Everything iCafe Forum Policy

As a member of the EverythingiCafe forum, you must follow the policies and guidelines as outlined. Select a guideline for more detailed explanation. Failure to comply with policies set forth below can result in everything from suspension of forum privileges to being banned from the site.

Moderators simply follow these guidelines, so if you have questions regarding these policies, I would ask that you contact me directly.

Rules and Guidelines (updated March 3, 2013)

• Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
• No direct or indirect advertising of your blog, site or product.
• No foul language
• You must show respect for fellow members
• No trolling
• No links or offers for free iPhones
• No spam links
• Do not use super-large fonts or type in all caps.
• Representatives from commercial manufacturers can take part in discussion, but must disclose their association.
• Commercial manufacturers are not allowed to use this forum as a means of advertising.
• Signature links must not include any form or advertising or promotional wording.
• Multiple accounts are not allowed.
• Do not post complete articles without giving proper credit.
• Do not discuss file sharing methods
• Do not use usernames, avatars or signatures that might not be considered "family friendly"
• Do not sign up and link to your website. It is a one-way ticket to a lifetime ban.
• Please use the search feature before posting an inquiry. In most cases, your question has been asked and answered.
• Please post in the appropriate forum.
• Please be descriptive when selecting a subject title.
• Please use proper grammar where possible.
• Please do not become a "post whore"
• Please do not cross post
• Do not solicit personal information, email addresses of our members are ask them to use the personal message system for that purpose.
• Apple will likely not condone modifying an iPhone and such activity may well void the warranty, and to check their product information for matters pertaining to iPhone modification.
• Please use the Off-Topic forum for anything unrelated to the iPhone.
• Discussion of religion and/or politics is not permitted in any section of this forum.
• Copyright Rules: Do not link to or ask for links to copyrighted material. Do not post copyrighted material. Do not link to illegal software. Do not ask for or offer any software or intellectual property that belongs to Apple, Inc.
• As a member, you understand that EverythingiCafe.com is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc.
• Moderators and Administrators have the final say when it comes to closing threads, member bans and administering the rules of this forum. If you should have any questions regarding the above policies, please consult the site administrator or a moderator BEFORE posting.
• No affiliate links.
• No iPad book offers that link anywhere but the Apple Store. This is to prevent affiliate scams and iPad Book scams that are permeating the Internet.
• We don't allow discussion of cracked apps or their support software here on the forum, ever.
• As with any forum, bumping threads is not permitted.
• Broken links result in a poor experience. Thusly, management will remove any broken links.

These guidelines will be amended as necessary.

Failure to comply will result in your banishment from this site.

-Chris

Personal attacks will not be tolerated

Personal attacks will not be tolerated. If you disagree with someone, argue the point and not the person. Do not in any way question the persons intelligence. Everyone on this forum has a right to their viewpoint. You can either reply and express your views to counter
their position or simply move on to another thread.

No direct or indirect advertising of your blog, site or product.

If you are the owner, writer or in any way associated with a website, then do not use this site as a means of advertising. Advertising is defined as a link from this site to your site. If you've blogged about the iPhone, do not come here with the intent of driving traffic away from Everything iPhone to your site. The owners of this site do not engage in this type of guerilla marketing and we most certainly do not appreciate it when it happens here. A significant amount of work has gone into the development of this site and you will receive a lifetime ban if you enage in this form of advertising and self-promotion. You can post a link to your personal site in your profile. Do not post a tutorial with links to commercial software. It will get deleted and you risk having the name of your company being added to our censored words list. Members are not permitted to solicit their products.

No foul language

This is pretty self-explanatory. However, do not use %&$ to substitute letters for foul language. Do not use WTF. Not acceptable.

You must show respect for fellow members

You must show respect for fellow members. Do not criticize them for "not searching". Do not question their intelligence for asking a "newbie" question or something you read a few weeks back. There are thousands of threads here at Everything iPhone. If you reply, I'd ask expect members to:
a. Offer a solution
b. Direct them via a link to a discussion that has a solution or ongoing discussion.

Be kind and courteous at all times.

No trolling

No trolling. Do not sign up and then use your first post to gripe about the iPhone. This is well known in forum circles as trolling. For example, first post exclaiming how the battery is horrible or it's not worth $600. I'd also emplore members not to respond to trolling, but to report them to the administrator of the site.*

This is not to be confused with dissenting opinions and thoughts on the iPhone.

No links or offers for free iPhones

No links for free iPhones or associated scams are allowed. These posts will result in immediate removal of the thread and an immediate ban.

