Thank you for visiting TRAVEL.com! We hope that you will visit often and participate in our many forums. These forums are designed to allow the easy sharing of information in a friendly question and answer format with users worldwide. In order to keep these forums open but on-topic, some common-sense rules will apply.

All Posts Must Be On-Topic

Our website is a place for friendly discussions in a question and answer format. Off-topic posts and unrelated chatter in message threads ruins the value of the forums. Please make sure you have something relevant to contribute or say nothing at all. It follows that....

Advertising or Other Solicitations Are Prohibited

Any messages with advertising, announcements, promotions, sweepstakes, or questionnaires, solicitations of any kind will be deleted without explanation. This includes promoting your website or any other service. Do not attempt to post URLs, e-mail addresses or any other kind of advertising spam. Such messages will be deleted without explanation.

Messages by new users praising this or that company will be deleted as this is another widely used spam technique. We encourage our regular users to give their opinions on companies but those who come to spam will be disappointed.

You may help other users with your expertise, but you may not ask if you can provide assistance. Just give helpful non-business guidance if you are here to help and not solicit business. Regular users will automatically have their website shown in the message "signature" (see below). TRAVEL.com retains the right to remove inappropriate messages and signatures without explanation.

Posting URLs (New Users)

All new users messages are moderated. New/novice members who attempt to post URLs/e-mail addresses will be automatically blocked by our software and banned from the system. As advised during your registration process, We have a "one attempt and you are banned" policy for new users who attempt to post URLs in their messages as 99.9% of those those people tend to be spammers.

Posting URLs (Regular Users)

Once you have been around a while and have established a proven track record of quality messaging without spamming, you will be upgraded to higher and higher user levels with more abilities. Regular users will be able to post informative URLs, but advertising is never permitted within messages. However, regular users will automatically have their website posted at the bottom of their messages. This is called a message signature.

Message Signatures

New users will have a default signature which is the same as mine (see the bottom of this message).

Regular users will have their website posted in their signatures somewhat like
the following: "Visit my website: www.travel.com" showing your own website URL.

Most website links to personal homepages are normally acceptable. However, links to business websites will be subject to approval. TRAVEL.com retains the right to disapprove websites that we deem not suitable for any reason. Normally, links to non-travel industry websites will not be permitted.

Personal Attacks Are Prohibited

This should go without saying. We invite you to give your opinions but personal attacks on other users will not be tolerated.

Please help us by reporting any prior advertising (spam) or personal attack violations by clicking on the triangle (caution sign) icon on any offending message [top right corner of any message].

If you notice a past-user's messages that are constantly off-topic or antagonistic to other users, please advise us the exact spelling of that user's name and we can review and possibly delete their messages from our system.

Title Spam Is Prohibited

Please note that any usage of keyboard characters such as non-letters or numbers or CAPITALIZATION where not grammatically required in order to attempt to gain attention to your topic is considered visual spam and will not be tolerated. If your message title isn't simple and concise, it will likely be deleted for this reason.

We retain the right to alter message titles as we deem appropriate both for content and to improve their clarity on major search engines.

User Name Spam is Prohibited

These forums are for users to post their experiences and to exchange messages. While we invite people in the industries related to our online forums to participate as individuals, these forums are not a place for companies to promote their services. We want only unbiased opinions here. User names that are also URLs or appear to be company names or any other commercial entities are subject to approval and possible removal.

All user names are subject to approval. You may use an alias, but it can only include letters and numbers. User names should not be all in CAPITALIZATION.

We suggest that you use all normal capitalization in your user name or all lowercase. You may drop "spaces" so JohnDoe and John Doe are both acceptable whereas JoHndOe is not. Also, if you are using a real person's name (especially a famous person), it must be yours.

Users with non-complying names will not be allowed to post messages or simply will have their user record deleted [the names from external, share messages are out of our immediate control]. If you find your user name deleted, log on with a new user name appropriate for a mature person.

Hidden IP Addresses

If you use any service which attempts to masks your IP address, you will not be allowed to utilize our forums.

Messages Including Profanity or Topics Regarding S e x uality Are Prohibited

We wish to keep these forums family oriented. Any messages deviating from this standard will be deleted. Essentially, , religion, or politics are off-limits here.

The Posting of Duplicate Messages Is Prohibited

Do not post the same message twice -- either in multiple forums or by repetition of the same message over a period of time. Once is enough. Violators will be removed from the system.

Do Not Reply to Old Posts

Use good sense in not replying to posts over 1 month old unless there is a very good reason for it. Its normally better to start a new post as the prior posters may no longer be monitoring additions to their prior messaging.

If you are simply adding more information (like "Where is the Best Steakhouse in London?") feel free to add your input. However, if you are asking for help on ANY issue, please start your own, new message thread.

Do Not Use Your E-Mail Address in a Public Message

We suggest that you do not post your e-mail address in public anywhere on the Internet unless you really like spam messages. There are automated "spiders" which search public materials on the Internet and harvest those e-mail address for spam companies.

Some people do things like leaving an altered version of their e-mail address with an additional message for people to change their e-mail address in some manner to arrive at their true e-mail address. But that is no protection at all since there are companies in 3rd world countries using people as well to harvest e-mail addresses posted in such manner.

Introduction Posts

We love it when you create your own introduction post (Hello from London) in our Introductions Forum instead of adding to another poster's introduction -- unless you are from the same place or have something directly in common to something stated in their message. That keeps us from having to make corrections by moving those messages around.

