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wheel - 12:26 pm on Mar 6, 2009 (gmt 0)
What I did do is instead of banning these people right away, I give them a chat about how contributing to the forum and making themselves an expert is a far better way of getting traffic and business from the site than a straight URL drop.
Yep that's what I do. I make it quite clear though, pinned to the top of the forum. The limit's only 10 quality posts though, so it's not like it's difficult to overcome. And I don't have an issue with evenhandedness - the spammier url drops are more of a problem. surprisingly the community gets quite crazy about spam, so they actually prefer it this way.