Posting Guidelines

Dear SpoonBiker,

We’re excited that you’ve decided to contribute to the growing collection of ideas and stories and take the pledge as true warriors of lifelong learning and sharing.  But before going into battle, there are a few things you need to know so that we keep casualties to a minimum.

To help you out and to keep SpoonBike an enjoyable community for everyone, we have put together some guidelines that all SpoonBikers should know.  Although we don’t monitor every activity on the site, we would hate to have to remove any content because it doesn’t follow these guidelines.

Always be respectful and inclusive.  SpoonBikers bring people together as we learn about ourselves in the universe.

And remember that while we may be teachers when we’re telling our stories and the lessons we learned, we are all students too, with more to learn in life.  Let’s maintain a sense of humility toward the greater discipline of lifelong learning.

1. Be as open, honest, and personal as possible.  Readers want to know they’re learning from real life experiences.
2. You can write in whatever style or voice, and in whatever language you are comfortable with.  SpoonBike is a colorful mosaic of disparate styles and perspectives.
3. Your post should include an interesting idea, a valuable lesson, or some insight to make people’s lives better.  Will your topic provoke thought?  Will it enrich the lives of others?  Could it change someone’s behavior?  Could it make someone smile?
4. Our readers expect high quality.  Please post content you are proud of, proofreading for grammar and spelling.  We often feature posts that we feel are well written and offer great value to our readers.
5. Where possible, link to or list sources to support your claims.
6. If you have received any sort of compensation in connection with the content in your post, you must state this clearly within your post.  You must also disclose affiliate links.
7. Be thoughtful about the title of your post.  Make sure it’s specific and that it doesn’t set an expectation with the reader that the post content does not fulfill.  For consistency, please use title case for your titles.
8. Select your categories and tags carefully so that you make it easy for others to find your post.
9. When uploading images, use high quality JPG files that are under 1MB.  Unsplash has a great selection of high quality images.  Please credit your images if they are not your own.
10. Although you can advertise your business or services on your personal profile, ads, promotions, and solicitations on other areas of the site (such as on posts or comments) are not allowed.
11. Don’t plagiarize.  The content of your posts should come from your own experience and not be a compilation of others’ ideas.  Duplicate content is not allowed.
12. Please respect the privacy and reputation of others.  Make sure you have permission from any third parties mentioned in your content.
13. Healthy debate and discussion are encouraged, but personal attacks and harassment are not.
14. Make sure your posts and images do not infringe on anyone’s copyright, patent, or trademark.
15. We foster diversity and inclusivity.  Content that is offensive, threatening, disrespectful, libellous, defamatory, or incites hate or violence is not allowed.
16. Content that promotes copyright violation, gambling, weapons, illegal activity, self harm, or harmful substances is not allowed.
17. Pornography and sexual or violent exploitation of minors is not allowed.
18. Impersonating a person or organization is not allowed.
19. You cannot collect any data (such as through forms) with your posts.