IWC

Check out my collection of wallpapers for download of platinum Vintage Series at my watch blog.

watchinghorology . com

Cheers
Harry

This message has been edited by Horolographer on 2008-05-28 07:44:59

This message has been edited by MTF on 2008-05-28 08:58:02

Thread locked.  Harry, if you want to continue discussion, please do so through email. 
Thanks,
Anthony

MTF - I note that you edited the link.

Was that necessary? I would like to know what is the current policy here for linking and if I have breached it I like to know that I have directly. Just tell me so I would not do it again. I ask for no additional rights but expect to be treated equally as others. It would be most helpful if you have the forum rule cited.

Do note that I offer wallpapers here because I received so many request from this forum. I have no problems witholding it from this forum.

Just tell me directly that I am not allowed to link to my hosting site and that there is a rule that prohibits this. I will comply with the rule that I am not to link in future without fuss.

Harry

regarding posting off-site links.  In all the mastheads in each and every forum, there is the forum code of conduct link which states what our forum guidelines are.

And u'll see that we do not allow links "whose primary traffic is direct traffic to another site".  We've given you a lot of leeway for all your past posts and linking to your blog, but we will in the future prohibit everyone from posting links to his/her own website.  You've been a here for a while so we have allowed you to get by this guideline, but we will begin to start strictly enforcing this guideline.

Cheers,
Anthony

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PuristSPro.com Discussion Board Code of Conduct

Some simple guidelines for participants of this forum:

Please note that all official or self-promoting announcements, press releases, or posts MUST be submitted to a moderator or (remove the spaces) NewsCentral @ ThePuristS.com . Any posts or announcements which are not so submitted, but posted directly to the discussion forums, may be deleted without notice. Range of topics: Please keep the topic somewhat related to the brand or stated topic of the specific forum. Discussions about company heritage, tradition, philosophy, and policies are also apropos. Have fun. There are no dumb questions, just questions that haven't found an answer yet. Tone: Please keep the tone of the posts courteous and respectful. Think of this as a virtual cocktail or dinner party - don't write anything that you wouldn't say to someone in person. The anonymity of the internet is NOT an acceptable excuse for boorish or rude behaviour.

Rule of thumb: word your posts as if it were directed at you. This includes posts directed at companies rather than individuals.

Posts about street prices and seller references:

Connoisseurship, ownership and collecting is about much more than price and who sells what. Price and seller references tend to overwhelm the other more subtle, though equally important aspects of the aficionado experience.

• Links to other websites:

  Like any site, we are strongly against shilling of any kind, on our site to other sites, or on other sites to ours. Here shilling is defined as any posts, links, or references whose PRIMARY purpose is to direct traffic to another site. This includes links that are shills, but masquerading as informational references.

  Links to any commercial sites (ie: Ebay, dealer sites, etc.) are strictly prohibited.

  April 30, 2004: ThePuristS.com will no longer allow links or references of any type or reason to sites which as a matter of blanket site policy do not allow links to ThePuristS.com or affiliated sites, such as Paneristi.com . Posts that include links, references or shills for such sites will be edited or deleted, with or without notification.

link to guidelines in HOME's masthead:  home.watchprosite.com =

which is most clear for me. It is curious that MTF who is usually quite prompt have yet to reply directly. Nevertheless, I am sure you are authorised to speak on Thomas Mao's behalf and the rest of the management team.

If I am correct, I understand that the issue seems to be that what I have linked before may appear to be shilling. In that case, then I am fine with withholding that from the future.

However for my own peace of mind, I must state that historically, the links I put up were to location of content I shared primarily for Purists and Singapore collectors.

Accordingly, since the purist - as you say will "begin to start strictly enforcing" the rules, I will continue to share my content with other forums that welcome my content and links to the exclusion of Purists. 

I am sure you would agree that this matter could have been dealt with much better if MTF or someone from your committee would have extended the courtesy or took the time to write to me to inform me that the rules are now being strictly enforced and that the previous latitude that you mentioned that I enjoyed will no longer be continued - instead of editing the link in the manner it was done - for me to find out with grave disappointment.

I felt that considering how I have contributed so much to Purists over the years that at the such a courtesy was not out of place. Considering how for example, MTF telephoned me recently for me to provide him with photographs I took at the Glashuette Original's dinner party hosted by Dr Frank Muller - to which I agreed. I do not extend to such request unless they are good friends or asking for a favour.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to reply and provide an explanation. Please convey to MTF that a reply from him is no longer needed or required. Also, that he is absolved from returning me the favour.

Allow me to finish by sharing a genuine and sincere concern which may not be apparent and I hope is not the intent of the management. There is a subtle but sea change that is apparent on Purists that has not gone unoticed with the older purist members here in Singapore. This has been on my mind for some time and while the change is completely within the right of the management team, many of the older purists have shared with me that this change is not a positive one. I leave that to your good hands to see if it can be made better and to improve matters for them.

Regards,
Harry

The management team is busy everyday dealing with many issues, and things are for the better here IMO than in the past.  It's a shame that you and a couple others in Singapore feel otherwise; but things definitely have changed for the better since we made the transition from ThePuristS to PuristSPro, and it's just part of growing the site. 

