This has started to bother me recently, and I just wanted to bring it up to see what others have been thinking.

AW Moderators (especially neilm), you guys REALLY need to relax. I understand that there need to be some posting guidelines, but I post on a number of online forums, and AW is by far the most strict, and your rules are beginning to border on absurd. It makes coming on here less and less fun, something which I think is ashame. I've had posts with what I considered important, interesting information deleted recently because I mentioned an AutoSpeed part somewhere in it, I've had posts deleted because someone else interjected into the thread and asked to buy something from me, and I've had posts outlining EBay fraud warnings (whether it was a fraudulent seller or just a dishonest listing) for other members deleted because I mentioned EBay in it. Its getting to the point where I feel like posting somewhere else and just coming here for the archives. I offer 2 of my deleted posts from the last couple days (keep in mind that I have had over a dozen posts deleted recently under, what I believe to be, ridiculous grounds, I only chose the most recent 2).

<a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/2038571.phtml">https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/2038571.phtml</a>

<a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/2035430.phtml">https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/2035430.phtml</a>

 

RE: https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/2038571.phtml
We have no way of knowing if someone is pimping their own auctions and therefore we do not allow eBay links.
RE: https://forums.audiworld.com/s4/msgs/2035430.phtml
"If you are looking for a XXX keep your eyes on the classifieds *wink, wink* :-)" We consider this selling in the forums, which is against the Terms of Use.

 

It's the classic struggle for balance between order and freedom. I hope one day they figure it out.

 

that sentence did conform to the guidelines (please see bold section below from the AudiWorld Discussion Forums Terms of Use). However, my overall point here is that you guys seem to be stretching for reasons to delete posts recently. That was a post about me buying new seats for my car and sharing the pics with my fellow S4 owners. Aside from that one sentence, which I argue is even questionable, there was nothing about that post that would be realistically considered an "advertisment" as outlined in the guidelines. Much of the discussion at the time you deleted it focused around the seats I had bought, the different color combinations offered by Audi, and my original question of whether or not anyone had done this to their Nogaro S4 before (the types of enthusiast conversations I would think you would want to cultivate here on the boards). I even made it a point not to reply to any of the posts made that seemed to be people interested in buying my old seats, just out of fear that it would be deleted if those parts of the thread began to branch out. Obviously, that ultimately didn't matter though.

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Linking to AW classifieds is permitted as per the terms of use, but yet is prohibited?

Did we miss a detail on this particular case?

 

EBay is an affiliate not a sponsor

 

There was no link to a classified

 

And....???

 

so link to classifieds ok, but saying "keep an eye on the classifieds" is not? that's just stupid.

 

clicking on links = no $?