ADMIN: Advertising Guidelines Updated

The Cauldron's Advertising Guidelines have been updated because of all the SIG Spammers and the changes to our membership classes. The only people really affected will be those whose main reason for being here is to advertise or get their Sig links to appear -- such people will need to either post a lot of messages (75+) first or have a current paid Cauldron Supporter or Donor membership. Cool

Here are the new rules:

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There are a number of ways to put text ads on pages of The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum's web site in exchange for cash donations to the web site. See the "Advertise Here" link on the menu to the far left for more information. Silver and Gold Donors will soon be able to have a single text ad in a rotating display on our message board.

The following rules apply to advertising in content posted in our community areas:

* Unsolicited advertising/announcement (commercial or non-commercial, pagan or non-pagan) messages not approved in advance in accordance with the procedures in this paragraph is generally considered "spam." The content of such unapproved message is deleted and our members post Spam (the Hormel product) recipes and otherwise make fun of the post. Spam messages posted as one of the first ten messages posted by a new member may result in a ban.

If you really think your ad would be of interest to our members and you have posted at least 15 substantive on-topic messages to our community, please query the Message Board Coordinator (or the Hosts as a last resort) in email with a copy of the ad/announcement text you wish to post and request permission to post it. They will look at the ad and make a decision. The only exception to this rule is that members of our message board are usually allowed to make short, one time informative announcements of new non-commercial Pagan-related events, forums, mailing lists, or the like of direct interest to Pagans on the Pagan Announcements board (subject to the special rules for that board) without obtaining advance permission.

* It is not considered advertising to post a direct link to (or information about) a business or product in response to bona fide question in a message thread (as long as one discloses any interest one might have in the business/product). Nor is it considered advertising for regular posters on our message board to post a link to an item or business to discuss it.

* A single text link to one's business is allowed in signatures on messages and in "About the Author" boxes at the end of articles published on our community portal provided they are links and not full blown ads. One's signature is not an advertising billboard, however. Signatures consisting solely of lists of links to commercial sites/affiliates/products not directly related to Paganism are not generally allowed unless one has posted at least 75 messages or has a current paid Cauldron Supporter or Donor level membership. If it appears to the Hosts that you are making generic/useless posts to get the business links in your signature in posts, you may be banned from using them at all or even banned from this forum as we consider this a form of spamming. The board software will not even allow links to appear in signatures until you have posted 5 messages.

* Affiliate links are not allowed in posted content or signatures if they conflict with the affiliate relationships of The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum. Exceptions to this affiliate link rule may be granted by the Hosts in special cases (e.g. an author linking to his/her own books on Amazon with his/her affiliate code), talk to the Hosts if you think an exception is warranted.

* No ad-like links to any business, product, service or other web page that the Hosts consider to be in extremely poor taste (e.g. hate speech), porn, of questionable legality, or a possible scam may be posted on this board. The decision of the Hosts is final and will be made solely on their personal standards.