Forum Rules

Eckhart Aurelius Hughes · Post by **Scott** » 12 Jan 2015, 04:02

General Rules for All Posting/Commenting

Posts must be be on-topic (we all digress now and then, but most of your comments/posts need to be on-topic).
Spam and unpaid advertising are strictly prohibited both in the public forums and using the Private Messaging system, or any other aspect or tool on the website. You may not post any links to your own products or website. No affiliate links. Because some spammers will deceptively try to advertise their own website or product by pretending it is not theirs (e.g. "I heard about this cool new website where you can buy such and such"), moderators will remove suspicious links or potential spam.
Comments on Review Team reviews must not critique the review/reviewer (pointing out errors in the review, for example).
Posts that are copied and pasted are not allowed. This includes those that are paraphrased from another comment/review. (If you want to quote another member, please do so using the BBCode for that purpose.)
Posting the same thing across multiple topics/forums is not allowed. This includes (but is not limited to) links.
Posting requests in other topics for other members to view your review/topic or comment on your review/topic is not allowed.
If you have less than 25 posts or have been registered less than 1 week, you may not make a post about a book with an Amazon sales rank worse than 100,000 in books. This is because we assume you are either the author, publisher or paid promoter of the book if you start saying good things about some low-selling or independent book, and the first rule in this list strictly prohibits anyone from ever posting about their own book.
Outside of some Review Team reviews, the language used on this site is English. Please post in English when posting in the forums.
Meaningless, overly short, or overly generic posts are prohibited and will be deleted at the discretion of the moderators.

For Authors and Publishers

This website is used by millions of avid readers, so it also attracts a lot of authors looking to promote their books. Our members consider it spam when an author comes on the site and endorses his or her own book. The only way to promote your book on this website is to start by submitting a review request. Our members are very interested in the books recommended by our own trusted Review Team.

Opening New Topics

Before setting up a new topic always use the Search function first to check if the topic, or a very similar topic, already exists. Please use the Advanced Search function at the top of the page in order to search on multiple forums and across multiple topics/genres
If you want to submit a review of a book/series you have read, first check if another member has already set up a topic for that particular book/series and if there already is a topic open then post your review as a new post on that topic. Duplicate topics will be disapproved/locked. *The only forum exempt from the this rule is the Read-a-long forum.* (Reviewers are not allowed to use this forum for review books.)
Topics that are too short or unclear may be locked or removed.
All topics must be on-topic for the specific forum or subforum in which the topic is posted (e.g. a topic posted in the Poetry & Music forum needs to be related to poetry or music in some way).

Accounts

Only one account is allowed per person. Duplicate accounts will be banned and the original account will receive a warning*.
Creating new accounts with a different email to work around previous issues or banning is not allowed (and is likely to result in the inability to earn via the Review Team). If you need to change your username/email/etc. you need to use the Contact Form page and include the corrected information.

Other Forum Activity

Reporting posts/messages that break forum rules is highly encouraged. However, reporting posts/messages for no reason is against the rules.
Posts that have no text (such as those that are just smileys/emojis) are against the rules outside of the community forum.

ALynnPowers · Post by **ALynnPowers** » 12 Jan 2015, 04:42

Thanks for the guidelines! They should be helpful for newer members especially, but also good as a reminder to the rest of us as well!

arlina · Post by **arlina** » 17 Jan 2015, 20:27

Very nice guidelines. As a new member there are of great use

salome steven · Post by **salome steven** » 25 Feb 2015, 05:11

Nice guidlines

CataclysmicKnight · Post by **CataclysmicKnight** » 25 Feb 2015, 08:26

Yep, I'm still new enough that I didn't know these either, thanks

aimel369 · Post by **aimel369** » 12 Apr 2015, 14:41

thank you for the help. As a new member it was very difficult for me to know what to do. can you also tell us how to navigate this website I don't seem to understand it would be really helpful

maedae123 · Post by **maedae123** » 30 Apr 2015, 11:42

This helps a lot thank you!

missdi24 · Post by **missdi24** » 10 Jun 2015, 01:07

Thanks! This helps a lot. I am a new member and was so confused about what to post. Thank you so much!

