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Receiving a comment on a post to a $999 product, I've noticed this user repeatedly posting links to their product. Predominately within comments, there are also answers that loosely disclose their affiliation.

This topic is widely discussed, such as:

As long as the promotion was useful, relevant, or otherwise impossible without the product, it would seem acceptable.

Many of these posts are relevant in that this product accomplishes the goals of the OP using built-in functionality of the commercial product.

However, most of the original questions relate to implementation using the Flex SDK, and do not seek recommendation to other products.

Would this self-promotion be within bounds of acceptable use, or should these items be flagged?

It should also be noted there are questions on Stack Overflow specifically for this product, in which support provided by this user is applicable. Also, this user has made quality contributions beyond these cited below.

Comments:

Answers

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    Some effort.. well done – Krishnabhadra May 28 '13 at 4:22
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    Wow, Jason - this must have taken you a bit of time to put together. We would be an oaf of an insensitive clod if we didn't thank you for your time, so - thanks! – Tim Post♦ May 28 '13 at 4:42
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    Whoops, I think I'm the insensitive clod that Tim was talking about. I deleted all of those comments and some of the answers that didn't fall within the self-promotion guidelines in the FAQ. Thank you for putting this together, Jason! :) – Bill the Lizard May 28 '13 at 11:57
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The user is posting links to his site or blog as comments to targeted posts. This isn't how Stack Overflow works. We can't vote the best content to the top, and we can't downvote bad content to push it down off the page.

What's more, these are just links with no explanation and are clearly just an attempt to direct traffic to his site.

I've flagged one of the comments using "other", described the situation, and left a link to this meta discussion in the flagging dialog. Others can also flag individual comments as chatty. If enough people flag them, they will be auto-deleted.

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Shog9 (and anyone else who wished to chime in), I genuinely disagree with you. I DID read what I replied to, and yes, it was an opportune reply ... which I said, and which the piece I linked to said, as well.

Also, if you READ what I linked to (speaking of not reading) and maybe followed a link or two in the piece, you'd see that the entire thread was COMPLETELY on-point; the line (says me, and said, it seemed, the original post here) is wherever someone who is genuinely trying to draw one SAYS it is.

Your intolerance for ACTUAL discourse—and this was—borders on ignorance. Read. Think. Reply. Don't just do a kneejerk thing.

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    So what are you trying to say here? If I have to read your blog to find out what your answer was getting at, then it's not really an answer. (This is even less an answer, but that's kinda unavoidable) – Shog9 May 31 '13 at 20:03
  • sadly the state of this at THIS POINT is that our answers are becoming less germane to ... pretty much anything. I'm pretty sure that what I was trying to say before was clear though. – Jeff Yablon May 31 '13 at 20:14
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    This isn't really a hard question... Jason put a lot of effort into laying things out clearly, with background information, copious examples of the sort of promotion he's talking about, etc. So if you have an opinion on this, just state it and explain it. Broad platitudes aren't helpful though, nor are blog posts clearly not written to address the situation being discussed here. – Shog9 May 31 '13 at 20:20
  • Dude, we are gonna have to agree to disagree. I stand by my method of communication and I believe you were WRONG to delete what I wrote. I also believe that to sit in a place (any place ...o one place ... this place) and say "this is how we communicate" makes you sound old. And I g-stalked you; I'me WAY older. The world doesn't work the way you say it does just because you say it does. – Jeff Yablon May 31 '13 at 20:57
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    There you go again with the broad statements. I'm not sure what you think we're doing here, but... This is a support forum for a programming Q&A site; this particular thread is in regard to a specific pattern of behavior the asker observed and was troubled by. If that's not interesting to you, fine - but then why are you here? – Shog9 May 31 '13 at 21:09
  • Lecture me all you like about what "this forum is for". I'm saying nothing is as simple as that. I make my living getting between programmers, biz folk, and users, creating things that actually work. Your provincial and insular behavior belies your misunderstanding of how the world really works. So, what am I doing? I'm promoting my position, and yes,trying to help yours by opening your eyes a bit. And whatever this forum is "for", what I RESPONDED to —yes, self-promotionally—was not "about programming", it was about self-promotion. Believe it or not, even programmers need to understand that. – Jeff Yablon Jun 1 '13 at 2:03
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    Stack Overflow is not a forum, nor bulletin board to promote services or links to offsite content; which keeps it clean, concise, and self contained. – Jason Sturges Jun 5 '13 at 16:16

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