12

Can't seem to find something relating on meta,so:

This fella posted a comment to an answer of mine, bluntly not disclosing ownership of the site he links. Going through some of his answers seems that he mainly wants to advertise his website, accuracy and answering OP's questions is only second.

I don't mind being linked to a website. I don't care if they own the site but I'd prefer disclosure of such information and I personally will not support advertisements like that!

14

You're right, excessive self-promotion without disclosure (and even with disclosure) isn't acceptable on SE. From our help center:

The community tends to vote down overt self-promotion and flag it as spam. Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to be about your product or website, that’s okay. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers.

If a large percentage of your posts include a mention of your product or website, you're probably here for the wrong reasons. Our advertising rates are quite reasonable; contact our ad sales team for details. We also offer free community promotion ads for open source projects and non-profit organizations.

I've deleted all this users spams posts, and I've reached out to them to let them know that their fairly rampant self-promotion (Especially without disclosure) isn't acceptable.

  • 1
    What's the process if this happens again, flag the comment/answer ? – Иво Недев Jan 29 '17 at 17:58
  • 6
    @ИвоНедев yes please! – Ash Jan 29 '17 at 18:05
  • 2
    It looks like they have also edited the link into existing answers where it is unnecesary gaming.stackexchange.com/posts/282158/revisions – Angzuril Jan 29 '17 at 18:11
  • 3
    In which case, all this user's answers need reviewing; from what I can tell, a lot of them advertise his site. There's at least one self answer that is still existing. – Frank♦ Jan 29 '17 at 18:27
  • 2
    @Frank I'm going through that users answers now. Quite a few link to that site, but to avoid flooding the front page there are still a few left to fix. If you notice any answers, comments, or changes to post that occur after the time of this comment please flag the post as both spam and with a custom mod flag. Thanks! – Wipqozn♦ Jan 29 '17 at 18:43
  • 4
    Uh. We can't double-flag a post; the system won't let us. We can probably re-flag once the first one is dealt with, but that seems to be the limit of what we can do. – Frank♦ Jan 29 '17 at 18:56
  • 9
    @Frank TIL. Just use a mod flag then. – Wipqozn♦ Jan 29 '17 at 18:59
  • +1, seems like we'd be less concerned about a comment than a full post, though. – DCShannon Jan 31 '17 at 1:52
  • 2
    @DCShannon, nah, I think we should be more concerned about a comment because 1) users can't vote down comments 2) comments require rep to use so comment spammers indicate a more serious system failure and 3) answers and questions are first class citizens whereas comments are third class and the rules can be stricter. – the dark wanderer Jan 31 '17 at 4:07
  • 1
    @thedarkwanderer I'm surprised by all those statements. We of course agree they're both bad. 1) Flag comments. Votes on the comments don't matter when they're gone. 2) Were we talking about spam? I'm talking about a single comment with a nondisclosed mention of a product. If they have enough rep to post it, then they posted good answers and just didn't cite that one comment. 3) I agree with the facts but not the conclusion. A comment is like a conversation, versus a post being a published paper. You don't always cite everything in a conversation. I would expect rules to be more lax. – DCShannon Jan 31 '17 at 17:56
  • @DCShannon If someone can make a proper answer for another site that gives them enough rep, they get 100 rep by default on our site because they're trusted. This is pretty easy on several of the stacks. – Nzall Feb 7 '17 at 9:49

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .