Ad: a public announcement from a service provider (indicating some or all of the following: availability, services, rates, pictures, contact information) for the purpose of attracting attention and encouraging prospective customers/clients to engage her services.
ThreAD: a post (whether the first or a later post in a given thread)
- by a service provider or by someone else on her behalf;
- providing information similar to that provided in an ad, and apparently for the same purpose of attracting attention and encouraging prospective customers/clients to see her;
- posted in a discussion forum (e.g., to avoid restrictions on ads) rather than an ad forum; and
- which, taken as a whole, lacks significant value other than the "ad purpose" described above
[That last is analogous to the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity in
Miller v. California, designed to avoid the common practice for porn in those days to skirt the obscenity laws by including a very short discussion of, say, Shakespeare in the movie. It would also, in my opinion, exclude reviews posted in the review fora, recommendations/endorsements in response to honest inquiries (which serve the same function as reviews), and
most posts by the ladies in the discussion fora, even if some of that "ad" information is in their signature line. But if there is no significant content in a lady's post itself and ad information is in the signature line, that may suggest that it meets the criteria.]
My interpretation; may not be anyone else's. Obviously, it is a standard/guideline rather than a precise, bright-line rule; its use requires the application of judgment. But the same is true of most of the rules on a board like this.
Personally, if it were up to me (which it most assuredly is not), I wouldn't treat such posters too harshly. The harm is relatively minimal -- unless other ladies feel competitive pressures to do the same thing and they start to proliferate and overwhelm the real discussions in the discussion fora. Gentle discouragement may be appropriate to prevent that from happening. And setting a good example, of course.
My opinion; YOMV.