What signifies "Good" self promotion? (or: Self Promotion Part Infinity)

Question

We've been through the self-promotion discussion before, many, many, many times. We've even produced a proposed FAQ entry for it. However, with all these examples of what not to do, it's still hard for us to point to examples of good self promotion. Maybe they don't exist, I don't know.

Moderators on Stack Overflow have had recent flags dealing with self promotion, as well as counterpoints brought up, and what we've seen is that the community generally hates self promotion. This isn't a statement intended to inflame, it's just what we see from flags.

I wrote the following today in Moderator chat, in response to receiving a message from a Stack Overflow user complaining about the community's stance against self promotion:

I've not yet seen 'self promotion' done right on a consistent enough basis to know what it looks like. I have seen it done badly on Stack Overflow, and I'm almost convinced it's just not possible to do it well. There's too much temptation.

To this, Brad Larson (another Stack Overflow Moderator) replied:

I struggle with this myself in some of my answers. While I don't make any money off of it, I wrote an open source framework that I reference quite frequently in my answers and comments. It solves many of the common problems that people doing image processing on the Mac and iOS face, so it's hard for me not to say "just use this" whenever I see one of those. I explain a little more here: [link to user moderator message] . I am always worried that I'm over promoting this.

Brad brings up a really good point, and it got me to thinking: When I tell a user to cut out the overt self-promotion, I really don't have any good examples for them to emulate. I have nothing to show them that says, "Hey, do what user X does."

My questions to you are:

• Are we too intolerant of self promotion as a community? And, if not:
• What are good examples you've seen of self promotion? What makes them acceptable where other answers may not be?

Please include links to answers that show examples of good self-promotion so I can use these in moderator messages.

Answer 1

I don't have an in-depth answer, but I do have what I think is one good example.

I think Matt Neuberg does a good job with this. It used to grate on me a bit that nearly every answer of his has a link to his iOS tutorial book, but three factors persuaded me that he was using those links in a postive fashion.

First, and most importantly, the answers are always useful in and of themselves. He includes plenty of text in the body of the answer that solves the problem at hand. The link to the book is included only for further reading.

These three answers exemplify that idea:

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/16327089/ (Now removed, but the prior revision still serves as a good example)
• https://stackoverflow.com/a/9557194/
• https://stackoverflow.com/a/16453305/

Second, the text of the book is freely available. He links directly to the website where the HTML version is hosted, and in fact to the chapter or section pertinent to the question. While the book is available for purchase, and he does presumably make some money for it, that's not required to use the information.

Finally, the book -- while it is an off-site resource -- encourages self-learning. So many of the questions in the iOS and related tags these days require the kind of mentoring or tutorial help that I don't believe SO is geared for. Providing direct help while simultaneously scattering pointers to a very relevant and quality self-help resource can't make that situation any worse.

I've noticed that lately he has been posting the links in comments below his answers; perhaps he has fallen afoul of some flags already? I think in his case that is unwarranted.

Answer 2

No, we're not too intolerant of self-promotion. I think it has its place, but it's too often used as an excuse for a link-only answer or overt self-promotion where there's only a slim chance of the library, product or answer ever helping the OP. Where the OP is making money from the product the issue becomes even more thorny.

Having said that there are some people who do it okay.

• This one would be a good answer if the poster hadn't made all the links to their library a header: Navigation in django
• How can I merge PDF files with Perl?
• MongoDB ORM for Python?
• Even though it's paid-for Aaron ensures that his affiliations are known here: SQL Server 2008 R2 table access times

Some deal with the self-promotion side acceptably, but they're still not very good answers:

• Retrieving network mask in Python
• Is there an equivalent of the Java Sound API?
• Using SLIMV to code Lisp, how do I insert a single " without disabling paredit.vim?
• Simple timeline chart with events in Flex

Some seem to (no experience) be good answers, but the marketing lingo makes me feel a little bit icky despite following the disclaimer rules.

• Node.js: Connect-Auth VS. EveryAuth
• Python Twitter library: which one?

Whatever happens, people are never going to stop posting questions or answers that link back to their own open source software, product or blog. The most that's ever going to happen is that it is contained. The FAQ entry covers it quite nicely:

Be careful, because the community frowns on overt self-promotion and tends to vote it down and flag it as spam. Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to be about your product or website, so be it. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers.

However, I believe there are two things that it's missing:

1. Hard numbers. There should be an upper limit on the percentage of posts you've linked your own product to. If you have nothing to give but self-promotion, then good riddance quite frankly.

2. What I believe the point of your question is. A simple addition should suffice. If all links to the product, all disclaimers and all mention of the product name were removed would the answer still be a good one? If it's not then it should be flagged as spam.

   Just linking to your own library is not a good answer. Linking to it, explaining why it solves the OPs problem, providing code using the library to do so and disclaiming that you wrote it should be acceptable.

3. I'd like to highlight mgilson's comment as well:

   I don't see anything wrong with promoting a commercial package. As a matter of etiquette, I would advise users promoting commercial packages to acknowledge that OP will need to shell out some cash to use that answer though.

   I think this would also be a fair addition to the FAQ.

Answer 3

tl;dr: Read this:

How can I link to an external resource in a community-friendly way?

