It's easy to identify a Viagra post as spam. It's also easy to identify an audio manufacturer posting a link to their own shopping cart. But there are other types of posts that regulars might notice but that casual readers wouldn't.

One example is the innocent looking post asking what an item is worth, providing lots of details and contact information. Are these really questions or are they really veiled for-sale ads? Another example of something that's really hard to spot is a shill post or some other cooperative relationship. You can find them over time by seeing the patterns but its hard to know until a long time has passed.

And then there are the anonymous posters that complain or praise, bashing someone or promoting something. It's obvious they have an agenda, a grievance or a champion, something. That part is easy to see. What you don't know is if the people making posts using a pseudonym are competitors or employees, or if they're legitimate third parties. Your post is like that.

To be honest, we are very sensitive about these kinds of problems. We don't want to be sticks in the mud and we don't want to over moderate. But we do want to be fair, and that means if we want to keep the spam off the forum, we have to limit ALL advertisements. We don't want someone to be attacked, so sometimes we have to throw out useful posts that are mixed in with threads written as smear campaigns. We also have to watch for other sorts of problems, and to try and make this place fair and fun for everyone. We want it to be a source of information, not a boxing ring.