Posting Guidelines

Brendan Burgess

Founder
Messages
51,856
Askaboutmoney is heavily moderated for the benefit of all users. These Guidelines are not rules for rules' sake. It helps other users if you use a meaningful title, if you don't abuse other posters and if you stay on topic.


1 Post in the right forum

Please read the forum titles and descriptions before you post. If you post in the wrong forum, the thread will be closed or deleted. In particular, note the existence of the following forums:
  • Redundancy, Unemployment & Jobseekers Entitlements should not be asked in Welfare and State Benefits
  • Home Energy should not be asked in Homes & Gardens
  • Service Providers should not be asked in Technology
  • Recommend Tradesmen & Suppliers should not be asked in Homes & Gardens
If you ask a financial type question in the How to Use Askaboutmoney forum, it will be deleted.

2 Absolutely no bad language or vulgarity or profanities
We have a zero-tolerance approach to bad language and vulgarity. You can express yourself fine without it.

If you use bad language, vulgarity or profanities, you will get a warning and your post will be removed. We don't allow self-censored expletives either such as f**k or sh1t.

And don't bother asking the moderators to restore the post, so you can edit it. Post properly in the first instance.

3 Please make the heading of your question relevant. Threads with meaningless titles will be deleted.
Don't post a general heading such as "help !" or "Mortgage query". If you post a heading such as "Mortgage for separated couple", it will get a better response and will be much easier to find if you need to go back to look for it.

4 Please stay on topic
Some threads stray off topic to such an extent that the discussion bears no relation to the original question. If you want to introduce a new question, start a new topic. Off-topic banter which distracts from the original question will be deleted.

4A Do not hijack someone else's thread. Start your own thread.
If someone has asked a question about the rescheduling of their Ulster Bank mortgage, it is very annoying if you then add your question to that thread. If you do, your question and any answers will be immediately deleted.

5 No advertising, no private "for sale" or "wanted" ads
Askaboutmoney has a strict "no advertising" policy.

This includes "for sale" and "wanted" advertisements. Describing an item such as a car and asking where you can sell it also counts as advertising. If you want to buy or sell something then please use another site such as buyandsell.ie, adverts.ie or etc.

Where a poster recommends the products or services of their employer, they should state their conflict of interest. Where they do not do so, we reserve the right to point out that the poster appears to have a conflict of interest. "Subversive advertising" where you pose as a happy customer of your own company is a particularly serious offence and will lead to an immediate ban.

5A Guidelines for professional advisors, e.g., mortgage brokers, accountants, architects, etc.
Askaboutmoney welcomes professional advisors to post in their own name on topics relating to their area of expertise. You are welcome to put your website address as part of your signature. If you do not have a website, you can put your email address instead. Many professional contributors have got useful business through Askaboutmoney and, of course, many users have found good professional advisors through Askaboutmoney. It is very easy for a user to assess the quality of a professional advisor from reading their posts on Askaboutmoney. It is also educational for other users. For these reasons, you must post the replies publicly, rather than by Private Message.

The main principle is "No advertising". Do not send Private Messages to users, except in reply to their PM to you. Do not invite the poster to contact you. Do not invite posters to send you a Private Message. Do not include your contact details on any post not relating directly to your area of professional advice. Do not use a slogan in your signature, e.g., "Ireland's best advisor". It may be better to contribute to other discussions through a separate account. Send a Private Message to me and I will set up a separate user name for you. Example: Liam Ferguson

5B Guidelines for companies, e.g., banks, utility companies, etc.
Product and service suppliers, e.g., insurance companies or utilities companies, are welcome to register in their own name to answer questions about their products. Respond to questions about your products only. Do not use Askaboutmoney for product announcements. (If it's a genuinely new product, feel free to email the press release to Brendanataskaboutmoneydotcom.) Do not respond to a general question, e.g., "Which is the best company for motor insurance?". In particular, do not comment on competitors' products unless there is a material factual inaccuracy. When registering, use your official corporate email address.

5C We do not allow links to surveys except in very exceptional circumstances
If you want to get subjects for a survey ask for permission by clicking on the Contact Us button at the bottom of the page. We will refuse permission unless you are a long-term poster and it's a pure consumer finance topic.

6 Putting a link to your own website in a post
We do not object to regular users who answer questions on Askaboutmoney providing a link to their website on relevant questions.

