MobileRead Guideline Refinements

Alexander Turcic · 12-03-2014, 09:53 AM

Below I present a few refinements to our existing guidelines. Nothing big there, but if you have the time, please quickly skim through them.

Book Uploads according to Life+70 Rule

Two weeks ago we successfully moved our servers to a new host. We said goodbye to Montreal, Canada and welcome to New Jersey, USA. Because of differing copyright laws, eBooks uploaded to this site must now be in the "life+70" public domain or licensed under a compatible Creative Commons license. This means that the author (or translator) of the book must have died at least 70 years before the start of the current year.

Feel free to use the report button if you have questions about a book's copyright status.

MobileRead Amazon Referral Tag

I want to be upfront. We're going to experiment by adding an official MobileRead tag to Amazon links posted here. So,

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476746583/

becomes

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476746583/?tag=mr060-20

For example, every time someone asks for some information on something, and you include a link to Amazon in your response, that link gets updated to include our tag. The commission we'd receive when a user makes a purchase through this link would help contribute towards the running costs of the site. The only difference is that Amazon will know that you came from MobileRead; no other information is shared and prices are the same.

As always, I appreciate your feedback and I want to make sure it is cool with most people.

Our general guideline remains. It is generally not allowed to deliberately post links containing commission, referral or affiliate tags in the forums (with very few exceptions, such as in clearly marked signatures, subject to moderator approval).

Keeping things family- and work-friendly

TL;DR: It is not permitted to post sexually explicit or erotic content.

We pride ourselves on being a family- and work-friendly community. Children visit this forum and, for better or worse, our conduct sets an example that can either foster or hinder a life-long interest in reading books. We also want parents to feel confident that this community is safe for their children to visit.

It goes without saying that flaming, cursing and trolling are not acceptable.

What's more difficult to define is where we draw the line with explicit content. It's been our policy for as long as I remember that users must not publish images or video that contain adult content, sexually oriented material, or might otherwise be considered offensive. Also sexual connotations or references have no place in this community. Yet, as of late we've noticed a trend among a handful of authors presenting literary works that would clearly fall under the rule of not being family-friendly. By clearly I mean the kind of content that you wouldn't want a child to see or that you might be embarrassed to view at work in front of colleagues. This could be a cover image, a book summary, or even endorsing links to said book. We will not accept this type of content any longer and reserve the right to remove posts that we deem inappropriate (yup, it's a judgment call).

Examples of related content not permitted include, but are not limited to, nudity, pornography, extreme profanity, erotica, sexually suggestive or explicit text.

Trust me this is not an expression of conservative views.

Rather, it's about what we consider inappropriate when welcoming a broad audience including children from all over the world. Overall, I'm just repeating what I guess everyone already knows and it shouldn't affect much of our community.

Discussions related to DRM

A very long time ago eBooks were only for geeks (remember the Sony LIBRIe?

) Back then, discussions related to DRM were mostly in the interest of those who liked to tinker with technologies (and crack existing protections) and those who didn't want to pay for their content (i.e. warez it). Times have changed, and nowadays the topic of DRM is much more related to discussing the various eBook formats and vendor lock-ins. In this context, we have slightly updated our rules.

While DRM removal may be discussed in the abstract, the following are not allowed at MobileRead:

discussing DRM removal to pirate content;
providing detailed how-to instructions;
uploading of DRM-removal tools;
direct download links to DRM-removal tools.

Nothing really new here, except, now it's OK to name the relevant tools and also to provide links to legitimate sites that may discuss certain aspects of this topic in more detail than we would permit. For example, a link to this Ars Technica article is now OK.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask or contact me directly.

Cheers!

PeterT · 12-03-2014, 10:11 AM

Alex; any thought on doing the same for Kobo links as you do for Amazon?

See http://www.kobo.com/affiliates?___st...style=onestore for info on their Affiliate program.

Alexander Turcic · 12-03-2014, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeterT

Alex; any thought on doing the same for Kobo links as you do for Amazon?

See http://www.kobo.com/affiliates?___st...style=onestore for info on their Affiliate program.

