MORE SPECIFIC FORUM RULES
This is a very lightly moderated forum… meaning that you can post almost anything you want… with only a few exceptions.
1. Don’t forget this is a mattress forum. Posts should be loosely connected with mattresses, sleeping, and all things connected, and of course, the usual “banter” that goes along with any forum.
2. We encourage the posting of opinions, which of course means that people will both agree and disagree. If you are in a “disagreement” mode, keep things civil and respectful and avoid personal attacks or inflammatory posts. Disagreements are part of how we can all learn.
3. We do not allow self-promotion or advertising in the forum. The forum is meant to be educational and not a competitive advertising space for manufacturers, retail stores, or others that are part of the industry. Manufacturers and retailers or others in the industry are of course always welcome to post educational information that may help educate and inform members but any links or references to a specific website will be removed (except a username may contain the business name). If you are part of the industry in some capacity then it’s required that you disclose your role or position in the industry. The name of the specific business you are part of isn’t necessary but an introductory first post that discloses who you are and the specific business you are from (without a link or self-promotion) is welcome but optional. Businesses may also of course answer any specific questions or requests for information from forum members about mattresses or products they sell or manufacture or are familiar with.
4. Exceptions to #3 are the manufacturer or retailer members of the site or those who are identified as “expert members” who are welcome to include a link to their website and generic information about what they make or sell in their signature, to let people know they may have something suitable in a specific mattress construction they may be looking for, or to provide more specific information about the types of mattresses they make or sell in a more informative rather than a “marketing” or “promotional” context. Invitations to “visit or buy” or “better/worse” comparisons with other manufacturers are considered a marketing context.
5. External links/URLs to products/pages are fine as long as they are relevant to the topic and don’t serve marketing purposes (see the restrictions in #3). To avoid being flagged by the system as spam and automatically banned, we’d ask that you limit the number of links to no more than 3 external links. This Rule does not apply to any links to TMU Trusted Members pages/products which are whitelisted and would not result in being flagged as spam.
6. If a member or email appears more than once in any reputable list of spammers they will be deleted.
7. If a member has a pattern of posting meaningless, misleading, argumentative, inflammatory, disruptive, or inaccurate information that is not in context with a thread (or “trolling”)… their posts will either be edited, transferred to a single thread, deleted, or they may be warned and finally banned if necessary.
8. We have been asked on several occasions if items can be posted for sale on the forum and for members that have some prior history on the forum, are not connected to any business that sells mattresses or bedding, and have asked specifically for permission, it will be allowed on a “case by case” basis at our sole discretion if the specifics of the material or mattress is known and it has a complete and accurate description including all the relevant specs of the product or mattress that is being sold. If a “for sale” post doesn’t meet these criteria it will be deleted.
9. While this is not a “rule”… if you have questions or comments that either aren’t directly related or are outside the scope of an existing topic it would be preferable to start a new topic and ask questions directly to one of our Expert Members of the site. rather than including your questions or comments in an existing topic. This feature in our Forum allows for consumers to take advantage of the expertise of TMU members that have been qualified as subject matter experts. Expert members are directed not to use this Forum for self-promotion, but to assist consumers in as an objective manner as possible…
10. Your post may be transferred to a new topic in cases where it might confuse or interfere with the flow of (or “hijack”) an existing topic.
11. In order to maintain a robust forum, TMU reserves the right to edit and/or repair broken links to any 404 pages that occur from time to time as external sites change, or to add descriptive metadata to images or attachments provided by TMU consumer and business members on our Forum.
12. We reserve the right to add to these rules as circumstances make it necessary but in general we advocate and encourage free speech and the posting of any information that may be helpful.
In case of doubt whether a post violates any of the forum rules… we will tend to err on the side of caution in editing or deleting it (especially if the post is a member’s first post and appears to be advertising or overly promotional).
That’s it. We hope you both enjoy and learn from your experience here.