Advertising Policy Clarification for Anime Bloggers, Youtube Channel operators, etc.

[relentlessflame]

A number of our Forum members either participate in or run their own anime-related blogs, websites, YouTube channels, or other similar sites/services/channels. The staff do wish to encourage this sort of active participation in the larger anime community outside of this forum. However, we would like to clarify our Advertising Policy as presented in the Forum Rules to help everyone understand the cases when blog/external site links are either permitted or forbidden.

The most relevant Forum Rule is Rule 2.6 Do not advertise your products, services or events. A key portion is underlined in the quote below.

Originally Posted by Forum Rule 2.6 (emphasis added)

You are not permitted to post the URL of, or information about any website, product, service or event with which you are affiliated unless it forms an important part of an on-topic reply to a previous post, where providing the URL or information would be of specific interest to the topic. In keeping with the General Rules, this includes soliciting other members to send you electronic mail or private messages in exchange for such information. AnimeSuki will not tolerate the use of its facilities to send or in any way distribute unsolicited advertising. All advertising must be authorised by a member of staff prior to its publication within The Forum; either by explicit exception in The Rules or by a private message from a member of staff.

The staff would like to provide this Sanctioned Interpretation of the underlined portion of the above rule:

• A link may be part of an on-topic reply, but may not itself be the reply. (i.e. A reply cannot be "My review here.")
• You may also not copy/paste the content from your link into the post and link to the source. You should participate in the discussion, not just lazily copy/paste as a way of circumventing the above point.
• The word "important" implies that the link must be related to what else you're saying, and must serve a clear purpose in the context of that post. (i.e. You cannot say "...and if you want to see more posts from me, check out my blog.)
• "On-topic reply" means that you may not create a new thread that contains a link to your site, even if it may seem to be "on-topic" or relevant for this forum. (i.e. You may not start threads for external projects with which you are affiliated.)

We consider the above sort of behaviour to be "link dropping", and we hereby clarify that this is forbidden on this Forum. Posters who "link drop" will be warned, and/or receive infractions for "Spam/Advertising", and infractions can lead to temporary or permanent bans. (New forum members who join the Forum to "link drop" will likely be permanently banned as spammers without any additional warning.)

We do permit blog/web links to appear in your signature, per the Limited Advertising Exception, provided these links are relevant and useful (i.e. not Spam). Beyond that, if you wish to provide a link to relevant content from your blog/website that will contribute directly to the existing on-topic conversation in a thread, we would ask that you add direct value to the thread by being part of the active conversation and providing unique commentary in the thread itself.

Also, as a reminder about related rules, any links you do post on this Forum may not contain any sort of referrers or tracking ids. You may not link to any site where members are asked/required to register, or where you receive compensation for the visit/click. (Incidentally, posters may also not use or link to any file or image hosts that provide compensation for views/hits/clicks.) Further, you are not permitted to cross post the same (or "practically the same") reply in multiple threads.

Limited exceptions may be made to the above points in certain cases. If you're not certain if your post will be allowed, please feel free to contact a member of the staff and ask for clarification and/or permission. (As it says in the quoted rule above, we do allow advertising in certain limited cases provided you contact us beforehand.)

Thanks to everyone for your attention and understanding!