I like to propose amendment to 2 forum rules which are not beneficial to the Joomla community in any way.
The rules are
Any post I make which links to Tips and Tricks on our website(s) or elsewhere where people ask for a good hosting setup etc etc are being removed. As a result I need to copy/paste my articles to the forum which is a waste of time and helps nobody. As posted on the CMS list by multiple people we cannot link to blog posts that we have written explaining issues, training manuals, security explanations etc.... No we need to copy/paste documentation etc to this platform which is bothering so what happens is very clear: People do not do that (I don't in many cases) since it is enormous time consuming with the result that the user with issues is not properly handled unless I have somebody else post a link to our help and blogs etc etc.Any posts deemed to be self promotion, advertising, or spam can and will be removed. NO SPAM - NO ADVERTISING eg. Posting and making excessive, inappropriate and unnecessary references to your products and websites is self promotion.
That would be fair maybe but any link to a blog post, a Tip or manual on our own site is per definition deemed to be self promoting and links are being removed. Even links to a test site to show that certain problems can be overcome by doing this/that and following the solution as shown have been removed in the past. So do I now establish a test site for forum users so I can show that things DO work? No... since I have the risk actually of getting a 3 month Board Warning which is ridiculous since I am helping people!Posting and making excessive, inappropriate and unnecessary references to your products and websites is self promotion.
Again this rule does not help the Joomla community, it discourages to post the efforts!
The second rule which is not helpful at all is
First (if I am not sure that it is on the JED) and a user asks for a certain type of extension I need to find the link first by myself and see if it is actual on the JED yes/no and post the link to the extension on the forum request. That takes me every time 5 minutes so now I answer if somebody asks "what is a good editor" --> 'Find JCE in the extension directory' where a reply as " please visit http://www.joomlacontenteditor.net (which link i know by head) would have helped the user and me both. User does not has to search (do newbies find quickly extensions?: no!) and I do not have to find a stupid link on the JED. Similar situation as example " how do I put a module in an article or category" I am not allowed to state go to http://www.nonumber.nl and review "Modules Anywhere" which is where the user ends up anyhow but I have to dig out the link on the JED and post that linkLinking to extensions: If an extension (commercial or otherwise) is listed in the JED then the link from the forum must be to the approved JED listing only.
Sorry nobody can state that this is user friendly and is helping the community
So I do request the Leadership to reconsider these 2 forum rules
Leo Lammerink
MD GWS-Global Web Services Ltd