Thanks for the suggestion, Peter. For now, we restrict it as an experiment for Amazon links to see what a difference it makes. I will keep Kobo in mind though.

Moe The Cat · 12-03-2014, 10:45 AM

These are good, common-sense guidelines, Alex. I can't imagine anyone here having a problem with the tag being added to Amazon links, either.

LovesMacs · 12-03-2014, 06:06 PM

I don't mind having a MobileRead affiliate tag added, but is the tag automatically added to any Amazon links or do I have to put it manually.

Also, does the tag work for amazon.ca, amazon.uk, etc.?

Alexander Turcic · 12-03-2014, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

I don't mind having a MobileRead affiliate tag added, but is the tag automatically added to any Amazon links or do I have to put it manually.

Also, does the tag work for amazon.ca, amazon.uk, etc.?

Hey LovesMacs, it's done automatically. It also works with .ca, .uk, and .de.

dwig · 12-03-2014, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

... eBooks uploaded to this site must now be in the "life+70" public domain or licensed under a compatible Creative Commons license. This means that the author (or translator) of the book ...

You should add "illustrator" and "cover artist" to the list of those who must have released their copyright, either willfully or by death 70 years ago.

JSWolf · 12-03-2014, 08:53 PM

Does the site take into account an Amazon link that might already have an affiliate link? What about arcadata's affiliate links threads? Will they get changed to be the MR affiliate code?

Personally, I don't mind at all MR getting month from Amazon for links used on MR. It costs the users nothing and makes the site money to help fund it. I'm all for it.

ATDrake · 12-03-2014, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

MobileRead Amazon Referral Tag

I want to be upfront. We're going to experiment by adding an official MobileRead tag to Amazon links posted here. So,

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476746583/

becomes

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/147.../?tag=mr060-20

For example, every time someone asks for some information on something, and you include a link to Amazon in your response, that link gets updated to include our tag. The commission we'd receive when a user makes a purchase through this link would help contribute towards the running costs of the site. The only difference is that Amazon will know that you came from MobileRead; no other information is shared and prices are the same.

Awesome. I suggested something mostly like this 3 years ago, back when everyone was discussing the original change to the affiliate linking policy and now it's come true (kind of)!

Hmm. Now to think of what other suggestions I want to make which might get partially implemented 3 years from now…

Lynx-lynx · 12-03-2014, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

.... Keeping things family- and work-friendly

TL;DR: It is not permitted to post sexually explicit or erotic content.

Thanks Alex for letting us know what's going on.

Curious what the TL;DR: is above?

Re DRM, I'm reconfirming that it's alright to say things like 'obok' and 'the tools', and 'Apprentice Alf'. And to link to Nate's site wherein an Article discusses stripping Kobo DRM issues. (http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/0.../#.VH_Nu8nQW0A)

And to link to Alf's blog ....

eschwartz · 12-03-2014, 11:01 PM

Very nice change to the DeDRM policy! I had a heads-up, actually, because the issue came up in the thread: B&N removed download option on all books in "My Nook" library
And then I had the opportunity to correct a mod!

Thanks!

Regarding the affiliate links -- I think this is a fine idea, and have no problem with MR making some money to support itself.

One thing, though -- on the occasion that I post a discount, I usually use the format

http://amzn.com/{ASIN}

which is an internal shortlink service run by Amazon, and redirects to the product page of the named ASIN.

There are also other links, semantic ones like:

Which I like because it is easier to read/post/handle.

The amzn.com domain supports affiliate links too, so make sure you include them.

Not many people even realize Amazon provides this shortlinker -- in fact, it is so unknown I have had to explain it to the mods because they thought it was a generic URL shortener...

JSWolf · 12-03-2014, 11:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Thanks Alex for letting us know what's going on.

Curious what the TL;DR: is above?

tl;dr = Too long; didn't read

JSWolf · 12-03-2014, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Very nice change to the DeDRM policy! I had a heads-up, actually, because the issue came up in the thread: B&N removed download option on all books in "My Nook" library
And then I had the opportunity to correct a mod!

Thanks!