DennisK · Post by **DennisK** » 12 Jun 2015, 20:18

I am band-new here, and a bit puzzled: Why are some topics locked?

gali · Post by **gali** » 12 Jun 2015, 23:38

DennisK wrote:I am band-new here, and a bit puzzled: Why are some topics locked?

They are locked since they are duplicated topics.

norina · Post by **norina** » 20 Jul 2015, 11:03

gali wrote:
DennisK wrote:I am band-new here, and a bit puzzled: Why are some topics locked?
They are locked since they are duplicated topics.

-- 20 Jul 2015, 11:10 --

Hi. I am also brand new, don't know what to post either, and am kind of confused as to how to post, etc. However, I will try to figure it out. The topic creating guidelines have helped a bit. I've tried to create a "profile" but was unsuccessful, as I kept getting messages of too many characters entered in any of submissions, i.e., occupation, location, etc., but I couldn't see what I was doing wrong. Now I think I have made my way to posting!
Eventually, I would like to review books. I've read hundreds of books, and I am still in the process of entering books on my shelf. I hope that my reviews will be helpful in guiding others to some good reads in the future.

bamboo-73 · Post by **bamboo-73** » 25 Jul 2015, 20:38

As a new member, I will keep referring to these guidelines until I am quite confident how everything works. Thanks for this assistance and to the other members, too. Their comments and questions echo my own so I get to learn from them.

LatebloomerEM · Post by **LatebloomerEM** » 11 Aug 2015, 10:06

I am a new member having registered today. I did not skip to number seven, but read the entire set of guidelines. Having done so I am in awe of how vicious honest mistakes are dealt with. To be blacklisted here, and on other websites, for such unintended infractions seems very heartless to me. Why the mark of Cain will follow one as far as is explained, is hard for me to understand. I will have to visit the forum to see what is being talked about before, I feel comfortable enough to comment about other things. Thanks for letting me know, before hand, what I can look forward to should I ever, innocently. buck the system set up here.

BookNerd1177 · Post by **BookNerd1177** » 16 Aug 2015, 22:01

I am new and am still frustrated over navigating my way through the site. I was flagged as duplicating a topic, but was not allowed to respond or ask why. I also have had trouble finding those original threads through the "search" buttons. The one on the home page brings up a ton of Google ads, followed (if i'm lucky) by anything that has the same words I searched for. Without searching each and every theme, how am I to know if there's a thread already? I also saw "official review" posts and wasn't sure if that was the standard. I tried reading through the guidelines, but I still find it wordy and round about. I thought I was a reviewer, but I guess I'm not. Am trying to work my way up to that, but if i'm going to be blocked for every little oopsie, then I might have to find another site.

gali · Post by **gali** » 16 Aug 2015, 23:08

BookNerd1177 wrote:I am new and am still frustrated over navigating my way through the site. I was flagged as duplicating a topic, but was not allowed to respond or ask why. I also have had trouble finding those original threads through the "search" buttons. The one on the home page brings up a ton of Google ads, followed (if i'm lucky) by anything that has the same words I searched for. Without searching each and every theme, how am I to know if there's a thread already? I also saw "official review" posts and wasn't sure if that was the standard. I tried reading through the guidelines, but I still find it wordy and round about. I thought I was a reviewer, but I guess I'm not. Am trying to work my way up to that, but if i'm going to be blocked for every little oopsie, then I might have to find another site.

Welcome!

I am sorry you find it unclear. You should either use the general search option (the button at the top of the Home Page) or the specific topic search option on the forums to find those threads. You shouldn't start a new topic about a book if there is a topic already made on it. You can post your reviews under that topic though. "Official reviews" are reviews on books one got from this site to review. Good luck!