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The Basic Common Sense Law: Sphinn's Terms, Conditions, Guidelines & All That Stuff
We've been so busy getting the infrastructure of Sphinn together that I'm behind in posting terms, conditions and more on rules of behavior. So in this post, I wanted to jot down some initial guidelines.
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My approach to guidelines for community sites is to have as few rules as possible and build them up organically as they seem to be needed. But the overriding rule in operation here is common sense.
Common sense? You see, in California, we have something called the Basic Speed Law. It says that you can never drive faster than it is safe, regardless of the posted speed limit. On a freeway where the speed limit is 60, but it's raining and poor visibility? You're supposed to use common sense and slow down to a safe speed.
I like that approach. Rather than craft a billion rules on exactly how many things you can submit and so on, just use common sense. Should you submit 10 items in a row from your web site that simply cross-link to someone else's site? Common sense should tell you no. You're not adding value to the community that way. You're putting self-interest way ahead of the community interest. And when you violate the Basic Common Sense Law here, we'll do things like suspend your account and/or kill your submissions.
In contrast, submit a gem or two or three from your own site, stuff that's really good? Go for it. Common sense should tell you that delivering up your best, even if there's an element of self-interest, will still help the greater good.
We do already have some more specific rules that I'd encourage you to read:
News Story Submission Guidelines
http://sphinn.com/guidelines.php
Discussion & Comment Guidelines
http://sphinn.com/discussion.php
Beyond those, here are some other things off the top of my head:
Content Guidelines
News submissions should lead to substantial or interesting material, and point directly as sources whenever possible. If you want to credit your own blog or someone else's for finding it, see the news submission guidelines on how to drop a link in the comment -- and we'll come up with a better way to do this in the near future.
Topics (news or discussions) should be related to search, search marketing and internet marketing. Use the categories as guides, and we'll add and refine them over time as necessary.
The Water Cooler area allows for some off-topic conversations of a light tone, but sorry, no politics because of moderation difficulties.
Moderators & Editors
We have them, and they play an active role in the community. I expect that what makes it Hot will be largely off how people are sphinning. But we reserve the right to push content right to the Hot page (like with this post) if we think the community will benefit. We'll also pull things that have gone Hot if we think there's some issue (way off topic for the site; potential voting spam or other reasons where common sense would tell you something's not right). If we pull, we'll try to keep you or the community informed by posting in what's removed if possible (if we pull 100 posts from someone spamming us, it's harder to post in each thread about removing them).
Usernames
They should be appropriate. IE, foul language ain't going to fly. In addition, grabbing a username of a well known person if you aren't that person is likely to see you using it. No one's taken googleguy yet. If someone does -- I know who he is, so you'd better be him. If you're not, kiss the name bye-bye. And picking a generic name for reasons perhaps little to do with your online personality and more to do with possible marketing intentions might cause it to be removed (ie, user mesothelioma, I'm coming for you!).
Nofollow
Links don't have them now, but they'll almost certainly be added. It won't prevent spam, but it does have some deterrent value. And yes, members that prove a history of trusted posting might well be able to have links without it.
I'm sure there's stuff I'm forgetting, so I'll add more here as I think of it, plus eventually we'll get a proper page up. Below, please share your own thoughts, comments or concerns.
Good rules.
I think starting with nofollow and then easing it off for people who've contributed enough to the community is a good way to encourage people to keep quality high.
:)
Solid Rules Danny.
I totally agree re: nofollow. For new users any links should be nofollow but as someone becomes trusted and out for the greater good, it only makes sense to allow them a little bit of link love :)
The conditional application of nofollow for distrusted/new versus those who are trusted would be way cool! I don't need to tell you, but you naturally shouldn't share what your criteria/algo is for allow vs nofollow!
Silver - we share it openly on SEOmoz and I think it's actually positive - folks know that if they contribute positively and earn 100 points, they won't be "nofollowed" anymore. :) I don't think you need to absolutely keep it a secret.
These rules seem quite logical and responsible... and, well, fun!
Nicely done. Good to see community guidelines that can be modified based on context (e.g. removing nofollows for trusted Sphinners), rather than a "one-size-fits-all-and-punishes-all" approach.
Off to a good start Danny. I'd expect the rules to evolve with the community and I think you're on the right track by being open about how things will work.
All seems fair enough.
By the way, I killed the first story today. Well, not killed -- just removed it from the ability to get Sphinns. It's here:
http://sphinn.com/story/481
I'll have to clarify things further in terms of what should be submitted, but in general, it's like this. Anything related to search, yes! Anything related to online marketing, yes! Social media use, yes! Fun stuff between members in the Water Cooler, yes! Then there's Anything Else which is supposed to be anything else about the topics I've name that doesn't fit into another category on the site -- NOT anything else across, well, anything. So maybe that needs a better name. Hey, my Xbox died, and I love that this article is offering a solution. But if I want to read hot stuff on gaming, I've got a place for that, Digg. Sphinn to me should focus on the areas I've outlined, so that it keeps a unique voice for those areas. But comments welcomed!
I've now updated the news submissions guidelines page: http://sphinn.com/guidelines.php
Updates are new advice such as: don't submit more than two stories in a row; don't submit stories more than a few days old unless they are exceptional in nature; don't submit off-topic content. The guidelines give a little more depth. Comments/concerns, let me know here.
I've done a further update to say submissions have to be in English. Sorry to be English centric, but we don't have the staff to support other languages to watch out for spam or off-topic content.
Perhaps any article that hits the front page should have the nofollow removed?
Oh yeah,and sorry to contribute terribly terribly late.