Editorial Content Requirements and Guidelines

People come to TimsFord411 to find businesses, activities, and services in the Tims Ford Lake area. We know that people won’t always agree, but we expect everyone on the site to treat one another and the platform with honesty and respect. We’ve put together these general guidelines to help set the tone for discourse on the site—just in case. 

• Relevance: Please make sure your contributions are appropriate . For example, reviews aren’t the place for rants about political ideologies, a business’s employment practices, extraordinary circumstances, or other matters that don’t address the core of the consumer experience.
  
  
• Inappropriate content: Colorful language and imagery are fine, but there’s no place for threats, harassment, lewdness, hate speech, or other displays of bigotry.
  
  
• Conflicts of interest: Your contributions to TimsFord411 should be unbiased and objective. For example, you shouldn’t write reviews of your own business or employer, your friends’ or relatives’ business, your peers or competitors in your industry, or businesses in your networking group. Businesses should never ask customers to write reviews.
  
  
• Privacy: Don’t publicize people’s private information. For instance, please don’t post close-up photos or videos of other patrons without their permission, and don’t post other people’s full names.
  
  
• Promotional content: Don’t post promotional material unless it’s in connection with TimsFord411 advertising or an individual profile. 
  
  
• Intellectual property: Don’t take content from other sites, users, or businesses. Please write your own text, articles, profiles, and share your own photos.

Photos :

Photos posted on TimsFord411 should be relevant to your business and reflect the typical consumer experience (for example, what the business looks like, what the business offers, etc.). If you’re a business, show us what you offer and what makes your business unique. Here are some additional things to keep in mind:

• Keep it relevant to everyone: We may remove a photo  that showcases a unique personal experience that isn’t relevant to other people (for example, a receipt or email exchange with a business) from the photo gallery for the business, but it may appear alongside your review if you write one about the business.
  
  
• Keep it clean:  We don’t want imagery of violence, drug use, nudity, near nudity, suggestive acts or any prohibited images (see Prohibited below) — even if those images are an accurate representation of the business’s services or products.
  
  
• Keep it friendly:  Don’t use your photos or videos to attack or disparage others. A picture is worth 1,000 words, so it’s best to pick those words carefully and make your point in a review, direct message, or review response.

Content requirements for coupons and events

Coupons and events are shown to all users and appear from links from the main page timsford411.com as well as from your individual profile.

Because of the high visibility of these items, they must meet additional editorial approval.  Approval typically takes 24 hours or under.

All coupons and events must be run and or led by you / your business.  They cannot be posted for another entity.

• Approval:  All coupons, events must be approved by an administrator before they go live.  This is part of the workflow once you push "publish". 
  • Final approval decision to publish lies with the administrative team.
    
• All events 
  • Must apply to or be relevant to most people and families in the area and be helpful. 
    
  • Must not contain any prohibited topics (see below under "Prohibited Topics / Terms / Images / Concepts")
  • A open market, open house, etc: must have at least 10 vendors that are not associated with the event holding business / group /entity and not be associated with driving sales or profit to the event holding entity .  Exception: non-profits may hold one to generate some income for their entity.  Example: Friends of Tims Ford State Park holding a Christmas Market (>10 vendors, but Friends of TIms Ford State Park uses it as a fund raiser)
  • An event for a for-profit business cannot related to driving sales for their business.
     
    • Examples that do not apply to most people example: 
      • If you are a bar, and are having a karaoke contest in the late evening, this is very localized and applies to a small subset of people (eg: over 21 only, must like karaoke, likely an existing patron of the bar)
        
        
      • A coupon for 2 for 1 alcoholic beverages at a nightclub -- does not apply to most people
        
        
      • A store is having a sale or a new item  -- this is an advertisement, and not generally helpful to people in the area.  You can contact us and we can help you with doing advertising on timsford411 though.
        
        
      • An event that is religious in nature or has (or perceived as having) religious overtones.  <-- does not apply to most people in the area.  It could be polarizing.  (See prohibited items / topics)
        
        
      • An event promoting a sale or special offer or focused on selling products
        
        
      • Any event where you are highlighting the products / services you sell 
        
        
    • Examples that do apply to most people / helpful example: 
      •  A festival downtown.  A car show during the day.  <-- applies to mostt people and families
        
        
      • A secular event that applies to most people in the area.
        
        
      • A christmas market selling unique items from many (>10) different vendors
        
        

Prohibited Topics / Terms / Images / Concepts

The scope of this covers all areas and content on TimsFord411.com.  The final decision if an items is prohibited or not is fully based on administrative decison.  

• Topics / Writing / Photos / Concepts / Locations 
  • Political / politics
  • Religion  (CAVEAT:  acceptible only on a religious entity's profile page and photos under About Us only as long as it does not violate any other prohibited topics / terms / words)
  • Religious / Political Location:  Event located at a church or location generally assumed to be religious in nature or political location or location generally assumed to be political in nature
  • Polarizing (if you're not sure, then assume it is polarizing -- better to be conservative)
  • Hate related
  • Derogatory topics
  • Pornography / near pornography
• Words / euphamisms 
  • Swear / curse words
  • Hate related
  • Religious 
  • Political
  • Derogatory terms
  • Pornographic