An open question for PN

<p>What is PN's guideline on posting a web? I often do something like www<dot>blahblah<dot>com but I am still worried I may be breaking the rules.</p>

<p>TIA</p>

<p>Well, as I understand it;</p>

<p>You can post a link to another website in a message board posting so long as you are not advertising your own site, or you are not advertising a referral link. If you notice a person a few posts back asked about professional organizations. The people who replied with links to these organizations will not violate the rules of PN because they did not post a referral link and they are not the owners of those sites.</p>

<p>Is that how the rule is written? What about links in sig lines? Can you put your website in your signature line?</p>

<p>For example could I sign my postings by saying<br>

Fred J Claus<br />Commercial Photographer<br /><a href="http://www.domainname.com">www.domainname.com</a></p>

<p> </p>

<p>The best place to ask this is the PN feedback forum found at the bottom of the page in small print "contact photo.net"</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/site-help-forum/</p>

<p>It depends. If it's your own, just stick in your profile. Otherwise it's if it's a part of the content and context of a post, but not used for advertising. Or at least not without taking some heat from folks about it or risk finding the post gets put in to the byte bucket. In short, use common sense and be decent and you're fine.</p>

<p>The only reason that a web site address would show up in the body of a post or a comment would be because the thing found at that address is what's actually being talked about, or helps to answer a question in some way.<br /><br />It's definitely not good form to put your own web site address at the bottom of every post, like a signature. The moderators will warn you once or twice, and then delete the posts, and then ban the user if that keeps happening. Links to other sites that have the appearance of being an ad or part of a guerrilla marketing campaign will not live long.<br /><br />The whole idea is that a page with 50 comments - many by same people participating in a conversation - will get unnecessarily cluttered if everyone starts hanging signatures after everything they say. Every time somebody makes a comment, their name is at the top of that comment. Their name is a link that takes others to their profile, and the member's profile is the <em>perfect </em>place to show a link off to your personal web site or business.</p>

Here are the guidelines for the use of the photo.net forums: http://www.photo.net/site-help-forum/00QbV5

<p>No need to reinvent the wheel. Most of this is already covered in the <a href="../info/terms-of-use"><strong>Terms of Use</strong> </a> and <a href="../info/guidelines/"><strong>Community Guidelines</strong> </a> sections.</p>

<p>When in doubt, e-mail the moderator for the forum. The mods are listed on the home page for each forum. Practices of unwritten policies do differ slightly between forums so there's no harm in asking if something is unclear after having browsed a forum for awhile to get some perspective on how things are done.</p>

<p>The basic rule is that simple self promotion is prohibited. So if you say "Take a look at my blog (link)", then it's against the rules. Similarly if you're selling something, a link to your website isn't allowed. It's also not allowed to post a generic link to your website as a signature.</p>

<p>What is allowed is a link to a specific page on your (or any other) website that contains information on the subject you are discussing. So, for example, if you are talking about post processing of digital IR images and you have a page on your website about how to process digital IR images, you can link to it to provide more information than you can easily give in a forum reply.</p>

<p>Established members of the photo.net community are given slighly more leeway (or more "benefit of the doubt") on this issue than someone who signs up one day and starts posting links the next.</p>

<p>The idea is to limit the number of posts being made only so that the author can slip in a website link. The idea here is to help other forum members, not promote a product, service or serve as a billboard to promote your website or gallery. Links are generally OK when they link to additional information on a subject that you've discussed in a forum response.</p>