vBulletin chopped off their own leg?

[Prolex]

Ok I just had a glance at our new "vBulletin forum rules" and boy was I surprised. The rule that most shocked me was the advertising rules. Let me tell you vB develepors that graphic designers like myself. c-pr0mpt, sinecure, synx etc all depend on a minimal amount of advertising to promote our services. We don't put huge flashy banners in our sigs that promote our services. All we have is a simple "Note that I currently do vB customizations". We post free graphics/templates etc for the community to use for personal use. We do this stuff on our own time and when we display our work users become aware of our services that way. What harm are we doing by stating we do vBulletin customizations? This community has grown a lot since I've been here. There are tons of customizing info, free buttons, styles,etc. By restricting your users so much your really taking away their motivation to give back to the vBulletin community. I don't think anyone would like it if we removed all our button sets, tutorials on customizing etc. So my personal opinion is that you haven't made anyone more inspired to do anything for your community. Anyway that's my opinion on these rules. I'd like to hear everyone else's.

Note to Self: Rules are made to be broken
Note to Self: For text signatures: 4 lines normal size, 8 lines small size and up to 90 chars per line. Isn't Chris Schreiber's sig 5 lines?

[c-prompt]

I have no problem with the new rules. I welcome them. Because for every valid designer there are a good amount of fake wannabe's with little, to no experience. I don't depend on vBulletin.com for advertisting. I haven't even advertised in my sigs in a long while. I had a link to my button set, but I removed it because of the new rules.

[Prolex]

So can I have 1 image in my sig that's longer than 4 lines of standard text ? Or am I asking for trouble there?

[c-prompt]

The rules say the sizes for sigs. 300 width, 125 height max.

edit: corrected width. my bad.

[Sinecure]

incorrect C:, it would be 300 width, and 125pixels in height.
For the statement, I fully aggree with all the rules.
Kudos to the Jelsoft team

[Chen]

Re: vBulletin chopped off their own leg?

Originally posted by Prolex
Note to Self: Rules are made to be broken

No, that's a cliche. Rules are made to be obeyed. I wouldn't be surprised if you get banned for breaking the rules...

Originally posted by Prolex
Note to Self: For text signatures: 4 lines normal size, 8 lines small size and up to 90 chars per line. Isn't Chris Schreiber's sig 5 lines?

No, it is 4 lines last time I checked.

[MarkB]

My opinion is, if you're only here to promote your services, be it by selling button sets or themes or whatever, then you (and we) are better off without you being here.

Kudos to vBulletin for not letting their forums turn into a market stall.

[Hooper]

Originally posted by c-prompt
I have no problem with the new rules. I welcome them. Because for every valid designer there are a good amount of fake wannabe's with little, to no experience. I don't depend on vBulletin.com for advertisting. I haven't even advertised in my sigs in a long while. I had a link to my button set, but I removed it because of the new rules.

Bit potent statement on the fake wannabe's. Although I believe you have talent, you by far are not my idea of a graphics hero.
More power to the wannabe's. I hope all gain more talent as they go.

[MarkB]

Originally posted by Hooper



Bit potent statement on the fake wannabe's. Although I believe you have talent, you by far are not my idea of a graphics hero.
More power to the wannabe's. I hope all gain more talent as they go.

As a wannabe wannabe, I support Hooper's statement

[c-prompt]

I don't mean wannabe's in the way you seem to have taken it. I meant the ones who don't even own a vBulletin, nor have ever done a style before are out offering vBulletin services. I have gotten other clients who were sold copyrighted designs. And others who hired someone who never showed any work. These are the wannabe's I am talking about. They saw some of us doing vB work and they saw an easy way to get money. This is why I welcome the new rules.

[Valkyre]

I wouldn't advertise on vB.com anyways, but I really don't see the harm in it. Perhaps someone will open up a vBulletin customization service site that ranks certain web designers, etc.

[Max_Radius]

wow

If someone has never done a style before, and they advertize custom styles as something they sell, how do they create the product? Seriously, if these people use premade styles without crediting the author, they're infringing on copyrights.

re: Site Promotion

I don't see a problem with people showing off their custom boards, or even using the vBulletin community as a way to promote their site and content. Obviously, vBulletin agrees to a certain degree else the signature feature would be removed altogether.

re: Forum Rules

I agree with every restriction vBulletin places on their board. After all, it's their company and this is their forum. I figure that if I ever cross a line, vBulletin will tell me so I can change my behaviour.

[Skeptical]

I don't see any harm in links within a sig. As long as they are not too big what's the harm? Yeah some people do use forums to promote their sites, but it's not like a message board competitor is constantly posting away here.

[Jake Bunce]

mine is ok right? we can still link to our sites?

[George L]

Originally posted by Jakeman
mine is ok right? we can still link to our sites?

yeah that's fine