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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.

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.

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.

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.

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 doesn'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.

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.