So many shills lately...

[Stephen Cherry]

Stephen.........a link to commercial website.....the website doesn't add to the main topic of discussion.....the member posting it is an extremely new member and often has a foreign IP provider in a place like Pakistan...it's generally a spammer.

In the lower left corner of any post is a triangular icon....click on it to report a post...fill out the form and submit it. The appropriate Moderators wil be informed and the report will start a thread in the Moderator's Forum.

Thanks Ken- I was just making a little joke- It would be an awful long game to post 8500 times.

[Dan Hintz]

Can anyone help educate me on how to identify that they are promoting themselves somehow?

Ask yourself the following questions to anyone who posts links to other sites:
1) Do they have more than a few posts? If not, that's a red flag to look more closely.
2) Is the thread more than a few weeks / months old? If so, that's another red flag.
3) Does the linked site really add anything new to the discussion? Sometimes the connection is tenuous, at best... other times, it looks plausible, but that's when #4 comes into play.

I'm a little more tenacious than some, so I look at what they've posted in the "past":
4) Have they posted the same link in other threads? If so, that's a huge red flag.
5) Copy the link (right-click and copy, don't left-click and go straight to the site) and go to the site in a new window / tab... does the site show anything useful? In the most recent case (Corian threads), the link was nothing more than a bid aggregator for kitchen installers... hardly a useful link to a thread about Corian properties when all it does is provide work bids.

If it smells fishy but I can't be sure, I'll let it ride but watch the person closely for any new posts. If they start adding to other discussions appropriately, I'll usually let it go. If they link again, they're flagged immediately. Quite often, though, it stinks to high heaven right from the get-go.

I like a pollution-free Creek...

[Mike Cozad]

Thanks for the tips. I'll be more aware going forward...

[Dennis Peacock]

Thanks for the help Dan...and good tips as well.

[Harold Burrell]

I love The Jerk!!

Thank you, Dave. I love you too.