Pete - Sorry, both of your statements are incorrect:

www.AuctionTalk.com, Rules of Use, accessible through a link at the bottom of the forums page

Prohibited is:

...... H.) Postings that refer directly to an online auction item, without having FIRST invited the seller and/or buyer by email to participate in the thread. Please Email our moderator for guidelines prior to posting.

Look for yourself: http://www.auctiontalk.com/rules.asp

The policy guideline is this: If you want to discuss a particular auction, in either a positive or negative way, before you post, email the person you will be discussing, and tell him of your intention to discuss his auction. If he acknowledges receipt of your email, go ahead and post. If there is no response, please wait 24 hours, then post. Be prepared to provide the AuctionTalk Forums Moderator with copies of these email messages if asked.

and:

eBay's Message Board Usage Policy:

The following types of postings are cause for immediate post removal, warning, board suspension and/or suspension from the site. Other inappropriate postings not listed below may also warrant removal and/or suspension from the site:

..... Posting contact or personal information about another individual without permission

..... Using user ID's, auction number's or violating any other board posting policy in the title of a threaded discussion.

Look for yourself: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-board.html

Yes, the rule refers to the Titles of a thread, but from a practical standpoint, I can tell you that I have seen people post a thread with a title like "Fraud? You Decide", and then put the link to the auction in the body of the message, and the posts were deleted by eBay staff as soon as they were discovered. They consider any discussion of a fellow eBay'er in a negative way to be an "inappropriate posting not listed below".

Pete, if you like, I will go copy and paste the pertinent rules from AuctionWatch, AuctionDiner, OAUA, AuctionPatrol, AuctionRover, and every other board.

Or, you can just accept my word that this board is the only public forum on the internet that regularly allows discussions of a seller's auction ethics behind his back.