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Comment by OnlyFriendsThwy | Hacker News Reader

How systematic are you talking? I happen to know an OF creator who promotes herself that way and she doesn't do anything in an automatic fashion, just creates her own submissions to subreddits and gets burned by such moderators.

I happen to agree with formerly_proven . When my OF friend described how she submitted topical stuff to subreddits in the hopes that others would follow up on her profile, I was like, "what's wrong with that? Isn't that how people are supposed to promote themselves? Giving out free, relevant stuff in the hopes you'll want to know more about them?"

I mean, isn't that how ethical self-promotion is supposed to work? Join a community, obey their norms, contribute, and if they like you, they'll follow up? How do you expect it to work?

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Can’t speak for your friend or a moderator, but when someone pursues goals other than a pure contribution, that contribution is usually shallow and easy to see through. This pollutes the place with a low-effort content and everyone “living” there hates it. At the core it’s a barely covered hypocrisy.

Puns not intended (seriously).

I see that, and I'm all for removing shallow content. I just don't get the point of a blanket ban on OF people who market themselves this way -- a mod should be capable of saying, "this person is promoting herself, but it meets the quality standards so no reason to block it" (let alone pre-emptively ban such a person). Indeed, those are the very kind of submissions that lead to a thriving, synergistic forum-ecosystem.

I mean, from my experience on reddit, there are all kinds of unworthy submissions from all kinds of motivations that get upvoted more than they should be and removed too slowly (or not at all) by mods. Whether it's brand promotion, or karma harvesting, or (all too often) just not understanding what submissions are appropriate for the forum, it degrades the experience.[1] But targeting OF users for autobans seems tunnel-visioned at best and slut-shaming at worst.

[1] one of my favorites, /r/LeopardsAteMyFace, is intended for examples of people a) getting hurt by b) policies and politicians they advocated for. But well over the half the submissions ignore b) and are just cases of "break law they obviously didn't like, get prosecuted".

> I just don't get the point of a blanket ban on OF people who market themselves this way

The reason has been specified and is to the point: "... contribution is usually shallow and easy to see through. This pollutes the place with a low-effort content ..." - these OF advertisers are only interested in getting people to see their profile (as you rightly pointed out), not their posted content, because their intention is to make money from such content ... obviously, in a place where content is more higly valued, such posters will be banned to ensure that it doesn't attract more of these kind of people. And yes, many sub-reddits do have poor quality content. Thanks to the ban on OF advertisers, it is much less.

>The reason has been specified and is to the point...

It's a figure of speech, and I'm well aware of the ostensible justification, which is why the bulk of my comment is specifically addressing it, and you even recognize it as doing so.

Do try to be charitable, if for no other reason than my profile lacking a promotional link :-p

Since you've opened the door to lectures about "didn't you read this part of the comment", then I'll have to turn it around and ask why didn't you read this part:

>>Isn't that how people are supposed to promote themselves? Giving out free, relevant stuff in the hopes you'll want to know more about them?"

>>I mean, isn't that how ethical self-promotion is supposed to work? Join a community, obey their norms, contribute, and if they like you, they'll follow up? How do you expect it to work?

What is the ethical way to self-promote? In the best world, I imagine it would look exactly like I just described. If you don't have an answer to that, a better way, then I'm not sure what basis you have for objecting here; you should probably figure it out before claiming you have a defensible position.

FWIW, "just stay in your little box and never come out" is not what I would count as a defensible position.

>contribution is usually shallow and easy to see through. This pollutes the place with a low-effort content.

It absolutely can be, sure. But the point where you say "OF promoters can never contribute anything of value" is where you cross over from "prudent moderation" into slut-shaming. My regular account links my blog, as do numerous other HNers. If that blog makes them money, should they be pre-emptively banned?

>And yes, many sub-reddits do have poor quality content. Thanks to the ban on OF advertisers, it is much less.

