Accessibility First DevRel. I focus on ensuring content created, events held and company assets are as accessible as possible, for as many people as possible.
Cant find anything on the rules for the site, do you know where they are. They just talk about being courteous, avoiding profanity (but they want ban it) etc.
Could you point me to the rules please so I know what I can and can't do here.
Front end developer specialising in JavaScript and React. Experienced in all aspects of modern front end development. Passionate about making accessible, secure and performant software.
There may not be technical guidelines about it on this website, but I believe it would widely be considered self-promotion and possibly spam.
Instead, here is stackoverflow's help page titled How to not be a spammer. It mentions "don't talk about your product / website too much" and "don't include links except to support what you've written". The final part of your answer isn't there just to support your answer. It's there to actively get people out of the page to somewhere else you've linked to in a way that also actively helps you. That's considered spam, even if you're trying to help.
This is worse in a place where people own their content and can moderate their comments. (I'm not familiar with stackoverflow, but I don't believe someone who asked a question can moderate the comments. In other words, they don't "own" the content and are not themselves worried about any self-promotion that happens in the comments.)
But in platforms like dev.to, YouTube and many more, it's generally common knowledge that self-promotion is not allowed and it's quite strict. For example, going on YouTube or dev.to and posting a comment on someone's content saying "now come see my own video" or "now come over to this other webpage" is immediately regarded as spam. Even the stackoverflow guidelines mention that you should avoid doing it. It would be fine to answer the question and say "for more information see X", but not to actively direct them away. There don't need to be technical guidelines on it because authors own their content, and they can moderate the comments themselves.
Accessibility First DevRel. I focus on ensuring content created, events held and company assets are as accessible as possible, for as many people as possible.
No community guidelines broken and I didn't point to any content I own so that was what I was bothered about, I will take on board what you said about self promotion.
I thought the offer of information to improve the article and help for others was very balanced and as I don't own StackOverflow I still do not really see the harm.
Anyway, it was just not the "welcome" to a community I was expecting that's all.
Feel free to use the information I linked to to improve / add to your article as I said.
Front end developer specialising in JavaScript and React. Experienced in all aspects of modern front end development. Passionate about making accessible, secure and performant software.
Thank you. I'm sorry for the unfortunate welcome. Judging by the information in your comments, your stackoverflow answers and your polite way of replying even when disagreeing, I can see that you'll provide a lot of value to this community. I'm looking forward to more of your content.
Hope everything is more welcoming than what you've experienced so far.
All the best.
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Cant find anything on the rules for the site, do you know where they are. They just talk about being courteous, avoiding profanity (but they want ban it) etc.
Could you point me to the rules please so I know what I can and can't do here.
Cheers
Hi InHuOfficial,
There may not be technical guidelines about it on this website, but I believe it would widely be considered self-promotion and possibly spam.
Instead, here is stackoverflow's help page titled How to not be a spammer. It mentions "don't talk about your product / website too much" and "don't include links except to support what you've written". The final part of your answer isn't there just to support your answer. It's there to actively get people out of the page to somewhere else you've linked to in a way that also actively helps you. That's considered spam, even if you're trying to help.
This is worse in a place where people own their content and can moderate their comments. (I'm not familiar with stackoverflow, but I don't believe someone who asked a question can moderate the comments. In other words, they don't "own" the content and are not themselves worried about any self-promotion that happens in the comments.)
But in platforms like dev.to, YouTube and many more, it's generally common knowledge that self-promotion is not allowed and it's quite strict. For example, going on YouTube or dev.to and posting a comment on someone's content saying "now come see my own video" or "now come over to this other webpage" is immediately regarded as spam. Even the stackoverflow guidelines mention that you should avoid doing it. It would be fine to answer the question and say "for more information see X", but not to actively direct them away. There don't need to be technical guidelines on it because authors own their content, and they can moderate the comments themselves.
If you need additional convincing on this, just do a search on google for something like "youtube self promotion comments" (or any equivalent big platform). The majority of the answers you'll find are that it's widely regarded as spam. Just in case, here are some of the first community results I found: reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/81ex..., reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/6roq..., reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/3htv...
As a final word, some people may not care about self-promotion but some definitely will.
All the best.
Hey Spyros
No community guidelines broken and I didn't point to any content I own so that was what I was bothered about, I will take on board what you said about self promotion.
I thought the offer of information to improve the article and help for others was very balanced and as I don't own StackOverflow I still do not really see the harm.
Anyway, it was just not the "welcome" to a community I was expecting that's all.
Feel free to use the information I linked to to improve / add to your article as I said.
Cheers
Graham
Hi Graham,
Thank you. I'm sorry for the unfortunate welcome. Judging by the information in your comments, your stackoverflow answers and your polite way of replying even when disagreeing, I can see that you'll provide a lot of value to this community. I'm looking forward to more of your content.
Hope everything is more welcoming than what you've experienced so far.
All the best.