Use the Automatic Spell Checker and Use Correct Grammar, Punctuation

Please note that the editor in which you create your messages has a built-in spell checker (it underlines improper spellings). Please use it. Its pretty handy although it doesn't catch all proper nouns.

Never type in all UPPER CASE which is considered SHOUTING on the Internet. Likewise, please do not type all in lower case like you'll see kids do for texting speed. It's a dead giveaway that you might be too young for these forums.

Finally good grammar and punctuation make messages more readable and indexible on the major search engines. Poor grammar and punctuation makes messages useless for those same reasons.

Reviews With Pros & Cons Are Welcome - Rants Are Not

If you have had a less than satisfactory experience with a company, you are welcome to review both the pros and cons of your experience. But one-sided rants intended to harm to an operator are generally not acceptable. If you feel you have a monetary issue with the operator, please contact the operator directly plus governmental offices, etc. We do not have the resources to act as a referee.

Likewise, we do not allow first-time posts to be negative rants. Those who jump from website to website to post one-time negative or attack messages will not find their messages approved here. Until one has built up a history of normal messaging, negative posts will be deleted.

Only Messages in English Are Currently Allowed

We cannot monitor non-English messages so these will be deleted.

Usenet

Travel.com participates in a small sampling of Usenet newsgroups together with hundreds of other companies. Over the years, Usenet itself has been flooded with spam and other forms of juvenile messaging. Therefore, adult users have had to resort to all sorts of filtering technics to block out such unwanted materials or simply give up on Usenet.

As a special feature to our users, we have programmed trash filters to do this for you so you get the best of Usenet with out all the garbage. The few Usenet newsgroups we carry are modified for the benefit of our users in the following ways:

1) filters to remove spam
2) filters to remove derogatory speech and ad hominem attacks
3) filters to remove debased language

While our filters are not 100% perfect, they are continually being improved to block the flood of Usenet trash and yet allow through the best of Usenet which is appreciated by our adult audience.

We tend to think of these as "Immaturity Filters" but they are simply enhanced killfile filters that anyone might apply to their own Usenet newsreader (ours are more sophisticated since they utilize programming and grammar recognition).

Our system isn't perfect. But we are constantly programming better and more sophisticated filters to improve your Usenet experience.

We estimate that more than 90% of Usenet messaging is either spam or juvenile messaging so you'll see our filters work pretty well!

Note: In the bottom left-hand corner of each message is an triangle-shaped icon that you can click on to report any problematic messages that we might have missed. We appreciate the additional scanning and feedback of our adult users!

New Enhancements

We have started to weed out older, less-referenced messages as measured by Travel.com's own internal analysis in conjunction with Google Analytics. The idea here will be that only messages that stand the test of time as quantified by our own users' interests will remain on the system.

User Profiles

When you register, you created a very sparse user profile. While we currently only ask for several details including your location, you may later update your profile with additional information you wish to share with other users. For example, there is an appropriate place to optionally indicate your website, instant messaging contact info, a user photo, etc. But, no advertising there or elsewhere is allowed.

User Photos

You may optionally upload a small user photo. Please note that cartoonish "avatars" are not allowed. Only real photos may be used online. You are allowed to post a photo of yourself or of a location (such as a photo of your town/city or a place that you like in the world). We reserve the right to approve or disapprove of any photograph. So please keep them nice!

Photo Gallery Photos

You photo gallery notices must be nice and related to travel. Photo gallery photos may not contain any "added" written notices such as advertisements, URLs, or copyright notices. Simply, do not upload any such altered images.

[We will be added other gallery categories. Anything related to the our forums, such as automobiles, cooking, etc. is acceptable in the galleries.]

User Profiles

Naturally, all rules that apply to messaging and photos likewise apply to information in your user profile or online "website."

User Blogs

Blogging is open to all Junior & Senior level members. New Users may not blog until they have participated in the forums long enough to earn these higher-level user rankings.

The blogs are here to provide users information. We allow companies to post about their services as long as the blogs are not advertisements.
  • The entry must be informative and not just a few lines with a link back to your website
  • You are allowed only ONE URL per blog entry
  • No phone numbers, e-mail addresses or other contact information may be displayed
If your blog entry is more advertisement than information, it will be deleted and you may be banned from using TRAVEL.com. In other words, no spam allowed as elsewhere on the system.

If your blog is for a company and (1) you do not periodically create more blog entries or (2) participate regularly in the forums, lack of participation will indicate to us that you are simply an advertiser and your blog may be removed.

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This user side of our system is for users to help other users. If you are here simply to do so, you'll have free reign of the system. If you are here to spam the system with advertising, you won't get anywhere. If you do wish to advertise on TRAVEL.com, you may do so by clicking on the "Advertise on this Site" link on any Google advertisement shown here.

We do not have the time to explain why an offending message or photo is deleted (much of it is programmed into our system so that a human doesn't even see offending messages). If you read these rules, you should know why your message or photo is not acceptable.

Obviously, we cannot list all possible infractions here. And, we may grant individual exceptions to these rules. However, we reserve the right to edit or delete any message without explanation in order to continually improve the quality and standards of messaging here.

For obvious reasons, if your question is answered in this "Please Read Before Posting" message, we normally will not respond to such questions with a please read before posting the "Please Read Before Posting" message. Just read this message and you'll have your answers.

Thank your for taking the time to read this message. We look forward to your participation.

Cheers! -- Rik