Forum Rules

Self promotion is perhaps mentioning a product you have affiliations with or your business if you are not a business member.

Off topic is a subcest that is not in the spirit of the forum which is travel and vehicle oriented.

Such as the one that said Bin Laden is dead.

The only travel in that post would be that his has been severely curtailed

A read of the Forum Rules and Terms of use which is to the right when you

type your reply should answer the question correctly.

Always there but seldom read.

As a moderator on other sites I have found some of the rules here hard to workout Redbacks so its not a silly question, but you can directly ask the moderators the question , or for an intrepretation.

And the way some people respond to questions, "stupid or not", tends to put a lot of people "off side". There are some very "precious" people on forums.
Capt. ( was that "off topic" or "self promoting" )

"self promotion" ....
people trying to sell there own goods/service or a goods/service that they will benifit from the sale of it, some do it without knowing they have done it until "pulled up" and others do it knowing full well it will get "moderated" ......
Although this is a "public forum" they make money from advertising and it is simply a business, if you want to use the exposure it gets then you have to be a bussiness member, if you in any way try to promote it without being a member or a paying advertiser then you will get kicked off and rightly so as "they" are simply trying to run a business as we all are......

"Off Topic"..
Well it is "off topic" and explained clearly in the rules....

What you wont get your head around is the tolerance changes from one day to the next, it depends on the "mod" of the day/time and if they are in a good mood or not and i am certain it is "that time of the month" some times, or maybe PMT/PMS/PMM/PMH/PPP ...... LOL

You get the drift of it after a while of reading it all and seeing how it all works, trust me there are some "forums" that are pathetic and when you ask any questions you get smart remarks about doing searchs ect, i am certain they are simply there for "referance" for the old users, you will find em on here also but all in all a really good bunch of helpful people
Cheers Joe

Hi Redbacks

I was surprised to see the Wicked Campers thread go - it seemed genuine to me, but the administrators who can see where posters come from must have discovered it was Wicked Campers sneaking one in.

Sometimes i have seen someone give a good report on a product, and the thread goes, later to be reinstated. Perhaps the initial poster has proved their good intent and no connection with the product other than as an end user. Good news stories and happy customers are far more appropriate than 'bagging' a product or caravan park because of an unhappy experience, so i would not like to see the knife taking these out in case they were surreptitious advertising.

Some threads are blatant sneaky advertising, which is against the forum rules, and does not do the forum any good (time wasting threads).

Off topic also wastes reader's time, but sometimes the knife here cuts rather close to the bone.

Motherhen

I thought an off topic might be like talking about how all your food went bad on the way to the cape? That would be 'off' don't you think? ;-) Mike

I am not a "member" here.
I used to include a link to my OKA home page in my sig. line and I was told that it contravened the "self promotion" rule and I was not to include it again unless there was something specific there that related to the particular thread.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 Motorhome.

Ok so..... without being critical of this thread....how is "I found a koala in my shed" ON TOPIC?

I don't mind the thread, or similar, but how does that one follow the rules?

Cheers Neil

I guess the problem for moderation is that you can either have a list as long as your arm about what is and isn’t acceptable, and in which case no-one will read it, or you give broader guidelines and let posters use some discretion themselves.

The latter will usually mean some will pass and some won’t, because we aren’t all the same and our ‘interpretations’ will vary, and that includes the moderators, which often leads to the appearance or viewpoint being formed of the site being inconsistent in its moderation...

I guess the overriding thing is that if you have a topic you believe is consistent with the ‘thrust’ of the site, then post it. If it is moderated and you feel it is of interest, and ‘on-topic’ contact the moderators and highlight why you think it is. Reasonable people usually respond well to reasonable requests...

But a clear example of what is off-topic is the Osama Bin Laden joke thread that appeared, and disappeared, just as quickly, earlier today. Just goes to show, everyone’s interpretation of what is on or off-topic varies significantly...

Cheers, The Landy

Wow,
so many '' I now the rules'' replies, Many thanks snoopyone you answered my question in a cpl of quick easy lines, yep i can read the rules, but chose to ask the question instead, so are we still ''on topic or ''off topic'' like someone said it depends on the moderator of the day !!
just to start another argument?? would an ''Off topic'' section be a good idea for EO to start in a forum room? yep! i know that's what ''Facebook'' etc. is for, but who likes F.B ? & i bet 80% of you would use it ?
just a question guy's, just a question !!!

Very good question. I am interested in the Solar Panel threads and there is one member Mandrake who plugs his products as soon as someone asks a question regarding Solar. SO what the rules are is anyones guess. If you read the rules it is not allowed but obviously the rules dont apply to this particular member. I dont have a problem with the Slef Promotion rule, but it would be nice if it applied to all