RULES RULES RULES RULES RULES + INFO [updated June 3rd, 2023]

LES-BOT

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• General
• Provider Tag
• Offers
• Exclusive Offers
• Services Provider
• Free Offers
• Domain Sales
• Server Transfers
• Signature
• Warnings
• Information
• Privacy Policy

GENERAL:

• Don't be a dick
• LES is white hat, no illegal content or links to illegal content
• LES is eternal, don't post it if you don't mean it.
• Smoking guns are not required, admin/mod decisions are to be respected (reasonable questioning of decisions is fine)
• Negative "reviews" without proof will be placed in the Rants section and will do no damage.
• Trying to skirt the fine line of being a troll will just get you banned.
• ban evasion = re-ban.
• Being a general Admin/mod time vacuum = ban.
• LES is a buyer beware market, it is not possible to pre-filter every offer or host.
• Do not trash offer posts for the sake of it, if you have a genuine issue with a host open a helpdesk ticket or write a review if it is service-related, this goes double for other hosts.
• Do not dox people in ANY sense of the word.
• If you have a bad day or a conflict with someone and make public statements about leaving the forum, "this will be my last post here" etc your account will be considered retired and you will get no warning about this.
• If you find yourself in a room of 100 strangers the chances of you not getting along with 1 of them are quite high, now amplify that and make 'the room' an internet forum and make the 100 people 1000's of people the odds of disagreement are much higher, people are different, no one agrees with everyone 100% of the time, consider that when posting, sometimes it really is not worth it.
• Even though we are from different parts of the world, the English language is what brings us together. To make sure that we understand each other, we use English when posting.
  This doesn’t exclude other languages but should be kept to a minimum to include as many community members as possible (if possible, include a rough translation in English).

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How to get a Hosting Provider or Services Provider tag:

• Submit provider tag requests on our support site (https://support.lowendspirit.com/index.php?a=add&category=2), registered companies only. (Exceptions can be made for well known sole traders)
• The member requesting a Hosting Provider tag must be of legal age to make contractual obligations in their country of residence.
• minimum of 5 posts and 7 days old account
• Please include the following information: Company Name, Billing portal link, email address to validate domain control, link to public incorporation information (official GOV/State sites only). - We will make every effort to provide the tag within 24 hours.

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Rules for posting offers:

• $7 p/month Maximum for VPS offers
• $70 p/month Maximum for Dedicated server offers
• $70 p/month Maximum per U for COLO offers (READ WARNING AT BOTTOM)
• $3 p/month Maximum for Shared hosting offers
• $7 p/month Maximum for Reseller hosting offers
• $5 p/month Maximum for VPN/Proxy related offers
• $5 p/month Maximum for Email related offers
• Setup fees are not allowed on any service other than dedicated servers. The dedicated server setup fee can be a maximum of 1 month equivalent of server cost, only providers that have been established for 3+ years may charge a setup fee on dedicated servers.
• If you want to offer general services/design you may start your own thread and then ask a mod/admin to move it to the offers category by opening a helpdesk ticket. As there is no way to put a price on all services just use common sense - no pointless bumping only update it to respond to questions or update/add new info.
• Hosts that have been trading less than 2 years may only post monthly or quarterly offers, exceptions can be made on application and review by opening a helpdesk ticket.
• Failure to follow the rules may result in your Hosting provider tag being removed
• 7 days between offer posts.
• Please do not bump your own offer posts repeatedly unless you have something of genuine significance to add or are directly responding to a comment made within the last 24 hours.
• Please do not post any offers for services based out of a colo-crossing location without first confirming via a helpdesk ticket that you own your own hardware and IP space and have been operating for at least 3 years, this is to avoid the community suffering from the incredible amount of fraud and scam hosts operating from colo-crossing locations.

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Exclusive LES Offers

• No specific price rules except they MUST be LES exclusive for at LEAST 24 hours
• Only registered providers may post
• At least 7 days between offers
• LES Exclusive offers do not count towards the general offers section post count i.e. you can make LES exclusives as well as regular offers within the same 7 day period
• LES Exclusive offers are given extra exposure on the front page of the forum and can only be seen by logged-in users.
• These offers will be moved to the standard offers section after 10 days unless they break the regular pricing rules in which case they will simply be removed.
• DO NOT share LES Exclusive offers on other sites under any circumstances unless the offer is at least 7 days old, this will result in a ban without any warning.

