Welcome to the DownToMeet Forum
Please take a moment to read through these guidelines.
THE RULES AT A GLANCE
- Don't spam. We have a zero tolerance policy.
- No signatures. No self-promotion allowed.
- Make quality posts. See the Post Quality section below for details.
- No religion or politics. These are not to be discussed ever – they start too many fights.
- No personal insults. This is self explanatory.
THE RULES IN MORE DETAIL
Improve Discussion
Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the discussion or might detract from its usefulness, think over what you want to say and try again later.
The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said. If you have to, just move on. Save your energy for something you value.
One way to improve `Preformatted text`the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Please spend some time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.
Post Quality
In order to try to maintain a certain level of quality in discussions here, we ask that you strive to ensure that each post you make is:
- Meaningful – says something of substance
- Relevant – on topic and helpful, not generic advice
- New – something that hasn't already been said in the thread
The official language here is English and all communications should be in English please. That's not because we don't respect other languages, but because it's the only language we all understand!
Spam? There's No Way I'd Do That!
We are sure it's unintentional, but sometimes spam is in the eye of the beholder. If we see a new member come on board and their very first post happens to be a link back to their own site. That looks very much like spam... and we have a zero tolerance policy.
Spammers may be warned, infracted or banned at our discretion.
What Can't I Say?
Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:
- Be civil. Don't post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
- Keep it clean. Don't post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
- Respect each other. Don't harass or troll anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
- No politics or religion. Nothing starts a fight faster than politics or religion, so we don't allow those discussions.
- Keep personal information private. All posts in the forums are easily found via search engines, so unless you're willing to expose your information to the world, please do not post telephone numbers, e-mail addresses etc in your posts.
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Please read our Terms of use.
This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.
Other things we ask you not to do:
Don't copy and paste whole articles
Don't post content from other sites. If you want to discuss an article you read somewhere, post a link. (It may also be copyright infringement if you post the whole lot.) Make sure to provide enough input of your own to get a decent discussion started. For example, explain why you liked or disliked the article.Social bookmarks
Don't ask for votes on social bookmarking sites. We consider this self promotion and it's not OK.Affiliate links, coupons, and offers
Affiliate links, coupons, offers are not welcome. DO NOT:- Post coupon codes, discounts, offers.
- Ask for coupons, codes, discounts, invitations to services, etc.
- Post affiliate links.
This is a serious offense that will often earn you an infraction or banning.
Posting Surveys and Polls
Pools and surveys aren't of much value to these discussion forums,
as it often represents little more than a self-promotional link that
generates little or no discussion here, so don't post them.
Advertising or Soliciting Services
Advertising and soliciting services is in violation of our
self-promotion policy. These forums are for friendly discussion on
DownToMeet-related topics.
Keep It Tidy
Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:
- Don't start a topic in the wrong category.
- Don't cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
- Don't post no-content replies.
- Don't bump threads
- Don't divert a topic by changing it midstream.
- Don't sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.
- Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a New Topic.
REMEMBER: Search before you post
Nothing fills a forum up with rubbish faster than questions that have
already been asked and answered many times over. Please search
carefully before asking a question to see if it already exists.
What Can I Do to Make You Like Me?
Our ultimate goal here is to help people learn how to use DownToMeet in a fun and welcoming environment. There are a few easy things that you can do to help us achieve that.
Be kind. No one likes a bully. When people from every walk of life get together, there are likely to be differences of opinion. That's cool - it's what makes the place interesting, but it also means that on occasion you might just have to walk away. We don't tolerate name-calling or personal insults.
Be patient. Forums attract beginners, and that means beginner questions. You'll likely come across questions that you think are stupid, but what goes around comes around. Treat people how you'd like us to treat you.
Be polite. If someone rubs you up the wrong way, reply to the content of their post rather than the tone. Easy.
If You See a Problem, Tell Us
It is the job of the moderators to ensure that everything is clean and tidy, but there will never be enough moderators to look at every post, so we rely on you to help out. You can do that by flagging of anything you see that looks off base. It might be a post that's rude, it might be spam or maybe it's just in the wrong forum.
When you see bad behavior, don't reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone's time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.
In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts in any way; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.
The Internet is Forever
Before you post, please think carefully about what you post. These days it's good business practice to Google your company name every so often to see what people are saying about you. For that reason, if you're asking for basic advice on how to deal with a difficult client, it would be prudent to avoid naming them.
At DownToMeet we accept that occasionally people make silly mistakes and we'll do everything we can to help you out, but we simply lack the time to edit hundreds of posts and heavy edits or post deletions compromise the flow of a discussion. So please, think first.
Private Message Etiquette
- The same rules apply to Private Messaging as to posting. No spamming, insulting, self-promotion allowed.
- Don't use the PM system to ask for help if your problem is being discussed in a thread. This will prevent others from using the knowledge to solve the same problem at a later date.
Closing or deleting your account
If you don't wish to participate in the forum anymore:
- Turn off all the e-mail notification options in your profile
- Stop posting
To close this account delete the DownToMeet account.
Help
All this stuff is very interesting, but it doesn't answer my question. How can I get some help?
No worries. Email to theteam@downtomeet.com and we'll get back to you within 24 business hours (on a bad day).
DOWNTOMEET'S RIGHTS
DownToMeet and its assigned agents reserve the right to remove a post that does not relate to the topic being discussed in the forum. In addition, DownToMeet reserves the right to organize discussion forums in order to best serve the majority of our members. For example, narrow-interest or minimal activity topics may, at DownToMeet's discretion, be relocated to a more appropriate discussion forum, or deleted entirely.
DownToMeet or its assigned agents also reserves the right to prohibit or delete discussions that are thought to violate Terms of Use, applicable law or that may be harmful to other members, the sites that comprise DownToMeet, or the rights of DownToMeet or others. That said, DownToMeet does not have the practical ability to restrict conduct or communications that might violate these Guidelines or the Terms of Use prior to transmission on the Web, nor can we guarantee prompt removal of offending discussion forum posts.
We also reserve the right to remove your membership from DownToMeet or the DownToMeet Forums should you violate the Community Guidelines.