You should only provide the link and nothing else. It should not have the appearance of an ad.

Do not include
  • A slogan
  • A phone number
  • A business name
Do not put your contact details in a post which is not relevant to your business.

Do not use bold or large text.

The "Location" box should be used only for your geographic location, e.g., Galway. Do not put a link to your website or your business name or any other ad in this box.

7 No defamation
We remove all posts which are potentially defamatory. Fair criticism of an institution or a product is encouraged. Askaboutmoney is not the appropriate forum to claim that you were cheated out of money by a named institution. Please do not use words like "ripoff", "dodgy" or "scam" in connection with identifiable businesses. Any such references to a company, person or institution will be deleted. For example, one contributor claimed that a named auctioneer had cheated him. This may or may not be true, but we do not want to get distracted by litigation, so we deleted the name of the auctioneer.

7A Do not discuss court cases until sentence has been passed
No comments are allowed on a court case until the verdict has been announced and the sentence has been passed. You may comment on the verdict or sentence after the sentence is passed but any such comment or criticism should be moderate and not over the top.

8 It is usually not necessary to quote the full post to which you are replying.
1) You can reply without quoting the post you are replying to
  • This should be the one you use most often
  • Just start typing in the dialogue box where it says Write your reply... and then click "Post Reply"
2) You can quote the entire post
  • Please do not use this automatically
  • Please do not use this to quote very long posts
  • It's best to use this in a long thread where you are quoting a post which is not recent
3) You can quote one bit of a much longer post
  • This is particularly useful

9 Do not bump posts unnecessarily
If you do not get a response to your post, first edit the title to make it more meaningful. Do not bump the post within a few hours or days. Bumped threads will be deleted. Do not post a reply to surreptitiously bump it. If you have not received a reply after 4 working days, you may bump it once.

9A Do not post the same question in different forums
If you post in, say, the Askaboutbusiness forum and don't get a reply, don't repost the question in another forum. Read the forum titles before posting so that you choose the correct forum. If you post to the wrong forum, report the post and ask the moderators to move it.

10 Do not abuse other posters
Controversy and argument are welcome. But please keep your comments civil. Attack an opinion by all means, but please don't attack the person expressing the opinion. Posts or threads which use language designed to be deliberately offensive or just to stir up trouble will be deleted.

10A Please do not name employees, especially junior employees, of organisations and companies
It's one thing to criticise the Chief Executive or a director of a bank – they are well paid for it. But please don't say "I spoke to Joe Soap in the arrears section of Bank of Ireland and he was useless." In fact, some individuals don't want to be named publicly at all even if you are complimenting them.

11 We don't discuss individual shares
You won't find any messages suggesting investing in CRH or asking if AIB is a good investment. That is not the purpose of Askaboutmoney. We don't facilitate stock tipping or speculation about the future performance of individual shares. There are other forums which discuss individual shares such as The Investments and Markets Forum of boards.ie

This guideline does not restrict you from discussing
  1. the mechanics of buying or selling shares in a flotation
  2. Rights issues - pricing and mechanics
  3. Dividend Reinvestment Plans – pricing and mechanics

12 Speculation about the future of house prices is temporarily banned
We do not allow any further speculation of house prices other than in this thread:

Will Irish house prices rise or fall?

The reasons for this are explained in this thread:

Discussion of Irish house prices is suspended on Askaboutmoney.

This does not prevent people from making comments in money makeover type posts -"While you will gain if house prices rise over the coming 5 years, if house prices fall, you will be very exposed."

13 Please respect copyright
If you quote from a publication or website, always acknowledge the source and provide a link.

If the site is a subscription-only site, do not reproduce the entire article. You may use selective quotations – but be selective. For example, the archives of The Irish Times are subscription only. Do not reproduce Irish Times or other newpapers' articles that are available only under subscription.

The fact that it is difficult for a publisher to pursue Askaboutmoney on a copyright issue is not a basis for ignoring copyright laws. Having said that, most journals and journalists are happy to see themselves quoted, so don’t get too hung up on it.

Please check the Terms & Conditions of a site before posting a link or reproducing content.

If any publisher complains to Askaboutmoney about breach of copyright then the offending post will be deleted immediately.

