Reminder to those who are old hats, and information for Newbies!

[verwon]

Hello All!

To all of you old hats, we are so glad to have you here at DOD, you are what makes our site so awesome, That said, you already know the rules, go ahead, ignore me like usual, bump this up for me if you have the time and then go on about your freebie/deal hunting business!

However, I do have an important Notice for Newbies!

Here at DOD, as nice and welcoming as we are, we do have some site rules that we must maintain in order to keep our Family Friendly site status. We are under the "World Village" family of sites, we have several sister sites, and we all insist on staying FAMILY FRIENDLY!

Now, first, I would like to state that we do not play favorites here or give anyone preferential treatment, the only exception to this is the site owner himself and his administrators, Mayor and his admin sometimes makes posts for things that may seem to be spammy, but they really benefit our site and our sister sites. Mayor, who owns the site and has provided it free for our enjoyment, is allowed to post whatever he wishes, it is his right and privilege and he can also have his admin post such things.

To silence the uproar that arose among some members who did not like some of these types of posts or the fact that he was allowed to break the rules, he created a special sub-forum for the things he likes to post, it is called Mostly Free. He in no way obligated to do such, but he did it to keep site members happy. That way people who might wish to try some of the offers he posts can do so, but they do not upset members who don't wish to sign up for them, they can just skip checking out that forum entirely.

He also has his own private forum for posting other special coupons and offers that he finds and wants to share with members, this forum is the first one you will see on the main forum pages, titled "Deal of Day Deals."

So, that being explained, those two forums are open only to the site owner and site administrators to create posts. These forums are not open to regular members to create posts, such posts will be deleted, as will any snide comments in response to these posts. He has already gone one step further than he was obligated to keep members happy, so if you do not like those types of posts, simply ignore those forums.

The site rules, except for those few exceptions, apply across the board to all members, even moderators have to accept and abide by them. It does not matter how long you have been a member or if you are new to the site.

The next reminder I would like to post is that the freebie forum is only for posting items that are COMPLETELY free! They should require nothing more than a quick sign-up, a small survey, or subscription to a mailing list, or perhaps a site you have to join like StartSampling.com.

So, to qualify to be posted in that forum the item cannot require anything else, like a rebate to get your money back, postage, SASE, shipping&handling, 20 other referrals, or anything of that ilk. Those types of items belong in the Internet and Retail Deals Forum ONLY!

Next, we do not allow any posts that promote or encourage the abuse of any freebie or deal. If it is supposed to be one per household, one per person, or etc., any posts that explain how to do otherwise, or encourage others to do otherwise, to obtain more than you are entitled to under the companies rules WILL be deleted!

This also applies to special promotion offers, for instance if a link is supposed to be valid for people who purchased a product from a certain company and there is a freebie provide for buying it, then this is not something that should be posted for the general public to sign up, if they have not met the requirements to qualify.

This recently arose with the Senseo promotion, people who have contact with a large number of people, such as a book club, website members, coffee club, or whatever, were able to sign up and apply for a free Coffee Pod system as a way for the company to get more word of mouth out for their product. Those who qualifed received an email telling them so and they had to follow a link in the email to confirm their information to have the Senseo sent to them. Someone, however, posted the link from the email, encouraging everyone to sign up and try to get the free Senseo system, even though they had not qualified under the original promotion, such things are unacceptable and the post was removed, and the person who posted it was informed in private of this rule.

Please keep in mind that our moderators are volunteers, they are not paid to be here, therefore they have jobs and families, as well as a life offline that they must see to in addition to their time here at DOD. So they cannot always send a message if they have to edit or delete a post. We try when we can, but sometimes we are just too busy, especially if the site has been flooded by spam so we have a lot to do to clean it up, or if the user has already been informed of the rule, or error due to a prior instance.

Moderators have the final say on rules and posts.

