Guidelines - Please Read Before Posting

[webmaster]

How to learn the most
One of the best ways of learning is to contribute questions and comments. Participating in a forum, as opposed to lurking, will increase the amount of knowledge and fun you get out of our forum. So let's hear from you!

Our commitment towards cultivating a friendly gardening community
Our rules are in place to cultivate the positive experience we are known for. If you have a question or comment about the rules, feel free to Private Mesage (PM) myself or any of the other moderators.

Copyrights
Please respect the copyrights of other websites, books, and publications. While quoting a small portion of a work for the purpose of discussion is generally seen as fair use, quoting multiple paragraphs is not. If quoting a small portion please leave an attribution otherwise we will consider removing the quote in its entirety as it's our policy to respect the copyrights of publishers. We especially appreciate that you respect the copyrights of other gardening forums by not quoting them here.

Religion and Politics
HelpfulGardener respects your religious and political beliefs. Religion and politics play a major role in people's lives around the world. Because this is a forum with people from all walks of life, we request that everyone respect everyone else's religious and political beliefs, even those that may be radically different than your own. Negative comments about religious beliefs will not be tolerated.

Discussion of politics, or politically charged comments are discouraged. We want it so that when we step into the Helpful Gardener forum we are not Democrats, Tories, Labour, Republicans anymore- we are friends. The goal here is to create a community around gardening. Things that cause division, that are divisive, work against that goal. This is why we have these policies in place.

Discussion of political policies and laws that affect gardening are fine. But let's remember to above all keep our discussions civil and polite.

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact me by Private Messaging.

Please Help Keep our Forum Family Friendly
Our community members come from all walks of life and personal beliefs. We ask that you please keep your posts family friendly not only to avoid offending a fellow gardener, but also because we want to keep the focus of discussions on gardening in a respectful and easy going environment. As with all the points in our guideline, the goal is to encourage community.

Post Titles
When initiating a new thread, it's very important to create a descriptive title. Making your title vague is a sure way to create a discussion with unsatisfactory answers. Questions are answered better and by more people when you take a moment to create a thoughtful title. More about Post Titles here.

Play nice
We encourage all members to be mindful that online communication is different than discussions in person or on the phone. What may sound fine in person may appear harsh online. It's quite easy to offend someone without meaning to. So please be mindful of how a post may sound. It doesn't take much to sound harsher than you intended.

One way to lighten up a post is to make use of Emoticons, the little happy faces .

Discussions are Not Debates
Another way is to allow for differences of opinion. There's plenty of room for different opinions, and there is no need to "win" a discussion. On Helpful Gardener we encourage discussions, not debates. Discussions have no winners or losers, they are about the exchange of ideas, of which you are free to decide if it is the best or not for your situation.

Zero tolerance policy on rudeness
The Helpful Gardener is a relaxed and friendly place to post about gardening issues. Please help us keep it that way. Unlike other forums, we do not tolerate personal attacks or insults. Anyone caught insulting another member will be permanently banned.

We feel that taking a proactive stance on this issue will cultivate an environment where all members will feel free to express themselves. No one should fear being ridiculed for asking a question or stating their opinion. This is, after all, how we learn, by engaging in positive & constructive dialogue.

Please, no marketing surveys
We do not allow our members to be polled for marketing purposes. This also means we do not allow students to poll our members about a gadget/gizmo/machine they want to build, or about the tools that our members use.

Links in Signatures

If you are associated with a gardening business (landscaping, garden design, nursery, etc.) or a useful gardening blog or gardening related site and wish to place a link to it from your signature, that's fine as long as it's in English. Please do not post language inciting people to visit your site. A simple link will do. Links in signatures must be gardening related. Please PM me if you wish to have an exception made or have a question.

Useless posts that are pretexts for displaying promotional signatures will be removed. Signature links to sites created solely to earn affiliate commissions, work at home schemes, get rich schemes or created solely to display ads are not allowed.

No links to Squidoo Lenses.
No links to Ning sites.
No links to twitter profiles.
No links to sites that promote ebooks.
No promotion of gardening forums
No links to sites that link to article directories
No links to sites with zero original content
No links to blogs that aren't being updated
No links to sites that are in a language other than English

Posting of Email Addresses
Posting email addresses in the forum is discouraged. The whole idea of a forum is to encourage discussion. Anything oppposite of that such as actively and expressly encouraging private discussions works against the spirit of community, which is what the Helpful Gardener is all about, community.

Promotional Posts
All posts that are purely promotional and with zero useful and helpful content will be removed. Please do not rationalize that your site is useful and helpful- it's still promotional and is not allowed. If you have something useful and helpful to post, then post that with a link to your site within your signature line.

If you have any doubts or questions about this, please feel free to PM me. I am 200% more than happy to answer your question about this.

No personal vendettas
We discourage attacks against specific companies as well as personal attacks against individuals. If you have a personal problem with a company or individual, please take it up with them. Our forum is not a place to mediate your personal or business issues.

Respect for laws
Please do not use our forum to encourage others to break laws or engage in other illegal activities.

Moderator Edits
Specific edits by moderators are considered a private matter between you and the moderators. If you have a question or comment about a specific edit made by a moderator, we encourage you to contact us directly by the Private Messaging system.

Comments about moderation are considered a private issue between you and the management of the board. If you have feedback about our moderation we encouarage you to communicate it be Private Message with any of our moderators.

We want to hear from you!
This is your community and we want to hear what we can do better. Any suggestions can be sent by Private Messaging (PM) to any of the moderators to open a discussion about that.