Hi all,
Thanks for the feedback so far.
I understand how this event might have brought up some flashbacks of the basenotes fiasco. The nature of the board is that we have both vendors and customers exchanging ideas. Naturally there will be references to people and their products. This is not a problem, as you've all seen so far. Direct advertising, however, is a problem. This is not an advertising portal. There have been direct references to products from known and unknown vendors, with detailed descriptions of the products. There's nothing wrong with such posts, as long as it's informative and contributes to constructive discussion. 'Such and such an oil smells like this, came from here, etc' is fine. 'Product X costs $Y, get it from me here' is a problem.
Other than to respond to explicit sales pitches, this is the first real instance where I stepped up to moderate. The ideal is to have the forum as open as possible. The thread was initially not closed, although I thought the discussion was heading somewhere unpleasant. It wasn't until some members expressed their concerns, that the decision to do so came. I closed it because of the members, not my own whim. Since then I've received votes either way and will let everyone know once a decision is made to re-open the thread, or not.
Another point to consider in the closure of the said thread is that the discussion became one of morality and religion, and some here might feel uncomfortable with such references. I don't think anyone minds references to spirituality or religion in general, but to treat the forum like it's exclusive to a particular point of view with its own nomenclature might come across as inconsiderate to others.
Please feel free to contact me about anything. This is a community board. Until now no-one had anything to complain about, so I hope we can all just continue in the way we have so far.