Spam is also unacceptable, regardless of the reasoning for it, however altruistic someone may claim their reason for posting such. All spam posts that contain any type or referrals, links through your own site, your own or another sites affiliate ids, or anything of the sort, will be removed.

You can list referral programs and affiliate ids in your signature line, which is a rule we recently changed to make users happier with our site, we also provide two different forums where you can post your spam free of charge. If you have a business we provide the Merchant's Mouth Forum, for personal referral programs we provide the Affiliate Spam Forum, to post in there, you must be a current and active member with over 50 quality posts. So other spam posts or junk do not count for that 50.

There are a few instances of things that you are not permitted to post anywhere on the site, or in your signature line, these include: competing sites, offensive materials, tobacco, alcohol, or gambling posts. No exceptions.

Therefore, if you post something and the link you provide redirects to give you credit for someone's sign-up, or gives your own or another site credit, the post will be deleted. In all posts, link directly to what you are posting about, or feel free to help our site and check the front page Merchant's section to see if we have an affiliate program with a certain company or site, and use OUR referral of AFF link.

When posting a deal or freebie, please use the advanced search link, which will be at the bottom of the pop-up search box that you can click at the top of every forum page, and check to see if it is something that has already been posted. There is no need to clutter the forums and make duplicate posts. If the items has already been posted by someone else, you can simply bump it back to the top of the forum, by making a reply noting that it is still valid or available for sign up. To get the best search results, make sure to use as few words as possible, otherwise you will get a ton of hits that are irrelevant, many people think it narrows it down if you use more specific words, but that is not the case when doing a general search, it will simply pull up ALL posts that contain any of those words.

So, for instance instead of searching for "Greenie Dog Treats Sample"

which will pull up any posts with the word greenie, dog, treat or treats, and sample in it, try just search for "Greenies", so you will only find relevant posts, narrowing the forum to the specific one you want to post in and search will also make it a lot easier to find what you are seeking.

For other rules and detailed explanations, you will find rule posts at the top of every forum when you click to open that main page of the forum. So I think that is all that I need to cover here for now.

Thank you.

If you have any questions, complaints, or etc. feel free to contact me, or any of the other mods, either by email, using the report a post feature, or through private messaging.

[verwon]

UP TO THE TOP!

Giving this thread a bump up to the top... We seem to have quite a few newbies that aren't yet aware of the rules. This one has been broken quite a bit lately:

"The next reminder I would like to post is that the freebie forum is only for posting items that are COMPLETELY free! They should require nothing more than a quick sign-up, a small survey, or subscription to a mailing list, or perhaps a site you have to join like StartSampling.com."

[firetiger888]

good post... bumping this

[verwon]

And that is exactly why I made the post. LOL!

Thanks for bumping it up!

[socklady]

*** bump **** it up Amen and thanks Ver for all your hard work as well as all moderators

[katlnhats]

~ BUMP ~ and if it's all right, I want to add one thing, I've been spending time here MOVING posts from the Found A Freebies Forum, not that they aren't Freebies, but they are Business Freebies and we had it's own forum for that, please look before you post, thanks,

katlnhats

[jkfell]

Bump!

[firetiger888]

I like bumping this thread

[verwon]

Awesome firetiger, please bump anytime.

[WhaddaDeal006]

Thanks vernon...nice job and good info!

*bump*

[verwon]

Okay, where does everyone get this VERNON thing???? Please, I am female here, my username is a combo of the first 3 letters of my first and last name!

Verleen Wonderly

[WhaddaDeal006]

LOL....I was just seeing if you would catch it! Yeah, that's it;p
Hey, it was the middle of the night...
Sorry...VerWon

[sirjakeyjake]

Thanks Verwon for doing a mostly-thankless job! As a newbie, it's been frustrating to find the a freebie that requires a decent amount of $$$ for shipping/handling (i.e. OxyClean products...great stuff, but requires the s/h, I've found). I also wondered about the whole Mayor thing, but your post is right...the owner can do whatever s/he wants!

Thanks again,

=jb=

BUMP!