Legal Stuff & Disclaimers

Tedious junk that it’s still important to mention and get out of the way.

• 43 Folders® is a registered trademark of Merlin Mann. It's true. His lawyer helped him get the trademark, and now it's all official. Pretty crazy, huh?
• All 43 Folders posts and comments © their original owners. Everything else (including the design) is © Merlin Mann, 2004-2008. Writing is reusable solely under the BY-NC-ND Creative Commons License. Please don’t be a douche with our stuff.
• The site is not affiliated with or particularly approved of by any of the companies, products, methodologies, or people that it mentions (apart from enjoying the occasional but surprisingly modest lucre that is afforded by Amazon Associate links, Google AdSense ads and the like).
• All names and trademarks mentioned on the site are the property of their respective owners. But you knew that, right?
• Here’s David Allen’s “official” definition of “GTD”. He seems to like when people link to it.
• All information, links, and other content on 43 Folders and its related sites are provided in the hope that they will be useful, but they are all offered on an as-is basis and without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Your mileage may quite definitely vary, et cetera.

Other pedantic notes (that will save us both time)

• First email flame goes to /dev/null; second (and subsequent) goes “bouncy bouncy” without further comment.
• Invitations to exchange links, participate in “free iPod”-style offers, and similar nonsense all get deleted immediately.
• You can send us stuff to review or suggest things to talk about on the site, but there’s absolutely no guarantee that it will result in a post—let alone a positive post. We like presents more than flacks, but who doesn’t, right?
• We’re not nearly as tight-assed as this all would have you believe, but the world is complicated, people can be tools, and there’s only so many hours in a day. But, again, you knew that.

The rules for commenting

AKA: “Any man don’t keep order spends a night in the box.”

(This needs an update for our new membership-required site, but you get the idea)

• All comments and TrackBacks are deletable or cunningly re-editable at our sole discretion.
• Own your comment with a real name and real, permanent email address. If we respond to your comment offline and it bounces, you’re out of here. Comments with fakey (or non-permanent) emails are deleted without comment and the user may be banned at our discretion. (Quite a meanie, eh?)
• Comments in a post are not the place to post bugs, “say hi,” or piss and moan about how we don’t talk about Windows (boo hoo). Off-topic comments are removed with neither hesitation nor notice.
• Comments don’t need signatures. There are fields provided for your name and the URL of your site right above the comment textarea, so please don’t duplicate that info in your actual comment. I know the books on marketing via weblogs say this is a great idea; it’s not. It’s cheesy, so don’t do it. How are signatures deleted? That’s right; without comment.
• Please don’t troll, derail threads, or speak harshly to the other children. Deletion is a no-brainer; banning is a tantalizing option.
• We’re not here to help promote your blog or your business; self-links are okay if they’re acknowledged as such and are really pertinent; if we think the link is mostly self-promotional, your comment will be removed or edited without notice. If you’re not sure whether a link is appropriate, just ask first. Related…
• Important: If you’re recommending (or, for that matter, slagging) something, and most especially if you’re linking someplace, disclose any relationship that you have to that person, product, or company. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • friends, family, employers, employees, investors, investees, and partners
  • former or likely friends, family, employers, employees, investors, investees, and partners
  • BzzAgent-style CheeseBrokers offering Fabulous Prizes™ in return for your Astroturfing (get the feeling we don’t like BzzAgent so much? Cool. We can live with that.)
  • Any other relationship that—when later discovered by me or intrepid readers—would make people say “Well, dang, that’s kind of lame.” Listen to your heart, and please don’t try to spread cheese on my site.
• Try to be funny, nice, or smart. Being more than one is truly intoxicating to us.