• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

Vendor Rules - Explained!

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skell

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In efforts to improve the site, new vendor rules were rolled out on Sunday, January 12, 2020.

I thought it may be beneficial to provide some explanation behind the rules to help everyone (members, vendors, and lurkers) understand the thought process and reasoning for each rule. I am posting the rules below with bolded explanations inserted by each rule. Please take the time to read through the vendor rules and the reasoning behind them.

These explanations are for your information. We (moderators) are trying to move the rules in a direction that requires us to be less subjective. Thus the hard line in some of these rules. Drawing a hard line makes it easier for moderators to implement the rules uniformly.

In an effort to spell the changes out as clearly as possible, I also started a thread with our “Moderator Enforcement Plan” which lays out how we will be enforcing the rules moving forward. That thread is located HERE.

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The “Vendor Reviews and Product Information” section will be changed to the “Vendor Access Area”. Access to post in the “Vendor Access Area” will be limited to paid SH Members only. This area will be read-only for non-members. Vendors are encouraged to become a SH Member so they can interact with our members about their products in this area.
Saddlehunter has set up a vendor access area (at the request of forum members) as a service to provide an area for interaction for both members and vendors. The decision was to include this in the SH membership option as this is a new service that has been requested with the evolution of the site from primarily DIY to more commercialized products.

Discussions located in the Vendor Access Area will be excluded from the “What’s New” section. The content and discussions will be available for those who wish to view them.
This approach was taken as we have had people express their support of both allowing vendor interactions and limiting vendor interactions. This allows those who wish to see vendor interactions to seek them out. This also prevents the “What's New” tab from being filled with vendor interaction threads for those that do not wish to see them.

The NEW rules for vendors and the “Vendor Access Area” are listed below. These rules are subject to change as needed to improve saddlehunter.com.

Who is considered a vendor on saddlehunter.com?
  • Company owners
  • Company employees
  • Company Pro Staff or Field Staff
  • Anyone with a formal affiliation with a Company
When we say "Company", what do we mean?
  • any company supplying saddle hunting gear, hunting gear, or other products for sale for use during the use of a hunting saddle
Rules:

1. Individuals meeting the above definition of a vendor are required to disclose this information to site mods. Vendors will receive a vendor banner similar to SH Members. If you are a vendor and do not have a vendor banner by your name, notify mods
It provides the community information on your company affiliations.

2. Vendors must use their company logo as their site avatar to ensure their affiliation is visible through Tapatalk.
After discussions with vendors and amongst the moderators, we have chosen to remove this requirement. This requirement was intended for those viewing threads through Tapatalk. Those viewing threads in the vendor access area should be aware vendors are likely to be present and responding and the vendor avatar is unnecessary.

2. Vendor interactions related to their products are to take place in the Vendor Access Area (DIY section excluded if providing feedback on DIY’ing vendor products).
This places all vendor interactions on their own products within one section of the site. This also provides the community with the ability to use other sections of the forum to solicit feedback from other members who do not have an affiliation with the product.

Vendors are welcome to engage in discussions outside of the Vendor Access Area on topics not related to their products (with the exception of DIY as previously mentioned), and will be held to the same expectations of all forum members while doing so.
Members of the community have expressed their wish to be able to interact with vendors more openly. Members have also expressed their support of restrictions on vendor interactions. This approach is a compromise that provides an area where the vendor interactions may take place, as well as areas of the forum where vendors are restricted from discussing their products.
We want to see vendors being an active part of this community. Many are avid saddle hunters like the rest of us. We want it to be clear they are welcome to discuss products they do not rep in any of the forum sections.


3. Vendors and their reps are expected to behave as professionals.
Similar to how every forum member is expected to be respectful of others, we expect reps to rep their products and do so in a professional manner. Item 4 and 5 highlight some of the acceptable and unacceptable vendor behavior

4. Unprofessional behavior will result in warnings. Repeated unprofessional behavior will result in a ban. Unprofessional behavior includes, but is not limited to:
  • Negative interactions with the other members. Not everyone is going to agree with or like everything. Guidance on how to improve the use of a product is expected, criticism of the user is not. As a vendor, you are expected to keep your responses professional and not engage in belittling or argumentative behavior.
  • Anything that can be construed as negative towards a competitor.
  • Public vendor complaints about the enforcement of these rules (PM a mod for discussion).
  • Unreleased product teasing or hype threads are unacceptable.
Self-explanatory

5. Acceptable vendor behavior includes:
  • Discussing a released product, it’s specs and use.
  • Making a new product announcement.
  • Referring customers to the proper customer service channels is encouraged.
Self-explanatory

6. Vendors should use the report button to report inappropriate member content rather than engage directly.
All visitors of the site are encouraged to utilize the report button when they see inappropriate behavior. This directs moderator attention to the behavior and allows moderators to quickly address issues.

7. Vendors are not permitted to use the member classified for advertising or selling vendor products. These sections are intended for members to sell items they have, not for commercial posting.
This is simply to prevent a company from listing their new products for sale through one of their representative's accounts.

8. Members are encouraged to report inappropriate vendor behavior.
See the explanation of #6.
 
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