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Services Provider

• The 'Services provider' tag is for those who offer hosting industry-related services.
• Submit a provider tag requests on our support site (https://support.lowendspirit.com/index.php?a=add&category=2), to get a tag with an overview of what you offer and your company details.
• You will be able to post an advert for your services under the usual offers section once in any calendar month.
• As a service provider, you may post LES exclusive deals also in addition to regular offers without limitation.

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FREE Offers

• Offers must be for free stuff only and posted in the "Free Offers and Stuff" category, Free hosting or none hosting related, free as in really free no catch no "in exchange for forum posts".
• Anyone can post free offers.
• 7 days between Free Offer posts.

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Domain Sales

• Domain sales are fine but please use the Domain Sales Category it is logged-in user access only i.e. not indexed by google.
• 7 days between Domain Sales threads.
• Domains must have been registered for a minimum of 60 days.
• Maximum starting bid is $7. You can also specify a Buy It Now price.
• Domain sales threads should include all relevant details including but not limited to, the domain name, current domain expiration date, the starting bid, currency type, payment methods accepted, and auction end date/time including time zone.

• You can set a hidden reserve on your domain by opening a helpdesk ticket prior to posting the sale.
  Please include in the ticket your username, the domain name, the reserve amount, and if there is a BIN, the BIN price. The reserve price cannot be more than the BIN price.
  You must make it known that there is a reserve price in your Domain Sale thread.

• If a seller has a reserve price, bidders and seller have no obligations when the highest bid at the end of the auction does not meet the seller's reserve price.

• If a seller has a Buy It Now (BIN) price, a bidder can commit to pay the BIN price and end the auction by commenting "BIN" .
• An auction bid is not retractable. Be sure you want the domain before you bid.
• Failure to follow through with the purchase by the winning bidder, or seller, of a Domain Sale auction will result in a temporary or permanent barring from future domain auctions.

• Auctions, once started, cannot be terminated early without approval by LES staff.
  Auctions with valid bids cannot be terminated early.

• Failure to abide by Domain Sales rules will result in a temporary or permanent barring from future domain auctions.

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Server Transfers

• Transferor must be a member of LES for a minimum of 3 months with 10 (non-spammy) posts (comments or discussions).
• Transfers are buy at your own risk. LES will not play a mediating or facilitating role during the process. Due diligence is a must.
• Service transfers must be allowed by the provider, and completed in accordance with the provider's guidelines for transfer. Changing the account information without the providers knowledge as a method to transfer is not allowed.
• Transfer threads should include all relevant details including but not limited to -- price, best offers allowed, who pays transfer fees (if any), payment types accepted by transferor.

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Signatures

• No more than 2 lines for general users.
• No more than 3 lines for Hosting Providers & Service Providers.
• Feel free to be creative but never deceptive.
• Affiliate links are fine if prefixed as affiliate links. (aff)
• No Images
• Abuse it and lose it (ZERO TOLERANCE)
• If using affiliate links make it clear where they lead e.g. My "Vultr link"
• Affiliate links or any links that inject/stuff cookies to other sites for financial gain are a no-go.
• Affiliate links to hosts that have a shady reputation or have been involved in scams are not allowed.

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WARNINGS

• As previously stated this is a buyer beware forum, some efforts will be made to prevent people from falling victim to obvious scams, however, this forum is not a nanny state as others in the industry tend to be you must apply common sense.
• Do not buy yearly deals from a company that has not even been in business for a year.
• COLO offers, there are known colo scams going on all over the internet right now, be SURE you know who you are sending your server to and that you can have a reasonable level of confidence in the company.
• If someone without a hosting provider or services provider tag wants you to PM them for an offer or PM's you directly with a proposition that involves you parting with money you should do a significant amount of research before paying a penny, a large percentage of these types of offers are likely to at best be not what they seem and at worst an outright scam.

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Privacy Policy
The LES Privacy Policy can be found HERE

Terms of Service
The LES Terms of Service can be found HERE

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INFO:

Just to save time on the obvious, this forum is absolutely an impression/rough estimation with modern tweaks of lowendtalk before it was shamelessly and underhandedly sold, Essentially LET without the corruption

The forum was started by me @AnthonySmith for full disclosure I do own a hosting company 'Inception Hosting' and I realize that will possibly create some arguments about bias, this is not something I can change until the forum is handed over to the new community owners so you will just need to live with this fact or choose not too, if you choose not to accept this then please just logout now you will only hurt the community with conspiracy soup.

