As of today there are some more new updates and modifications to PTO's official policy statement.

Most of these are just clarifications to what has always been policy anyway, or was already outlined here in other threads in the PTO Policies / Rules subforum.

Anyway, FYI, here are the most recent updates... all new changes made are in red.....


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• Promoting Other Online Communities on PTO
Do not promote other online communities, businesses, or websites on PTO by the following or any other means: (1) putting the link or information in your signature file that appears below your posts; (2) Posting the information in the threads soliciting people to go there; (3) Sending a Private Message to PTO members soliciting them; or (4) sending e-mail to PTO members soliciting them. The first two actions will result in a warning; the second two actions (sending PMs or e-mail to members soliciting them) will get you banned without notice.


• User Accounts:
A maximum of ONE account is allowed per person. We have the ability to track and match IP addresses on accounts and other security measures in place to discourage duplicate accounts. If you are found to be using two or more accounts, one or more of them will be deleted and you may be banned from PTO altogether depending on the situation. The bottom line here is to register one account and stick with it. If you have account problems, contact a PTO Admin, send a ticket in to the PTO Helpdesk, or send an email to support@ prisontalk dot com (in proper email format) and state the problem you are having - do NOT register another account. One of the Administrators may recommend that you re-register if the problem cannot be solved but in most all cases a problem with an account can be corrected by an Administrator.

Members of the same household (i.e., husband and wife, etc.) are allowed to have their own accounts, but we recommend you contact a member of PTO Administration (or send a ticket in to the Helpdesk or an email to Support as noted above) and discuss this BEFORE a second party in your household opens an account. This is available for legitimate accounts ONLY. The many security measures PTO has in place generally eventually expose those who open a second account for themselves pretending be someone else, and discovery will lead to a warning, suspension, or ban from PTO dependent on the situation. In short, if you are thinking about opening an additional account for yourself in order to post "anonymously", for nefarious purposes regarding other PTO members, to perpetuate a hoax (see PTO Policy on "Hoaxes"), or for any other reason - don't.


• Trying to Circumvent a Ban / Block or Suspension:
If you log onto the PrisonTalk.com forums and receive a message that you have been banned, please submit an un-ban request and wait for a PrisonTalk.com admin to get in touch with you. In the case of temporary suspensions from PTO (usually 7 to 30 days), we strongly suggest you wait out the suspension to avoid further consequences. You may NOT re-register under a new name if the software lets you. If you try to sign up again and we catch you, then the ban will become a permanent IP Ban; temporary suspensions will become a permanent ban. We rarely send out notices that you have been banned or suspended.


• Use of the PTO Calendar:
We understand that you are excited that your loved one will come home from prison two or three years from now, but please understand that PTO's other thousand-odd members that refer to the PTO Calendar daily regarding events won't be so interested to see that announcement day after day for the next two or three (or more years). We ask that you limit listing events on the Calendar to those occurring within 90 (ninety) days, and until that time is near, we would encourage you to make use of a countdown ticker in your signature, or some other sort of countdown, instead. You may also wish to participate in The Countdown subforum, located in the Coming Home forum, as well.


• Copyright Issues - News Articles, Magazine Articles, & Other Articles
As PTO is a repository for information related to the prison system, our members often desire to post newspaper, magazine, and other articles related to prison and other issues. This is understandable; however, PTO must remain in legal compliance with all applicable copyright laws under the concept of "fair use" as outlined in United States law. Please refer to the thread in the PTO Policies/Rules subforum titled "Copying & Pasting complete News Articles - Policy & Copyright Violation" for more information and guidelines on how to post references to articles on PTO.

The thread is located here:
http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146017


• Copyright Issues - Quoting Song Lyrics in Posts
Regretfully, due to the large number of legal threats and lawsuits by various factions of the recording industry in recent years against websites that publish lyrics and alternate (karaoke) versions of songs on the Internet, PTO has had to make the decision (as of 14 September 2008) to limit song lyrics in posts to a very minimal amount. Posting a line or two, or a verse, or a chorus of a song is acceptable; posting more than that or the entire song lyrics is not, and will result in removal or editing of your post. It is also preferred that you credit the artist or songwriter as well when posting the lyric snippet, if known.


• Copyright Issues - Poetry, Works of Art, & All Other Copyrighted Works
For PTO to remain in legal compliance with all applicable copyright laws in the United States and most other countries, we ask that you do not post poems, art, or any other work subject to copyright laws unless you have the express stated permission of the copyright holder or the work is your own. We are frequently contacted by copyright holders (of especially works of poetry) and asked to remove the work from the PTO site. In short, if it's a poem or artwork that you or your incarcerated loved one did not write or draw - then you probably should not post it on PTO.

This policy does not not apply to graphics and avatars posted on websites and available for use by the public on social networks and discussion forums.

Lysbeth, We are not suppose to post any links in PTO for ANY business? I ask this not to be disrespectful, just because we were talking about ordering some bracelets and I posted the link to a company that sells them. Is that against policy or are you just talking about for example MySpace, Facebook and other discussion forums?

Nope, PTO has always had a policy about advertising for any business or services that sells or does anything for profit. That has never ever changed and has been in effect since practically Day One, and that goes for people advertising for themselves or organizations they're affiliated with, as well as things like what you're saying.

So no, you can't post that anywhere on the board in general EXCEPT for the Products & Services forum in the Break Time forums. That would be okay there.

