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Notice: this question is meant to be a followup of this one. Please notice that this isn't a dupe either, as the question I am asking is related but different and isn't answered in the accepted answer of the older post.

I am also aware of the question limits for self-promotion in answers but I was wondering if images watermarks are worth a separate discussion, if only for the fact that a self promoting watermark in an image serves no other purpose that I can think of, and as such doesn't seem to add any value to the actual content.

While reviewing some question on Sharepoint, I notice some images that seem to contain a company logo. Since I don't recognize the logo as the standard watermark some trial version screen capture application automatically add, I started wondering if that may be the logo of a company associated to the user posting the image (for example, the company he/she works for). I flagged the post for review and the issue is currently begin looked into, so I won't post any specific detail about the post or the user.

What I wanted to know actually is how watermarks that promote a company related to the posting user should be handled. I can live with watermarks added by the screen capture app (even if I find a little weird when someone use watermark adding app nowadays - almost every OS has built-in alternatives!) but I would assume that any other form of company logo should be treated like any other form of spam and dealt as such? Or there is some tolerance involved in this? Could one for example start putting my company logo as a watermark on the images he/she use in his/her posts? And how can I even know if the user is promoting his company and not just reusing an image he found somewhere? And what if one has a link to his/her blog/site in the image instead?

I would like to know if there is any backing history for this kind of problems and/or any accepted guidance we could refer to. I guess I could just custom flag like I did before (in the remote event I will even find something similar again) but I would prefer not to bother the mod for something that isn't considered worth looking into in the first place.

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  • I wonder if this is a violation of the Creative Commons license. As Oded mentions, the text and images posted are CC-WIKI licensed. Wouldn't putting a company watermark violate that? I mean, if I'm writing a book and using images from SE, I don't want to provide free advertising to some third party, so those images are of no use to me. Seems like bad pool.
    – ale
    Commented Sep 8, 2016 at 12:57

1 Answer 1

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If the question is valid, and the image adds genuine value to the post, then there's no reason to remove it, even if the image is watermarked.

I'd like to imagine the margin of people that visit a website based on a small watermark on a supporting image would be exceptionally slow in any case.

That said, if the image is merely accompaniment to a spammy question, then burn away.

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  • I guess I could agree with this one. I wonder where we should draw a line: if a "tutorial" answer contains multiple images, and each one is watermarked with the poster company logo, it is still tolerable? I will wait and see if any staff member wants to post an official position on the matter, otherwise I will accept this one for now.
    – ꓢPArcheon
    Commented Sep 11, 2016 at 17:28

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