14 Please don't address specific queries directly to individual moderators or other contributors
Moderators and contributors give of their time freely and voluntarily so, in general, please post queries for general attention/discussion on the basis that somebody will respond, rather than addressing them specifically to individual moderators or other contributors, particularly those who earn a living dispensing financial/tax advice on a professional basis. In any case, addressing specific queries to individual contributors rather than to the wider community in general may have the effect of limiting the number of useful responses that you receive rather than expediting things.

Obviously this guideline does not prevent you from addressing individuals directly in the normal context of an ongoing discussion.

Under no circumstances should you send an email or a Private Message to any of the moderators or administrators with a general question which should be posted publicly. Like other contributors they answer questions only in the public forums. You should only contact the moderators and administrators in connection with administrative or technical issues.

15 Please respect the privacy of others
Some contributors post anonymously/pseudonymously because they do not want to divulge their real identity for a variety of reasons. Please respect their right to privacy and desist from speculating on Askaboutmoney about their real identities. Posts which speculate about the identity of bona fide contributors (as opposed to suspected spammers or other nuisance posters) who choose to post anonymously/pseudonymously will be removed. Each poster has a right to take a break from posting on Askaboutmoney or to stop posting altogether. Please respect their right to do so. Do not ask "Where is "x" gone?"

16 If you are not a Frequent Poster, please do not Let Off Steam of Shoot the Breeze
The primary purpose of Askaboutmoney is for people to ask and answer questions on consumer issues.

We do not allow new users to express their opinions on current affairs, politics and non-consumer issues. Such posts will be deleted.

Frequent Posters are allowed to contribute to the Letting Off Steam and Shooting the Breeze forums. A Frequent Poster is one with 51 posts and who has been registered for at least 30 days.

The Letting Off Steam forum is not designed to be a platform for people who make little or no other contribution (e.g., those who don't answer general questions or otherwise contribute to the more finance orientated forums) to Askaboutmoney to stir up trouble or pursue their own campaigns. These posters should find another website to pursue their objectives.

The same applies to Shooting the Breeze.

17 Do not post links without commentary
Posts containing only links may be deleted. Provide a summary of the content of the link. This will allow readers know whether to follow the link or to remain within Askaboutmoney.

18 Please identify any conflicts of interest
You are welcome to recommend or fairly criticize a product or company. But if you have a connection with the company or any other potential conflict of interest, please state this in your reply.

19 Please write clearly and avoid using text speak or all capital letters
Please take a little time to write your post carefully. Use complete sentences. Use paragraphs for longer posts. Do not use Text Speak. Internet etiquette dictates that ALL UPPERCASE TEXT is considered at best hard to read and at worst rude ("SHOUTING") so please avoid posting messages or subject lines in upper case only. If everything you type is in uppercase then make sure that your Caps Lock key is not inadvertently engaged.

20 Please keep recurring debates on a particular topic to a single thread
When someone asks a question, they want an answer and not a debate. For example, if someone asks about buying a house, they don't want a debate about the pros and cons of mortgage brokers. Keep such debate to The Great Financial Debates forum. It is OK to occasionally post a particularly relevant reply with a link to that debate. In particular, do not hijack a thread to let off steam on a vaguely related issue. A lot of threads have been dragged off topic to engage in public sector bashing or to say that we need a general election now. Don't waste time composing a long, serious post with an off-topic aside in it. The full post will be deleted. The moderators do not have time to edit out the off-topic bits. If another poster takes a thread off-topic, ignore them or report the post. Don't respond.

21 Please don't discuss medical issues or weight loss
We do not discuss medical issues other than to provide links to support groups and medical forums. We do not allow recommendations for doctors, dentists or medical practitioners generally. We do not allow discussion of weight loss issues either, as they always develop into either advertising or medical topics such as anorexia.

There is a list of websites on medical issues here:


You may discuss tax relief on medical expenses and pricing of medical services or health insurance. It is OK to provide information on the availability of emergency doctors or 24-hour pharmacies. But you should not discuss effectiveness of treatment or quality of care.

22 We do not discuss moderators' decisions
The moderators are volunteers and do not have time to enter into discussions on our editorial decisions, so
  1. Don't ask why a particular user was banned
  2. If you genuinely don't know which guideline you broke, then maybe you should not be posting on Askaboutmoney
  3. In very rare circumstances, where there was a genuine misunderstanding about your post, you may send a Private Message to the moderator. But we have no time to indulge people.
 
Last edited:
The mods here do a wonderful job.

