Ah sorry about that! I was having trouble getting my articles seen so I figured reaching out to a handful of power users with more karma points (like you!) would help. In my defense, this is best practice in other forums like Product Hunt so I thought reaching out respectfully would be okay here too. And I saw no asking for upvotes/comments in the forum guidelines but didn't see anything against asking for a submission :)

In any event, my apologies again for the troubles. I have ironed this out with the moderator (who has adjusted the guidelines) and I've paused my emailing. I wasn't aware of the rule, but I am now.

I'm new here so not trying to start an argument. But hopefully where I'm coming from makes sense. Reaching out simply felt logical to me, not unethical.