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Comment by phphphphp | Hacker News Reader

Posting about your company when relevant is one thing, advertising it another’s launch thread is another, and it’s pretty gauche… especially when, in this very thread, one of your testimonials is saying he doesn’t actually use your product: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35236557

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sorry! on a previous post, someone encouraged me to just post when Codeium was relevant, didn't realize the norms around launch threads.

and wrt the other comment, it is totally accurate - changing developer behavior for these search products is tough! we welcome any ideas :)

I disagree, I am very happy that parent posted this. I want to know about other tools in this space, and the comment contains a nice summary of pros and cons, some of which are extremely relevant to me!

Bloop looks awesome too, don't get me wrong, and I'll check it out.

I don't see the issue with this. It happens on most of these Launch threads and is a common occurrence. I don't think there are rules that prohibit it either.

There's no formal rule against it but it's often done in bad taste. When people overpromote their thing in someone else's launch thread, we tend to scold them. Someone else's launch is not a great place for competitive promotion—each product or project deserves its day in the sun. On the other hand, users like to discuss alternatives and comparables, and that seems healthy.

I'd say the sweet spot is somewhere between just leaving the competitor's launch thread alone, or, if you must, then (1) mention it once and stop there; and (2) when you have any relationship with the alternative thing, disclose it.

That's the sort of thinking we apply in practice but wouldn't make a formal rule out of, partly because it's always evolving, but mainly because we don't want the list of rules to be too long. If we tried to codify all such things we'd end up with a bureaucratic list of hundreds of rules—ugh!

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