They have no manners !

I reported a post as spam recently, thinking I was doing my bit as a good member of the AAM community keeping it free from spam for all ! Yeh me !

I received a very snotty message ticking me off for wasting the mods time by reporting obvious spam.

ooh !
 
Would it make sense to put this message on the pop-up that comes up when you go to report a post?

FWIW on platforms like Reddit/Twitter/Facebook you are encouraged to report spam because auto-moderators can take action if say 20% of viewers report a post as spam, that’s probably why you’re seeing people jump to report spam here (as I did before you issued me a cease and desist :) ).
 
Would it make sense to put this message on the pop-up that comes up when you go to report a post?

Not really. Most people know that they should not report obvious spam. If they don't know and report it, they don't take offence at being asked not to.

So it's not worth rewriting the Xenforo programme for a small group of people.

Brendan
 
Most people know that they should not report obvious spam. If they don't know and report it, they don't take offence at being asked not to.

Hello Mr. Burgess,

I don't agree.

I very much doubt that most people here know that you don't want spam reported. Few people read site rules, detailed terms and conditions etc.

I think quite a few people don't bother to report spam (and assume that someone else will report it, or deal with it), but that doesn't mean that they know that you don't want it reported.

Then there's the newbies, who may not be used to the fairly blunt replies and may even find them a little rude.

Regards,

Mr. Earl.
 
Please read the Posting Guidelines again, thanks.

I really don't think that is abrasive.

They think that they can use stupid titles like "PAYE question"

1. I did read the Posting Guidelines, thanks. Your Guidelines end with abrasive advice that if I don't understand what i did wrong, I don't belong here.
2. Calling a title 'stupid' is abrasive. It was a PAYE question. I am sorry it wasn't a wordier title. I am not a PAYE expert, I was hoping someone here was. It was a long post and it was deleted. I was annoyed. I would have called the title 'vague' or 'non-specific' myself, instead of 'stupid'. Castigating people with good intentions (no bad language, no attacks, no trolling) is abrasive.

You are abrasive; if that's heavy moderation, then that's fine. Like you said, maybe I shouldn't be on here.
 
I keep saying (as somebody who never reported a post except one of spam) if you contribute on a forum such as this the first rule is coming to terms that somebody may not agree with you. Most of us have thick skins and a few adverse words from You-know-who shouldn't affect you. [ . . . and I'm probably top of the list for receiving such messages but shucks, thats life]. Life without this forum would be a little less enjoyable.

It's a public forum enjoy and if you wish just contribute and don't take criticism as personal. Otherwise, keep watching the News at Six and wait for the Weather Forecast.
 
I tend to read posts rather than make on this forum but have noticed that posts on threads which I'm following often get randomly and arbitrarily removed with no stated explanation and for no good reason.

Other posts which unequivocally should be removed are allowed to remain.

It does appear that there are certain posters on this forum who are allowed to post whatever they like with impunity.
 
There is a Report button on every post - bottom left hand side. Click on that and report any post which you think "unequivocally should be removed."

Anyone who posts with any frequency has had posts deleted by the moderators. I have had posts removed and I have removed posts by other moderators.

Anyone who has a post removed would know well why they have it removed.

There is nothing random or arbitrary about it.

Brendan
 
I could not disagree more.

The reason for the removal of a post is not displayed and I do see multiple vexatious posts which remain.

No publicly stated reason for post removal is random and arbitrary to other users of the forum.
 
Read Posting Guideline no. 22

Just because we do not discuss the reasons for deleting posts, does not make it random and arbitrary.

Posts are deleted for breaking the Posting Guidelines. Nothing more and nothing less.

Brendan
 
The reason for the removal of a post is not displayed and I do see multiple vexatious posts which remain.

I have had quite a few posts removed over the years, I received an explanation the vast majority of the times, others it was obvious. Removing posts completely makes for a cleaner, easier to read board. No one wants to have a post deleted only to have a public shaming remain on the forum for all to see. What purpose would that serve?

Being vexatious is not against the posting guidelines unless it crosses the line into abuse. I don't recollect you reporting anything you found offensive, if you choose to do so, it will be reviewed and dealt with appropriately.
 
Brendan
I've just had a post deleted from the Pensions thread earlier today, the deletion message referring me to the posting guidelines. I've read them and I can't see which rule I've contravened. Can you give me a steer as to why it was deleted? Thanks
 
They are not that complicated.

