Absurd secret rules

[.RC.]

The logic is that cross-forum posting has been used by aggressive forum owners/members as a way to try to recruit new members to their forums and reduce the activity on the other forum. So we and most other forums do not allow it.

Except out of the lots of other forums I visit I have never come across this rule..

Ok I will try to supply an easy answer.

Forum "A" wants to increase its traffic i.e. hits per month to lift itself on any search engines so that if you are looking for anything related to widgets your Forum comes up at the top of the list.

Forum "A" owners ask their members to go out and put as many links in other forums to "poach" members thereby increasing their ranking on search engines.

They can then use this data to attract sponsors who pay them to advertise on their forums. A form of Spam.

The short answer is: It ain't allowed on this Forum.

And how often does that happen??

Still seems a particularly absurd rule to me, and to be honest in my opinion it is wrong for you to administer unwrittten rules.. It would take five minutes to update the rules thread to include this...

[Big Shed]

Try it on at Sawmill Creek.

..........or indeed Practical Machinist.

[.RC.]

..........or indeed Practical Machinist.

No such rule on PM forum...

[weisyboy]

As a real example of what could happen without such a rule, imagine a situation where a group of forum members decide they don't like a forum and set up their own. Nothing wrong with that. They then try to encourage members of the old forum to go to their new forum by posting links. We don't stop that, so long as the link is inactive (ie the reader can't just cllick through to the new forum, he has to copy the info,paste into the browser and delberately go there).

as apposed to teh reader antecedently clicking on a hotlink and accidentally going there, and then accidentally not realizing, and accidentally never coming back the your forum?

seams to me to be a pretty stupid rule.

[wheelinround]

Sorry but what's the difference between pointing to an item on another forum and cross linking it still takes you there. So Poaching members is a poor excuse.

This however explains it well but brief Cross Linking

For a fuller read Best Practices for Cross-linking | Links Back SEO

[Big Shed]

Ray, what is being discussed here is not cross-linking per se, it is linking to another forum.

As already explained linking to other web pages with content, such as businesses, individual sites, is OK. Creating a clickable link to another forum is not.

At the end of the day it is the owner of this forum that sets the rules, it is his prerogative, as it is our prerogative to not participate if we don't like his rules.

Bit like going to visit someone and you're asked to take your shoes off before you go inside I guess, their prerogative.

[.RC.]

At the end of the day it is the owner of this forum that sets the rules, it is his prerogative, as it is our prerogative to not participate if we don't like his rules.

But he has not set this rule as it is not written down... I am not psychic.

[Big Shed]

But he has not set this rule as it is not written down... I am not psychic.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, you already said that, you are repeating yourself.

Let me re-cap the sequence of events here.

You posted a clickable link to another forum

As these are not allowed, a Moderator (me) removed changed the clickable link to a non-clickable link. Something any of the Admins and/or Moderators do regularly. I could have left it at that, but I stated my reason for doing so in the edit box.

Whilst I was doing that, another member posted that he thought what you were doing was not allowed, ie he had seen this type of link being removed before.

Your beef is apparently two-fold, firstly you don't think Admins/Moderators should edit your posts, ie whatever you post is to be considered carved in stone, not to be altered.

Secondly, you consider this rule, which you contend is not a rule, "stupid". That is of course your prerogative, doesn't change the fact that it is still a rule.

At the end of the day, if you refer to the wording to the effect of "The forum Admins/Moderators reserve the right to delete or edit any post" I would think that covers it.

If you want every eventuality that could possibly occur covered by a "written" rule I think you are going to be disappointed.

.RC., in my opinion you are a valuable member of this forum, I always enjoy reading your posts and have learned a lot from them.

In this case I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

[.RC.]

Sorry bigshed but I get annoyed when rules do not follow logic and the "vibe" takes over.. I never used to be like this but over the last many years I have seen rule after rule imposed because of some occurrence that the odds of it actually happening is a trillion to one but people actually fear it for some reason...All that ends up happening is yet more freedoms to make life fun and easy gets stomped upon for little if any gain..

This rule severely restricts the ability to help people and is a greater hindrance than any benefit it may create.. The forum software automatically turns any link into a clickable link... how can I make this https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/sh...r-mill-121568/ unclickable

Yes I do not like moderators touching my posts.. IMO, deletion is preferable to third party editing provided that deletion is transparent..

