Air - 11:48 pm on Mar 21, 2002 (gmt 0)

Promotion aside, keeping links and references to products at a minimum forces the poster's post to become the reference, it makes for interesting discussion and brings out information that cannot be obtained anywhere else.

One of the things I have always disliked about spammed out forums is the lack of "personality" they end up with, none of the posters seem real, questions answered with a link are repeated mercilessly everytime that same question is asked the same link gets posted. Eventually the links take on a certain tumbleweed character in each thread as that forum gradually becomes a ghost town.

IMO the problem with links is that even if on target, even if authoritative, they end up creating a reference forum instead of a discussion forum. Part of what I like and value here is the perspective and experience of each individual, new or not so new, and the unique points of view they bring to bear on the discussions at hand.

Links to other sites and references to products don't tell me much more than what I could get with a quick search at Google, but a discussion of which features are absolutely necessary rather than which product has them, or someone's experience in redirecting with javascript rather than a link to the javascript site, is priceless (kinda reminds me of that v*i*s*a commercial).