SPAM^TMTOWN USA Web Page Guidelines for Page and Links

The purpose of these guidelines is to ensure that all pages and links associated with spamtownusa.com accurately reflect the quality of the City of Austin and Mower County areas.

The SPAM^TMTOWN USA Web Page Steering Committee is made up of representatives from organizations within the community that share a common interest in promoting our community through the SPAM^TMTOWN USA web page.

Our mission is: Ensure the spamtownusa.com web site promotes the growth and enhancement of the local community. The committee will ensure this by:

• Providing guidelines for page development and linkage on spamtownusa.com;
  
• Maintain current and accurate pages/links for spamtownusa.com;
  
• Provide a process to evaluate spamtownusa.com site effectiveness.
  

Thank you.

SPAM^TMTOWN USA Community Web Page Steering Committee

The opinions and views expressed in the commercial pages and links from spamtownusa.com do not necessarily reflect those of the steering committee. The contents of the pages will be reviewed before they initially appear as a link to spamtownusa.com to ensure that all guidelines are met.

The steering committee is not responsible for the preservation of any pages. Authors must maintain their own backup of their pages. The steering committee is not responsible for any loss of pages.

We reserve the right to remove any page as a link from spamtownusa.com which is brought to our attention and which we find, in our sole discretion, violates these page content guidelines, or otherwise is in violation of the law. The steering committee does not actively monitor the content of commercial pages or links, but will investigate complaints of violation of these guidelines. Please submit any such complaint via e-mail to spamtownusa@austin-mn.com. The steering committee is also not responsible for any loss of data resulting from our deletion of pages and/or links, network or system outages, file corruption, or any other reasons.

Page Content Guidelines

• Publishers of spamtownusa.com pages/links are responsible for their own web pages. This includes responsibility for avoiding copyright violations, complying with local, state, and federal laws, and keeping the information up to date.
  
  
• Copyright laws apply to electronic publishing as well as to print publishing. Be sure you have permission to publish the information, graphics, or photographs on your pages if you are not the author or creator. Photographs of an individual or personal information about an individual must not be included without the permission of the individual.
  
  
• Because web visitors can enter a page directly, without going through the spamtownusa.com home page, it is important to let them know where they are. Any web site residing under the spamtownusa.com domain should maintain a link back to spamtownusa.com.
  
  
• Web Sites used for the following activities will be removed from spamtownusa.com and/or their links will be discontinued from spamtownusa.com.
  
  
• Providing material that is grossly offensive to the Web and Austin area communities, including blatant expressions of bigotry, racism, hatred, or profanity.
  
  
• Promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities or promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual.
  
  
• Using your Web Page for commercial purposes (except to promote goods or services that your organization actually sells, i.e., a shoe store that sells Nike^TM Shoes may advertise Nike^TM merchandise and may have a link back to Nike’s Home Page) including but not limited to the following:
  
  
  • Soliciting for advertisers or sponsors.
    
    
  • Displaying a sponsorship banner of any kind, including those that are generated by banner or link exchange services.
    
    
  • Displaying banners for services that provide cash or cash-equivalent prizes to users in exchange for hyperlinks to their web site.
    
    
  • Promoting or soliciting for participation in multi-level marketing or pyramid schemes.
    
    
  • Conducting raffles or contests that require any type of entry fee.
    
    
  • Displaying material containing nudity or pornographic material of any kind.
    
    
  • Displaying material that exploits children under 18 years of age.
    
    
  • Developing restricted or Password-only access pages, or hidden pages or images (those not linked to/or from another accessible page).
  • Using your page (or directory) as storage for remote loading or as a door or signpost to another server.
    
    
  • Using your page for acts of copyright infringement including offering pirated computer programs or links to such programs, information used to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protected devices, including serial or registration numbers for software programs or any type of cracker utilities.
    
    
• Violating Internet standards for the purpose of promoting your Web Site.
  
  
• Developing pages that consist of hyperlinks to content not allowed on spamtownusa.com.
  
  
• Elements that must appear on all Home Pages:
  
  
  • Information on how to contact the page owner or keeper of the site.
    
    
  • Date of the last update to the site and/or pages.
    
    
  • Recommend adding "Best Viewed With…" browser version statement on your page.
    
    
• Web pages should be well designed and written. The appearance and content are as important as the technical aspects. Remember, with your page as a part of spamtownusa.com or linked from Spamtownusa.com, you are helping to present Austin, MN to "Web Surfers" from around the world. We want Austin, Minnesota portrayed as a first class city that people would want to visit, work, and live in.
  
  
• Developers are strongly encouraged to use styles and colors that are easy to read and accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Complicated background patterns and dark background colors can be difficult to read. Remember, some combinations of text and background colors can be completely unreadable by people with color blindness. It is a good idea to have parallel "Text Only" pages for your site.
  
  
• Consider how to organize your information, where you want it to be linked, and how to point people to it. Most Web users don’t want static information; they want to communicate and navigate through it.
  
  
• Keep it simple and keep your audience and your medium in mind. Browse the Web to see what works and what doesn’t.
  
  
• Your pages will not look the same to every viewer for a variety of reasons.
  
  
  • Viewers will have a variety of hardware and software.
    
    
  • At least half the people browsing the web have monitors with 16 or fewer colors.
    
    
  • Some people choose not to download graphics.
    
    
• Don’t overload your pages with graphics that will slow the down-loading time and frustrate the users. Consider having a text-only shadow page or clickable icons for pictures. The more complex you make your graphics, the longer it will take for pages to load. You may want to connect at a slow speed (14.4 baud) and test to see how long it takes.
  
  
• Because pages load from the top down, don’t design your pages with large graphics files or with all your graphics at the top. Consider the time it takes for viewers to see them.