Thanks folks for flagging and bringing this to my attention.
Up until now we haven’t really needed anything in the forum rules related to advertising products on the forum. There are of course a lot of user suggestions of products. Any cases where people affiliated with manufacturers have brought up products they are associated with have been to drive the relevant discussion forwards - not with the sole intention of selling to the forum userbase.
I very much try to operate things here with a light touch, only nudging things in the right direction for the wider community when they are needed. However, I think it is fair to say that allowing advertisements, particularly from manufacturers, risks degrading the quality and authenticity of conversation for all users.
This forum is intended to be a place for open discussion, driven by dCS owners and enthusiasts – not a place for dCS users to be sold to. We deliberately do not have a “marketplace” section for users to sell second-hand products for this reason – the forum is a place for discussion, and there are appropriate places to go to for this type of sale to be facilitated. I agree that this is also true of manufacturer involvement, and such advertisements should not be allowed.
Regular users will note that even dCS staff don’t push our products through the forum - it’s just not what it is here for. We answer questions and participate in forum discussions, but we don’t sell.
I will update the forum rules on this next week, as I want to be sure I have worded it correctly and not knee-jerk react and get something posted hastily.
Very good point. There is a general “sticky” post that sits at the top of everyone’s home screen (this one), and I will edit that post to include the forum rules to make them more visible. That post hasn’t been edited since the forum was created back in 2018, so it is due for a refresh anyway!