I answered a question about a game published by the company for which I work. I've indicated my affiliation in my profile. Is that sufficient, or should I indicate it in the answer as well?
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Are you worrying about some conflict of interest or just trying to taut yourself as a definitive expert?– Nick TApr 14, 2012 at 4:09
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4@NickT The "spamming" policy requires people to disclose affiliation when promoting your own products.– badpApr 14, 2012 at 8:35
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Nice to see on the site a high rep user that work in video games industry.– DrakeApr 14, 2012 at 9:41
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2@NickT As badp said, my concern is about violating site policy. I'm here to provide quality answers, ask good questions, and occasionally moderate. IMO, My content should be voted on based on its quality, not because I work for a specific company. :)– ShaunApr 14, 2012 at 23:22
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2 Answers
This comes up often on Stack Overflow due to things like Facebook, Microsoft, and Google employees answering questions about their respective platforms, and as long as you're not promoting your game but merely answering a question already about it, you're actually discouraged from signing your posts with your affiliation:
In general I would consider this a signature block, which is not necessary. I agree that removing the signature block is the correct thing to do here, since it's ultimately more words on the page that don't necessarily answer the question. Here at Stack Exchange we have an irrational love of signal-to-noise ratio. :)
The key point is that you're not promoting any specific technology, you are merely answering existing questions that are already about that technology.
Obviously mention your affiliation with [your company] in your user profile, of course, since that's relevant and interesting to anyone who wanted to know what your background is.
But if you do happen to promote your game in your answer, you must disclose your affiliation in your answer. To me, promoting your company's product instead of merely answering a question about it would be something like this:
Question: How can I change my character's name in TERA?
Answer: You can change your character's name by using the TERA Name Change Service™, which only costs $12.95. If you do it this week, there's a special where they'll rename your character and your friend's for the same low price.
At the end of the day, it's not who you are or who you work for, but the quality of answer that gets you the accepted answer.
As long as you're successfully answering the question, I don't think it matters who you are, especially if your answer stands well without that knowledge.
In questions, it's a little bit of a different boat, since you would presumably know better than most of Gaming's experts, and might be seen as advertising - but as for answers?
We like it when folks intimately familiar with the software post answers. But, if you don't feel the need to state your association, and there's no benefit to doing so in terms of appearing authoritatively knowledgeable about the subject, don't worry about it. You're never going to punished for posting quality content.
answered Apr 14, 2012 at 3:32
