Double Standard? (in General)

First of all, let me say this is not an attack on anyone particularly. But I would like someone to explain to me what is different from the thread below to a thread of mine a few weeks ago asking to purchases referrals on another game with CB2.

Reference Thread

From my point of view, there is no difference. Let's either ban both or allow both, because I feel there is definitely a double standard.

He's selling items, not asking people to click links.

from the wiki regarding forums:

Off-topic

* Off-topic is for congratulations of all sorts (including birthday/anniversary announcements) as well as anything not related to CB.
* No commercial or "please click this to give me referral credits" links, please.

i hope this helps clear things up for ya.

He understands it is there but he doesn't understand why, Dudemus.

my mistake then and my apologies.

"He's selling items, not asking people to click links."

He is selling items from another game on this game. I was selling CB2 on this game for a referral on another. Again, I will reiterate for novice and anyone else who is having a hard time grasping my question. What is the difference? Both are sales of things that have nothing to do with CB2 other than currency exchange between one game and another.

"Off-topic

* Off-topic is for congratulations of all sorts (including birthday/anniversary announcements) as well as anything not related to CB.
* No commercial or "please click this to give me referral credits" links, please."

I am not talking about an off-topic thread. I am asking about FS/WTB threads.

A referral link is a specific type of external non-CB2 item for which sale is forbidden.

I think perhaps there may have been in the past a large amount of referral link spam. I don't know, though. I personally feel that SELLING the referral link in FS/WTB is vastly different than just posting a referral link in Off-Topic, and should be allowed.

i agree with NS, i wouldnt of ever found cb with out someone having a link, and i may not find another great game...i feel like im in a bubble behind an iron wall ruled by an iron fist.

There is no rule about someone posting that they found a great game and post a link to it. But, it needs to be a clean link to the game, not a "I will pay you to click".

Because, in the past the forums were full of posts like Glory's. "Click me" and I will pay for a referral.

Jon eventually got fed up with all the links and banned a pay for referral type post.

one person doing it doesn't seem like that much of an issue. we have a little under 400 active members usually. if even half of them do this type of thing then it would get overwhelming. it would also tend to be recurring whereas character or item sales are inherently limited by inventory.

the best answer though is we have finite resources on cb. you pretty much have to look at everything associated with the game and say "how important is this to our game and its use of resources?" the obvious answer to that question regarding referral links to other games is that there is no benefit to having them and many possible drawbacks.

"Because, in the past the forums were full of posts like Glory's. "Click me" and I will pay for a referral. "

The change that Jonathan instituted came from people spamming the off-topic and general threads, they were not offering to pay for the referral, AND it was only a very small handful of annoying players who are not even here anymore.

So because you don't like a rule you're comparing a banned practice to a legal one...
great, way to play.

Jon passed the edict that referral links were not to be allowed because there were so many being posted.
Glory, your sale of "clicks for referrals" could have been argued either way. At the end of the day the fact that it was a referral thread swayed the balance in favour of a deletion. If I remember correctly it was Bart who deleted it? - I would have done the same.

The thread for selling RS items is a different matter altogether and not related in any way to referral links. That said, I'm sure if we were to look at the RS ToS we'd find that selling items external to the game is not allowed. Should we delete them from the CB forums...? Question for another thread I guess but there's plenty of precedent for allowing them, so for the moment they stay.

Also, as Ranger said earlier in the thread. There's no problem advertising a game you play - it's the referral links for credit part that are a problem.