[Discussion] the rules advice in here is 2 years out of date
Posting this as a discussion rather than a claim: the rules advice in here is 2 years out of date. To save the first four comments: 2 years. How a rule actually changes here, since people assume it is arbitrary. Somebody posts a proposal with replacement wording — not a complaint, actual text. It gets argued about,…
Funding and links, in full, because the question deserves a straight answer.
Sponsor units are labelled as sponsored. Each vendor source page carries one outbound link to that supplier’s own storefront, marked nofollow and sponsored, so you can read their account of themselves against the record on the page. Nothing is received for those links, no supplier pays for a directory position, and no rating is for sale.
No referral or affiliate links are permitted anywhere on the site, from anybody, including in the pricing threads where the temptation is highest. That rule is the reason those threads are worth reading, and it is enforced without exception. The full version of all of this is on the about page and it is deliberately boring.
Had a post removed, went to modmail, got a specific explanation and disagreed with it politely. It stayed removed and I understood why.
Cosigning on the no-links rule. It is the only reason the pricing threads are trustworthy.
no referral links, no affiliate links, not once
Argued against the strict evidence rule for a year. Then read a supplier thread on another site and stopped arguing.
Funding and links, in full, because the question deserves a straight answer.
dose_creep_dan is right that the strict evidence rule is the asset, not the friction.