3 Please make the heading of your question relevant

Don't post a general heading such as "help !" or "Mortgage query". If you post a heading such as "Mortgage for separated couple", it will get a better response and will be much easier to find if you need to go back to look for it.
 
Askaboutmoney is heavily moderated for the benefit of all users. These Guidelines are not rules for rules' sake. It helps other users if you use a meaningful title, if you don't abuse other posters and if you stay on topic.



1 Post in the right forum


Please read the Forum titles and descriptions before you post. If you post in the wrong forum, the thread will be closed or deleted. In particular, note the existence of the following forums:
Redundancy and Jobseekers Benefit should not be asked in Welfare and State Benefits
Home Energy should not be asked in Homes & Gardens
Phone, Broadband and TV Service Providers should not be asked in Phones, DVDs etc
Recommend Tradesmen & Suppliers should not be asked in Homes & Gardens

If you ask a financial type question in the How to Use Askaboutmoney forum, it will be deleted.

2 Absolutely no bad language or profanities

We have a zero tolerance approach to bad language. If you use bad language, you will get a warning and your post will be removed. We don't allow self-censored expletives either such as f**k or sh1t.

3 Please make the heading of your question relevant

Don't post a general heading such as "help !" or "Mortgage query". If you post a heading such as "Mortgage for separated couple", it will get a better response and will be much easier to find if you need to go back to look for it.


4 Please stay on topic
Some threads stray off topic to such an extent that the discussion bears no relation to the original question. If you want to introduce a new question, start a new topic. Off-topic banter which distracts from the original question will be deleted.

4A Do not hijack someone else's thread. Start your own thread
If someone has asked a question about the rescheduling of their Ulster Bank mortgage, it is very annoying if you then add your question to that thread. If you do, your question and any answers will be immediately deleted.

5 No advertising, no private "for sale" or "wanted" ads.
Askaboutmoney has a strict "no advertising" policy.

This includes"for sale" and "wanted" advertisements. Describing an item such as a car and asking where you can sell it also counts as advertising. If you want to buy or sell something then please use another site such as buyandsell.ie, adverts.ie or etc.

Where a poster recommends the products or services of their employer, they should state their conflict of interest. Where they do not do so, we reserve the right to point out that the poster appears to have a conflict of interest. "Subversive advertising" where you pose as a happy customer of your own company is a particularly serious offence and will lead to an immediate ban.

5A Guidelines for Professional Advisors e.g. mortgage brokers, accountants, architects, etc.

Askaboutmoney welcomes professional advisors to post in their own name on topics relating to their area of expertise. You are welcome to put in your website as part of your signature. If you do not have a website, you can put in your email address instead. Many professional contributors have got useful business through askaboutmoney and, of course, many users have found good professional advisors through askaboutmoney. It is very easy for a user to assess the quality of a professional advisor from reading their posts on askaboutmoney.It is also educational for other users. For these reasons, you must post the replies publicly, rather than by Private Message. The main principle is "No advertising". Do not send Private Messages to users, except in reply to their PM to you. Do not invite the poster to contact you. Do not invite posters to send you a Private Message. Do not include your contact details on any post not relating directly to your area of professional advice. Do not use a slogan in your signature "e.g. Ireland's best advisor". It may be better to contribute to other discussions through a separate account. Send a Private Message to me and I will set up a separate user name for you. Example: Liam Ferguson

5B Guidelines for companies - e.g. banks, utility companies,etc.
Product and Service Suppliers(e.g. Insurance companies or utilities) Companies are welcome to register in their own name to answer questions about their products. Respond to questions about your products only. Do not use Askaboutmoney for product announcements. ( If it's a genuinely new product, feel free to email the press release to Brendanataskaboutmoneydotcom.) Do not respond to a general question e.g. "Which is the best company for motor insurance?". In particular, do not comment on competitors' products, unless there is a material factual inaccuracy. When registering use your official corporate email address

5C We do not allow links to surveys except in very exceptional circumstances
If you want to get subjects for a survey ask for permission by clicking on the Contact Us button at the bottom of the page. We will refuse permission unless you are a long-term poster and it's a pure consumer finance topic.

6 Putting a link to your own website in a post
We do not object to regular users who answer questions on Askaboutmoney providing a link to their website on relevant questions.