Regarding the affiliate links -- I think this is a fine idea, and have no problem with MR making some money to support itself.

One thing, though -- on the occasion that I post a discount, I usually use the format

http://amzn.com/{ASIN}

which is an internal shortlink service run by Amazon, and redirects to the product page of the named ASIN.

There are also other links, semantic ones like:

Which I like because it is easier to read/post/handle.

The amzn.com domain supports affiliate links too, so make sure you include them.

Not many people even realize Amazon provides this shortlinker -- in fact, it is so unknown I have had to explain it to the mods because they thought it was a generic URL shortener...

Well then, it's time for you to stop using Amazon shortcuts as tMR does support the FULL Amazon link. That would solve the problem of Alex having to cater to shortcuts.

As for easier to read, irrelevant.
As for easier to post, nope. It's easier to copy the FULL URL from the browser window and post that.

eschwartz · 12-03-2014, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Re DRM, I'm reconfirming that it's alright to say things like 'obok' and 'the tools', and 'Apprentice Alf'.

You could always do that.

Quote:

And to link to Nate's site wherein an Article discusses stripping Kobo DRM issues. (http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/0.../#.VH_Nu8nQW0A)

And to link to Alf's blog ....

I've been doing so for the better part of a month.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...06#post2974206

Lynx-lynx · 12-03-2014, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

tl;dr = Too long; didn't read

Funny thing to write in front of comments that one has authored ....

12-03-2014, 09:53 AM	#1
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,171 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	MobileRead Guideline Refinements Below I present a few refinements to our existing guidelines. Nothing big there, but if you have the time, please quickly skim through them. Book Uploads according to Life+70 Rule Two weeks ago we successfully moved our servers to a new host. We said goodbye to Montreal, Canada and welcome to New Jersey, USA. Because of differing copyright laws, eBooks uploaded to this site must now be in the "life+70" public domain or licensed under a compatible Creative Commons license. This means that the author (or translator) of the book must have died at least 70 years before the start of the current year. Feel free to use the report button if you have questions about a book's copyright status. MobileRead Amazon Referral Tag I want to be upfront. We're going to experiment by adding an official MobileRead tag to Amazon links posted here. So, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476746583/ becomes http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476746583/?tag=mr060-20 For example, every time someone asks for some information on something, and you include a link to Amazon in your response, that link gets updated to include our tag. The commission we'd receive when a user makes a purchase through this link would help contribute towards the running costs of the site. The only difference is that Amazon will know that you came from MobileRead; no other information is shared and prices are the same. As always, I appreciate your feedback and I want to make sure it is cool with most people. Our general guideline remains. It is generally not allowed to deliberately post links containing commission, referral or affiliate tags in the forums (with very few exceptions, such as in clearly marked signatures, subject to moderator approval). Keeping things family- and work-friendly TL;DR: It is not permitted to post sexually explicit or erotic content. We pride ourselves on being a family- and work-friendly community. Children visit this forum and, for better or worse, our conduct sets an example that can either foster or hinder a life-long interest in reading books. We also want parents to feel confident that this community is safe for their children to visit. It goes without saying that flaming, cursing and trolling are not acceptable. What's more difficult to define is where we draw the line with explicit content. It's been our policy for as long as I remember that users must not publish images or video that contain adult content, sexually oriented material, or might otherwise be considered offensive. Also sexual connotations or references have no place in this community. Yet, as of late we've noticed a trend among a handful of authors presenting literary works that would clearly fall under the rule of not being family-friendly. By clearly I mean the kind of content that you wouldn't want a child to see or that you might be embarrassed to view at work in front of colleagues. This could be a cover image, a book summary, or even endorsing links to said book. We will not accept this type of content any longer and reserve the right to remove posts that we deem inappropriate (yup, it's a judgment call). Examples of related content not permitted include, but are not limited to, nudity, pornography, extreme profanity, erotica, sexually suggestive or explicit text. Trust me this is not an expression of conservative views. Rather, it's about what we consider inappropriate when welcoming a broad audience including children from all over the world. Overall, I'm just repeating what I guess everyone already knows and it shouldn't affect much of our community. Discussions related to DRM A very long time ago eBooks were only for geeks (remember the Sony LIBRIe? ) Back then, discussions related to DRM were mostly in the interest of those who liked to tinker with technologies (and crack existing protections) and those who didn't want to pay for their content (i.e. warez it). Times have changed, and nowadays the topic of DRM is much more related to discussing the various eBook formats and vendor lock-ins. In this context, we have slightly updated our rules. While DRM removal may be discussed in the abstract, the following are not allowed at MobileRead: discussing DRM removal to pirate content; providing detailed how-to instructions; uploading of DRM-removal tools; direct download links to DRM-removal tools. Nothing really new here, except, now it's OK to name the relevant tools and also to provide links to legitimate sites that may discuss certain aspects of this topic in more detail than we would permit. For example, a link to this Ars Technica article is now OK. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or contact me directly. Cheers!

