Question on linking to blogs

[samjh]

I have a question about links in posts.

According to the CoC, no unsolicited advertising is allowed. I have interpreted this quite broadly to include links which bear any mention of the poster's business, including blogs which double-up as business websites.

The question is: is my interpretation correct? I have just posted a message and linked to a post in my blog, then realised that because my blog contains pages for my business and is hosted on my business server, it could be considered unsolicited advertising and have removed the link.

It would be nice if someone in authority could clarify the breadth of what is considered "unsolicited advertising".

[Joeb454]

It depends largely on the context. If you have blog posts which are topical and relevant to the conversation, or a howto which would answer the posters question, by all means you can link to them :)

You may notice I have a link to my blog in my Sig, this too is acceptable (so you can add a link to yours if you wish), as long as there isn't grossly inappropriate content on there (which I'm sure there isn't).

That's my interpretation of the rule at least, I'll try and get some other staff to post their views as well :) (just in case I'm wrong!)

[ibuclaw]

I agree with Joe,

If your link is irrelevant with the thread, or is advertising a product of some non-free description, then that link is probably not really appropriate for this forum.

But that is not to say that there may be the odd occasion where it is ok to post a link to a product.
ie: Someone is having overheating problems with their laptop hard drive.
While you can post various tricks and hacks to overcome the problem on a software side - posting a link suggesting that the Original Poster should consider buying a laptop cooler is ontopic; and is relevant to resolving that persons problem - just so long as you fully rationalise the reason for you posting that link.

Or a silly example here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=823020
Where someone suggests buying Insect Chalk. ;)

But, on the serious side, if you post links in any other context, then that can be perceived as spam, and may lead to a spamban if you are a new user (less than 10 posts, to which and all follow the same trait of spamming), or a warning if you have been around with us for some time.

Regards
Iain

[samjh]

Thanks a lot, folks. Helpful as usual. :)