You should only provide the link and nothing else. It should not have the appearance of an ad.

Do not include
A slogan
A phone number
A business name

Do not put in your contact details on a post which is not relevant to your business.

Do not use bold or large text

Location should be used only for your geographic location e.g. Galway. Do not put a link to your website or your business name or any other ad in this box

7 No defamation
We remove all posts which are potentially defamatory. Fair criticism of an institution or a product is encouraged. Askaboutmoney is not the appropriate forum to claim that you were cheated out of money by a named institution. Please do not use words like 'ripoff', 'dodgy' or 'scam' in connection with identifiable businesses. Any such references to a company, person or institution will be deleted. For example, one contributor claimed that a named auctioneer had cheated him. This may or may not be true, but we do not want to get distracted by litigation, so we deleted the name of the auctioneer.

7A Do not discuss court cases until sentence has been passed
No comments allowed on a court case until the verdict has been announced and the sentence has been passed. You may comment on the verdict or sentence after the verdict is passed but any such comment or criticism should be moderate and not over the top.

8 It is usually not necessary to quote the full post to which you are replying.

1) You can reply without quoting the post you are replying to

This should be the one you use most often.

Just start typing in the dialogue box where it says Write your reply... and then hit Post Reply

2) You can quote the entire post
  • Please do not use this automatically
  • Please do not use this to quote very long posts
  • It's best to use this in a long thread where you are quoting a post which is not recent
3) You can quote one bit of a much longer post
  • This is particularly useful


9 Do not bump posts unnecessarily
If you do not get a response to your post, first edit the title to make it more meaningful. Do not bump the post within a few hours or days. Bumped threads will be deleted. Do not post a reply to surreptitiously bump it. If you have not received a reply after 4 working days, you may bump it once.

9A Do not post the same question in different forums
If you post in, say, the Askaboutbusiness forum, and don't get a reply, don't repost the question in another forum. Read the forum titles before posting, so that you choose the correct forum. If you post to the wrong forum, report the post and ask the moderators to move it.

10 Do not abuse other posters
Controversy and argument are welcome. But please keep your comments civil. Attack an opinion by all means, but please don't attack the person expressing the opinion.Posts or threads which use language designed to be deliberately offensive or just to stir up trouble will be deleted.

10 A. Please do not name employees, especially junior employees, of organisations and companies

It's one thing to criticise the Chief Executive or a director of a bank - they are well paid for it. But please don't say "I spoke to Joe Soap in the arrears section of Bank of Ireland and he was useless". In fact, some individuals don't want to be named publicly at all even if you are complimenting them.

11 We don't discuss individual shares
You won't find any messages suggesting investing in CRH or asking if AIB is a good investment. It is not the purpose of Askaboutmoney. We don't facilitate stock tipping or speculation about the future performance of individual shares. There are other forums which discuss individual shares such as The Investments and Markets Forum of boards.ie

This guideline does not restrict you from discussing
1) the mechanics of buying or selling shares in a flotation
2) Rights issues - pricing and mechanics
3) Dividend Reinvestment Plans - pricing and mechanics

12 Speculation about the future of House Prices is temporarily banned
We do not allow any further speculation of house prices other than in this thread:

Will Irish house prices rise or fall?

The reasons for this are explained in this thread:

Discussion of Irish house prices is suspended on Askaboutmoney.

This does not prevent people from making comments in money makeover type posts -"While you will gain if house prices rise over the coming 5 years, if house prices fall, you will be very exposed."

13 Please respect copyright
If you quote from a publication or website, always acknowledge the source and provide a link.

If the site is a subscription only site, do not reproduce the entire article. You may use selective quotations – but be selective. For example, the archives of The Irish Times are subscription only. Do not reproduce Irish Times or other newpapers' articles available only under subscription.

The fact that it is difficult for a publisher to pursue Askaboutmoney on a copyright issue is not a basis for ignoring copyright laws. Having said that, most journals and journalists are happy to see themselves quoted, so don’t get too hung up on it.

Please check the Terms & Conditions of a site before posting a link or reproducing content.

If any publisher complains to Askaboutmoney about breach of copyright then the offending post will be deleted immediately.

