No, no, you've got it wrong
No one is saying you can't advertise. We are saying that, if you truly wanna use the forums and make friends, just promoting your work and not joining the other threads or attempting to doesn't really help you. You have to put more of yourself out there.
Like, take myself -- when I first came here, I also promoted a bit of my work. And slowly, I started to give feedback, talk about my experiences, and just discuss things. I got much more out of the forums that way than just sticking to one aspect of it.