No Spam Links

No Spam links. Spam of all kinds will be removed ASAP by a forum administrator or moderator. Please do not reply and/or quote from a spam post. Threads and posts will be removed. Offending member will be banned.

Do not use super-large fonts or type in all caps.

Do not use super-large fonts or type in all caps. Using fonts like this are not acceptable. Typing in all caps is the equivalent of yelling and is not acceptable.

Representatives from commercial manufacturers must disclose their affiliation

Representatives from commercial manufacturers can take part in discussion, but must disclose their association. If someone has a question regarding your product, then you may use the forums to offer support. You must not engage in any form of sales activity. You must not use multiple accounts or create a situation that enables you talk about your product. If you have questions regarding the fine line of advertising and support, please consult an administrator or moderator BEFORE posting.

Commercial manufacturers are not allowed to use this forum as a means of advertising

Commercial manufacturers are not allowed to use this forum as a means of advertising. If your product is commercial (this includes free trial products that require purchase after a period of time), then you are not permitted to post. Please use this form for press releases and product review inquiries.

Signature links must not include any form or advertising or promotional wording

At this time, we offer a courtesy to our members that allows you to put a link to your personal site or blog in your signature. You are not permitted to use any form of promotional wording in your signature link. Do not use colors or increase the size of your font to put emphasis on your signature link. For example, Visit the Everything iPhone forums for great iPhone discussion would be unacceptable. Use the title of your site only.

A proper signature link would be:
________________
Everything iPhone

If you contribute the forums, you'll must likely have people who will visit your site.

We do ask that you return the favor and add a link to Everything iPhone. Simply copy and paste this code in the HMTL of your site.

<a href="http://www.everythingicafe.com">Everything iCafe</a>.

If you abuse this privilege, your signature link will be removed and this decision is at the sole discretion of the administrators of this forum.

Suggestions (thanks to PatrickJ) for getting the best possible answers to your questions.



This may be stickied somewhere already - if so, apologies and mods can kill this one, but I did not see it anywhere in the FAQ section.

I think it would help - a lot - if there were a few basic, common sense guidelines for how to post when you need help with an iPhone issue. Seems to me a starting point might be a few good Do's and Don'ts - simple things that will help some of the more experienced users to help novice users more quickly and wade through less junk in doing so - everybody wins:

Do ... Make your post title as clear as possible as to what kind of problem you have. Things like 'Uninstall of ABC Program Fails', or 'Cannot Establish SSH Connection to iPhone' or similar - so veteran users can tell at a glance whether it's a subject they may be able to help with.

Don't .. hit us with 100% vague post titles - like 'Help!!!!' or 'OMG, Someone Please Help' or variations of these.

Do ... Give as much detail as possible about your issue - things like what you were doing when it occurred or directly beforehand (problem started right after I installed XYZ program for example), exact error messages that you got, anything you have already tried by way of fixing the issue etc.

Don't ... be rushed and give a completely vague description of events that led to your problem - saying 'So I was restoring and I got some scary error and then it all went south and now I can't even get to the home screen' really doesn't give any of us a clue as to: restoring to which firmware?, what the error was or when in the restore process you got it, or what happened after the error - so it will take someone twice as long to try to help with it.

Do ... state whether your phone is jailbroken or not on any issues where this may be relevant.

Do ... name your firmware version if you know what it is - as this may be relevant to your question

Do post in the correct forum - If you have questions about unlocking/jailbreaking your iphone, post your questions in the iPhone Modifications forum. On the other hand, if you have a question about the apps in the stock iPHone firmware or just questions about the iphone in general, post in the iPHone forum.

Do specify if you're using a Mac or PC. - There are different methods for almost everything depending on what kind of computer you have.

Administrators will remove links without notice if they are broken, ill-formed or result in a 404 within or outside of everythingiCafe.

Forums are used (and abused) for creating links to personal and/or commercial sites. Some members sign up with good intentions. It's not an easy task for administrators to assess whether a new member is here solely to create links to their site. To keep things simple, we don't allow links for new members. Once you become a contributing member, you are allowed on signature link without promotional wording. In other words, it should be the name of your site. For example, Tim Cook would have Apple in his signature and not "the maker of the world's most awesome smartphone and the best mobile operating system".

We've taken a number of steps to automate the process of not allowing links, along with a manual review of accounts. If you violate this policy, at a minimum, your links will be removed. If you are found to have possible spam links, your account will be completely removed. This is a hard and fast rule. We don't issue warnings. We don't hold your hand through the process. It's a zero sum game. Do not link to your sites.