14 Please don't address specific queries directly to individual moderators or other contributors
Moderators and contributors give of their time freely and voluntarily so, in general, please post queries for general attention/discussion on the basis that somebody will respond rather than addressing them specifically to individual moderators or other contributors, particularly those who earn a living dispensing financial/tax advice on a professional basis. In any case, addressing specific queries to individual contributors rather than to the wider community in general may have the effect of limiting the number of useful responses that you receive rather than expediting things.

Obviously this guideline does not prevent you from addressing individuals directly in the normal context of an ongoing discussion.

Under no circumstances should you send an email or a Private Message to any of the moderators or administrators with a general question which should be posted publicly. Like other contributors they answer questions only in the public forums. You should only contact the moderators and administrators in connection with administrative or technical issues.

15 Please respect the privacy of others
Some contributors post anonymously/pseudonymously because they do not want to divulge their real identity for a variety of reasons. Please respect their right to privacy and desist from speculating on Askaboutmoney about their real identities. Posts which speculate about the identity of bona-fide contributors (as opposed to suspected spammers or other nuisance posters) who choose to post anonymously/pseudonymously will be removed. Each poster has a right to take a break from posting on Askaboutmoney or to stop posting altogether. Please respect their right to do so. Do not ask "where is "x" gone?"

16 If you are not a Frequent Poster, please do not Let Off Steam of Shoot the Breeze
The primary purpose of Askaboutmoney is for people to ask and answer questions on consumer issues.
We do not allow new users to express their opinions on current affairs, politics and non consumer issues. Such posts will be deleted.
Frequent Posters are allowed to contribute to the Letting Off Steam and Shooting the Breeze forums. A Frequent Poster is one with 51 posts and who has been registered for at least 30 days.
The Letting Off Steam forum is not designed to be a platform for people who make little or no other contribution (e.g. who don't answer general questions or otherwise contribute to the more finance orientated forums) to Askaboutmoney to stir up trouble or pursue their own campaigns. These posters should find another website to pursue their objectives.


The same applies to Shooting the Breeze.

17 Do not post links without commentary
Posts containing only links may be deleted.
Provide a summary of the content of the link. This will allow readers know whether to follow the link or to remain within Askaboutmoney.

18 Please identify any conflicts of interest
You are welcome to recommend or fairly criticize a product or company. But if you have a connection with the company or any other potential conflict of interest, please state this in your reply.

19 Please write clearly and avoid using text speak or all capital letters

Please take a little time to write your post carefully. Use complete sentences. Use paragraphs for longer posts. Do not use Text Speak. Internet etiquette dictates that ALL UPPERCASE TEXT is considered at best hard to read and at worst rude ("SHOUTING") so please avoid posting messages or subject lines in upper case only. If everything you type is in uppercase then make sure that your Caps Lock key is not inadvertently engaged.



20 Please keep recurring debates on a particular topic to a single thread
When someone asks a question , they want an answer and not a debate. For example, if someone asks about buying a house, they don't want a debate about the pros and cons of mortgage brokers. Keep such debate to The Great Financial Debates forum. It is ok to occasionally post a particularly relevant reply with a link to that debate. In particular do not hijack a thread to let off steam on a vaguely related issue. A lot of threads have been dragged off thread to engage in public sector bashing or to say that we need a general election now. Don't waste time composing a long serious post with an off-topic aside on it. The full post will be deleted. The moderators do not have time to edit out the off-topic bits. If another poster takes a thread off-topic, ignore them or report the post. Don't respond.

21 Please don't discuss medical issues including weight loss
We do not discuss medical issues other than to provide links to support groups and medical forums. We do not allow recommendations for doctors, dentists or medical practitioners generally. We do not allow discussion of weight loss issues either as they always develop into either advertising or medical topics such as anorexia.

There is a list of websites on medical issues here:


You may discuss tax relief on medical expenses and pricing of medical services or health insurance. It is ok to provide information on the availability of emergency doctors or 24 hour pharmacies. But you should not discuss effectiveness of treatment or quality of care.



22 We do not discuss moderators' decisions
The moderators are volunteers and do not have time to enter into discussions on our editorial decisions, so

1) Don't ask why a particular user was banned

2) If you genuinely don't know which guideline you broke, then maybe you should not be posting on Askaboutmoney

3) In very rare circumstances, where there was a genuine misunderstanding about your post, you may send a Private Message to the moderator. But we have no time to indulge people.
I have just re read these guidelines - I’m at a loss re post deleted - how do you contact moderator please
Thanks
Dec
 
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