Welcome to the Flying Solo forums: please play nicely!

[FS Administrator]

These common sense guidelines have been developed to help maintain the integrity of our community. [Updated October 2011]

These forums are solely for individuals residing and operating in Australia.

We review all posts daily and have 'no-follow' attributes on all external links. If you see any violations or dodgy behaviour then please let us know using the ‘Report this post’ link above each post.

1. The Golden Rule: respect: While Flying Solo supports open discussion and debate, we are committed to keeping things friendly, supportive and constructive. Please treat your fellow community members with courtesy and respect.
   Public disputes: Flying Solo is not the appropriate channel for disputes or arguments between named individuals or companies. Any gripes should be taken up directly with the company concerned. It is our policy not to get involved, and any such discussions will be edited to remove names, or more likely, deleted.
   
2. First time poster? To help us give you a personal welcome, please start by posting in the introductions thread and also let us know a little about yourself by filling in your profile in 'Control panel', including details of which state or suburb of Australia you're based in. Having a completed forum profile is very important to other community members and shows them that you do indeed reside in Australia and that you're here to participate openly and genuinely. You can edit your forum signature to include details about your business while you're there, if you like, but please read guideline #5 about signatures (below) first.
   To further distance yourself from ‘one post wonders’ avoid over-promoting your offering in your introductory message. A short overview of your business is fine, but the community will not tolerate new users registering purely to advertise. Remember, first impressions count!
3. Don’t start threads or posts for the purposes of advertising or promoting: Any commercial or promotional links to your own, or third party, websites (including job advertisements, businesses for sale, office space for rent, FREE offers, those promoting events, selling or giving away products or services, etc.) should be directly relevant to an ongoing discussion in all instances. This includes re-posts of articles and blogs that appear elsewhere and that are clearly posted here purely to drive traffic. Any affiliate links not accompanied by a disclosure statement clearly outlining the nature of your affiliation will be removed.
   NOTE: If your post is to promote an event, be sure to read the additional Networking & Local Groups guidelines.
4. Adding value: Please ensure that posts add value to discussions and/or continue ongoing conversations. Seemingly empty posts such as ‘I agree’ or ‘Good point’ etc that we deem are purely posted for promotional purposes (to boost your post count, for example) will be deleted and repeated posts treated as spam. This is not at all aimed at genuine conversations or common courtesies. One of the things we love about the Flying Solo community is the friendliness and generosity of those who participate, and we do not intend these new guidelines to interfere with that. If you think we've been over-zealous in our moderation, please feel free to let us know.
5. Signature guidelines: Please keep signatures short (4 lines maximum), simple and professional – adding a tagline and linking to your business website is fine in your signature, but no more than 3 links and no images. We have 'no-follow' attributes on all external signature links until you reach 50 posts. This guideline will apply from now on and we reserve the right to edit existing signatures that are outside these guidelines as we come across them. Please update your signatures.
6. Keep personal information personal: Be mindful that your post will not only appear on our forum, it may appear on external search engines. Avoid posting information such as home addresses and phone numbers, instead share these via private message or by linking to your website.
7. Keep it clean: No porn, links to pirated software, illegal activities or just general nasty stuff – there’s enough of that in the web already! Insulting, defamatory, prejudicial or offensive posts and posters will be deleted.
8. Spreading the word: We may occasionally share the wisdom of the Flying Solo community with a wider audience. This may mean an extract of your post is mentioned in a newsletter, on the website or within an article or media release. Where relevant, original posters will be identified by their member name and a link to the full post on the forum. If, at some time in the future you wish to no longer be identified with our community, we can delete your profile information and signature to remove identifying characteristics.
9. Management of posts: Once submitted, we generally do not delete legitimate posts. We may close posts that have run their course, move threads to more relevant areas or edit posts not complying with the guidelines. Additionally, we may amend the titles of threads or posts to assist clarity or general visibility.
10. Posting tips:
    • To maximise the chances of people finding your post, please use subject titles that are clear and easy to understand. The more descriptive, the better.
    • If you’re asking a question, be sure to provide enough background and detail for a meaningful answer.
    • If your thread starts to head off-topic, consider starting a thread on that new topic.
    • Place messages in just one forum section – don’t cross-post or duplicate them to multiple discussions.
    • Use the preview feature to check spelling and formatting.
    • Format long posts using paragraphs, numbers and bullets if needed.
    • Search the forums before adding a new thread to see if your topic is already covered or under discussion. The ‘search’ facility is in the right hand margin of every page.
    • It’s best to avoid discussion on politics, religion, legal advice and medical advice as these often lead to unproductive discussions and are likely to be deleted.
11. Help us keep our house in order! If you see any violations or dodgy behaviour then please let us know using the ‘Report this post’ link above each post. If you have any feedback or technical problems, please post them here.

Thanks for joining us! We look forward to seeing you get involved in the discussions.

Love your work!

Robert, Sam, Jayne & Peter

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