I was asked to take my blog out of my sig earlier today based on the rule that:
Which is fine. I was aware of that rule, but seeing as several people have their homepage in their signature – like Atomic Shrimp or Slithy Toves and Borogoves, and have had so for years at a time – that the above was talking more about people hyping a cause or product (regardless of whether money was on the line), but not the aimless musings of random people. Which is indeed how the rule reads to me.
My blog analyzes political questions, but it’s not a portal for organizing people together into a coalition. It’s not a news source, nor does it even deal with current issues for the most part. I don’t make money off of it. It’s not a charity, it doesn’t organize events. If someone reads it and finds it interesting, it doesn’t steal clients from the SDMB. It doesn’t reference the SDMB, any of its people, nor have the potential for starting a forum war. I don’t post more now to help promote my blog than before I had it, nor will I post less if I can’t include the link. I only link to it once per thread, and even then only if it’s in GD or (on the occasion) where I think I have written something thought-provoking enough that people might be interested in seeing my random musings.
Overall, if the other posters who have a blog or homepage in their sig are acceptable, I can’t think of any particular way in which mine isn’t. If they shouldn’t be doing it either, as a general poster I can’t admit to seeing the downside to letting them continue so long as they aren’t hyping a cause, product, charity, etc. and are reasonably discrete about their promotion.
Yeah, I received an email shortly after joining telling me to remove my blog from my signature. I’ve seen a few other posters who have been allowed to keep stuff in their sigs but I’ve just kept quiet about it.
We don’t see every sig every time so sometimes things get past us.
AND . . . this is a big AND . . . sometimes we allow links in sigs. People ask us in advance and we allow it. Usually for charitable causes, though there’s been some other noncharitable causes we okayed.
That sigs have gone unnoticed by the mods for years is, I would say, fairly good evidence that whatever ill is perceived is not really there. I had mine up for what, the last 7-8 months?
You’re not accused of ill will or anything bad at all, actually.
We don’t always see something instantly. Sometimes we don’t see anything at all, stuff does occasionally get past us.
We usually don’t allow people to advertise for causes/websites/whatever in their sig files. There are exceptions – usually charitable causes and the occasional creative endeavor – the owners of this website are particularly inclined to let authors of books mention that fact in their sig files – but permission must be asked for and obtained in advance.
You may list your blog in your profile but not in your sig file.
You misread. I wasn’t accusing the mods of ill will nor of them thinking I had ill will.
I was saying that one presumes that if there is a rule, that rule has an ostensible purpose. I.e. it is there to prevent something bad – an ill – from occurring. If no ill is occurring and indeed the presence of sigs with links to homepages is so entirely unnoticeable as to escape notice for years at a time, then it might be that it’s worth considering whether the phrasing of the rule should be modified to allow such instances.
I am fine to ask permission. It just seems like the rule isn’t serving a purpose in this instance.
“No links in sigs” had the virtue of simplicity. The idea was to eliminate commercial links, which we felt were a type of spam, and this way we didn’t have to decide whether a blog with a lot of ads (for example) qualified as commercial. One of the ideas in connection with the proposed Marketplace forum (still trying to get approval for that, long story) was that we’d allow members to post commercial links as an incentive to subscribe. So we may revisit this issue soon. In the meantime, we ask that you request permission first, which generally is readily granted for noncommercial sites.
I hesitate to bring it up, but as long as we are talking about this…
I have my website, dmarkslasvegas, that was actually created BECAUSE of the SDMB - hence I even kept my board name in the title of the website.
The website started as a project for my first web class. It was simply all of the info I regularly posted on the SDMB and started to get tired of repeating myself over and over again. Thus, I thought it would be fun and worthy to slap it all together and let the others on the board access it whenever they had the same basic questions about Las Vegas. It is still the primitive, first website design - but I have grown to like the design for nostalgia reasons. I do, however, regularly update the info.
However, I only turn on my sig line with my Vegas website when discussing anything relevant to Las Vegas - it is not up there every post I make.
(I have other websites that I have never once posted here on the boards as they are totally irrelevant to any of the subjects.)
My question: For all these years dmarkslasvegas has just been a pet project, no money being made and just a fancy blog of sorts. However, I have been toying with the idea of allowing Google Ads on my site. Not that I think I would make oodles of money and allow me to buy that Mercedes, but figured it might defray the monthly cost of keeping the website up.
Would adding Google Ads to my already existing website make posting it (occasionally) in my sig line against the rules?
I’m somewhat surprised by this whole conversation. In December, I e-mailed C K Dexter Haven and asked if was okay if I put a link to my blog (a personal, non-commercial houseplant/gardening blog) in my signature, and he wrote back, saying that it was fine. As it happens, I’ve never bothered to post my signature, but it is there if I ever decided to.
Was Dex in error in giving me permission?
ETA: I did save the e-mail in case it ever became an issue.
Monstera deliciosa: No, Dex wasn’t in error in giving permission - we just like to avoid things that are blatantly commercial. Evidently you passed the test.
DMark: Google ads won’t disqualify you. (They also won’t make you a ton of money, if our experience is any guide - if you find out different, pls advise.) If you start advertising hookers and porn, we’d want to give it some more thought.