New MacRumors Forums rules

[Blue Velvet]

Because of some recent issues, we've felt the need to amend and clarify some of our rules on advertising and other listings.


Advertising/soliciting. Using the forums for advertising or for commercial business deals and offers. See the MacRumors About page if you want to buy advertising at the site. Threads started for the purpose of advertising products, services, or businesses, building traffic at other websites, soliciting donations or contest entries, offering jobs, etc. will be deleted. Memberships created solely for such purposes will be banned.

Job listings: We will now treat offers of work like other want-to-buy requests. That means they should be in the Marketplace forum and not be from commercial businesses.


If anyone has any questions or needs further clarification, please don't hestitate to ask.

 

[Eraserhead]

Sounds fine, though what has actually changed about the rules?

 

[srf4real]

I thought all that was against the rules already, just lax enforced - but then I haven't actually ever read the rules.
Sounds good, not everyone practices consideration and common sense by nature.
This would be a good thread for a sticky!

 

[zephead]

Exercising those new mod powers so soon, huh?

 

[jng]

Sounds fine, though what has actually changed about the rules?

It's in response to this thread.

Thanks Blue Velvet et al for adding the new rules. Although it may seem like the rules aren't new, after having experienced that thread, I think it's much needed.

Although the contest could have been fun, the real commercial presence made it not so. And I didn't realize how void MR is of commercial presence until now and I very much like it so!

 

[dogbone]

I'd like to make a comment on this point by BV

• This kind of competition gets dozens of people to work for free. One person might get 'paid,' but that pay is extremely poor (well below industry standards).

I've worked for agencies where we do all the work in house and putting in a submission for a large job and spending lots of man hours work and expense on the *hope* of landing a big client is par for the course.

Granted in this instance there's no pot of gold at the end but neither is the work involved all that much.

An example from the 70's was an agency that we were doing all the printing for, for their submission for the Ford motor company account. It was a pretty expensive submission and involved a few cars being completely destroyed on locaction. The agency that finally won did no work at all, they just flew to London and secured the endorsement of Stirling Moss.

With regards to the devaluation of Professional work my opinion is that Andy Clark's thread actually gives a good endorsement to professional designers as almost all the work was crap and the stuff that wasn't crap was mediocre at best. Except for one notable exception

But I do agree in stopping this sort of activity except in the market place as it's not really what the forum is about. Not only that but Andy himself is in a bit of a quandry, he is well within his rights to not use any of the submissions, but then what? Does he still select the best one and pay anyway, (which is the right action). The whole thing is a big mess and let's hope it's the last.

 

[redAPPLE]

so, would a thread with a title "for freelancer: create a logo for a church" and the op wishes one of our many experts here to create a logo for a church, kindergarten, or 2-man company for free (in exchange for good karma) OR for a minimum fee, the thread has to be in the marketplace?

 

[dogbone]

so, would a thread with a title "for freelancer: create a logo for a church" and the op wishes one of our many experts here to create a logo for a church, kindergarten, or 2-man company for free (in exchange for good karma) OR for a minimum fee, the thread has to be in the marketplace?

Why not? There's nothing to stop anyone putting something they don't want in the market place for free, in fact I've seen it. Not only that asking for a church logo around here is likely to get mainly p155 taking logos which wouldn't happen without an audience to appreciate it.

 

[Lau]

so, would a thread with a title "for freelancer: create a logo for a church" and the op wishes one of our many experts here to create a logo for a church, kindergarten, or 2-man company for free (in exchange for good karma) OR for a minimum fee, the thread has to be in the marketplace?

There's the odd thread in the Marketplace offering free Apple gear or "Wanted: Apple manual for free"-type threads, so I suppose there could just as easily be free design ones too.

 

[Eraserhead]

It's in response to this thread.

Ah, that one. Thanks .

 

[gkarris]

so, would a thread with a title "for freelancer: create a logo for a church" and the op wishes one of our many experts here to create a logo for a church, kindergarten, or 2-man company for free (in exchange for good karma) OR for a minimum fee, the thread has to be in the marketplace?

I'm in multimedia and I just read in a magazine that you should NEVER do free work (special projects) for a non-profit. If it's free, they tend to not appreciate it as much compared to have paid something for it...

 

[mac 2005]

I'm in multimedia and I just read in a magazine that you should NEVER do free work (special projects) for a non-profit. If it's free, they tend to not appreciate it as much compared to have paid something for it...

