Hotrodders.com Hotrodders Bulletin Board Guidelines
Automotive Business Affiliations
3 Rules for Commercial Posting
As the net's largest hotrodding website, we have a lot of members who own companies or have jobs in the automotive industry. We've found this to be a significant advantage to us, as these are the people who tend to have a great deal of knowledge and experience to share.

However, this also means that we need to have firm rules in place about commercial posting. If we don't, the forums would soon be overrun by commercialism.

We have 3 simple rules that cover commercial posting:

1. If you own or work for a hotrodding company, you CANNOT place company contact information for YOUR company in your posts. "Company contact information" includes:

  • company urls
  • company email addresses
  • company phone numbers
  • physical addresses for companies


2. If you own or work for a hotrodding company, you CANNOT place company contact information for YOUR company in your username, location, custom user title, signature, avatar, journal, or in photos you post on the forums or in your project journal.


3. If you own or work for a hotrodding company, you CANNOT aggressively promote YOUR company or its products or services.


Bear in mind that the above rules only apply to companies with with you are affiliated as an owner or employee. If you don't own or work for a company, you can post whatever you want about that company, including contact information.

If you break Rules #1 or #2 above, your post or profile information will be edited to remove your specific company contact details. Breaking Rule #3 is rare, as it's difficult to aggressively promote a commercial interest without being able to list contact details. However, any potential breaches of Rule #3 are typically discussed privately among board leadership prior to taking action. "Aggressive promotion" is a subjective determination, and is handled as such.

Yes, you are allowed to mention your company by name, discuss your company, talk about new products, etc. And yes, you are allowed to post details on upcoming events and shows in the forum calendar. However, no contact details when posting on the board, and no "aggressive" promotion.

In any case, if you have an established post history and reputation on the forums, an attempt will usually be made to contact you prior to editing your post. However, please don't be offended if you aren't contacted privately. Diplomacy is important to us, but the first priority is even application of the rules.

If you see someone breaking the above rules, please click the "Report Bad Post" icon in the upper-right hand corner of any post to anonymously report the post to a moderator.

For more information, see 3 examples of commercial posts, or the right way to promote your business on automotive forums.


Click here to return to the main page of the Hotrodders Bulletin Board