Helen, it is not judging and categorizing.  That thread is always there where people can always find the link they want.  Otherwise they slip down and off the page.

Lots and lots of people have sites they want people to see, and this way everyone always knows where to look. 

Ah well, Helen.  I'm not trying to argue or anything.  We have asked everyone to put their links there, and I know that when I am looking for someone's site I always look there.  I don't go looking back through all the pages.

There have been so many requests to post links and this way we are fair to all the people.

As the site grows it's natural that so will the user-base who frequent this board....and as that happens so too will there be an increase of 'hey check out my website' posts.

Easiest and most practical way to maintain some sort of board sanity is to provide a static thread for such posts and free up the 'general area' for other things.

Needless to say, the more frequently that new threads are posted the sooner older ones are going to disappear and be overlooked.....so categorizing/controlling 'site-link' threads within their own grouped thread is a win-win situation....the links get more permanence and 'clutter' on the board is reduced...