0% of the off-topic LAMF submissions were from OF-linked accounts, and at the same time, reddit has lost out on quality submissions from OF users, while gleefully letting through ulterior-motive submissions from people who don't bother to announce themselves. Hence, "tunnel-visioned".

Your position is valid, but in reality that’s exactly what is used to game the rules. I got banned or post deleted. Why is their blog link not banned then? Why that low quality post is still there then? See, I can game the rules but I can’t game the community. They just “don’t want it”, no matter how hard “it” is to define. It’s their place, mods have limited time, and if some phenomenon becomes too common, blanket rules are inevitable.

What is the ethical way to self-promote?

Exactly what you propose. But if they ask you to stop even that, you should. If they don’t have enough to judge case by case with hundreds of cases, you have to understand that and agree.

By using “I” and “you” above I mean example person, not one of us.

Another thing that you assume, which is not exactly correct imo, is what slut-shaming is. We may agree that explicit directed pointing-out and shaming is bad, because it attacks a person. But we can’t blame internal “don’t want it here” feelings, even if that is based on OF link. Shaming is a direct action, not location-based attitude. The same person may not want it in a linux-related group, but may visit a link and subscribe in OF-related one. E.g. I like strippers in my local stripclub and have good relationships with few of them, but I wouldn’t want them advertise it at my nephew’s birthday party or sysop meetings.

People join and participate in reddit for the free "quality" content. Not for click-baits.

Let's be clear here - OF creators are looking for unsolicited free advertising.

And that's at the crux of the issue - both free online communities and subscription based paid online communities are competitors because both are in the business of content generation.

Free online communities make money from advertisements. So it is in their obvious interest to discourage all attempts, by anyone, of "free" advertisement. Especially their competitor!

OF creators are in the business of making and selling their content. Obviously it is not in their best interest to make their quality content available freely. As free quality content is anathema to their business, obviously there is absolutely no reason for any community to tolerate their attempts at free self-promotion.

The solution? If you want to make money, you have to spend some money - Just pay for a suitable ad in the free online communities and support them.

>Free online communities make money from advertisements. So it is in their obvious interest to discourage all attempts, by anyone, of "free" advertisement. Especially their competitor!

The mods of these communities aren't getting the money from reddit ads, so that doesn't apply.

>The solution? If you want to make money, you have to spend some money - Just pay for a suitable ad in the free online communities and support them.

Okay, and when reddit ads are trivially blocked, and platforms won't do OF ads, what does that leave? Have you thought this through?

Note: before you say "their content sucks", yes, I agree, sucky content should be removed. But the question here is where a submission that otherwise qualifies for the sub should be removed merely on the basis that the profile of the submitter links an OF page. Again, that's even when the submission itself doesn't link it.

No, that's absolutely not how most people want their online communities to work.

Sneaky, indirect, hidden advertising is worse than regular ads or 'spam'. Regardless of if a community is about gardening or guitars or cooking or basketball, most people don't want shills posting content that's secretly sponsored product placement related to their hobby or promotion of the poster for fame or profit.

Most subreddits have rules specifically against this, because otherwise the real, organic, genuine conversation and content gets drowned out by self-promoting shills trying to drive clicks to their website or views to their youtube or get free advertising/PR for their company. You're supposed to participate out of a genuine interest in the community, not to exploit them as an audience for making money.

I don't think you're responding the kind of activity I was defending. I'm not referring to product placement or submissions or comments that actively advocate their OF page. I'm referring to submitting rabbit pictures to /r/rabbits with the same profile as you OF identity.

I agree with you about the product placement stuff, and I despise the submarine shills. But that's the thing: that's rejecting the submission -- and banning the user -- on their content having failed to meet the forums standards, not simply the fact of their profile linking their OF, as the OP was referring to. That's a whole different league from "hey, here are some cool rabbits" and oh, if you look at their profile, you can find their OF page. (The OF friend in question was immediately banned for having a reddit account whose profile links OF even despite the mod accepting that it's otherwise a valid submission.)

I'm make the same challenge to you that the other respondent ignored: how should people ethically self-promote, if not that?

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