One of my frustrations as an admin and staff member is when I see forum members who post an one paragraph excerpt of an otherwise great article and then link back to the rest on their own forum or blog. Obviously, this is a form of advertising as it hooks in the reader so they have to leave the site to get the rest of the article.
It poses as a good post, while just being a snippet of a longer, more useful post. And, really it's just a copy of what's already on their site, so in that way it's detrimental as it's duplicate content. I would prefer to see a forum member post something original and not link to their own site. At least, that's what I would do as a member of their forum. And, I realize that people want to advertise their own site, but this is just siphoning traffic.
What's your view on allowing excerpts of articles by members with backlinks? Is this acceptable to you or seen as another way for one forum/blog owner to steal your members to their own site?
It poses as a good post, while just being a snippet of a longer, more useful post. And, really it's just a copy of what's already on their site, so in that way it's detrimental as it's duplicate content. I would prefer to see a forum member post something original and not link to their own site. At least, that's what I would do as a member of their forum. And, I realize that people want to advertise their own site, but this is just siphoning traffic.
What's your view on allowing excerpts of articles by members with backlinks? Is this acceptable to you or seen as another way for one forum/blog owner to steal your members to their own site?
