People have been getting out of hand with posting profiles only to try and sell full characters, myself included

I think we need a locked post clearly stating that it must be read before trades are attempted and in this post you could state that selling full characters while only linking profile is illegal.

I don't agree with the rule but if we are going to have a rule at least make everyone aware of it because otherwise people will keep doing it when they see others do it.

Thanks.

no one follows the trade rules on the d3 forum, a bunch of new users that don't read the forum rules.

People should know to read the rules before trading. And as for stating no linking to profiles; posting the links is misleading, which would make it fall under this bullet:

d2jsp Trading rules