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I understand that posting comments to existing SE sites advertising an Area 51 proposal is not allowed.

However, I'm not sure if the same applies to Community Ads. Since these are only shown on the main site if the community supports them on meta, is it acceptable to post a suggested advert for an Area 51 proposal in the Community Ads meta post of a graduated SE site?

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  • Judging by this, I'd say it's not possible to advertise the dynamic ad anyway. – ShaWiz May 22 '16 at 14:04
  • @ShadowWizard thanks for linking to that. It sounds like that only rules out the dynamic ad though - the answer seems to actively encourage home made ads. – trichoplax May 22 '16 at 14:11
  • Yes, but those ads should be specfic to the site. Since there are automatic area 51 ads already, I don't think it's proper to give it another boost with something that isn't meant for this in the first place. – ShaWiz May 22 '16 at 14:13
  • I agree they should be relevant to the site, and voting on the site's meta can decide that. I'm posting here to find out whether it is acceptable to even propose Area 51 ads, and the linked discussion has an employee answer saying "if you feel that you want a proposal ad to run more frequently or demo a specific proposal... making your own ad is your best bet". Hopefully we can now get more detail on what is acceptable. – trichoplax May 22 '16 at 14:21
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    Why would it not be? – Catija♦ May 22 '16 at 23:32
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    @Catija I believe the reason that comments promoting Area 51 proposals are disallowed is that even when well meaning and on relevant sites, they become spam because there are so many Area 51 proposals. I can't guess whether community ads would be viewed the same way, so I'm hoping someone can provide an official stance. – trichoplax May 23 '16 at 0:24
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If history is anything to be trusted, it's totally fine to post them on full sites' Community Ads topics... posting them in places where you might find supporters is one of the reasons they exist.

The proposal has since been deleted due to lack of support but the Film making proposal was advertised on M&TV for a year with the support of the M&TV community. Also see the comments below for other examples.

The reality is, as long as you are not spamming sites that do not relate and you're not encouraging your users to abuse voting privileges by upvoting the ad on a site they don't use, you should be fine.

What you likely can't see on that topic is the Boating.SE ad that was deleted... because boats have nothing to do with Movies or TV... Consider your audience.

I have noted this in the past on an answer to a related question here. Which was also discussed on the linked Area 51 discussion here. Please note the question's edit history and the long list of unrelated sites that this proposal got spammed to... no, neither Ubuntu nor Bicycles have any connection to Arts and Crafts.

Now, note that the default ads will already appear on most sites so if you really want the target community to take your ad seriously, I recommend you do so, too... create one from scratch rather than using the default one.

Have fun with it. Make the imagery and text apply to the site you're targeting... Take a peek at the other ads in the M&TV Community Ads topic (or any site's topic) as examples.

Finally, be prepared to have your ad downvoted - particularly if you don't consider the above advice - and be gracious about it. If you get downvotes, ask why rather than getting defensive. Perhaps the site doesn't see the connection that you do... think of it as a process, not a one-shot deal.

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    The Geographic Information Systems Stack Exchange is currently running, by virtue of votes, including mine, a community ad for the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry proposal: meta.gis.stackexchange.com/a/4147/115 – PolyGeo May 23 '16 at 6:03
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    Mi Yodeya is running an ad for the Hebrew proposal and Worldbuilding is running one for the Urban Planning proposal. This is fine; if the community doesn't like it they won't vote it up. – Monica Cellio♦ May 23 '16 at 16:20

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