I appreciate some people hate the idea of others making money (usually while using money themselves in everyday life) again this is not something I can or will even try to change, the absolute fact is that companies were making money off the back of the original LET/B and that money enables people to live, eat, start families and provide, the community needs a commercial element, the commercial element needs the community, if you want to be part of a community whereby making money or advertising is frowned upon then this is not the community for you.

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You can change your theme between Night and Day under your profile/edit profile to work best for your eyes/device, bugs exist, please report them in the bug reports thread.

poisson

Just checking if we need guidelines on necro posting. I know this place is barely a week old but it would be good to have a guideline for the future. I think people shouldn't be reviving threads older than two months for no good reason.

InceptionHosting

Covered in rule 1.

poisson

@AnthonySmith said:
Covered in rule 1.

I am afraid what constitutes being a dick is very different for different cultures. Might be better to be a bit explicit about it.

InceptionHosting

@poisson said:

@AnthonySmith said:
Covered in rule 1.

I am afraid what constitutes being a dick is very different for different cultures. Might be better to be a bit explicit about it.

The problem with being specific is that it allows grey areas "But you did not specifically say", "Where is the specific rule against"
If your posting an update on an ancient post, you are doing 1 of 2 legitimate things, making a mistake.. ok no problem easy solved with simple moderation tools, posting an update that makes an old thread relevant.

Anything else, your getting hit with rule 1.

somik

I agree with @poisson there. I won't think necroposting falls under rule 1.

InceptionHosting

@somik said:
I agree with @poisson there. I won't think necroposting falls under rule 1.

Why would you necro post?

somik

@AnthonySmith said:

@somik said:
I agree with @poisson there. I won't think necroposting falls under rule 1.

Why would you necro post?

Erm, cause I want to contribute my thoughts on that topic?

InceptionHosting

@somik said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@somik said:
I agree with @poisson there. I won't think necroposting falls under rule 1.

Why would you necro post?

Erm, cause I want to contribute my thoughts on that topic?

then its np, if its worth necro'ing then do it, if you did it not noticing it was old, no rule will change that and its easy to fix.

poisson

I honestly think some of the clueless people from say PRC who first stumble upon the forum will think everything is updated unless you tell them otherwise. I do think they will read the rules first if it's the first sticky, so we can try to reduce the work later on by telling them upfront.

somik

@poisson said:
I honestly think some of the clueless people from say PRC who first stumble upon the forum will think everything is updated unless you tell them otherwise. I do think they will read the rules first if it's the first sticky, so we can try to reduce the work later on by telling them upfront.

Another way forms do that is by a prompt before they can comment. Something like a warning to say this thread is one and you should only reply to this if you think it's really relevant. Otherwise you will get a warning.

InceptionHosting

yep, well in the long run there will be prevention measures, I like the idea of a pop-up saying "Do you know this thread was last updated XX days ago, are you sure you want to post", then "Please enter a reason for bumping this post"

In the short term if it does become a problem, I will add a rule.

angstrom

If I may say so, a neat feature of Discourse is that threads are automatically closed after 14(?) days of no activity, but I guess that Vanilla doesn't have this feature.

The pop-up idea is good if it can be easily implemented.

At the moment, LES is still too fresh to worry about necros.

angstrom

@poisson said:
I honestly think some of the clueless people from say PRC who first stumble upon the forum will think everything is updated unless you tell them otherwise. I do think they will read the rules first if it's the first sticky, so we can try to reduce the work later on by telling them upfront.

Hmm, you think that clueless people from PRC -- or from anywhere, for that matter -- will read the rules if it's the first sticky?

(It doesn't seem to work on LET, but granted, the rules aren't the first sticky.)

poisson

@angstrom said:

@poisson said:
I honestly think some of the clueless people from say PRC who first stumble upon the forum will think everything is updated unless you tell them otherwise. I do think they will read the rules first if it's the first sticky, so we can try to reduce the work later on by telling them upfront.

Hmm, you think that clueless people from PRC -- or from anywhere, for that matter -- will read the rules if it's the first sticky?

(It doesn't seem to work on LET, but granted, the rules aren't the first sticky.)

I need some evidence to believe Pandora closed humanity's box in time.

TheDP

Way to go!

chocolateshirt

Sorry OOT @AnthonySmith, what does OG mean?

dahartigan

@chocolateshirt said:
Sorry OOT @AnthonySmith, what does OG mean?