However, if you were the one selling those bracelets, it wouldn't be - you'd be directed to contact PTO's advertising department like all other advertisers are.

But the main gist of the above is about promoting other online communities on PTO and posting links to any prison-related online community or any other online community - Yahoo groups, Facebook groups, etc.

That's never changed either - there has been a thread related to that here in the Policies subforum for many years - we just updated the policy statement itself to reflect that in actual policy as well.

You can, however, post your MySpace or Facebook profile links as your web page in your profile info, or we'd be OK with posting that in your blog. It's a little bit subjective - there are some things that might not fly under those circumstances (other prison-related communities like PTO, for instance) - but if people want to write about and link to their MySpace or Facebook or whatever in their blogs or profile info, we're OK with that.

PTO has an advertising department? ... I could use some hours.

What about mentioning certain Weight loss methods...when weight subject comes up in posts....and then putting the name of the Place/company where one has achieved the Weight loss into the post??? Is that allowed? Because i sure don't want to be banned :( ..so i'd like to know...Thanks :)

If the topic of the thread is about weight loss, then sure, it's fine to say "I lost weight with Weight Watchers (or Jenny Craig or etc, etc)".

What would not be within policy is to include a link to the Weight Watchers website, or to start a new thread "advertising" the fact that you lost weight with Weight Watchers, and including links and stuff.

Basically as long as you're not including links to a business or service, and don't sound like you are "advertising" - you'll probably be all right.

And in most cases to post outside of policy will result in just a warning - not banning. ;)

On the flip side of the coin, though - the Services & Product info forum CAN be used for such things - within reason, and I say that because we are not going to tolerate businesses coming and posting in there and advertising their products and services, or spammers, in that forum or any other.

But if, say, you had a good experience with Weight Watchers and you wanted to start a new thread in there and post the link to Weight Watchers - that's fine. But ONLY in the Services & Product forum.

Anywhere else on PTO, it's OK to respond to a weight loss thread with "Oh yeah, I lost 20 lbs with Weight Watchers, it was great" - but no links.

I know it's a little confusing, but for the most part, we're not going to do anything with "normal" members who make one post that has a link to a business or organization or other community's website in it, other than point them towards the policy and tell them why we're editing/deleting their post, and asking them not to do it again.

As long as you don't link to the business/organization site, and as long as you are not going around trying to get members to go to another online community/discussion board.... you'll be fine.

The ones who are in truly in danger of being suspended or banned are outright advertisers and spammers posting links all over the forums, people who do "sneaky advertising" like answering EVERY thread about phone calls they can find on PTO repeating a phone call company that they have affiliated themselves with's info & phone number and/or links, or go to every prison subforum in a state forum and say "Hey I have joined the STATENAME Prison Talk forum, come join me over there" with or without the link. Things like that.

Again, none of this or much of the above (or any of the other recent policy updates) are anything that has actually changed from what PTO policy always has been - we are just clarifying some things in a little more detail than they were previously in the PTO policy statement.

We have one more policy update to add, which is really just a further clarification of what has always been existing policy on user accounts.... and after this, probably no more major or semi-major changes for a while.

We have been having a real problem lately with user accounts, duplicate accounts, account closing issues and opening of unapproved accounts after closing an account... so we are hoping this will improve problems with those issues.

We feel we have now made both this policy on Closing Accounts and the abovementioned policy on User Accounts pretty crystal clear at this point, so hopefully those who take the time to read and familiarize themselves with PTO's policies at least will know what to do or not to do.

Thanks as always for all our members' assistance in helping to keep things organized and stuff! :thumbsup:


Added paragraph is in red:



• Closing Your PTO Account:
PTO does not delete accounts, profiles, nor posts and threads (see "Deleting Posts and Closing Threads" section of PTO policy). We will, however, at your request, close your account and you will no longer appear on the active member list. If you wish to close your PTO account, please send a ticket in to the PTO Helpdesk or email support@ prisontalk dot com (in proper email format) with your request and include your PTO username. If you wish to remove comments, photos, or other items from your profile, please do so before contacting PTO staff with your request to close the account. If you decide later that you wish to return to PTO as an active member, contact the Helpdesk or email us again and we will be happy to reopen your account.

As stated in the "User Accounts" section above, a maximum of ONE account on PTO is allowed per person. Per this policy, if you request to close your account, you may NOT open another account. Contact the Helpdesk, email us at support@ prisontalk dot com, or contact an Administrator or Super Moderator before you close your original account by PM if you feel you have an emergent situation which may warrant a new PTO account. Failure to do so, and opening another account without prior approval from PTO Administration after requesting your original account closed, will result in one or more accounts being deleted, and you may be banned from PTO altogether depending on the situation.

Lysbeth,
One of my penpals recently started a blog in which he posts articles about his life as a federal inmate. Well his father posts the articles for him :)
Would it be against PTO policy to post the link to his blog? He has nothing to sell
, and this isn't a "prison community". It is just an inmate's "diary" and it could be interesting for some PTOers who want to know how it is inside.
Thank you in advance for your answer!
Nina

I would be interested in reading that diary.
Thanks Nina.

oops, I realize that posting on this thread wasn't exactly the best way to ask discreetly...
I didn't mean to sort of circumvent the rule by talking about the blog here. I'm sorry if I did :( please don't ban me dear moderators!!! :no:

Linking to is wouldn't be ok unless you get special permission. However his father could create an account here and do a blog at PTO

thank you for your answer Jonathan