The writer of the article seems to be mixing metaphors. While it's true that organizations tend to put more value on business resources they pay for, I don't think the same can be said for a nonprofit, especially one with limited means. I've volunteered several times for such projects; to say these groups were anything less than thrilled is an understatement. And they've always used the work we delivered with great enthusiasm.

Why these articles tend to be written, however, is bit more cynical. Creatives who contribute their services are, in this way of thinking, taking away work that said organization would otherwise have to pay to obtain. Not likely, in my opinion, and in my experience, but I err on the side of thinking of creative people as human beings who control their time and talents. If they choose to support an organization by creating a logo or designing a masthead rather than write a check, then God bless them.

 

[Stampyhead]

At the suggestion of BlueVelvet in this thread, I just wanted to put forth the idea of adding a "Looking to Hire" subforum similar to the one at Sitepoint. I understand the extra work this would create for the mods and perhaps the benefits of it cannot be justified, but I thought I would put forth the idea anyway and let the powers that be decide.

 

[devilot]

Note: I am not an admin nor am I the site owner. This is just my opinion as another member of MR.

Ostensibly, it seems like a great idea, but you've got to wonder if creating that would draw people in, much like we get spammers and newbies who just want to sell/buy in the current Marketplace (MP).

Likewise, that logo thread took up quite a lot of moderator time and attention and it was but one thread. Currently, MP also requires moderation and I'd imagine that adding what amounts to another MP (even with a different spin on it) would need just a wee bit more moderation.

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

devilot, forgive me for speaking without knowing all of the facts, as I am not a moderator...

I don't know how much "quite a lot" of moderator time is, or even how much time being a moderator does take up. I would imagine that most of the time taken up by that particular thread was in deciding what to do with it, since it was a rather unique one. (We have people requesting work all the time in the Design forum...but VERY rarely do we have people offering to pay, and that's the first time I've ever seen a paid contest in there.) However, once a system is in place for handling "Looking for Hire" threads as Stampyhead suggests, would it really take *that much more* moderator time?

It is, really, just an honest question.

 

[devilot]

However, once a system is in place for handling "Looking for Hire" threads as Stampyhead suggests, would it really take *that much more* moderator time?

It is, really, just an honest question.

Second Disclaimer: Just speaking for myself, not for anyone else.

The example I pointed out was the entire Marketplace. There are very clear-cut well-defined rules, and yet, that doesn't stop things from getting messy, no? Especially, I'd imagine when it comes down to things that aren't as simple as whether or not a tangible object was shipped, but whether or not someone did x amount of promised work and whether or not such and such graphic was actually designed by person a or person b.

But I have no experience in that field... this is totally just my guess.

 

[jng]

At the suggestion of BlueVelvet in this thread, I just wanted to put forth the idea of adding a "Looking to Hire" subforum similar to the one at Sitepoint. I understand the extra work this would create for the mods and perhaps the benefits of it cannot be justified, but I thought I would put forth the idea anyway and let the powers that be decide.

I don't think I would want such a forum here at MR. This is a primarily a mac community, not a web design or graphic design community. If sitepoint has one, just use theirs.

devilot, forgive me for speaking without knowing all of the facts, as I am not a moderator...

I don't know how much "quite a lot" of moderator time is, or even how much time being a moderator does take up. I would imagine that most of the time taken up by that particular thread was in deciding what to do with it, since it was a rather unique one. (We have people requesting work all the time in the Design forum...but VERY rarely do we have people offering to pay, and that's the first time I've ever seen a paid contest in there.) However, once a system is in place for handling "Looking for Hire" threads as Stampyhead suggests, would it really take *that much more* moderator time?

It is, really, just an honest question.

If an official system is put in place, MR then bears some new responsibility. If design requests are made all the time, and said person finds someone willing to do the job, it's a private matter. Part of the reason why I don't want a job/hire forum is that it's just clutter (to me). I'd rather that it stay in PMs/emails or what not.

Back to the thread referred to in this thread, I think had it just been a regular old contest, it would have been fun. But because there's a real tangible prize of cash value, it wasn't. People were getting ripped off for their work. People were also having their concepts stolen from newbies and even the more experienced folk.

I think also the concept of contests need to be clearly defined.

 

[iBlue]

With this "for hire" thing. Even if it's only an occasional job, it would be a lot of work. Not because looking after threads would be an issue, it would become burdensome when MR has to mediate between two people who aren't satisfied with the end result. Say someone doesn't get paid, someone doesn't feel their money was well-spent, etc. Where does the moderator or MR administration as a whole go from there? It's just more than I think MR would need to take on.

It is a good idea in theory but I think it leaves a big potential for problems.