Showcase guidelines and rules

[Tim B.]

If you wish to participate in the showcase forum please read these rules carefully; please note that they have recently undergone significant changes.

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The MyBB Showcase is for showing off an existing community and should not be used as a starting point for advertising a new forum.

The aim of the Showcase forum is to demonstrate the potential of MyBB. If your forum is new and empty please customize it and build content before posting in this forum.

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The MyBB Group reserves the right to close or remove, without warning, any threads that do not adhere to the following guidelines:

• Forums must be customized from the stock theme and logo.
  
• Forums must not have any empty forums and a good amount of content must be present.
  
• All threads can have a maximum of 3 links.
  
• No linking directly to the registration page.
  
• Forums should make use of a real domain name (no .tk or .co.cc or similar).
  
• A paid host is recommended rather than a free solution.
  
• Threads may not be bumped more than 3 times.
  
• All sites being showcased must meet the support eligibility guidelines.
  
• All sites may only be showcased once within this forum.
  
• Copyrights added by the authors of any theme you have installed must remain present.
  
• All threads must contain basic background site information, as below:
  • Site Name
    
  • Site URL
    
  • Site Description
    
  • Unique Features
    

All websites posted in this forum are subject to feedback from members. Please be respectful when leaving feedback, any disrespectful and/or non-constructive criticism will be removed without warning. If you do not wish to receive feedback simply do not post in this forum. MyBB staff may make exemptions,on a case by case basis,to the above rules in instances where the site showcases exceptional customisation

Cleaning this forum:

Because many sites come and go we have decided to clean this forum out once a year. When this happens all threads will be deleted, however if your site is still active you are welcome to make a new thread.

If you come across any issues within this forum please do not hesitate to bring them to our attention by reporting them.

We reserve the right to modify these rules & guidelines at any time and apply these modifications to all posts, even if they predate the changes.

Note: Should you have any questions or comments about this thread or any of the other new policies please post them here.

Yours sincerely, the MyBB team.

If you wish to contact staff about any of these rules please use the Private Inquiries forum.

[Paul H.]

Because of a spike in non-constructive criticism, I'd like to show what is and isn't allowed in the showcase.

Non-constructive criticism is not allowed in showcase. It basically bashes the OP without any helpful suggestions. Example:

your theme sucks, you have way to many forums, and a co.cc domain? how cheap!
another gaming forum, really???
you have no content, lol!

A better way to state this would be:

Your theme isn't very visually appealing, you may want to pick one that better suites you niche or isn't quite so hard on the eyes. Here's a good one: http://mods.mybb.com/view/8e

Your number of forums with such a small amount of content makes your site look empty. Try to combine forums together until your forum grows to a larger size.

A co.cc domain or .tk domain isn't very professional; it turns many potential members away from the site. You may want to look into buying a .com or .net.

Your niche isn't very specific, try narrowing down your forum's focus. It may seem like you'll have less posts that way, but having a specific topic instead of just general gaming usually sparks more activity.

Keep working on your content before you advertise your site. People generally won't join if they see an empty site.

Thank you.

[Alan S.]

Updated 05/04/2013.