[jb]

This forum exists to allow for discussions of Creationism, Intelligent Design, and related topics. Messages posted for the sole purpose of advertising a product, commercial* web site, business opportunity, etc., are not allowed, and will be treated as spam.

Much of the time spam is easy to identify. Often spammers will post a new thread advertising their wares and seldom come back to join in with any further discussion. Often the products and services advertised have little to do with the topic at hand, and are often of dubious merit (get-rich-quick schemes, questionable pharmaceuticals, pornography, etc.). Messages that are obvious spam of this sort will be immediately moved to the "Recycle Bin" forum and then deleted after 30 days. Spam messages containing pornography will be deleted immediately without first going to the "Recycle Bin." The user account used to post an obviously spam message will be deleted.

A user account which appears in the memberlist which has reference to an online pharmacy, pornography web site, or some other spam-related web site will be deleted without question. This will happen regardless of whether the account has yet posted any messages.

A gray area sometimes arises, however, when a long-time legitimate user wants to make the group aware of some product, service or commercial* web site that might be of either direct or tangential interest to the subject at hand. In such cases the past history of the user will be taken into account, and these will be treated on a case-by-case basis. Depending on the circumstances, the message might either be allowed to stand, or the user might be contacted about the message. In others, the message itself might be taken down, but the user allowed to remain in good standing. If you are in doubt, please contact one of the forum administrators before posting such messages.

However, please do not be afraid to post links to outside websites that are primarily informational in nature. Merely linking to an outside site alone does not necessarily arouse suspicions. Such informational exchange is what this site is for.

Linking to a book title at Amazon or another online bookseller is perfectly acceptable as well, provided that the posting does not have other indicators to tip us off that it is spam.

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* "Commercial" here is defined as having to do with a business that is primarily in existenc to sell products or services for a profit.