Does fishtankforums have restrictions against posting links to other resources?

[lostanime]

I was very shocked and disappointed when one of my prior posts was modified to remove a URL I included to point members to additional excellent marine resources online.

I did not post a link to any ad or other profitable website - just another non-profit collection of information online for the benefit of the person asking questions (just like I would have posted links to fishtankforums from other forums I'm active on whenever appropriate, until now)

[Loman]

lostanime,

Presently that is the policy within the forum. Given your post/question I am confident we will discuss this policy amongst the mods and staff to see if it needs revised and/or clarified. In the mean time let me explain the rationale.

We have in the past had people post links to many different sites, some of which was simply not appropriate for assorted reasons. In part these links could be to non related material etc. Additionally given the site is funded via advertisements we do not want to promote a person leaving the forum if there is any way they can get the information within FTF. In general we encourage people to post the material that they are entitled to directly within FTF. We have recently had a significant discussion regarding the potentialinapproriate recruiting of members of this forum to other places. I share that jsut to say we are maybe a little more sensitive to this these days than typically. Hope this helps explain our rationale. If you have any questions feel free to PM me or any of the mods and we can try to explain further. As I mentioned we will also discuss the policy and confirm that we do not need to revise it in some manner

[gm333]

As Loman has stated that is our current policy.
I for one feel there are many great sites to find information that is not contained in another forum, or visible links to another forum contained in that link.
As stated by Loman if we feel the need that the current status of our no linking to other forum policy needs to be further discussed we shall do so.
I would also like to stress that linking to other forums for information is not as personal as answering the questions by the individual poster. Any one individual can post a link to another persons answer or advice, but when the information given is from the individual posting, it has a more hands on aspect that we would like to keep hold of on this site. There are many sites out there where it is not uncommon to find 4-5 links in the thread because it seems that is much easier than personally explaining it.

I personally did not see the link, but if it did contain a forum then it was taken out accordingly by one of our mods.

[lostanime]

I would like to clarify that I posted a link to another non-profit resource that was specifically not a forum (although prior to the discovery that links away from ftf are unacceptable, I would have posted links to forums as well with the best of intentions!)

I would hope that the mission and intent of this website is to inform and help other aquarists in this wonderful hobby by providing as much relevant information as possible - which was what I was trying to accomplish (I included the link as a resource to look up compatibility and husbandry needs for any future fish being considered)

Judging by the replies I'm already seeing - I'm beginning to suspect the intent and driving force for the decisions on this site are based on the assumption that members can only actively belong to one forum, so everything must be done to discourage them leaving this site since it's important for members to rack up advertisement exposure here to fund the site.

I'm not upset and I don't take any of this personally, but I would like to reiterate that this seems like a counter-productive practice if the primary goal if this site is to get quality information to members. I am not trying to "rock the boat" or argue - just raising the point that it doesn't seem to make sense to restrict users to the content of this site if the point is to get information to people...

[bernard]

OK ;someone put this reply to or where whomever;I remember seeing a list of Aquarium clubs ,I think was across North America?? & was wondering if FTF has contacted all of them to gain more membership? I ashked for anyone in the Bolton Brampton area to contact me if they were a member & got ziltz answers ,even though oou club has been going since '70's. Maybe they don't know or for whatever the reason;do you think we could increase membership by this means,seeing as how we need mpre members,or maybe no one has any problems or suggestions .