Original Gangsta

TheDP

Official Groupie

somik

Orange Green? New theme idea?

tgl

Don't be a cock should also be a rule, some are dicks, but there's also the cocks that bother the people

somik

@root said:
@AnthonySmith - verbs you used in plans for this platform: operate it, monetize it, pay for staff, putting fail safe measures to keep control, pulling the plug.

I am out of here. Thank you for the information.

Ooo, first user to quit!

InceptionHosting

@somik said:

@root said:
@AnthonySmith - verbs you used in plans for this platform: operate it, monetize it, pay for staff, putting fail safe measures to keep control, pulling the plug.

I am out of here. Thank you for the information.

Ooo, first user to quit!

For sure not the last, I think to be fair he came here not knowing who I am, what I do, what the point of the board was, got confused with the legacy forum, did not understand what the current LES site is and just got pissed off when it turned out not to be what he wanted it to be.

He added value though, good insight in to what needs to be updated for none 'in the know' visitors.

I am not going to pander to people looking for a fight though, I just created the retired user group, you can login, you can view a few things, you can update any personal info (GDPR Compliant) you cant comment or participate any more though when added to that group or see de-indexed stuff.

somik

@AnthonySmith said:

@somik said:

@root said:
@AnthonySmith - verbs you used in plans for this platform: operate it, monetize it, pay for staff, putting fail safe measures to keep control, pulling the plug.

I am out of here. Thank you for the information.

Ooo, first user to quit!

For sure not the last, I think to be fair he came here not knowing who I am, what I do, what the point of the board was, got confused with the legacy forum, did not understand what the current LES site is and just got pissed off when it turned out not to be what he wanted it to be.

He added value though, good insight in to what needs to be updated for none 'in the know' visitors.

I am not going to pander to people looking for a fight though, I just created the retired user group, you can login, you can view a few things, you can update any personal info (GDPR Compliant) you cant comment or participate any more though when added to that group or see de-indexed stuff.

So basically a glorified guest group?

InceptionHosting

yes, but a GDPR complaint guest group

cociu

Hello guys! Nice to see we have some alternative. Also i want my @nekki here !

poisson

@AnthonySmith said:

@root said:
I propose a rule for LES staff: Board shall never be sold, managed, controlled or manipulated, by companies or corporations, whatever their reasons, motivations and intentions.

Well that's a problem from the get go

Hi my name is Anthony, I own and operate Inception Hosting Limited, a registered company, I have good intent and motivations however your statement encompassed the positive and the negative haha.

I am never going to be ashamed of trying to make money, but I am a regular guy from a humble background so I am not out to screw anyone over.

My plan for this place is to operate it for a while, monetize it so it can pay for its own staff to run it professionally and then pass it on to a carefully selected community member, essentially exactly the same path as the original LES but with all of the mistakes taken out and lesson learned along the way.

I will also be putting fail safe measures in place when it is handed over so that if it does even remotely start to go the way of LET I can pull the plug.

I wonder if it is possible to separate the control instead of passing it to just a member, kind of like how politically we separate the powers of the government into different branches.

uptime

@poisson - maybe an interesting discussion in general for a separate thread at some point, but I'll just leave this here for now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization (just as an interesting idea, not a serious suggestion)

cociu

@uptime said:
@poisson - maybe an interesting discussion in general for a separate thread at some point, but I'll just leave this here for now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization (just as an interesting idea, not a serious suggestion)

+++

somik

@uptime said:
@poisson - maybe an interesting discussion in general for a separate thread at some point, but I'll just leave this here for now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization (just as an interesting idea, not a serious suggestion)

Me no understand...

InceptionHosting

@poisson said:

@AnthonySmith said:

@root said:
I propose a rule for LES staff: Board shall never be sold, managed, controlled or manipulated, by companies or corporations, whatever their reasons, motivations and intentions.

Well that's a problem from the get go

Hi my name is Anthony, I own and operate Inception Hosting Limited, a registered company, I have good intent and motivations however your statement encompassed the positive and the negative haha.

I am never going to be ashamed of trying to make money, but I am a regular guy from a humble background so I am not out to screw anyone over.

My plan for this place is to operate it for a while, monetize it so it can pay for its own staff to run it professionally and then pass it on to a carefully selected community member, essentially exactly the same path as the original LES but with all of the mistakes taken out and lesson learned along the way.

I will also be putting fail safe measures in place when it is handed over so that if it does even remotely start to go the way of LET I can pull the plug.

I wonder if it is possible to separate the control instead of passing it to just a member, kind of like how politically we separate the powers of the government into different branches.

Yep, very possible.