Site Anti-Spam / Anti-Solicitation Policy

We have adopted a very strict anti-spam and anti-solicitation policy, necessitated by the extraordinary growth of the WetCanvas! community, our desire being to keep the site free of solicitations and keep the focus on discussions and community. We must strictly enforce these provisions out of fairness to the many who abide by these policies and the desire not to have WetCanvas! taken over by spam and solicitations.

Our Spam Policy is as follows:

You may not post or PM any information, images, or text of a solicitous or promotional nature that has the possibility of financial gain with the following exceptions:

• Signature Line. You may use your signature line to provide up to 3 links to your own personal sites where you list your portfolio of art, so long as your links only contain artistic works that you yourself have created. You may also include links to URLs within the WetCanvas! community (http://www.wetcanvas.com), these are in addition to the three personal previously-mentioned links.
  • Do not use promotional language in your link. For example, you may post: “My eBay” with a link to your eBay listings or “My Art-Agent” with a link to Art-Agent listings, but you may not post “My eBay -- Check out my newest creations.” You may post “Joseph’s Art Studio” but not “Buy My Art at Joseph’s Studio”
  • Do not promote products. For example, you may NOT post a link where you sell paintbrushes to visual artists or glass supplies to glass artists. You may only post a link in which you sell your own finished arts or crafts, which you have yourself produced.
  • Do not include graphics other than your own, original artwork. Graphics are not allowed with the exception of a 468x60 banner containing examples of your own artwork with no other wording included. Do not include graphics which contain nudity. Industry partners are allowed to display a 468x60 company banner. For help creating your own signature banner, please visit this helpful article: Creating a Signature Banner
  • You will be notified that your signature line was edited or asked to edit your signature line to ensure compliance with the user agreement. Refusal to comply with site anti-spam policy may lead to user account suspension or removal.
• Artists’-Only Marketplace. The Swap Shop and Bargain Basement forums are provided to our members that just need to swap or sell individual art work, individual materials, tools or supplies at substantial savings to our members. It's not a place to showcase an entire collection or to offer discounts for everything you sell or to advertise your web address for items you sell.
  • Swap Shop Forum. This is for selling or bartering items that you no longer need and would like to get rid of. It is for artist-to-artist transactions and one time deals. If selling items is a regular source of income, do not post your items here.
  • Bargain Basement Forum. This is for selling individual paintings, sculptures, prints, and other works of art for sale.
  • All swap shop and bargain basement transactions must take place on the WetCanvas! site and not drive the user to a third-party site.
• Workshops. While attendees are free to discuss workshops among themselves, the teacher or agent of a workshop may not advertise a workshop in the forums and can never mention a price or date of the workshop unless specifically asked. If a known provider of workshops is asked, they may answer the question, as this is not a solicitation. They may however publish upcoming workshops using the calendar system.
• Industry Partnership Program. This is the ideal way for companies selling products to artists to advertise their services while supporting a fantastic community dedicated to art. For more information, please visit http://www.wetcanvas.com/MediaKit/ or contact us directly at advertising@wetcanvas.com

The following are not allowed and will be removed as solicitous. These are named specifically either because of the frequency or gray area involved. However, please refer to the information above for the complete rules.

“Why On Earth Won’t You Let Me Advertise For Free?” Posts. Spam is one of the things we deal with most on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes well-meaning business owners seem angry that we do not allow free advertising on the site, under the assumption that they have a right to profit off of WetCanvas! The site requires multiple servers, a full-time person, and pushes many terabytes of data each month; please know the site costs more than it takes in from member-generated support and we need the support of those who would like to reach the WC! membership to continue to operate. Companies who advertise, and benefit, subsidize the costs, as do the generous members of WC! who name their own subscription.

Direct solicitations or offers. Representatives of a third party site may not solicit members of WetCanvas! to engage in activities on third party sites (like purchasing product, posting, creating articles, lessons, projects, etc.).

Indirect solicitations or offers. Indirect solicitations or offers disguised, or embedded within, other, often meaningful or useful information. This includes the use of message posts to discuss or promote (directly or indirectly) your products and/or services. Please know that the entire post may be removed in these instances.

