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General discussion

For Brink903...

Jul 4, 2007 8:08AM PDT

While linking to answers found in other forums is not prohibited the repeated linking to the same forum shows an invested interest, particularly when questions are answered solely in that fashion. Your five posts, two of which were replies to threads no longer displayed on the first page, fell under the advertising and linking policies and were removed. The information was good, but if you would, please post the answers here instead of repeatedly linking to the competing forums. As a fellow moderator I hope you can appreciate this position.

Thank you.
John Wilkinson

Discussion is locked

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Reply
Jul 5, 2007 11:46AM PDT

John,

Sorry. I did not mean for it to be for advertising. I posted the tips at the other forum to be able to help people with their problems. I refer to those links so I do not have to repeatedly type the same solutions over and over. Especially the more involved ones. I hope you can understand that. For you, I will type out the solutions for the easy to explain ones and only link the more detailed ones if that would be ok.

Regards,
Shawn Brink

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Understandable, but....
Jul 5, 2007 4:31PM PDT

I ran a general web search and found your presence in at least eight other online communities, where almost all posts linked back to the forum you moderate. In at least five of those other forums your signature displays as:

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
'_www.*****.com_' (http://www.*****.com/www.*****.com)
Please post feedback to help others.

or

"Practice makes perfect, then you reinstall"
'_http://*****.com_' (http://*****.com)
Please post feedback to help others.

While you haven't done that here, that is direct solicitation for the 'competition.' Combined with 'digging' solely your own tutorials and always linking back to the one forum no matter which forum you're on, it does appear to be an extensive advertising campaign, whether you mean it to be or not. (Google finds over 2,000 posts linking back to your tutorials and all signed as "Brink" or "Shawn," and that search excluded the website of the forum in question.)

As I said it's great information and you've obviously invested a lot of time into it, but the one-directional linking is prohibited. Since you're the author the simplest solution would be to copy-and-paste the instructions here on a case-by-case basis, without the URL at all. That would relieve you of the burden of having to retype the solutions but enable you to help countless members without the appearance of advertising or other improprieties.

John

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Reply
Jul 5, 2007 4:49PM PDT

John,

I was not aware that the other sites were excluded. I do not know why they would be. It may seem like a ad compaign, but honestly I just happen to be all over the place on the net.

What you suggest seems to be a fair compromise and I will comply with your wishes on the matter.

Sorry for any trouble. None meant.

Shawn

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Reply errors??
Jul 5, 2007 9:23PM PDT

John,

There seems to be a error with the replies. The site told me there was some unknown error and that the replies were not posted. That's why there are a few. I tried to reply a few times and gave up. When I checked this morning, I couldn't believe that they all posted with incorrect post number counts. ????

So please do not take them that I was upset. I'm not.

Shawn

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It was a forum glitch...
Jul 6, 2007 1:22AM PDT

Last night a forum glitch caused a series of duplicates and Cnet 404s, but it's now been resolved. I'm cleaning up the duplicates.

No worries.
John