You are feel to do whatever you wish if you want to share your content with other sites with the exception of PuristSPro.  That is your decision to make, not mine or anyone else on the PPro management team.  We just ask you abide with our forum guidelines because with how busy the management team is now, when it comes to offsite links, we will now begin to slowly take a white and black approach regarding offsite links because issues such as this only take up a lot of people's time and doesn't really solve anything if we continue with a grey approach.

As PuristSPro grows stronger and larger each day and month and year, we now have to enforce our guidelines so the management team can focus on more pressing matters.

Regards,
Anthony

Not that how I feel is of any importance. It is not - at least to the other forummers.

But my response is a genuine and honest one that any reasonable man would do - which is to comply with your rules so that I do not link outside the forum. I am not clear how else I could have responded to you. You did say explicitly that you are going to enforce the rule that we cannot link out of the forum.  

As you have said, I have been doing that for years and Thomas Mao had permitted it when he was around. He understood my reasons for doing so - because I have so many images which could not stay on the original servers for longer than 7 days. Which compelled me to use my own site and set up my own server. I have created photomontages and movies which cannot be hosted at Purists. More importantly I do not have any commercial interest to drive traffic to my blog and you can see even today there is not a single advertisement on my site. I continue to remain so because I wanted to convey my independence from brands and profit enterprise so that linking purists threads to my site would not be an issue. But I guess despite all that, even non-commercial sites is a threat to Purists.

Clearly if you took time to understand my issues, I cannot share my content with Purists if it chooses to enforce its rule in a black and white manner - that I cannot link my material. So the Purists cannot have its cake and eat it too.

I congratulate you and all the management team for the continued growth of the Purist site and population as it grows larger each day, month and year. I have no doubt and no reason to do so either but that was not what I was alluding to in the final paragraph of my earlier post. In case you missed it, allow me to annotate by saying that I have no doubts that the site is now focussing all its energies on growth and repopulation of the Purists. The issue is whether you and all the management team had understood that some of the older members here feel that some of the change is not a positive one.

What I was trying to say was that some of the things happening does not sit well with them. I had wondered if the management team understood that issue existed. Unless of course - your message to me was that growth of new members is the most paramount concern and that the issues of the older members are... less important.

HarryTan

What you don't understand is that for all these years, we have given you extra leeway regarding linking offsite to your blog.  We have allowed you, and 2 others I believe, to continue posting offsite links, while we single out everyone else and automatically edit their links.  So you have always been given special treatment for all these years if you didn't realize it.

You may think your blog is non-commercial just because you have no banner ads on it; but in actuality, it is commercial in an indirect way and from your post above, it's not your intentional at all.  We have told you before that at times we get requests for references about you because these people have seen your photos on our site and then go to your blog to see your other pictures, and we've given positive recommendations to these individuals and they then contact you and hire you for photos.  So your blog does act in some way as a commercial portal since you do get revenue from it even though there are no banner ads or commercial sections on it.  I really do not care if you receive any revenue from your pictures because that is none of my business.  Either way, this entire paragraph is not something I wanted to post but u brought up this topic so I had to write this even though I do not see your blog as a threat or competition to PPro, and all of this has no bearing or importance on why we now enforce prohibiting offsite links.

I understand all the issues you raise but you don't seem to understand the issues I'm pointing out.  You've been given special permission to post links to your blog for all these years (even though it was a violation of forum guidelines), and we just simply are making things simple for the entire PPro team regarding enforcement of our guidelines.  At times, we get complaints "Why can't I post a link to my site or this other site, but you let this guy do it?"  It is only a waste of time for our team to have to always spend hours writing emails after emails explaining why, and our team no longer has the extra time and energy to do so anymore.

This is why the new policy regarding offsite links is now black and white, and we're not the only watch site to have this policy if you're wondering.  The problem here is that you want all your content to be controlled by you on your blog.  You won't post them directly on the site, and that's why you always post a link to ur blog.  SteveG, another well-known watch photographer who has a successful highly trafficked blog, just posts his images directly on here and understands our forum guidelines.  I don't see why can't do the same.

We've even offered you several times this year and last year to have your own featured blog here on the site, and each time you turned it down.  We worked with SteveG to incorporate suggestions he had regarding photo display on the site so the software platform doesn't auto shrink pictures which are too wide for your screen.  SteveG wasn't keen on the platform altering his images to make them smaller sized, so we accomodated him and made the necessary changes.  Our tech team was willing to work with you if you were to accept our featured blog offer.

You are free to share your content with the PuristS community.  We are not telling you to go away or purposely prohibiting you from sharing your content.  Making the decision to go away is your own decision, not mine or anyone else's.

The real matter on hand now is you need to decide if you want to change the usual way you are used to posting on our site.  You can still post pictures here using your own photo hosting, and delete the pictures from your photo hosting whenever you want your pictures removed.  The pictures won't show up in your post anymore.  So you still have full control of your content, so I really don't understand why you frown upon this.  Every other person who uses their own photo hosting such as Photobucket or ImageShack has full control of their pictures, so I don't see what the problem is or why you can't do the same as everybody else.

You've turned down our featured blog offers, and we tried to accomodate you so you don't have to worry about paying for bandwidth and photo hosting.  You're not asking for special treatment and want to be treated like everyone else and you are.  I'm not sure what else we can do, so whatever you decide to do, is up to you.  I don't know what else to say because I'm being 100% fair and reasonable.  I try to make everyone happy here but am unsure how to satisfy you without breaking any of the existing forum posting guidelines.

- Anthony