Why can some members post external links, while most cannot?

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Why can some members post external links, while most cannot?

Post by eye_of_tiger » Mon Apr 06, 2015 1:36 am

I am responding to a complaint made by one of our members, both on the forums as well as through a private message.
Why is it that some members (including moderators and site admin) are allowed to post links to external websites on the forums, while most (general members) are not allowed to? This two layered rule hardly seems fair.
While I do not feel the need to explain the reason for having every rule on Mystic Board, I wanted to explain this particular rule as I believe that it is currently getting in the way of site admin, moderators and the rest of our valued members working in harmony with each other, always with the intention to make this a better site and community. It is quite unintentionally creating bad feelings between us, which I now want to heal.

When you post one or more external links on the forum, although the conditions of use states that you must accept full responsibility for its contents, the site has both a legal and moral obligation to ensure that any members clicking on that link will not come to any harm as a result.

Or that their computer will not come to any harm.

That they will not be lead away to another site where they or their computer could be exposed to pornography, scams to get their money, phishing for their personal information including credit card and bank account details and passwords, and attempting to lead our members away from this site to their own as an alternative to visiting Mystic Board. That they will not be without any warning lead to sites run by extremist hatemongers and people promoting dangerous practices.

There are simply not enough time or moderators on Mystic Board to check every external link which has ever been posted, to see if the site to which the link leads is safe, according to all the above criteria. And if we did it for one of you, then to be fair we should do it for all of you.

We are both therefore unable and unwilling to accept the responsibility that by clicking on a link on Mystic Board, you or your computer could be harmed, hence the need for having this rule for most of you.

One other alternative is to have every posting previewed, moderated and approved before it appears on the forum, which can be an even worse administrative nightmare and is especially confusing and discouraging to newer members, who may not understand why their posting does not instantly appear in the forum listing (and could feel rejected).

On the other hand when or if it is felt to be needed and useful in better helping the member, this site's owner Swetha gives permission for moderators and other site admin to post links to external websites on the forums, either in the main body of their posting, or in their forum signature. By so doing the person must accept full responsibility for his or her actions.

People have been made moderators and site admin because they have proven to have made a long term commitment to this site and in helping its members. These people have through their loyalty to the friendly, family values which this site promotes and their regular contributions and from the positive responses from other members, earned an extra amount of trust from Swetha that they would not knowingly post an external link that would do any harm.  

A trust from a close friend which is very precious to me, and not something which I am ever likely to want to betray or put in any danger of losing. I am not claiming that I have never made mistakes when doing this, but I am willing to admit to my mistakes as soon as I am told (politely) about them. Therefore I always to the best of my ability carefully check the site, before posting the link. Because this takes extra time, I keep it to a minimum. I much prefer to use most of my time and energy while online, on Mystic Board itself.

So I hope that you can now better understand why MB as well as most other psychic/spiritual websites do not allow members to post external links, as well as their email addresses and other personally identifying information on the forums. On one site I worked on which is still going, moderators and site admin are not exceptions to the rule, but I feel that the quality of the teaching and discussions happening on that site both suffer badly as a result of this global policy.

Best wishes to everyone,

EoT :smt060

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Posting a link to your own website for advertising - a special case

Post by eye_of_tiger » Mon Apr 06, 2015 4:18 am

Posting external links to your own website for the purpose of advertising your services to the members is treated differently on Mystic Board, when compared to the posting of external links to other people's websites.

If any member is willing to accept and post according to the rules of the Link Exchange, then they are allowed to post a link to their own (external) website exclusively on that board, for the purpose of advertising both the site itself, as well as the services which they are offering there.

But it is still not allowed on all the other forums (outside of your forum profile).
http://mysticboard.org/vi ... php?t=7598

EoT  :smt069

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Post by swetha » Mon Apr 06, 2015 7:14 am

Hello,

If at any time, any member has an issue, they can contact us. Please remember we are all volunteers on this site and have our daily bread and butter to earn rather than keep deleting spam.

And as eye_of_tiger mentioned, we do not wish to lead people away from this forum and keep the discussions here instead of taking it somewhere else.

Also some Links are also allowed because they are paid in order to keep the forum running..

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Post by eye_of_tiger » Mon Apr 06, 2015 9:57 pm

Swetha,

I think that we need to make it clear to everyone reading this that a member can choose to pay a fee in order to be allowed to post links to their own website for advertising purposes, on forums outside of the link exchange.

However a member cannot pay any amount of money to be allowed to post links to external websites, which they do not own.

Do you agree?

EoT

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Post by swetha » Tue Apr 07, 2015 3:48 am

Yes I agree,
spam promotion is not allowed. People can always contact me if they are interested in advertising.

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