I have seen that this forum does not consider it inappropriate when some member makes a post or thread about a competing forum. I am a member of other popular forums and they do not allow mention of competing forums as it is free advertising for them.
What is the opinion of members about this? Is it fine allowing members here to promote or mention competing forums without paying this forum owner or taking his permission ?
Why is it that people like being grossly moderated. As you mention other forums here without being banned, you no longer like it. You will like it when theymos will say don't mention mixers, Altcoinstalks, casino, facebook, twitter, Reddit and others. This forum is known for freedom of speech. I have seen many people suggest to theymos to directly or indirectly limit this freedom but he understands the importance of freedom, there's no need to fight against what Satoshi endorsed.
When bitcointalk started newly, there was massive promotion of this forum and bitcoin in different social medias like facebook and twitter by sharing links from this forum to those social medias. As noted by LoyceV, the forum was not prevented in that early stage. How do you then expect the forum to prevent smaller forums that want to leverage on the forum for growth.
In bitcointalk, there's altcoins boards and sub boards. What this means is that this forum is very accommodating and as well the mother of all the crypto related forums. So, it will make no sense to prevent them from growing. The fight is against cryptocurrency and not among cryptocurrency.