Quote Originally Posted by Ozme52
Let's be a bit clearer... or educate me if I'm wrong...

A hotlink directly brings up the reference. So a hotlinked picture will display within the post if I were to link a picture here ==> You would see the actual image here. <==

A site link will transfer you to another website, or will open a new window and will take you there. That is NOT considered stealing bandwidth because you are going to get all the content, including their ads, and not just the picture/movie/game/etc. That's why we can link to articles, quizes, etc.

To that end, that's probably why the Post Tools provided here include the URL= commands but not the IMG SRC= commands.

The additional rules against links to Pay Sites is just good sense. It keeps our site clean and unfettered. As to Personal sites, maybe if they are 100% ad-free, I wouldn't mind... But I think Rabbit1 et. al. have things well in hand.
That's how it works.