Whoa there everyone. You are free to think the moderators are too harsh, or that this was handled poorly, but anyone who wants to accuse them of over-reacting is sort of obligated to stay calm and keep a cool head. Pots and kettles are both black, as it goes. Let's not over-react to the over-reaction. That helps no one.
Let's try to break this down into manageable components:
1. Advertising is not allowed on MobileRead. That's what the rules say and that's standard for pretty much any forum community out there.
2. An affiliate link is a form of advertising, since clicking on it give the person posting it a small amount of money. Just like if someone was to post Google Ads on their blog, when you click on those ads, the blogger gets a small amount of money.
3. Logically then, based on 1 and 2, affiliate links are not allowed on MR anymore than any other form of advertising is.
4. MR moderators and admins decide to allow affiliate links anyway, as long as they are limited to specific threads and it is clearly stated that these links are affiliate links. It is up to the one posting the link to make sure there are no affiliate tags.
Re-read that, take a deep breath, and ask yourself why this is worth throwing a fit over? It's only a forum. It's only little tags and pocket change. Learning how to spot an affiliate tag and how to remove it from a URL is really not that difficult, and there are lots of experienced MR users who I'm sure would be happy to help. Let's not make this issue any bigger or more contentious than it needs to be, okay?
