Hi... this is the first site I've been banned from before I even finished my profile! lol
I'm a professional designer. I use GIMP, Blender 3D, and other Open Source tools to do my work.
I design cases for mobile devices for a company in the UK (which I will refrain from linking to, to prevent being banned again).

I made the unfortunate error of trying to share my new page (which shall not be named, since apparently it's forbidden to do that). I thought it was okay to mention it, since it was relevant to the discussion, and I saw plenty of people sharing their GIMP blog pages, etc. (which is how I found this site in the first place), so I'm not exactly sure what the difference is... any help would be great! The rules here seem to be tighter than most other forums I'm a part of, so I'll try not to step on anyone's toes.

I'm happy to help anyone who needs it (advice, links, etc.), and I don't have any commercial interest in being here. My (nameless) site is not a commercial site, and has no adverts or visitor counting/tracking. It's not even a blog. It's merely a place to share the best links I've found from a professional standpoint to get graphics jobs done quickly in the field, and promote Open Source, which is a hobby of mine, and something I can do to give back to a community that I benefit from daily at a professional level.

I look forward to sharing my experience on this board... it's been trial by fire so far! lol Thanks for your patience.

Welcome CRogers. You will find this is a very nice place to be. Thank you for sharing your talents with us.

Welcome to Gimp Chat CRogers. Look forward to seeing more of your work.

Welcome to Gimp Chat.
I don't see any reason why you can not link to any non profit website that has to do with GIMP or Open Source software or the teaching thereof.

Just to clear up a few things... In your first post to this site, you blatantly ignored & circumvented our anti-spam measures, engaged in self-promotion and posted a URL to your website. That is classic spammer behavior and will always get you banned on here. These measures are in place to protect our members and until we get a good feel for who you are and what you are about, we limit external links.

In our email correspondence, I recommended that you read the sites rules, which apparently you still have not done or you would know our policy regarding signature links and personal site promotion. If you are here to contribute to this site and to the GIMP community, you are welcome to post links to your website or leave a link to your website in your signature line. If you choose to leave a link to your website in your signature line, we might ask for a reciprocal link back to Gimp Chat from your website. That's only fair, right?

We have had several members who have attempted to use this site to drive traffic to their AD driven website. If the staff determines that is a member's only intent, problems will arise.

If you have any questions regarding our TOS or any of the rules we have in place, you can contact one of our staff members for clarification. Or, you can post your concerns to the Site Support section of this board.

to GIMP Chat.

Welcome to GC CRogers.

Hi CRogers !

Nice to meet you !
I read your input into two of my threads yesterday briefly and then you and those posts were gone.
Glad you came back !

I do remember vaguely you gave a bit advice about the behaviour of light and glass (the word caustic was dropped, i had to look that up), which was interesting.
Do you think you could repeat your comment in the Crisp Highlight thread please ?!

Hi, thanks for the information. I did read the TOS (then I read it again, just to be sure). Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't "self promotion" usually indicate a profit of some sort? The website I mentioned (that got me banned) is neither commercial, self-promoting, or well, even more than a splash page at the moment! lol. Anyhow, it was not my intention to spam or self-promote. I'm only interested in sharing information. As far as "deliberately circumventing" anti-spam measures... I said "dawt" instead of "dot" in my non-link website name... I mean it wasn't even a URL. It's not like I posted malicious code, exploited a buffer overflow, or hacked The Gibson.

I completely understand the rules and why they are there, however the only reason I mentioned the name of the website at all is that it was under a forum topic about increasing exposure for a GIMP blog run by a member here. I liked the blog, so I described my project and asked if I could add a link to his blog on my site (I always ask, because it's the polite thing to do), This was a possible answer to his question... and I'm not really sure why that resulted in a banning, which destroyed all the posts I spent hours writing on my first day here. Maybe a suspension would have sufficed, or maybe a stern email is someone felt wronged by it? Something that wouldn't require me to re-type everything I posted, would have been lovely.

I would be more than happy to help promote this site on mine once my site is actually worth anything (it is just a really nice links page, after all). No doubt there will be many links back here to various discussion topics by knowledgeable GIMP users... if that's okay to do?

TLDR: I am not a spammer, I have a lot of information to give, and ask nothing in return, except of-course that my posts not be erased! I honestly just want to help.

Hi. Sure thing! Glad you were able to catch them in time! I will certainly repeat the comment. Thanks for the warm welcome!

Nothing like a little mix up to excite things.

Hello and welcome! xD

When it was clear that the we do not allow external links until 5 posts, you could have just accepted that, instead of circumventing our policy by posting an obfuscated URL, which is a frequent tactic used by spammers on a weekly basis here. That is what got you banned.

The link you posted could have very well contained malicious code. The fact that you disrespectfully disregarded our policies threw up a big red flag.


Thanks for your suggestion regarding how we handle suspected spammers. The polices we have in place have always served us well, keeping this site 100% spam free, but we will take your suggestion under advisement.


What you do on your site is of course, up to you.


Sounds good to me! Just be aware that per our TOS, the staff of GC reserves the right to edit, move and/or delete any thread or post, at our discretion.

Hi, thanks for your comments. Again, it was not my intent to be disrespectful, but only to help. I read the warnings and they didn't seem to apply to what I was doing (they seem to be warnings to spammers, so I definitely understand the need for them) so I didn't think it was a big deal, and promptly posted more answers to questions to satisfy the rule of 5 posts... 6 in total, which have now ironically been erased. lol
Anyway, sorry for the confusion. I was not trying to thumb my nose at authority, or ruin anyone's day.

Welcome to the forum.

Welcome - You sure know how to make an entrance