Help this poor spammer out

Question

I don't think this guy deserved to get his answer deleted as spam. Martin'Vobr vas Rebex linked to a product he makes as an example of a library to accomplish the task the OP sought, and did so in a way that made it clear that he is the creator of the library and therefore his word should be taken understanding that he is biased.

Do you think he did anything underhanded in his answer? Here's the "spammy" part, for those without ten thousand arbitrary numbers:

I would try the code from the codeproject and if it suits your needs stick with it. In case of too many parsing problem the commercial email component with decent support could be a wise move. I would recommend our Rebex Mail ($149 single dev) but I'm biased. Feel free to browse for you own favorite ;-). At least it will be (in case of any problem) someone who is paid for solving your mail parsing problem.

Ordinarily I would flag this for moderator attention but unfortunately I am not permitted to flag locked answers. Also, I'd like to know if I'm completely wrong about my understanding of what is and is not spam.

To me, this isn't spam. To six other people, it is. One of us has to be wrong, by the pigeonholing convention of '57. Can we figure this out? There are a lot of similar users to Martin who post their products, and a lot of them do it in a very spammy way. But in the specific instance of Martin I think he does it well. We can't outright outlaw all users who advocate their own libraries, can we? Those might be the only libraries that do what the asker wants, after all.

Answer 1

It doesn't look terribly out of place, is open and honest, on-topic, and relates to the question rather than being just a tired copy/paste over and over. I have no problem with it.

Answer 2

Hi,

Martin Vobr (who posted the answer we are talking about). First of all - thanks for taking this topic to the table. This would let us all to refine to rules.

Let me add some background facts to the debate:

Full disclosure since the beginning

• I have clearly stated my connection to Rebex in my profile since the beginning more than year ago.

• Soon after that I've changed my screen name from 'Martin Vobr' to 'Martin Vobr from Rebex' to serve as kind of 'signature with disclaimer'. I don't recall if it was week after the registration or three weeks after it. Someone with an access to the database might correct me if I'm wrong. It's in place for months now.

Adhering to the community rules

• I've read posts on meta about mentioning own products and did my best to adhere to them. Most notably:

  Using SO / SF / SU to promote your products?

  I think your examples are acceptable as long as you declare your bias

  and

  Is it appropriate to mention my product in a StackOverflow answer?

  I say that if it is a relevant answer, then post it. You might want to put a disclaimer, but I don't see anything wrong with it. And f others don't like it, it won't get voted up.

  and this answer from John Skeet:

  If it's relevant and will help, I think that's fine. I've referred people on SO to C# in Depth before, and others on SU to Google Sync. ...

  Basically it's about the answer rather than the person.

Intentions

• I don't hide the fact that I'm posting mostly on topic related to the products Rebex is developing. Of course - It's because it's my area of expertize. I'm only offering one of possible solutions. It is (used to be?) welcome in past on SO. If the commercial solution is a good match it would help the OP and other SO users as well.

It may be that interpretation of rules changed since 2008/2009. Let's try to find a consensus about mentioning own products on SO again. I will adhere to it.

P.S. I've found about this post accidentally. It would be nice if someone has let me about it. If the good behaviour should be enforced it would be nice to clearly state what it is. And maybe to let it know to the offender clearly so he is not leaved to guessing from the reputation changes ;-)

Answer 3

Just mentioning a product should not qualify a post as spam. If I was a 10k on SO I'd vote to undelete.

Answer 4

I think the issue was mentioning the price, which made it sound like a sales pitch, regardless of intent.

There's no issue linking to someone's own product, it's just the way it was done in this instance.

That being said, I probably would have edited out the price bit instead of flagging as spam.

Answer 5

In this other answer by the same author, however, he forgets to mention that he is the owner of the advertised product. Interestingly, he is selling a product very similar to the (in)famous Pawel, who happens to have an answer right next to this one with an "I own this stuff" disclaimer.

I am not sure where I am getting with this, but if Pawel's answers (before the disclaimer) where considered spam, surely Martin's should be as well.