As Administrator for this community I am involved in the policy making, rules and the important decisions. I was the one who sent you that private message. I try to handle situations like that in private because so many people have told me they like it so much more when such things are done in private rather than in public. I'll comment on this and the owner will also probably have some comments.
The first thing you need to remember is how serious spam is. We do our very best to keep as much of it out of here as possible. We get a lot of it, but most members don't see much of it since we keep it under control.
I know of some communities where what you posted would have been considered as spam. Your post would have been deleted and you would have been banned. That isn't what was done here.
When a person joins a forum, one of the first things they should do is read the rules. The forum decides on what rules it wants and those are the rules that apply to all of the members. Even if the member doesn't read the rules, the rules are there and the rules should be applied. It is that way with this community as well as others.
Here are a couple of line from our rules:
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• Please make sure that you are posting for the good of the community, not just for the sake of self-promotion
• Please refrain from posting affiliate links and press releases in our forums.
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It clearly says that you should not post affiliate links. Since the rules state that you should refrain from posting affiliate links you should not have made a post containing an affiliate link. It is against the rules. Here is a link to the rules
http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5s...cement.php?f=4
You posted in the General Topics Affiliate Forum which also contains this brief statement:
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NO ADS, affiliate links or self promotion in any discussion forums!
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Again members are told not to use any affiliate links.
5 Star does make it possible for you to do what you are wanting to do. There are a couple of ways in which you could do it that are provided for in the rules. We just want people to follow the rules. This community gives people a lot more opportunity to promote and sell than a lot do. All we want is for people to do it according to the rules.
We allow signatures. You are allowed to have affiliate links in your signature. So if members have an affiliate link they can place it in their signature. But that doesn't mean a person can do a lot of promoting in their post and then tell people to check their signature. The signature is there and people will see it.
We also have an Ads and Offers Forum where people can advertise and use signature links. But it still has some rules. All ads are reviewed before they are displayed in that forum. You wanted to place an ad in this forum. It wasn't displayed because you don't meet the requirements of the rules for that forum, which are as follows:
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Must have 20 posts, been a member for 60 days and be a member in good standing to advertise here. This is the only place ads or 2nd tier affiliate links are allowed. NO GAMBLING, RX, ADULT, ACTIVE X, MLM or Drive-By-SPAM allowed. No more than one ad every 30 days allowed.
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Members who meet those requirements can post their ads in that forum, complete with affiliate links. But the important thing to remember is that people who visit that forum are fully aware that they are seeing advertising. After all, the name of the forum is Ads and Offers Forum.
So often people who are advertising try to make it look as if they aren't advertising and are just trying to do something nice to help people.
Another member had a post a few hours after yours for the same thing you did. It was very short. It read like this and was followed by the affiliate link:
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I found a great free reference to internet marketing and thought i would share it!
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That isn't being truthful. The person wanted to post it in order to try to earn a commission and violate our rules in the process.
Your post also tries to give the impression that you are just trying to help people by making some information available to them and that you have no other purpose in mind, when in fact you are posting to try to earn a commission.
Another very important fact is that there are a lot of very experienced people who are 5 Star members. There are a lot of smart people among our membership. They know what these things are when they see them. The thing you are most likely to do is upset many of them for violating the rules and they would complain to us if we didn't do something about it. Members do complain and report rules violations if they happen to see it before we catch it. They know the rules, they follow the rules and they expect other members to do the same.
Yes people do post in these forums to give people ideas and to be helpful. But people must not violate the rules in the process or possibly try to fool people. Many people post something that is done just to help others and they get no personal gain from doing it.
What was done with your post has been done with others in the past who had affiliate links in a post that was related to something that could be of benefit to our members. The affiliate link is removed and the information is left so our members can check into it if they wish since the affiliate link should not have been there in the first place. However other options are available since suchs posts are in violation of the rules.
People can link to sources that are useful to the members. I have a forum here at 5 Star in which I do that on a regular basis. I also link to this which makes it 100% clear that I'm not doing it for my personal benefit
Welcome to Webmasters Universe - and Rules
Here is one important portion from that:
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I want to be objective as well as being viewed as being objective. It is not as easy to be objective, or be seen as being objective, when writing about something that could benefit the writer.
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This relates to this issue in that when people are linking to something that contains their affiliate link they might not always be trying to be helpful to the members. In some cases they are doing it for their financial gain.
The rules are flexible enough to allow members to link to something of value to members. Just make certain it isn't something with an affiliate link. The affiliate links can be used in the signature and in the Ads and Offers Forum.
Is This The Death of Internet Marketing?
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