12-03-2014, 11:01 PM	#11
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,421 Karma: 85397180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	Very nice change to the DeDRM policy! I had a heads-up, actually, because the issue came up in the thread: B&N removed download option on all books in "My Nook" library And then I had the opportunity to correct a mod! Thanks! Regarding the affiliate links -- I think this is a fine idea, and have no problem with MR making some money to support itself. One thing, though -- on the occasion that I post a discount, I usually use the format http://amzn.com/{ASIN} which is an internal shortlink service run by Amazon, and redirects to the product page of the named ASIN. There are also other links, semantic ones like: Spoiler: http://amzn.com/kindle http://amzn.com/kindlepaperwhite http://amzn.com/kindlevoyage http://amzn.com/kindledx http://amzn.com/kindlekeyboard http://amzn.com/kindletouch http://amzn.com/kindlesoftwareupdates http://amzn.com/kindlesoftwareupdates/dx http://amzn.com/kindlesoftwareupdates/touch http://amzn.com/kindlesoftwareupdates/paperwhite http://amzn.com/kindlesoftwareupdates/paperwhite2ndgen http://amzn.com/kindlesoftwareupdates/voyage http://amzn.com/kindlefirehd http://amzn.com/firehdx http://amzn.com/myk http://amzn.com/manageyourkindle http://amzn.com/kindleforpc http://amzn.com/kindleformac http://amzn.com/kindleforipad (these have now been consolidated into a landing page ) http://amzn.com/kindleunlimited http://amzn.com/ku http://amzn.com/prime Which I like because it is easier to read/post/handle. The amzn.com domain supports affiliate links too, so make sure you include them. Not many people even realize Amazon provides this shortlinker -- in fact, it is so unknown I have had to explain it to the mods because they thought it was a generic URL shortener...

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12-03-2014, 10:11 AM	#2
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,904 Karma: 76440364 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Libra H2O, Libra Colour	Alex; any thought on doing the same for Kobo links as you do for Amazon? See http://www.kobo.com/affiliates?___st...style=onestore for info on their Affiliate program.

12-03-2014, 10:45 AM	#4
Moe The Cat Bear Melt Posts: 919 Karma: 5433051 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Toronto Device: Google Pixel 6, Moto G9 Power (both with Fbreader) & Kindle PW2	These are good, common-sense guidelines, Alex. I can't imagine anyone here having a problem with the tag being added to Amazon links, either.

12-03-2014, 06:06 PM	#5
LovesMacs Fanatic Posts: 513 Karma: 2644386 Join Date: Apr 2012 Device: iPhone, Kindle Touch	I don't mind having a MobileRead affiliate tag added, but is the tag automatically added to any Amazon links or do I have to put it manually. Also, does the tag work for amazon.ca, amazon.uk, etc.?

12-03-2014, 08:53 PM	#8
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 76,994 Karma: 138588794 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	Does the site take into account an Amazon link that might already have an affiliate link? What about arcadata's affiliate links threads? Will they get changed to be the MR affiliate code? Personally, I don't mind at all MR getting month from Amazon for links used on MR. It costs the users nothing and makes the site money to help fund it. I'm all for it.

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