here at testmy.net take pride in the fact that we catch 100% of such links and do so within the first hour of it being posted. If you would like to make money off an affiliate marketing scheme I suggest that you create your own website and try to get traffic the legit way. Most affiliate sites are run by small business and because of that they tend to look into all publishers they will be paying out. If you don't pass their authentication then you won't get paid, just a heads up.
[r.4.03] Inappropriate External Links: Any external link that contains illegal content, content not suitable for all ages, warez [or hack related in any way], spam, virus, excessive advertising or even one single popup your link will be removed without notice. If your thread was solely based on the link you posted then your thread will be completely removed from the site. If you ignore warnings and rules (as with any rule here) you will then be banned from the site (see *ban subsection rules).
[r.4.04] URL's in signatures: see [r.5.05-K]
[r.4.05] see [r.5.05-L]
[r.4.06] Are you in doubt about anything?: If you're unsure about any of our forum rules feel free to shoot a PM to the site owner or contact any moderator or admin you come across (search members by position for "admin" or "global moderator")

[r.4.07] If you try to get around a rule by purposely playing on words your account will be banned.

[r.4.08] We value all of our members but we also want a clean discussion. We have no need for anyone that is going to make our users experience less than awesome... therefore we will not and do not hesitate when it comes time to ban. Please listen to the rules and enjoy your stay. - Damon

[r.5.01] Custom User Titles, Locations, Signatures and Avatars:

[r.5.02] The custom user titles, location field, and signature options are edited via your Profile. Custom user titles and the location field are displayed next to your posted text, under your user name. Signatures, once created in your profile, are attached to the end of your posts (if you choose the option to include your signature.)

[r.5.03] URLs or other forms of advertising (phone numbers, plans, contact details, etc.) are not allowed in custom user titles. Also, you may not use custom titles to impersonate, or attempt to impersonate, TMN Staff or user groups.
[r.5.04] Your location field cannot include URLs or other forms of advertising.
[r.5.05-a] Signatures (a) and Avatars (b):
- [r.5.05-a.A] Currently maxed at 700 characters
- [r.5.05-a.B] Should take up no more than 225px of vertical space
- [r.5.05-a.C] Should not distort the way that our pages display
- [r.5.05-a.D] May not contain any pricing, plan, sales, etc. details.
- [r.5.05-a.E] May contain a maximum of two smileys. Or one animated smiley.
- [r.5.05-a.F] May include two clickable links.
- [r.5.05-a.G] May include two colors, plus black. (images of course are exempt)
- [r.5.05-a.H] Maximum font size cannot be larger than 14pt.
- [r.5.05-a.I] Please keep special characters to a minimum.
- [r.5.05-a.J] Any signature that is offensive or insulting to TMN, its members, or its staff, is prohibited.
- [r.5.05-a.K] URL's in signatures: You are allowed to post URL's and links in your signature. URL's in signatures may only be simple URL's. Any URL's that contain dynamic information (other than information to direct the user to a forum or blog thread or profile - example: View the profile would be allowed; Get this cool stuff < would be not allowed;). Dynamic URL/Image information is also allowed for dynamic signatures (signatures that show specific user information such as 'what song I'm listening to' and other user specific information).
- [r.5.05-a.L] Test results in signatures from competing websites: Does testmy.net allow it's users to post test results from competing websites? testmy.net does not have a problem with users posting test results from competing websites. What testmy.net does NOT allow is the advertising for such sites. A simple link or validation link is one thing but having a huge logo or large URL to the site is another. The site name, address and/or logo in any signature for these results may not exceed 10pt arial, any logo may not be taller than 10px. Anything larger will be seen as advertising for the competition and will be removed, possibly without notice.
- [r.5.05-a.M] We reserve the right to ask you to change and/or remove your signature (or change it for you) at any time, for any reason.
- [r.5.05-a.N] If instructed by a moderator or admin to change your signature, regardless if it seems to meet the requirements above, you must comply within 48 hours or your signature will be deleted. If you are caught changing your signature back you will have a one (1) week posting ban placed on your account. If you fail to comply after the ban is lifted your account will be fully banned without hope for reactivation.
[r.5.05-b] Signatures (a) and Avatars (b):
- [r.5.05-b.A] Custom avatars are to be of clean content, no nudity, profanity or crude content will be tolerated.
- [r.5.05-b.A] Custom avatars are to maintain the same standard held to the signatures (ref: [r.5.05-a]).
- [r.5.05-b.B] Custom avatars must be under 100x100 pixels, an avatar uploaded larger than this will automatically resized for you by the server.
- [r.5.05-b.C] We reserve the right to ask you to change and/or remove your avatar (or change it for you) at any time, for any reason.
- [r.5.05-b.D] If instructed by a moderator or admin to change your avatar, regardless if it seems to meet the requirements above, you must comply within 72 hours or one of our 800 preloaded avatars will be chosen at random for you. If you are caught changing your avatar back you will have a one (1) week posting ban placed on your account. If you fail to comply after the ban is lifted your account will be fully banned without hope for reactivation.

[r.5.06] Any posts not meeting these guidelines may be removed. We do not remove posts by requests... unless the post has slandered an individual, contact admin if this is the case, the request must come from the individual targeted and you must provide proof.

[r.5.07] In light of our policy of encouraging candid, open exchanges of views and the rapid distribution of information originating from many sources, testmy.net cannot determine the accuracy of information that may be uploaded to the forum..

[r.5.08] Opinions, advice and all other information expressed by participants in discussions are those of the author. You rely on such information at your own risk. You are urged to seek professional advice for specific, individual situations and not rely solely on advice or opinions given in the discussions.