Minor update to vpsBoard offer submission rules

As per always, any updates in policy or rules are announced publicly. You can view the updated rule set here and compare it to the old rule set here.

Basically, just standardized all the offers / marketplace rules to make it easier to moderate. We're no longer requiring that the datacenter be displayed in submissions since it was commonly ignored. If you're genuinely curious what is used, ask for it, and maybe they'll respond with the information. Also the use of special characters in thread titles is no longer allowed and will be removed if they're added and some other formatting related items.

The updates to the rules only impact providers who submit service offers in the marketplace forums. If you're not a provider, this update can probably ignored.

Questions and comments, as always, are welcome.

Rules might be annoying, like former DC data --- but it's there so people know what they are buying and where.  It's a valid thing buyers should be concerning themselves with. Yeah every other offer is an ad dump driveby... Basically ad spam.   

Frustrates me the lack of care guys have with their ads.   If they paid to run traditional ads, no way they'd be so discourteous in their ad posts.   Too many companies post and run, less of an issue here, but is true elsewhere in a big way.

Hrm, not happy about the removal of the datacenter rule. A rule being commonly ignored shouldn't be a reason for its removal, if there's a good reason for that rule existing - rather, posts violating the rule should be more strictly moderated. Of course it's not going to work, if there is no penalty of removal for refusing to follow the rule.

The physical location of an offer is important for many reasons - risk assessment, geographical distribution, network quality assessment, ethical reasons, ...

I confess, I've been providing VPS services from The Moon all along.

Please see http://www.aulis.com/stereoparallax.htm for full location details.

I still expect those who usually post their DC information to continue to do so. It's probably part of their vpsBoard copy/paste weekly submission anyhow. In fact, it's such commonly requested information anyone who doesn't post it or refuses to answer or ignores the question regarding their DC is likely a provider you don't want to do business with anyhow. That will be apparent in their silence. I believe it will reflect more poorly on the provider who doesn't care to follow up on pre-sales questions or tries to hide the answer than it does on the forum that lets them promote.

Before if the offer didn't have the location, it was simply deleted from the mod queue and not made public. Sometimes they made it through in the event where I or another mod either mistook the brand name as one we generally recall including such information and/or remembered being a rule follower where we didn't fully proof read their offer or sometimes it was approved and I would say, "What DC(s) are you using" if it was posted by someone who I considered active but that didn't always work either.

If you see an offer, and you have a genuine interest or curiosity as to what datacenter they use or have any other question for them that may help you, the consumer, decide if you want to do business with that company: Ask them.

Could not find any more bugs.. Great upgrade on this one @MannDude! I like the UI and everything..

Hello.

About the DataCenter info I think it should be provided as why should VPS provider hide these details unless his reselling or using KVM to deploy OpenVZ I hear stories about this and poor performance .

I think you should simply make another group for VPS providers so first user will need read the rules after apply for it. Like you do for Verified Providers but also version for non Verified Providers or other thing you could do is simply make ban section if someone add offer without DC Details simply ban him for 30 - 60 Days of posting threads in offer section that for sure will teach him a lesson unless user is only here to get post count to xx amount and post an offer and never come back which happens a lot of times in forums like this.

Anyway that is my point of view due the DataCenter info display