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Site Policy on Possible Conflicts of Interest

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mouser:
I thought it would be nice to reiterate every once in a while the policies on this site regarding conflicts of interest and full disclosure, and make clear also what it expected of members posting on this forum.  Most of you know all this already, but I think it's important to be up front about it.

DonationCoder.com takes no payments in terms of money, services, or products, from companies in return for "promoting" any software.

We frequently ask for discounts and donated copies of software to give away publicly; we do not give anything in return for such discounts or donated copies, except to let people know about these discounts and donations.  We make no commissions or get any kickbacks for sales.

After a review is written we often ask the companies of winning programs if they will donate copies and offer a discount; whether a company wants to give a discount and donate copies has no effect on their outcome in the review.

On a rare occasion a company will donate to us a license explicitly for the site's own use.  We sometimes except these donations if its a program we really like, and we couldn't afford to buy it otherwise.

We currently host Google Ads on our web pages (donating members can disable these).  We have no control over which ads get displayed.  Do not consider an advertisement on this site to be an endorsement of that product.

In the future we may try to find an advertising system that we have more control over, or we may do away with advertising completely.

We welcome people to post on our forum about their own software, or software from companies they are affiliated with, but we expect full disclosure.  If you are making a post about how great some program is, it's very important for you to state if you have any financial arrangement with the company in question.

Anything i left out?

nudone:
i can't think of anything to add but i do think it's important to occasionally remind everyone or, at least, inform new visitors that is the tenet of DonationCoder.com.

Rover:
This is more of a discussion item, that a "left out" issue.  (Move it as you see fit)

RE: Advertising - I am absolutely for any advertising that can help offset costs @ DC.  I am absolutely against obnoxious ads, that 1) distract 2) impair viewing or 3) have nothing to do with software.

The Ads @ yahoo (and some other site) are terrible.  Float-by ads, Video Ads and frantic flashing ads should be avoided at all cost.  Pop-ups & Pop-unders should be illegal and their authors shot.

That said, Software Development Times has a lot of print examples of ads I like to see.  Stuff about SDK's, PDF Creators, Issue Tracking software, etc.  These things are on topic for the content I'm already reading.  Probably something done the way google ads are inserted now would be fine.

$0.02

mouser:
starting tomorrow dc will move to massive amounts of pop-unders and floating musical video popups.

actually - i think we are on the verge of removing ads from all pages.. stay tuned for the fun idea.

JavaJones:
I am staying very tuned. :D In the meantime I'll try to elaborate on my advertising exchange site idea.

- Oshyan

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