Bulk Purchase. Organization of bulk or pooled-purchase programs for art supplies or other materials.

Special Deals. Use of posts to convey solicitous information, such as special deals, sales, inventory availability (or other stock-level information), shipping or payment terms, phone numbers, reference to other vendor sites or other such information.

Private Messages. Use of solicitous private messages with any possibility of financial gain.

Avatars. Use of company logos for avatar/tinyhead images is not allowed. The exception to this rule are members of our Industry Partner Program (see below). 

The following are allowed because they are not solicitous:

• Vendors can respond to technical or informative questions posed by other members specifically to another member, so long as no marketing or selling takes place. For example, if someone asks a known provider of workshops where they are located, this would not be a solicitation, but the provider should keep the comments brief and be sure to answer the question asked without additional marketing and refer the user off the site for future discussion. However, if someone asks generally, “Does anyone know where I can find a good workshop,” only an Industry Partner can answer this post, or a community member who has no financial interest in the workshop.

Any post found in violation of the above policies will be summarily removed or edited by our staff. Any member account in violation of signature or avatar rules will be removed or edited. 

Repeated violations of the policies outlined above will lead to account removal, although in certain circumstances, it is not necessary to be a repeat offender of the anti-spam policy to have an account removed.

Industry Partner Program

Like many community sites, we are able to continue providing online services to our members primarily through third-party advertising, in much the same manner as commercial magazines and other publications. In addition to traditional banner-advertising opportunities, we offer a robust Industry Partner Program (IPP) that offers powerful tools to our partners, including custom discussion forums, banner advertising, press releases, traffic shaping, and more.

However, being a WC! Industry Partner is NOT a license to openly conduct self-promotion in our public message forums. Open self-promotion can, of course, be done in your individual partner forum but may not be done in the main/public forums.

If you, or your company, are interested in advertising with us, or becoming an industry partner, please see our online media kit. We guarantee that we have the best online marketing solutions for products and services that target visual artists.

More information, about the Industry Partner Program can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.wetcanvas.com/MediaKit/

Responsible vendor participation guidelines

We encourage and invite members of the industry to participate within our message forums, provided that they adhere to the rules above. Vendors who are NOT participating in our Industry Partner Program (IPP, see below) must be careful to avoid using our forums to openly promote their products or services.

However, from time to time, we realize that discussions in our forums may mention products and services provided by various companies. We do not allow using the WetCanvas! boards to work out service or product complaints, but do allow all vendors to ask that any member having complaints get in touch with the company directly rather than using the WetCanvas! boards to resolve the issue(s). This would not be considered spam, but rather a "fair use" of our network.

For example:

A member posts: "I've been having trouble getting my xxx product shipped from XYZ company. Has anyone had this trouble?"

Another member posts: "Yes... all the time!"

Proper Vendor response: "We at XYZ company encourage everyone to get in touch with us using the support email at [url]www.xyzcompany.com[/url]. We will do all we can to resolve any problem and appreciate your business."

The above message would not be considered spam, as we want to provide a way for vendors to initiate problem resolution if possible.

Note: If this particular vendor is a WetCanvas! Industry Partner, they most certainly can direct the members to their WC! partner forum, if they choose.

Example question: "Example Question: "Does anyone know where to get xyz product?"

Using the above example, companies who are NOT members of our partner program are not allowed to respond to such an inquiry, as it represents a direct selling opportunity. Partners are allowed to respond, however, provided they move the discussion off of the main/public forums, as illustrated in the example below.

Proper response from an industry partner: "Yes, I have some available, check our inventory on the XYZ Company Partner Page or our forum."

Vendor-to-Vendor Disputes

Vendor-to-vendor disputes will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Again, we want to provide a way for resolution when vendors do not agree on technical aspects questioned by our members, but we will not allow vendors to use public boards to create unnecessary tension or conflict between other members or vendors. Those posts that are deemed unproductive or harmful to the WetCanvas! community will be removed. If we deem that a vendor is deliberately instigating trouble, not only will they be damaging their reputation here within our community, but most likely, it will lead to account removal.

Church and State

While we appreciate our Industry Partners, we do not permit industry partners to dictate posts or policies related to posting. We will not censor the community in the interests of industry partners.