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I saw this answer in review and wasn't sure if I should act upon it. I couldn't find any guidelines about advertising your own product on the page for the workplace. Do we mind this kind of thing?

They did specifically state it's the current company that they work for, however it just feels like another form of spam to me. What do people think?

If you do find another meta question that answers this, or a rule, please link it to me as my Google-phoo failed me!

Edit here is the answer in question for those with less than 10k rep

In my current organization (wizergos) we do daily stand-up using a tool developed by us through which we solve above problem. Our team consists of in-house team as well as remote team. Using this tool we collaborate both teams by a real time collaborative screen (both in mobile and web) displayed to everyone. To make stand-up meetings short and focused on updates, team members can update their statuses from that screen itself. You can find more details from this blog regarding standup meetings

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  • 3
    Found the link, I feel it should be closed as spam, but not 100%. I'll flag it and let the community decide. If anyone does have some further guidelines on this, I'm all ears!
    – Draken
    Feb 22, 2017 at 8:08
  • I didn't find the answer. Has it already been deleted? Feb 23, 2017 at 10:27
  • 1
    Looks like it. Guess that solves that problem
    – Draken
    Feb 23, 2017 at 10:56
  • 1
    @TeacherKSHuang Yes, the answer was deleted by a moderator. Only 10k+ users can see it.
    – Masked Man
    Feb 24, 2017 at 3:01
  • @MaskedMan. Ouch :D. Feb 24, 2017 at 8:26
  • I've seen some other examples of product promotion where the answerer is clearly trying to answer the question, and then mentions his own product last (and it is on topic). But the example linked here looks like pure spam. I wouldn't be surprised if the upvotes were cast by sock-puppets accounts.
    – Brandin
    Feb 24, 2017 at 18:28

4 Answers 4

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If the post answers the question and meets the requirement to disclose affiliations, then I don't think it's spam under SE's rules. "Answers the question" is critical; most spam "answers" don't, and so are deletable as pure spam.

Merely having a link to a product, service, or blog post doesn't make a post spam; we get answers that legitimately do that. This is the evaluation sequence I use:

  • Does the post answer the question?

    • If not, is it spam? (Usually this is obvious.) If so, flag as spam. If not spam, downvote and flag NAA.
  • Post answers the question (not necessarily well). Does it promote a product/service/book/blog post/etc?

    • If yes, is the post clear about affiliation? (This is my company, we're their customer, etc.) If no, i.e. you suspect undisclosed affiliation, comment asking about it. Say that linking to your own (company's) stuff is fine but must be disclosed.
  • Does this post pass that test on its own, but you can't help noticing that this user does that a lot? Flag to alert a moderator; excessive self-promotion is a gray area that mods might need to discuss with the user.

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  • I think the answer provided barely gets over the line for acceptable. If the same answer was posted to every or quite a few scrum/standup questions then it would be different but so far as I know this is the only place it was answered and it seems it could be a legitimate attempt to help answer the question. I think it needs some work but but not such a signifigant overhaul to make the answer completely worthless. Had it been posted as a comment it would have been a great comment and one I probably would have encouraged to be expanded into a full answer. Feb 27, 2017 at 16:01
  • @Monica What would be the best approach to handle a situation where a user is (for example) an executive of the company, but mentions merely that he is "associated" with the company (or some such phrase)? It could be perceived as a deliberate attempt to satisfy the affiliation requirement by shoehorning a rather downplayed disclosure.
    – Masked Man
    Nov 7, 2017 at 4:21
  • 1
    @MaskedMan I'm not aware of any SE rules that mandate specificity of the disclosure. I don't think it matters whether you're a programmer on the team, the CEO, the VC funding the company, or the QA intern. If it appears to be in good faith it should be fine; if it's spammy then the nature of the disclosure probably isn't the only problem. Nov 7, 2017 at 4:29
  • @Monica Thanks, that sounds like a reasonable approach to take. Assume good intentions rather than malicious ones. The reason I had asked was a specific answer to a very old question. I had considered editing out the self-promotion, but on second thoughts, I decided to check on meta. I will now leave that answer as it is. :)
    – Masked Man
    Nov 7, 2017 at 6:27
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Do we mind this kind of thing?

I certainly do. Most if not all of the community frowns on it as well.

it just feels like another form of spam to me

It's a form of spam, yes, though I'd be on the fence about flagging it as such. There are serious consequences (more here) for users that are (perhaps incorrectly) flagged for spam so I'd reserve those for egregious cases. In this case, I've downvoted and flagged as not-an-answer since it seems designed to skirt around providing an actual solution to the problem and instead trying to get people to click the link where they may or may not find an actual answer (I didn't check the result). So given that click-bait it certainly qualifies as spam. But the user seems to be authentic and for a mis-step like this I'd downvote, flag NAA and usually leave a comment.

That's what I've done in this case. My comment said:

Welcome to the site Sanjog. We typically frown on these kind of promotional posts that don't really answer the question and seem to just want to advertise a link. Linking to a page that has more information is fine even if it's your own commercial work (as long as you disclose that), but your answer should really be self-contained and be useful.

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  • you cannot hear me, but I am clapping....
    – Neo
    Feb 24, 2017 at 17:07
  • This was not a good answer, but I do not think it was spam. I think the OP probably thought it might be useful and I am kind of torn about it being deleted. I have no problem if the community wants to down vote it but the answer was not just a link with no other context. Feb 27, 2017 at 15:55
  • For the record I would not have a problem if it was a community deletion the problem is it was a moderator deletion which prevents us from being able to vote to undelete. Feb 27, 2017 at 16:05
  • @IDrinkandIKnowThings True, but there is an appeal system to contest mod deletions.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Feb 27, 2017 at 19:14
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An easy rule to decide this is: if the link or the product being promoted disappears, is the answer still useful?

An answer which promotes a product, while also elaborating how it solves the problem is usually okay. An answer which posts a link to a website which describes the product is probably not.

In this example, it is somewhat worse because the website doesn't actually explain anything but asks you to watch a video.

0

On DBA there are few people that post their affiliation and typically excellent answers.

On some of the cloud providers you have system engineers working for the company and disclose so often they don't even disclose any more. A Microsoft employee will typically have a name that starts msft. Some of them are very good and I think some just are meeting a quota for post so many times a week.

On a site like workplace it just does not come into play as often.

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