Signatures

[hotshot]

Hey guys

A moderator deleted my signature because I insertet my URL for my website! And told my it was not allowed to "advertise" unless George agreed with it? It that true? I see loads of signatures with UR: addresses!

[fatter than harry]

3) Spam, flooding, commercial or for-profit advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and similar solicitations are also inappropriate and not allowed on thaivisa.com. Any member who might violate this prohibition will be banned from these forums and this site. Membership is at the will of thaivisa.com. Our contracts with our advertisers prohibit comments with regard to advertisements which appear on our forums. Such comments should not be posted and will be removed. Please don't drop promotional urls, signature files, or specifics that would lead people to your site.

4) It is not acceptable to solicit for, nor accept donations, gifts, etc for providing advice to visitors and members of the thaivisa.com forums, nor is it permitted to steer, promote or solicit persons to go to locations or businesses in which it is necessary to pay for services or assistance.

You may see many url's but they generally lead to non payment sites, in an instance when the url does lead to a pay site it would be when a member has requested some help or info and another member has pointed them in the right direction.

Just placing a url for your own company isn't allowed unless you're an advertiser.

Which you can be by looking here: http://www.thaivisa.com/576.0.html

Or emailing: [email protected]

Cheers!

[Ajarn]

Same thing happened to me. Not allowing someone's homepage, in my case, asiarecipe.com, which is free to visitors and gives good information about Thailand- as well as most of the countries in Asia, is extremely narrow-minded thinking. Clearly, it's a public service website.

Things often seem needlessly rigid here.

c'est la vie

[bkkmadness]

Fair point from Ajarn, I enjoyed looking at the asiarecipie of his and it's in my favourites now. I only found it here through his signature, and I expect it brings a bit of traffic from here so could be called advertsing as more traffic ultimately means more money can be charged from the site for advertisers, but at the end of the day, a harmless site. Perhaps some URLs that are relevant to Thailand and not selling anything should be allowed on here.

[Ajarn]

Fair point from Ajarn, I enjoyed looking at the asiarecipie of his and it's in my favourites now.  I only found it here through his signature, and I expect it brings a bit of traffic from here so could be called advertsing as more traffic ultimately means more money can be charged from the site for advertisers, but at the end of the day, a harmless site.  Perhaps some URLs that are relevant to Thailand and not selling anything should be allowed on here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The percentage of traffic from here is miniscule (and I do track such things), but my reason for putting it in my signature is because my website IS my signature. Everything I believe in and want to share with others. My labour of love. And I can still fullfill a part of the Teacher in me, since I can't teach in a classroom anymore. Most of my visitors are students from around the world, generating a million or more page-views per month some months, and growing. There are banners, like most every website has, but the modest income goes to a school in my area, and that can be backed-up....

It's one of the best things I've ever accomplished in this life, and I'm dam proud of it and the support it provides to schools and students in the north. It's a shame it's being censored by thaivisa.com

Okay, I'm off the Soap Box

Edited January 31, 2005 by Ajarn

[george]

There is a reason why we have the rule NO url's here at Thaivisa

Have a read here, please, it's a discussion in my Blog:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/blog/george/...owentry&eid=303

[Ajarn]

There is a reason why we have the rule NO url's here at Thaivisa

Have a read here, please, it's a discussion in my Blog:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/blog/george/...owentry&eid=303

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn't a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it's just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists.

I don't see your point, George. Mine is not a hyperlink at all, and has nothing to do with anything you've referred to that I can make out. And, according to their words, even if your site had such hyperlinks, google made it clear it wouldn't be a negative vote for thaivisa itself. If I'm wrong, please show me.

AsiaRecipe.com is not a Spammer.

So, maybe thaivisa should add the (rel="nofollow") to the section in the signature that has a space to make a hyperlink.... Then, you would have no reason to fear even the spammers, or your position in search returns

Allow folks to list their innocuous homepages, please.

[bkkmadness]

Does it depend on where the URL leads as I notice one of the super moderators on this site also has a url link to their homepage?

And to be honest, it looks along a similar vein to Ajarns.

[RDN]

Please report URLs in signatures to a mod via PM - we can then discuss it in the mods forum.

[bkkmadness]

I'm not one for name calling, besides being a super moderator would have expected them to know the rules of the forum? Unless certain URLs are allowed? There is many more out there, and it though the OP URL was a blatant commercial site, it's a shame Ajarns URL to an informative site was not allowed.

[Ajarn]

I'm not one for name calling, besides being a super moderator would have expected them to know the rules of the forum?  Unless certain URLs are allowed?  There is many more out there, and it though the OP URL was a blatant commercial site, it's a shame Ajarns URL to an informative site was not allowed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a shame that George seems to be not willing to openly discuss the issue, nor respond directly to me on the points I've brought up. I don't know why he won't talk to me directly, but I can only guess it's because he can't defend his position on these points...

But, as is so often pointed out here, it's his game, his rules. Such is life in TV, but neither George, nor any other mod here, annoys me except for this one smallish issue. I can live with that

[george]

Ajarn, you have a fantastic website and I am reading it frequently. Your site is highly ranked in the search engines, has quality content and we have allowed your banner for free at our TopSite List.

The reason that we do not allow urls or clickable url's in the signatures is that we don't want to risk that some members, knowingly or unknowingly, will link to "bad neighbourhood" (sites who spam the search engines, doing tricky things to rank higher, website cloaking, sites with Zero pagerank etc etc etc).

If we get penalized by Google and de-listed at the big engines we would lose badly.

We have no time and resources to check all outbound links in member signatures if they were allowed, so we have said no to all.

It's not because we are greedy, it's because of the reasons above. Send me a PM if you want to report a member whom has a link in his signature. That helps us to minimize the risks.

I have spent millions of baht in SEO and marketing for this site, and I will not let it go astray.

Please try to understand and accept my position in this policy.

Thanks!

[Ajarn]

Ajarn, you have a fantastic website and I am reading it frequently. Your site is highly ranked in the search engines, has quality content and we have allowed your banner for free at our TopSite List.

The reason that we do not allow urls or clickable url's in the signatures is that we don't want to risk that some members, knowingly or unknowingly, will link to "bad neighbourhood" (sites who spam the search engines, doing tricky things to rank higher, website cloaking, sites with Zero pagerank etc etc etc).

If we get penalized by Google and de-listed at the big engines we would lose badly.

We have no time and resources to check all outbound links in member signatures if they were allowed, so we have said no to all.

It's not because we are greedy, it's because of the reasons above. Send me a PM if you want to report a member whom has a link in his signature. That helps us to minimize the risks.

I have spent millions of baht in SEO and marketing for this site, and I will not let it go astray.

Please try to understand and accept my position in this policy.

Thanks!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks, George, for the supportive reply, and some more reasoning....

Earlier, i was told that url's were on a case-by-case basis, hence, my postings, followed by more directed posting to get a further clarifying response. I now correctly understand that there are no case-by-case considerations, nor any exceptions made. Admittedly, this seems fair, and I appreciate your efforts in your posting to clarify for me, even if I don't agree with all your reasoning.

As you know, I enjoy contributing here very much, as witnessed by my postings. I also recognize the value of such a place of discussion (but a VERY tough way for you to make a buck from banners here! ) I appreciate the many many smart folks around, and what they've taught me. It's my hope I can offer similar support to others...

By the way, tham dee, dai dee for you, too. For listing my banner on your site, I've added a TV banner into rotation on my site as a default.