New to forums and have a question

[donnaenden]

I am realitively new to these forums and I would like to ask a question about private messages. I recieved one from someone and under their user name it says banned; does this mean that the member has been banned from the forums? I did not want to reply because I didn't know what any of it meant. The person also had a web address in the post also - is this allowed? Thank you for the information it would greatly be appreciated for no where could I find what the words under each members name meant.
Thank you
donnaenden

[Xandax]

Banned does in fact mean the person has been banned from the forum for some reason. A number of ways to be banned is advertisement or posting inappropiate material, piracy etc.
Check out the forum rules for more info on that.

As for posting link being "allowed", it depends on the links, as per the above mention - advertisement, inappropriate material, piracy and similar. So the content decides whether it is allowed or not. Just remember, never to click a link you receive from a source you do not trust, as you have no idea what they refer to. We do our best to keep all links on the open forum clean and controlled, however private messages are a different matter.

Many advertisement "bots" and posters use private messages to advertise outside what we moderators can control, which is given your description what you've received. We'll still attempt to take action based on reports from people who've been "spammed" in private messages if we can.

So just delete such private messages, there is little reason (or benefit) to reply, even if the user isn't banned.

Welcome to the forum.

[donnaenden]

I have been out of town for awhile, so I haven't been on to reply. I see however, that many others received the same "spam" or banned material as I did. I never open internet links or e-mails unless I know who they are from, that is why I asked and I greatly appreciate you getting back to me with the answer. I knew something about it was strange.
donnaenden