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I don't see anywhere in the sticky that clearly indicates that my post wasn't informative enough. There's nothing that even goes as far as your second bullet above. I provided a link, gave a sentence description, and asked a couple of questions. I can concede that I didn't realize that "no effort" means anything less than a paragraph or two of analysis, but it wasn't due to lack of reading comprehension. I also thought, as CMI said, that there would be a bit of leeway based on the nature of the subject.
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Take a look at the short version of the OOT sticky. "Don't post links with no added content." I don't see anywhere in the sticky that it says, "Feel free to ignore this if you think the subject is important enough."
Here is a link to an informative thread that another poster took the time to write about starting OP's based around a question or a search for information.
For more specifics, under "What not to post," the sticky says, "OP puts no effort into the post or does not include needed info in the thread." There is also a section on 'linktarding,' which is defined as "Threads that are merely links to stories, games, internet memes or other content, or threads that just involve cutting and pasting articles from another source." Your thread, if you recall, consisted solely of a link to the story with a few questions tacked on.
So yeah, there are several spots in the sticky that say "Don't do pretty much exactly what you just did." If it's not clear enough for you, I suggest you leave OOT thread-starting to people who are able to follow instructions.
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If this thread is a waste of time, then what is the purpose of ATF anyway? It seems that I'm not the only one who could have misinterpreted the intent of the rules. This is troubling because if experienced posters aren't sure about the standards, then what chance does a newbie have? A bit of clarification can only be a good thing.
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The rules pretty clearly state that if you don't understand them, DON'T START THREADS. I don't think there's anything particularly confusing about them, though. I doubt you read them thoroughly at any point, you probably just skimmed them AFTER your thread got locked. So this thread is pointless because we spent a good bit of time answering these questions in a clear set of instructions that you totally ignored. Furthermore, it's pointless because nobody even got banned, several threads on the subject continue to exist, and you clearly aren't going to be satisfied with any answer anyway.