I want to post a thread in general about a 24 hour knit-a-thon I'm doing for Red Nose Day in support of Comic Relief, and was unsure where I stood rule-wise on putting a link to the donation page I have on the official Red Nose Day site. I did read through the rules, but couldn't decide because of the rule "Please do not spam links or content that are not relevant to RYL without first clearing it with the RYL webmaster (Harley) or a moderator."
A mod will have a better answer, but if it's a link to site where you're asking for donations/sponsorships I don't think it's allowed. Mainly because if you do, others may, and people won't know where to put their money and it'd be unfair to get sponsors for one thing but not another.
That makes sense in my head, so sorry if it didn't come out too clear! :)
I understand that and believe you may be quite right, it did make sense, I can't e-mail the mods cause I don't have the confidence and keep deleting the e-mail before I send it.
Sorry I have no idea!Im sure another mod will know though. But please send an email,we wont bite,promise :D xx
There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you.
But there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.
I aint no abacus but you can count on me.
I'm not entirely sure, although you could e-mail the mods as a whole, like it was already suggested or you could always send a pm to Harley. He doesn't bite either.
By the way, I'm curious? What are you knitting? Are you on Ravelry? I knit too.
While I think it is FANTASTIC that members of RYL want to help raise money for worthy causes, sadly, I believe that allowing these sorts of threads to be posted on RYL, would be problematic.
I mean ... just think of how many people there are in our world who are in desperate need of other people's help/money/resources .... not to mention all of the tragedy, illness, poverty, natural disasters etc in our respective countries and in our world. And its not just people who are in need of our help/money/resources, but there are also plenty of animals in need too, not to mention our own environment and planet!
And for alot of these people, places, and animals who are in need, there have been many charity groups and fund-raising events set up in order to help these worthy causes.
And with so many worthy causes and charities that are around, unfortunately the mods are of the opinion that opening the door to allowing these sorts of threads to be posted on RYL, could easily result in RYL being swamped by these money-raising threads!
And while it could be argued that the mods could just decide to let some of them be posted on RYL, and not others .... can you imagine what an impossible task that would be for the mods, and to try and decide what charity, or what "worthy cause" is worthy enough to warrant its own thread on RYL, and what isnt ...??
I know that I wouldnt be able to make that sort of a decision, and to be the one who turned down someone's charity or fund-raising event, as their worthy cause wasnt "worthy" enough to have a thread posted on RYL.
And ultimately, we dont want RYL to lose its focus as a self harm support website, and that the main goal of our community is to help and support each other with regards to our self harm and other emotional problems .... so deciding to allow ALL of the charity / fund-raising threads to be posted on the RYL forums, could run the risk of distracting the community from our main focus here at RYL.
There is another problem that RYL and the mods would have if we permitted details of specific charities and fund-raising events to be posted on RYL - especially if money was concerned - and that is the difficulty we'd have in working out what is a genuine and reputable charity or fund-raising drive, and what was a scam ... and I think we're all aware how many scams are operating on the web.
But as the mods do believe that it is great to have members who are willing to raise money for people in need and other worthy causes, the mods are currently discussing whether there is any way around these problems .... and we are wondering whether it may be possible to allow members to use their RYL signatures as a way of advertising reputable fund-raising events or charities.
Or maybe there are other ideas that members have as to how we could make this work ....?
(nameless-unknown - I'm sorry about going off on a tangent on your thread, and turning the discussion around to the issue of posting charity /fund-raising types on RYL ... if you do have a problem with my using your thread in this way, please say so and I will start my own thread for this discussion).
Now guys .... you really will need to have to CALM DOWN and stop posting all at once or else RYL will go into meltdown!!!
;)
Seriously .... and to those of you who have read this thread, I just wanted to let you know that I've talked this over with some of the mods, and we're going to make an unofficial guideline that RYL members will be permitted to advertise charities / fund-raising events in their RYL signature if they so wish .... but these signatures will need to meet certain requirements.
The 4 requirements for advertising charities / fund-raising events in your signatures, are as follows ->
1. the charities / fund-raising events listed or linked in the signature, MUST involve reputable, recognised, and trustworthy organisations and be supporting worthy causes.
Although the "worthy cause" clause - (cause clause! lol! ) is quite broad, I've put that in there because I dont want to see links for fund-raising events for horrendous organisations such as the KKK or something equally offensive!
Also, another condition of allowing an RYL member to link to charities / fund-raising events in their signatures, is -
2. the member (or someone the member personally knows) must NOT be receiving any personal gain from advertising these charities / fund-raising events in their signature.
So for example - the mods would not permit members advertising certain fund-raising events / charities, where the RYL member in question earns/wins an overseas trip if they sold the most raffle tickets, or encouraged the most people to donate money, or that sort of thing.
Also ... another requirement is that -
3. no money should be involved or is required to change hands between RYL members.
There will need to be some prearranged, reputable, and outside system in place to do the job of dealing with any donations / money collecting etc, but it cannot occur between RYL members, as this would just be setting ourselves up for trouble!
And the last requirement, is -
4. that the advertising of charities or fund-raising events in your signature, needs to be tasteful and not too large or overwheming - so we wouldnt want to see an RYL sig with 1001 charities listed, or a huge, colourful, strobing light that is advertising a charity group and that is too dazzling.
So again and in summary for your reading pleasure, here are the requirements for having charities or fund-raising events advertised in your RYL sig -
1. the charities / fund-raising events must be reputable, recognised, and trustworthy organisations and be supporting worthy causes.
2. the RYL member (or someone the member personally knows) must NOT be receiving any personal gain from advertising these charities / fund-raising events in their signature.
3. charity links or fund-raising events where money needs to change hands between RYL members, will NOT be permitted.
4. Information provided in signatures must be tasteful, an approporiate size, and not too large or overpowering.
thanks everyone ... and if you have any questions, either myself or someone on the mod team would be happy to answer them for you.
(just as long as you know that this is a new guideline we're putting into place here, so there will be a bit of "making it up as we go along" going on).
