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Web Design Forums Rules for Membership and Posting
You are required to agree to these rules upon registering.
  1. Users may not post information about, references to, mention, or otherwise post content about the following. See the "signatures" section for exceptions for this rule. This rule is enforced with a zero-tolerance policy; users who break this rule are instantly banned from Web Design Forums.net.
    1. Activities illegal in the United States or other locales, which includes piracy, drug-related material, and DRM or DMCA violations
    2. Slanderous material of any individual, organization, or company
    3. Material which can be considered offensive to others, which includes any type of adult-oriented material
    4. Content malicious to computer hardware or software such as viruses
    5. Content that violates privacy
    6. Requesting participants for any competition or contest (excluding those contests officially provided by Web Design Forums.net)
    7. References in any form to peer-to-peer file sharing software
    8. Copyrighted material for which the user posting the material is not the copyright holder
  2. Users may not advertise in posts, private messages, or other posted material (the exception is signatures, as noted further). This includes referral/affiliate links, links to sites for which the poster will directly financially benefit, advertising for a free resource, sending an unsolicited private message offering a product or service, or otherwise posting simply for financial or membership benefits. This rule is enforced with a zero-tolerance policy; users who break this rule are instantly banned from Web Design Forums.net.
  3. The word of a moderator is final and cannot be disputed with the moderator privately or publicly, or with the community as a whole. Should the decision of the moderator be considered unjust, the user should send the administrator a private message, whose decision is final with no disputes.
  4. Users must post their questions or comments in one thread in one forum, not multiple threads in one forum or multiple threads in multiple forums. That is, users must not make "double posts" by which they post in multiple forums with the exact same message.
  5. Users may not post within their own thread simply for the sake of making that thread appear at the top of the forum, commonly referred to "bumping." This is permitted only after 24 hours have passed to avoid monopolizing a forum, and then, only a maximum of two consecutive such posts are allowed in a given thread.
  6. Posting simply to increase a user's post count is not permitted. This rule is enforced with a zero-tolerance policy; users who break this rule are instantly banned from Web Design Forums.net.
  7. Providing any sort of financial or other benefit to Web Design Forums.net such as donating or becoming a "WDFplus" member does not grant excusal or special treatment from these rules.
  8. Signatures are governed by the following restrictions, in addition to following all of the rules mentioned:
    1. Signatures must not exceed four lines of text. A "line" is defined by a manual line break entered by the user as well as a break that naturally occurs due to line wrapping. The exception to this rule is if the user's signature contains links to local Web Design Forums.net content or reference material such as W3C or MSDN specifications (a maximum of six lines total is permitted in this case). Moderators and the administrator are exempt from this rule entirely.
    2. The size of text in signatures must not exceed the default font size. Text smaller than the default font size is permitted.
    3. Formatting is permitted through the use of "vB Code" tags. However, formatting such as bright bolded red or other tags that draw excessive attention to a signature is not permitted. Moderators and administrators who use such formatting to reference site features are exempt from this rule.
    4. Images in signatures are not permitted.
    5. The "no advertising" rule has a single exception for signatures: links (without referral or affiliate content) to sites for which the user financially or otherwise benefits is permitted. For example, a user who runs a web hosting service may link to the home page of his web site. A link posted for the sole purpose of increasing a site's search engine placement is not permitted and will result in an immediate banning. If the link has nothing to do with web design in addition to attempting to boost a site's SEO, expect swift decapitation from a weapon that is need of sharpening. This is the only exception to the advertising rule; users who break this rule are instantly banned from Web Design Forums.net.
  9. Users' avatars may not be animated nor display content that grossly violates another's intellectual property rights or conveys potentially offensive content.
  10. Proper spelling and grammar is strongly requested at Web Design Forums.net to ensure that users can easily assist each other with their web design questions. The moderator and administrator team requests that users post in sentence and paragraph form with proper English words, not casual abbreviations such as "U" for "you", etc. The team requests that users remember that this is a professional support community when posting material and that their posts will be read by professional web designers who can only assist if posts are readable.
  11. Posting compiled code is not permitted for security reasons. Compiled code includes but is not nearly limited to executables, DLLs, ActiveX controls, and Java .class files. Users must post source code rather than compiled code such as C++, C#, HTML, Java, etc.
  12. Rules that are considered common sense or generally implied by the community can be enforced ex post facto without prior warning.
  13. Users are granted a level of privacy while browsing Web Design Forums.net, but users who break rules to a gross extent may not be held to such a guideline.
  14. The moderator and administrator team very strongly suggest that users be above 13 years of age due to no official support for COPPA regulations. Parents are advised to accompany their children while on Web Design Forums.net.
  15. Registering multiple accounts is not permitted. Username change requests are occasionally but not frequently entertained by the administrator.
  16. A moderator or administrator is not required to remove any data from posts, users, and other content, including an entire user account, upon request.
  17. Some forums have their own specific set of rules in addition to this set that applies to all forums. Users must adhere to both these and local forum rules.
  18. Users may not request to become a moderator. Requests are not entertained. If a user wishes to become a moderator, his or her best chance is to simply post frequent detailed replies to other users' questions, which is something the moderating team notices.
  19. Unless absolutely necessary, users must not discuss web design problems and questions exclusively through private channels through Web Design Forums.net such as private messages and e-mail. This includes requesting replies exclusively via e-mail. All material that should be publicly posted should be posted in a forum. This is to ensure that the entire community benefits from users' questions.
  20. Users may not type in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in public posts (including thread titles). This is because all capital letters is often interpreted as "shouting."
  21. A user who is banned from Web Design Forums.net is not permitted to return under any circumstances at all. Repeated attempts to rejoin the site despite being banned is considered harassment and will be reported as such to the user's Internet Service Provider for recommendation of account termination, and if necessary, local law enforcement agencies.
  22. Users may not abuse the "reputation" system by artificially or excessively increasing or decreasing a user's "reputation" level, including the user's own level. For examples, users may not simply rate every post in a thread as negative. Users are given a level of trust to not abuse the reputation system. This rule is enforced with a zero-tolerance policy; users who break this rule are instantly banned from Web Design Forums.net.
  23. These rules may be updated at any time, if at all, without warning. Users are required to agree to these rules and any potential future revisions when using this site, including to this clause.
  24. It is a privilege to post at Web Design Forums.net, not a right; Web Design Forums.net is fair but not a democracy. Users are not paying to post at this site, further enforcing this policy.
  25. Posting messages for the purposes of optimizing a site in search engines, including such messages that are part of a "contest", is not allowed and will result in an immediate banning.
Legal Action
Note that under United States bill H.R.3402 sec. 113, violation of these rules could result in severe federal penalties, including up to two years of jailtime. Other legal action can be considered depending on the violation.
Questions about these rules?
  • To request a clarification or make a suggestion, select the "Suggestions?" link at the top of every page.
  • To report a user who broke these rules, either select the "Report as Spam/Rulebreaking" link in the user's post (which is anonymous to the original poster), or select the "Suggestions?" link at the top of every page.