Nicholas King said:As a loyal, long-time female member of this community, I’ve had the link to that massive 250-page thread I started removed—you know, the one I posted specifically because someone asked where they could find those exact discussions. Honestly, I think removing it was a mistake. It makes it look like we’re trying to hide something, when in reality, providing that link is actually the best way to prevent people from constantly digging through the same old stuff right here on the site.
Yeah, I’m the one who pulled that link. To be totally honest, I wasn't quite sure how to handle it at first. We have that rule about not linking out to other forums, but in this case, it wasn't meant to be some shady advertisement; it was just my way of giving someone exactly what they were looking for in the conversation. I spent a little while overthinking it, wondering if it would be better to just delete it entirely, and then I just sort of moved on. Since I wasn't 100% certain about the right call, I really should have reached out to someone more experienced before acting, but I didn't.
We’re still finding our footing with this lighter approach to moderation, and we haven't really sat down to discuss this specific issue yet because there’s just so much else on our plate right now. I figured I'd wait until we tackle at least a few of the most pressing questions before diving into new ones—we don't want to overwhelm ourselves, after all. So, I decided to just wipe it. Since there isn't a brand-new rule in place yet, I stuck to the old guidelines, which felt like the most logical move at the time.
I truly feel that, in the spirit of keeping a good discussion going, links to other forums should be allowed, though you definitely have to be careful since people often use them just to promote themselves. You really have to learn how to tell the difference.