Every forum on the internet has rules, be it a music forum, travel forum, fitness forum, literature - whatever. Its not a free for all, where you can just wander in and say and do what you want, just because its the internet.
If the people who created the website and work on it day by day, change the rules then thats up to them. You can either adapt or if you feel so strongly about it, there are other sites where you can go to talk about certain things. Its hardly a big deal.
Nobody has the divine right to have everything their own way and say whatever they want when they sign up to a message board.

Its a childish, self centred point of view and I wonder about the age of the posters who complain loudest and post bile and insults at other members or mods.  GN'R is a very popular band and mature adults will be mixing with some immature younger folk, not do say that some adults dont act immature or be a dick at times, so there are always going to be clashes of personality and opinions.

This is the end of a long and frustrating road for GN'R fans who follow the band online. The new album is out in a couple of weeks, the wait is over, the inactivity is over, the new music is officially released. Then you can talk about every new song till you are blue in the face. For those who dont understand why the biggest and most popular Guns N' Roses sites are not allowing links to leaks or threads talking about leaks, c'mon get a clue! Do you really not understand why Guns N'Roses asked these sites not to broadcast the fact that things have leaked before they have released the music for retail? Type Guns N Roses into google and its HTGH, mygnr, CD.com, newgnr.com that feature predominately, it seems like good business sense to ask those sites not to broadcast the fact that leaks are out there.
Its really not that difficult to understand. Its hardly selling out that they go along with that request.
HTGTH although, changed its polices a long time ago now and people should be used to it, dont be suprised that it takes on the monkier of "official GN'R fan forum" when the new album and tours are launched. I wonder if the completely partizan polices were a tool to keep the negativity under control when little was happening but appartently negative things, and things will be a bit more openminded once the new album is launched. Soon the pros will be competing with the cons that have dominated the last umpteen years. But either way they have their rules and if you dont like em, go elsewhere.

As for mods or admin at boards not being respectful or being disdainful to members at times, thats different to selling out. They should be called out on it, and addressed. But just calling them out as a jackass wont get very far, only in equally hostile retaliations. By being tactful and showing consideration to their viewpoint, but at the same time addressing why you think they are wrong, then its pretty difficult for them to brush you off without a very good reason. And if they do, then everyone can see just who was right and who was wrong.

Some people seem to put on a swagger when they refer to other boards, like "yeah I'm cool as fuck me, I say what I want when I want, and them at HTGTH, they cant handle me cause I'm such a fucking badass outlaw!" But in most cases they are really just a  little shite. I dont really understand that attitude at all,  but mabye I'm just too long in the tooth at a ripe old age of 28.

This seems like a decent place with differing opinions, its own sets of rules, I seen talking about leaks is cool, so I joined up to see what others thought.  I got quite excited and caved into temptation and downloaded the latest batch, I thought what the hell, I have heard almost the whole album before the official release so what difference will it make now.
I never actually sought out the links, I stumbled across them posted in the comments section of a GNR news site. Having them staring me in the face was a little much to resist.
I'm a little worried that they were infected files though, I know some of them were but I dont know if the original source was behind it.