The Open Mic Rules Simple, yet very important ground rules




Greater than 5 minutes, my friend!

Last updated: August 8, 2016

This is going to be tough.

All I ever wanted to do is to make The Open Mic the most light-hearted and inspiring translation community on the web.

And I think we really nailed it. It is indeed the most light-hearted and inspiring translation community on the web.

Every single message, every email, every story has some great character behind it.

The storytelling aspect of The Open Mic is absolutely stunning.

Same goes for profiles and other kinds of social activities.

The Open Mic is a great community of amazing people and I really want to make your experience here unforgettable.

That’s why we need some ground rules otherwise everything will turn into chaos. And this is the last thing I want for The Open Mic.

For your convenience I’ll break those rules into several categories, each representing a separate element of The Open Mic experience.

Of course, I cannot foresee everything and sometimes I’ll need to make adjustments to the site rules. In that case, there will be a note at the top of the post about any updates.

Section 1: Publishing Stories On The Open Mic

  1. English is the only supported language at the moment. However you can publish stories in other languages IF it is followed by a professional translation into English. If you’re looking for someone who could help you with translation of your story, you can try reaching out to other translators in our community to see if they’ll be willing to help you with translation.
  2. Stories stuffed with irrelevant keywords will be removed. Your story has to be relevant to The Open Mic community. Sometimes people write blog posts that are stuffed with keywords, simply to get higher rankings on Google.
    As a rule, those blog posts have zero value for readers and simply designed to trick Google into believing that this blog post is relevant. For example, things like “How To Find A Technical Translator in Toronto” will be deleted. Try writing something that is actually useful to people and will be shared on social networks. It’s a way better strategy.
  3. Stories that infringe copyrights will be deleted. By publishing a story on The Open Mic, you’re agreeing that you’re the owner of this content. If we receive a copyright violation complaint we’ll be forced to delete your story.
  4. Stories with links to fraudulent websites, scams, viruses etc. will be removed. The account of a user that publishes those kinds of stories will be blocked or removed.
  5. Stories that contain hateful comments towards various ethnic, religious and social groups will be removed. There is no place for hatred on The Open Mic.
  6. All kinds of stories that contain spam messages will be deleted. The account of a user that publishes those stories will be blocked or removed.
  7. Stories that contain pornography or other inappropriate content will be removed. The account of a user that publishes those stories will be blocked or removed.
  8. Stories that have no relevance for translators or promote other websites will be removed. Please, before publishing a story on The Open Mic ask yourself one question: is this story relevant? Does it bring value to the translation community? Please, understand that we reserve the right to remove any content if we believe it doesn’t fit into the ideas behind The Open Mic.
  9. Please, go easy on self-advertisement. Although it’s OK to mention your company briefly, many of our readers find it extremely annoying when the post constatnly send them to 3rd party websites or blantly advertises other companies and service providers for the sake of advertisement only. We’ll review the posts on case by case basis and reserve the right to remove posts that in our opinion contain too many ads without bringing much of a value to our readers. Thank you for your understanding.

Section 2: Social Activity On The Open Mic

This section covers such topics as: wall postings, user profiles and sending private messages.

  1. You CAN post updates and comments on your wall in other languages than English.
  2. You cannot post links to fraudulent websites or links to files that contain viruses or inappropriate content. Such wall posts will be removed. Your account will be blocked or removed as well.
  3. You cannot send spam or mass private messages to other users. If we receive too many complaints, your profile will be blocked.
  4. You cannot post links to fraudulent websites or links to files that contain viruses or inappropriate content in your profile. Otherwise, your profile will be removed.
  5. Wall posts that contain links to pornography or other inappropriate content will be removed. Your account will be removed or blocked.

Section 3: User Reviews On The Open Mic

The Open Mic has a very comprehensive system or rankings and reviews. Please note that The Open Mic doesn’t offer any dispute resolution services.

  1. You cannot leave empty reviews without any comments. Please add a few sentence and provide a few details of your experience. Otherwise, you review will be deleted.
  2. Reviews with hateful and offensive comments will be deleted. Please use an appropriate language in your reviews. There’s is no place for name-calling on The Open Mic.
  3. If you received a negative review from a client, project, manager, outsourcer, translator or an agency but never worked with that person it’s better to contact them directly for more details. The Open Mic doesn’t offer any dispute resolution services. If you feel like a review is defamatory we recommend seeking legal assistance from your lawyer.
  4. You cannot leave fake positive reviews from different accounts. More importantly, you cannot have multiple accounts. If we decide that your reviews were made from fake accounts those reviews will be removed, your main account and fake accounts will be deleted. It’s tempting to get ahead of the game, but we have zero tolerance policy for those kinds of things. Our goal is to make The Open Mic reviews trustworthy and transparent. Any type of suspicious activity will not be tolerated. Thank you for your understanding.
  5. You cannot leave a negative review to an agency simply because you think that they pay peanuts. We have a separate category, called: Life At The Bottom. You can publish an article about the agency in question and describe these poor payment practices and raise awareness. But please don’t leave negative reviews if you had never worked with an agency. Thank you.

Section 4: User Profiles

  1. You’re not allowed to have multiple profiles on The Open Mic. Inactive duplicate accounts will be removed. However, we can change your profile category upon request. For example, if you’re a Translator or in Interpreter you can change your profile category to Translator & Outsourcer or Translation Agency. Contact our Support Team and we’ll be happy to help.
  2. Profiles with links to files that contain viruses or inappropriate content will be removed.
  3. Profiles that try to impersonate other people will be removed. The Open Mic takes this problem seriously. We have introduced a system of Verified Accounts just for that purpose. We highly recommend you to verify your account in order to protect your identity from being stolen. Contact our support team if you believe that your identity has been stolen or someone tries to impersonate on The Open Mic.

Section 5: Comments

We’re always trying to keep the moderation to a minimum. This is a free community where every opinion matters. However, there are certain situations when your comments can be removed.

  1. Any comments containing spam or links to inappropriate content and viruses will be removed. User account will be blocked or removed.
  2. Hateful or offensive comments will be removed. Please, respect other people at all times.

Phew!

It was not easy.

Sorry for being so strict in some cases, but this is something that I have to do in order to make The Open Mic work for everyone.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments feel free to share them below.

Please respect these rules at all times and let’s make The Open Mic awesome for everyone!

Dmitry Kornyukhov

About Dmitry Kornyukhov

Founder of The Open Mic. Video game localization specialist. I help video game developers, game publishers and localization studios bring their projects to the Russian-speaking gaming community.

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