# Sticky  NEED A SERVICE REFERRAL (like someone to print your t-shirts or graphic designer)? Read this first. Guidelines for the Referral section.



## Rodney

T-Shirt Forums is generally not setup to be a marketplace for goods and services. Our goal is education and sharing of information about the t-shirt industry.

Because this is mostly a business to business forum and because so many of our members own or work for companies that offer similar services (and for a few other reasons ), we do not allow members to advertise their services in the forum posts or make self promotional posts offering or suggesting _their own_ products/services. 

*Please do not offer your own products or services in the forum threads* (with the exception of the Referrals area where members are specifically looking for paid services).

Please also note that *the forums are generally not a place to post looking for a graphic designer or t-shirt printer*. Because of our "no self promotion" rules, we tend to stay away from these type of service request posts that usually encourage people to make sales pitch type posts. *The exception is the REFERRALS AREA which has a unique set of guidelines as explained below*.​ Search engines, local phonebooks, our sister site *Printer Listings.com* (and of course our Preferred Vendors list ) are still some of the best ways to find supplies and vendors, but for those people that are having trouble finding a service provider that fits their needs, we now have the Referral and Recommendations forum.

If you're looking for a t-shirt printer (screen printer, dye sub, heat transfers, direct to garment, embroidery, etc) in your area or if you need some type of design or other t-shirt related services, please use the new Referrals and Recommendations section of the forum to post your request.
 
* With our large membership of t-shirt professionals, chances are, there is either someone in the forum that can do the work for you, or there is someone here who can point you in the right direction with a lead or two for you to try*.

To help combat the issue of spam and to discourage the overuse of link dropping, the posts made in this forum can only be seen by logged in T-ShirtForums.com members. That means the posts and replies made in this section *won't be picked up by Google* or any other search engine and they won't help your search engine rankings in any way 

*Just a few guidelines for this new section of the forum:*



*You must have made at least 1 post in the forum to use this section of the forum.* 

So go ahead and introduce yourself in the Member Introductions area and then post your request a little later (it may take up to an hour for the forum software to recognize that you need permissions to post in the Referrals section)


*You must have made at least 15 posts in the forum to be able to post a REPLY* in the thread. If you don't have 15 posts, you can still send a Private Message (PM) to the original poster with your referral or recommendation.


*Please be as specific as possible with your service request.

* This will help other members give you a more solid lead or know if they can provide the services you need. 

By specifics, I mean it would be helpful to include some details in your post like:


*your location in the world if you need a local vendor*
*type of service you need*
what kind of quantities *"per design" *that you need
whether you need printing on light or dark garments (or both)
if you prefer a specific type of printing technique (water based screen printing, DTG, plastisol transfers, dye sub, etc).

if you're looking for a designer, please post as many specifics as possible (style of graphic you're looking for, budget, etc)
basically, the idea here is _the more details the better we can help_ 

 

We do not allow "design contests" here. Because of the added complications of design contests, if you're interested in running a design contest, we ask that you use 3rd party sites that are already setup for that type of design work. Design contest sites include (but are not limited to) : 99Designs.com, DesignOutpost.com, and CrowdSpring.com
*Understand that by posting in this section of the forum, you are asking for commercial information to be sent to you *(either by Private Message or email). 

That means other forum members may post leads for you to businesses that they've used, or they may offer to do the work for you themselves. You get to decide how people contact you (Private Message, Email, phone). We won't share your email address with anyone, but we do offer a "secure email" feature that allows a logged in forum member to send you an email (without revealing your email address) by clicking on your member profile (if you have enabled this feature in your "Receive Email" section of the member control panel options.


*You can recommend your own services in the Referrals and Recommendations section of the forum (and in this section of the forum only) as a reply to a request. You cannot start a new thread advertising your own services. *This is the exception to the rule  

Private Message (PM) is still the best way to contact someone to offer your services, but if the person has PMs turned off, you are welcome to post a short message in their thread saying that your company offers they services they need with a way to contact you.


*Please try to avoid commenting about another member's recommendation or lead* unless the member specifically asks for feedback about the company. That means, don't say "that company sucks" or "that company is great".

Why? Because, although most people's intentions are pure, we don't always know if a company has registered for the forums pretending to be a "third party customer". Sometimes this fake "third party customer" will pretend to be a happy customer of X company or a disgruntled customer of X company. Yes, unfortunately, this does happen. We've setup this section of the forum to avoid this type of activity, but you never know.


In relation to the last guideline, please note that *by posting in this section of the forum, you may receive "biased" leads*. That means companies may contact you directly or_ indirectly_ to offer their services. 

By indirectly, that means that, although it is strictly against our site policies, sometimes companies may pose as "customers" to recommend their services. Sometimes people may recommend their cousin, brother, uncle, next door neighbor, best friend, colleague, _without disclosing their relationship_ to the person they are recommending. They may even act as a happy customer of that person, even if they're not. Yup, that's kind of shady, but unfortunately, people do it.


Lastly, a disclaimer in relation to guideline #7 
*
Please take the precautions you would ordinarily take as in any transactions involving money and items of value.

* T-ShirtForums.com, its owner, sponsors, and members are not responsible for any losses. The T-ShirtForums.com referrals and recommendations system has no provisions for assisting individuals who have been defrauded but if you have problems inform us immediately via the Feedback Forum, Private Message or e-mail. Abuses to this system will not be tolerated.


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## Rodney

Just a friendly reminder for those that may have missed this section


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## Rodney

Just a reminder bump


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