# Non-commercial links are not allowed?



## webtrek

Hi. I have read the regulations about not posting commercial links. I was going to post some useful URLS to non-profit language projects but turns out I can't. Because the machine can't (obviousy) decide what is commercial and what isn't. So I think you either vets submissions yourselves or you change the forum rules. Nothing polemic, it just makes sense, doesn't it?


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## belén

Actually, it isn't allowing you because you still haven't reached the 30 posts.

Cheers,
Belén


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## Aupick

Actually, _junior members_ are not allowed to post links at all. When you get to be a _member_, you can post links. (You're almost there! You become a member at 30 posts.)


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## cuchuflete

Buon giorno Webtrek,

While we are on this subject, the rules seem pretty clear, but there is a bit of room for interpretation. Promotional links of any kind are strictly forbidden. That holds for both commercial and for non-commercial sites. Obvbiously it doesn't make sense to use the WordReference forum to promote competitive sites, such as machine translators and the like.

A link to a site with commercial offerings or advertising may be perfectly ok if the link is posted with a clear educational, rather than promotional, purpose.

Here's a common example. Someone wants to cite a book pertinent to a thread discussion. If they give a link to the publisher's description of the work, that is fine, even if it may coincidentally be a bit of 'free advertising' for the publisher. However, we often see links to a page showing the book, at the site of a major internet bookseller. That is not ok at all. Such links are disabled or deleted. 

Just use your own good judgement to decide what complies with the spirit of our rules. If you still have doubts, PM any moderator for help.

Best regards,
Cuchuflete


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## webtrek

Thanks for telling me about the 30-post rule. No, i am talking 100% non commercial, non-profit, nothing! How about Wikipedia, for eg.? How about Wikidictionary? How about state universities? I am not promoting stuff of any kind, and neither are lots of folks here. Bun then again, just update the rules, so we know exactly what can and can't be done. Thanks!


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## cuchuflete

webtrek said:
			
		

> Thanks for telling me about the 30-post rule. No, i am talking 100% non commercial, non-profit, nothing! How about Wikipedia, for eg.? How about Wikidictionary? How about state universities? I am not promoting stuff of any kind, and neither are lots of folks here. Bun then again, just update the rules, so we know exactly what can and can't be done. Thanks!



In general sites like Wikipedia are just fine.   The key question in posting a link is, "Does the posting of this link have a promotional intent, or is it educational?"   If it is clearly educational, it may be fine to link to a commercial site.

regards,
Cuchuflete


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## NavyBlue

I've been trying unsuccessfully to let people know about my non-commercial website. 

I'm not selling anything, just sharing educational resources for free, basically personal work.

For what I've been reading, I can only think the reason for the rejection might be some ads included on it. Those ads are there because I don't have my own domain name. I'm using an on-line page builder.

I also included some links to some interesting educational websites INCLUDING WORDREFERENCE, *which I have been advertising for free for about 3 years *by the way.

I'm also a Senior Member of Wordreference because I've posted more than 30 messages.

Despite all this, I understand you have the right to choose which messages you want to post and maybe mine does not fulfill the requirements of the forum rules, but I would just appreciate some moderators to tell me what the problem is. I've seen they message users for - in  my opinion - less important reasons.

I hope you'll understand my point. It is really frustrating when you keep on trying to post a message, you click on “Post” and you get another you can hardly read because the window redirects you to the forum page so quickly and you wait and wait but your message just doesn't come up and you write it again and again thinking there might be a problem with your Internet access.

Best regards,

Navy


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## cuchuflete

NavyBlue said:
			
		

> I've been trying unsuccessfully to let people know about my non-commercial website.
> 
> I'm not selling anything, just sharing educational resources for free, basically personal work.
> 
> For what I've been reading, I can only think the reason for the rejection might be some ads included on it. Those ads are there because I don't have my own domain name. I'm using an on-line page builder.
> 
> I also included some links to some interesting educational websites INCLUDING WORDREFERENCE, *which I have been advertising for free for about 3 years *by the way.
> 
> I'm also a Senior Member of Wordreference because I've posted more than 30 messages.
> 
> Despite all this, I understand you have the right to choose which messages you want to post and maybe mine does not fulfill the requirements of the forum rules, but I would just appreciate some moderators to tell me what the problem is. I've seen they message users for - in my opinion - less important reasons.
> 
> I hope you'll understand my point. It is really frustrating when you keep on trying to post a message, you click on “Post” and you get another you can hardly read because the window redirects you to the forum page so quickly and you wait and wait but your message just doesn't come up and you write it again and again thinking there might be a problem with your Internet access.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Navy



Hi Navy...just send me a PM with the URL...I'll have a look and we can talk about it or post it.

As to the error message...I really have no idea what's going on.  Sounds like a problem at your end, as the WR software shouldn't reject your post.
I'll be glad to work with you to see if we can replicate the problem, or at least determine whether it's in your environment or the forum software.

Un saludo,
Cuchu


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## cuchuflete

Here is NavyBlue's site....which I will be adding to Recursos/Resources. It's a fine quality aid for teachers and students of Castellano. This is a test to see if there is something in the link which is causing the reported difficulties.


http://www.geocities.com/psanchez777/index.html


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## Josesita

Interesting.. i didn't know about the 30 posts rule either.
thank you


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