A number of brand new accounts have popped up shilling their paid for applications.

Is this within the rules? Is the community happy with this? Could mods clarify this in the rules?

Either allowing advertising, or banning it entirely.

my point is - there is a difference between an open source homegrown project that might be useful, vs closed source paid for projects from brand new accounts

some replies are misunderstanding, somehow.

I am against

brand new accounts who:

  1. first post is a brand new project
  2. project is closed source
  3. project will cost money
  4. is asking for free testing
  5. the post is literally an advertisement
  • ken@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    9·
    1 day ago

    I would like some clarity on general apparent self-promotion of open source projects as well. As in, points 1-4 don’t apply and 5 depends on your definition of “advertisement”.

    I’m bringing this up because I (once) previously attempted to share a project1 I maintain on here. I did take some effort to include some context and discussion points for selfhosters in order to make it more tailored and stay safe on Rule 3. It was quickly removed by mod. I tried reaching out to one of the mods to try to understand what was wrong. They were friendly and said they weren’t involved and would forward to the relevant people and since then I haven’t heard back. It would be very helpful to be able to get some feedback on why submission was removed so we can learn how future submission attempt could be improved (or abandoned).

    1: FLOSS, no commercial or otherwise proprietary parts or relations, no slop or clank in the process

    • curbstickle@anarchist.nexusMEnglish
      5·
      1 day ago

      I’ve only more recently taken over here as a result of the previous mod being overzealous on Rule 3, I commented on a better approach, they rage quit and made me and another person mod. There were quite a few clearly relevant projects that got removed, and obviously yours fit in that territory. You can see the currently stickied post about rule 3 here in the community for reference.

      So I agree that clarification needs to happen. Right now I’m applying the rules in the lightest way possible, trying to remove only spam right now because the rules are extremely generic and subjective.

      My only ‘thing’ would be that I don’t consider this my community to hand down rules from on high, which is why I have encouraged people to make posts like this one so there can be community consensus.

      • ken@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        2·
        10 hours ago

        Thank your for replying, this is encouraging and sounds like moderation of this community is shaping up.

        Whichever side the ruling falls I think that feedback channel would be very good. Just having a way for a submitter to ask from mod(s) why the submission was targeted might be the difference between them turning into a great contributor vs either just leaving or starting to play circumvention games (in especially bad cases turning into antagonistic trolls). Speaking from how I’ve seen those dynamics play out in other communities.

        • curbstickle@anarchist.nexusMEnglish
          1·
          9 hours ago

          DM, a meta thread, or even a post in YPTB is always an option, I’m not sure what other options on feedback are sensible/realistically available.

          A meta thread posted by a member of the community, and the discussion that followed, is what brought this up to the forefront in the first place.