Kate Gregory's answer does an excellent job describing what a good promotional post should look like, using guidelines that are clear, unambiguous, and fair.

It's not that difficult to self-promote in a tasteful manner. Really, it's not. That so many people are either unwilling or unable to do it properly is an indictment of the sales profession in general (or the haste of its participants), not on the freedom of community members to impart that information in a non-intrusive manner, when it is useful and appropriate.

I've seen presidents of companies lapse into self-promotional market-speak on the SE network. More than once. I don't know what blindness it is that causes people to gush lovingly about their product and how great it is, without seeing all too clearly how distasteful that is. Don't they know that's a turnoff?

But, I digress.

Can it be done properly? Absolutely. The way you do it is to ask the question, "Are you talking to your audience with a clear view of their needs, or are you talking at them, with a clear view of yours?" There is a real need (within the context of a well-worded, constructive question) to plug products, if it is relevant to the question and a reasonably complete answer is provided.

How is this determined by moderators? Well, in large part, we ask: are you contributing positively to the community, or are you just here to promote your product? Boiled down to its essence, it resolves to one remarkably simple idea:

• Are your answers primarily bare links to your product?

Answer 4

As a moderator - the philosophy I follow is proper disclosure is necessary but not sufficient.

If someone posts something they wrote (or something their employer sells, or is made by a project they're a part of), alongside other posts - their goal here isn't just self promotion. If a user's primary goal is to promote something, rather than take part in Q&A, we have a problem with them.

Further more - a well written answer by a developer familiar with their product, within the guidelines of a site can have a lot of value if its tailored to the issue at hand. On the other hand "Hey! Use gooboplex! Its awesome" is not.

Answer 5

A great example of good self-promotion is BalusC. This user posts immense number of very useful answers, with deep details about JSF. He posts code snippets and fixes to the OP's problems. He also posts links to his blog - for complete code examples or extended lecture.

If you have a blog, you can self-promote it as long as you provide good and complete answers. For example, you post a function with information it was taken from your blog when you can find 10 examples of how to use it. Or to your open-source project, which can be downloaded to test the function in complete real-life example. Or post in comment that if the OP wants to learn more about technology X, he can visit your article etc.

If someone is looking for the solution to some problem, you can promote your software as a method of solving it, but only as long as it is free to use!

Promotion of commercial software is something that should be handled with special care. Some users could be offended by answers recommending using of commercial products, especially if there are free alternatives available. Some don't. I'm more biased toward open source, and avoiding commercial solutions. People form MS environment may have different type of sensitivity. But if you promote a commercial library to GNU-geek, don't be surprised by downvote or even spam-flag.

Answer 6

I think the community is overreacting to self-promotional content. If the answer is made (primarily) for the sake of helping others, why bother who is behind it at all?

I'll point to this answer on Ask Ubuntu, where the script was made by me, the poster and one other friend. It genuinely helps everyone who wants to reset their configuration and that's all that should matter. Even if the poster has other hidden agenda, it shouldn't be the primary concern.

As long as the person discloses any affiliation and is really trying to be a Good Samaritan, it shouldn't be looked down upon.

I think if people follow the FAQ as a mere guidelines, we won't be having this problem. I like Wikipedia for that matter.

Answer 7

The vibes I get are that the community really doesn't want any self-promotion in posts. Even at the expense of missing out on a perfect answer because the answerer cannot recommend the use of his own product.

Whether I think self-promotion is fine or not is immaterial. (I think it is, for the record.)

There are enough programmers on here that contribute top-notch answers without any self-promotion that disallowing all self-promotion wouldn't have a huge effect. Why tolerate the selfish when you have an abundance of the selfless?

Because, regardless of how good the answer is, there will be enough self-promotion haters complaining that the question will get downvoted or flagged.

Just outlaw self-promotion. Seriously.

SO exceeded critical mass a long time ago, and wouldn't miss it for a second. It's abundantly clear that SO thrives beautifully on a batallion (1.7M+) of volunteers, most of whom don't even consider linking to their sites in a question or answer.

It seems like people are wasting cycles on a tiny fraction of users whose behavior is not needed for the site to prosper. Factor them out. Let them advertise on their profile page like everyone else, and that's it.

Answer 8

I don't have an active memory of ever having seen a good self-promotional answer.

There already is a perfectly reasonable and accepted way to post promotional content at SE. It belongs in a user's profile. An answer can simply direct the reader to look there.

If the product is touted in the answer then it is important that this is done in a balanced way. Don't just enumerate the advantages, also mention how the product may not be suitable. Don't skip details like a license fee, the learning curve, a bug list, missing support options. And always mention at least one alternative product as well. This is however difficult to do without turning the post into a shopping answer. Best to stick to the profile, really.

Answer 9

I ran into this last week, at Extent of loosely relevant self-promotion. And what @Oded said was how I felt; 8 downvotes in under an hour, followed by deletion by the moderator (who then argued with me about the issue for almost a day).

And ... I wrote about the whole thing here: Thinking Requires Actual . . . Thinking. That’s Influency (yep, I went there; the NERVE of me! ...)

This is a problem, folks. Self-promotion is a fact of life, and the fact that someone has DONE it doesn't by nature render what they say useless, off-point, or anything else bad.

And I'm going to stop there. Let the fireworks commence...