The Place that cannot be named!

[chas49]

Over on this topic the OP seems to think that it's bad form to mention the forum MoneySavingExpert on these boards.

I think this may have been the case at TMF, but surely we haven't imported everything from the "old place", or have we?

[PinkDalek]

Over on this topic the OP seems to think that it's bad form to mention the forum MoneySavingExpert on these boards.

I think this may have been the case at TMF, but surely we haven't imported everything from the "old place", or have we?

I think there a number of aspects to this and as no-one else has replied, I'll attempt to get the ball rolling.

1. I thought a link to MoneySavingExpert was relevant to that discussion and I included the link later in the thread. As it turned out, that was the one the OP was thinking about.

2. The Rules here include Posting of links to 3rd party sites is acceptable where it is entirely relevant to the discussion. However, any links promoting a 3rd party site are not allowed. I haven't searched but I think there has been discussion on what the fleshed out version of that would be or, at least, it may have appeared in Mod Box comments.

3. I don't think it was a hard and fast rule at TMF (I haven't looked back at the Posting Guidelines etc) but links direct to such places would have been frowned upon, if no content was placed within the post and no encouragement to discuss at TMF rather than in the other place.

4. On here none of us would wish to drive traffic elsewhere, as that would presumably result in a loss of advertising revenue for our hosts, if it meant the poster didn't return here.

5. I think I've also seen mention of a possible drop in advertising revenue, if there are too many links on here to elsewhere. Something about the bots spotting this and TLF getting a stroppy message along those lines.

More generally, I'm renowned for being a linker, something I learnt from supremetwo many years back. I try to do it to support the position, perhaps in a Woodward and Bernstein manner, such as to HMRC's internal Manual. Providing an extract but encouraging the reader to read the entirety. Obviously they (HMRC) are not a commercial site (yet but the same would apply when one mentions Paul Scott has written something relevant to the discussion at Stockopedia. I've not knowingly been Modded for doing that but, as there are no deletion messages as such, I wouldn't necessarily know.

Incidentally, is this not something the Mods talk about in their Mod Discussion place?

[melonfool]

I'm not aware that MSE has ever been mentioned in the mod room.

I accept all your points. I don't think TLF has any 'policy' (!), or convention ( ) on not mentioning any particular sites, but one would hope that site users would not intentionally send other users away to 'competitors' I guess.

Mel

[mc2fool]

I think there a number of aspects to this and as no-one else has replied, I'll attempt to get the ball rolling.

That lot's too big a ball . There's only one aspect and it's....

2. The Rules here include Posting of links to 3rd party sites is acceptable where it is entirely relevant to the discussion. However, any links promoting a 3rd party site are not allowed.

That's it!

3. I don't think it was a hard and fast rule at TMF (I haven't looked back at the Posting Guidelines etc) but links direct to such places would have been frowned upon, if no content was placed within the post

I think that's relevant to all links, not just to the likes of MSE. Just a bare link to anywhere, even be it an FT article or the like, is, IMO, lacking the common courtesy of giving readers an idea of what they'll find at the other end of it, and why the poster thinks what they'll find is relevant and useful.

[PinkDalek]

I'm not aware that MSE has ever been mentioned in the mod room.

...

I was talking more generally, as I don't know what "any links promoting a 3rd party site are not allowed" actually means. If it means solely to promote then I understand. However, linking to Stockopedia, as per my example, does promote that site.

[csearle]

I'm not aware that MSE has ever been mentioned in the mod room.

...

I was talking more generally, as I don't know what "any links promoting a 3rd party site are not allowed" actually means. If it means solely to promote then I understand. However, linking to Stockopedia, as per my example, does promote that site.

I think it is a judgement call as to whether a link to a third party site is simply referring to it or promoting it. That I feel depends upon the accompanying text. C.

[chas49]

The OP in that topic didn't even want to mention MSE. I wouldn't even consider objecting (or modding) a mention.

Am I wrong (just mentions not links)?

[PinkDalek]

The OP in that topic didn't even want to mention MSE. I wouldn't even consider objecting (or modding) a mention.

Am I wrong (just mentions not links)?

No, sorry, I'm sure you are not. In the same way that we can mention LoveMoney (remember them?), should we so wish.

I was merely trying to expand upon the subject.

[chas49]

The OP in that topic didn't even want to mention MSE. I wouldn't even consider objecting (or modding) a mention.

Am I wrong (just mentions not links)?

No, sorry, I'm sure you are not. In the same way that we can mention LoveMoney (remember them?), should we so wish.

I was merely trying to expand upon the subject.

Yes, and it was a useful expansion. Just wanted some input on my original question too

[Gengulphus]

3. I don't think it was a hard and fast rule at TMF (I haven't looked back at the Posting Guidelines etc) but links direct to such places would have been frowned upon, if no content was placed within the post and no encouragement to discuss at TMF rather than in the other place.

There were two actual posting guidelines at TMF that I'm aware of and are at least related to that, plus a general purpose-of-the-boards principle that I don't think was actually a stated posting guideline but may well sometimes have been applied as if it were one.

One posting guideline was essentially a 'no advertising by posters' rule: the poster should have no commercial interest in sites they linked to. Owning the site linked to or doing paid work advertising it was not allowed; mentioning it when you were only a satisfied customer (or indeed a dissatisfied one!) was fine.

The other posting guideline was essentially a 'respect copyright law' rule|: any quote from a link had to be of non-copyrighted material, or you had to own the copyright, or it had to conform to the 'fair use' principle in copyright law. The main rules I remember about doing the last are that:

* the quote must be attributed;

* the quote must be of a fairly small part of the copyrighted work;

* the quote must be for the purposes of review, criticism or similar purposes (so posting a link and a quote from it without adding anything of your own is not 'fair use');

* the quote must be relevant to that review, criticism, etc, and no more than is reasonably needed for it (so posting a link and a big quote from it and adding a comment of your own about one minor detail of that quote isn't 'fair use' either).

And finally, the general purpose-of-the-boards principle was simply that they were discussion boards. Posting just a "bare link" doesn't add any actual discussion to a board, so didn't really fit that principle.

By the way, I'm not saying that any of those were enforced rigidly by TMF - as for all the other posting guidelines, a lot depended on whether readers reported them to the moderators. I'm sure for instance that a lot of 'bare links' were posted without any moderator action being taken against them. But all bets were off about that if someone did so to the extent of seriously getting up readers' noses - for instance, by posting large numbers of 'bare links', especially if many of them turned out to be of marginal relevance to the discussion when readers did actually follow them...

Gengulphus

[melonfool]

And finally, the general purpose-of-the-boards principle was simply that they were discussion boards. Posting just a "bare link" doesn't add any actual discussion to a board, so didn't really fit that principle.

Gengulphus

Yes, this has come up here, it comes up regularly on Polite Discussion (in this context, 'discussion' is the operative word, more so than polite), and moderators will remove posts that simply have a link to something else. It's akin to chucking a stink bomb in a room and running away and, in my view, is a form of trolling as you just want to start an argument and not give your own view.

Discussion is indeed the name of the game!

Mel