FishingRod:

Here is what Bob has had in the forum guidelines for years.

"Quite often, we'll see a new member (or existing members) selling their wares or services.
We only allow that of our approved advertisers. We are careful to make sure our advertisers are quality and meet our expectations.
If you have a product or service you'd like to promote on the forum, please send an email to info@pondboss.com and get permission before you promote or add information to your signature line or add a link to your website.
We'll protect our paying advertisers and people we know.
For our approved advertisers, you guys already know how to play.

If someone breaks this rule the moderators will delete all links and references to your business.

In addition, some members solicit business via PM's (private message). These are not authorized, either. If you receive a PM from someone trying to solicit you, please do your due diligence. First, make sure they are on the Pond Boss "approved" list. That's this link, the Pond Boss resource guide. http://www.pondboss.com/resource_guide.asp
We vet all those people in the Resource Guide and have a high level of confidence of their capabilities. Also, banner ads at the top of the forum page have met with our approval.

If you are solicited by ANYONE who isn't on that list, please send us an email at info@pondboss.com and let us know. We want to police this site and make sure reputable people are soliciting."

A poster on here that says "I used this or this is available here" isn't breaking the rules, but it's a fine line - it's all in context of the post too. We moderators can look at things behind the scenes so to speak to see if the person it a spammer doing advertising or if what they posted is legit. In the case above, the poster was the company that was linked to in the post. THAT violated Bob's rules. Even though we (Hoosier Pond Pros) are a paid advertiser with Pond Boss, I think it's tacky to constantly push your business and not actually help out on the forum. While it would be perfectly "legal" for us to say "Hey, you want a Texas Hunter Feeder? Go look at us, here's a link to our on-line store" I don't do that, I just feel slimy doing that. BUT I have no problems recommending someone who I've had good business dealings with, or who have a great product AND helps pond owners, like TJ. There are a lot of places that just want to sell stuff and don't service the customers, which takes time, but OTOH, it helps them understand why certain things are recommended. For instance, why recommend fluridone to treat Eurasian Water Milfoil vs. 2,4-D.

Only once I got short with a one time customer. They'd constantly call for recommendations on what herbicide to use, how to do this or that years after the one time purchase. They called one day asking what herbicide to use on a certain plant, I told them, and said that we had it and could ship it to them. They call back a week later and ask how to use it. (I knew that they didn't buy from us, I had just looked at the store). I said one of the services that we do is help our customers find the correct product to use and help them use it if they have questions. I saw that you didn't buy it from us, did you call the place that you bought it and ask them? The phone got really, really quiet. After that the 1/2 dzn phone calls a week dropped to maybe one every few weeks.