“Objective moderating” can be used to control sale threads. I’ve used this idea in monitoring QA for frontline customer service representatives.
It’s a way for mods to analyze a post, then decide on an action. It’s quite simple but is time consuming because it requires mods to read through each and every post. But here’s how I’ve rolled it out in the past: the controller reads a reply to the original post and asks himself/herself “Will this question/comment result in a sale?”
Yes - no action.
No - delete post and issue warning to poster/ban poster
The reason it’s simply is because you’re asking and answering a yes/no question. As such, there can only be 2 results. It’s all objectivity and no subjectivity.