I recently wrote a review of Jet Car Stunts that somebody commented on in the thread and a forum member publicly asked if I would provide a link. I replied with the following: Arn then edits this out and says that I am breaking their rule, even though I did not post a link. In fact, I feel I am enforcing it here. He also gave me an infraction for "Spammed Promotion". Prior to this event, Arn has personally told me that putting a link to my site in my signature is perfectly appropriate, so has something changed or is this infraction just for the sake of it?
Really quite weird... I've gotten an infraction for "Spammed Advertisements" because I was saying a review of the game would be up on my site (this was when I wasn't with NoDPad yet). However, I haven't received an infraction after that yet though I have posted links to NoDPad when people asked for info on a specific game or subject that we did a write-up on. Maybe it's because I put "if this link isn't supposed to be here, please feel free to remove it" in my post? Still pretty weird though.
Sure, you can put links in your sig, but posting "Hey, click on my sig to read my review" is the same as posting a link. The whole point of the rule is not whether or not you physically post a link or not. It's to reduce or eliminate spam. "Hey, check out my site, click on my sig!!!!" is clearly against the spirit of the rules. We welcome all participation, but if the purpose of your post is to drive traffic to your site... well, that's called "spam". arn
Arn just told me that. However, I was only trying to help another forum member. I can understand TA's issue with me pointing to my signature if it was purely promotional, but this was an act of selflessness.
You can't refer to links in your signature. That's just completely trying to go around the rule. You can have links in signatures but you can't say in a post "go click the link in my sig". That's the exact same thing as just posting the link in a post. Your options were to say to that person "Sorry can't post links" or just wait for someone else to post to it. What you did was still self-promotion.
It seems both of the mods missed my point by miles. I think the rule needs to be edited to allow people like myself who come from other sites to help others if they request our assistance. That is morally right, no?
I suppose if it's the first time you had done so I might have agreed with you. We're not "out to get" STP. In fact, we've been very lenient with the site in general with regard to self promotion, and it's not an exaggeration that another site would have been more strongly warned over time. In this situation if you had said nothing, another user would have certainly posted a link. arn
I suppose you could've said something along the lines of "Another user might be kind enough to link you to the article", but it seems like an unneccesarily long way of doing it, since either way the link is going to be pointed out.
Simplicity is key. The mods don't want to spend time debating fringe cases. Simple rule: You own a site, work at a site, are otherwise significantly associated with a site? Don't promote it here. arn
Thank you. Somebody is finally getting the point. Why does it matter if I post it or the next person does? Its still a link to STP.
That's because we don't care about the actual link itself. Once you realize that, you'll realize why the rule exists. arn
