We provide some latitude to well-established users who are serious contributors here. Mainesail, JudyB, and others can attest to that. Jackdaw's thread is an ad. There are plenty of ways to talk about a product without posting a giant product photo, links to social media, text that reads like brochure copy, etc. Rodd and Judy do it all the time.
I recognize that the product is interesting and there's value in the topic, but if we let it go what can we say to other users who want to post ads about their products? Because if we don't enforce the rule, trust me, overnight the forums will be filled with well-meaning spam. Our intent is not to run Jackdaw off the forums; that's his call. He was not banned and we didn't delete the thread. It's a reasonable rule and I'm sure Jackdaw would agree with that, too. This is simply a tricky application of it.
But I'm serious. If anyone has an idea on how we should navigate this kind of situation I'm wide open to ideas. We've struggled with it for years. But I have to be able to respond fairly to many, many others who would love to do the same.