[wheelinround]

G'day .RC.,
I think you'll find that the modification is standard to all forums, as you are a bit wrong in stating that your post was modified because it had an "Internet link" in it.
It was modified because it contained a "cross forum link" which in the wrong circumstances can cause Mods and Admins on both forums very serious problems.
You are not being singled out for "special treatment"...as ever since I've been a Mod & Admin I delete those links every time I come across them.

Sorry Fred but how much could it be plainer from Watson's post

This is what really takes place by doing it

Referring to links between a family of domains - for example your business site, your personal homepage and your cat's homepage. Cross linking is sometimes used to inflate link popularity. Although not yet proven (to my knowledge), excessive cross linking is widely believed to be penalized by the search engines.

This would the as said penalise This forum in Googles search would it not.

That is the reason it will be come a rule for this forum correct.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, you already said that, you are repeating yourself.

Let me re-cap the sequence of events here.

You posted a clickable link to another forum

As these are not allowed, a Moderator (me) removed changed the clickable link to a non-clickable link. Something any of the Admins and/or Moderators do regularly. I could have left it at that, but I stated my reason for doing so in the edit box. Yet as has been admitted to by Mod's here there is no such rule. If the rule is such for links this covers all links even such as personal ones to web sites such as my own, business sites etc which now have Facebook, Myspace, Twitter all forms of Forums.

Whilst I was doing that, another member posted that he thought what you were doing was not allowed, ie he had seen this type of link being removed before.

Your beef is apparently two-fold, firstly you don't think Admins/Moderators should edit your posts, ie whatever you post is to be considered carved in stone, not to be altered. Its been talked about before Fred recall the editing done in NZcarvers posts and others. Yes by all means edit if you must but an explanation should be posted by the mod who does it a notification as to why. Otherwise it can be seen to be a vilification if you like

Secondly, you consider this rule, which you contend is not a rule, "stupid". That is of course your prerogative, doesn't change the fact that it is still a rule.

At the end of the day, if you refer to the wording to the effect of "The forum Admins/Moderators reserve the right to delete or edit any post" I would think that covers it.

If you want every eventuality that could possibly occur covered by a "written" rule I think you are going to be disappointed.

.RC., in my opinion you are a valuable member of this forum, I always enjoy reading your posts and have learned a lot from them.

In this case I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

[RayG]

Hi All,

After reading .RC's post I was looking for the information on Australian tool makers he linked to, but since the link was deleted I just googled it using the site?? format.

Subsequently, I decided that maybe I had better read the Forum Rules, did that, but couldn't find any mention of a rule banning linking to other forums. Then I noticed this thread...

While I respect the administration of the forum is entirely within the control and disgression of the owners admins and mods. Seems like the cross linking rule might well just drive people to use other tools, thus, the intention of stopping people visiting other forums has failed.

My suggestion would be that perhaps either the rule, or the way it is implemented needs to be reviewed.

Preferably dropped altogether.

Regards
Ray

[Lignum]

It is a silly rule, and there is no such rule on Big Footy, and that’s probably Australia’s biggest forum.

[Scott]

I dare say the sponsors of this forum would like to know that direct linking to other forums is a no, no. I know I would.

Seriously, I think it's a non-issue. I know I've got better things to read and this forum provides some magnificent ideas, knowledge and discussion well beyond this thread.

[joe greiner]

1. The AAW Forum has allowed my direct links to this forum, to expand some of my posts there, or clarify something, usually to enable more pictures. No, I will not post an example.

2. As a practical matter of computer programming, however, cross-links between forums can accidentally or deliberately create an endless loop. Not much fun for anyone.

A few years ago, direct links were allowed here. But apparently there were enough hiccups to discourage it.

It would be wonderful if moderators had nothing better to do than to explore a bunch of blind alleys. That's not the case, of course.

I'm not persuaded that poaching is such a big deal. Lots of us are members of other forums. And nobody has time to dance with all the girls anyway.

Cheers,
Joe

[Cliff Rogers]

... And nobody has time to dance with all the girls anyway.....

There are girls?