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I want to ask about my answer here:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/78498819/1718491

deleted post screenshot

It has 4+ down-votes as "spam" and I'd like to ask if this really qualifies as "spam" or not. I wrote a detailed answer and linked to the SlickStack forum, a FOSS project I've been helping maintain for the past several years. It's a non-commercial site and on those forums we regularly link to related Stack Overflow discussions as well to help preserve answers... usually I will also submit them to archive.org just to ensure future devs can find the info.

For the past 11+ years, I have understood that links are fine here if they provide context. I have linked to many bloggers, always believing this was allowed.

Please correct me if I'm no longer allowed to link to SlickStack.io (my affiliation is also disclosed on my profile).


Since this is getting a lot of views, I would like to reaffirm that if the mods and community here would rather me never mention SlickStack again and delete all previous mentions of it here than I'm happy to comply. But the reason I have mentioned it over the years is because it's the main reason I got into coding and got involved more on this platform. So I try to link back and forth to resources online to maintain a sort of paper trail for the future, especially with so many blogs and web pages being deleted year after year.

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    Notice of affiliation should be up front within the post itself, not hidden away in your profile Commented May 28 at 5:34
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    As you wish. But please note that the project being "open-source" or "non-commercial" is not particularly relevant in determining if a post is spam or not. (So it could be argued that the longer title is simply harder to parse, instead of more informative, since it doesn't put forward nothing immediately material to the discussion)
    – yivi
    Commented May 28 at 5:43
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    But doesn't context matter here? I mean if my affiliation with a given website is what determines if it's spam or not, than I think also it matters if I have disclosed my affiliation with that website yet (I did, but maybe not well enough) and the type of website it is... i.e. is it selling Viagra pills, or a FOSS software with a relevant discussion? Lastly, have I ever been flagged for spam in 11+ years or only in the past few weeks when my serial stalker began harassing me everyday on StackOverflow? Commented May 28 at 5:48
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    @JesseNickles In this context (since you wouldn't be bringing this up at all if you were actually linking to a site that sold Viagra pills or something similar), the distinction is not particularly relevant. Read this, if you haven't, and want more information about what's liable to be spam-deleted.
    – yivi
    Commented May 28 at 5:56
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    Have you read the relevant Help Center article? Commented May 28 at 7:20
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    I see that from the 49 posts you made, there is 1 question and 20 answers that have a link to slickstack or to your littlebuzzy plugin or github. Furthermore, I see you are addressing an issue of stolen code in one (not really relevant on Stack Overflow), and explicit affiliation is missing in others (like here), ... all this gives a sort of impression,... If one third of your posts link to it, it at least looks like you want to advertise your site. Is that surprising?
    – trincot
    Commented May 28 at 10:49
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    Depends on your definition of spam. Stack Overflow's definition is probably very different from what comes to your mind when you think of "spam". This is why I don't like Stack Overflow recycling popular internet lingo, it just causes confusion. Undisclosed affiliation, that's what is implied here.
    – Gimby
    Commented May 28 at 14:03

2 Answers 2

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Disclosing your affiliation in your profile is not enough.

From How to not be a spammer:

if you mention your product, website, etc. in your question or answer (or any other contribution to the site), you must disclose your affiliation in your post.

(italics original)

That rule doesn't change for a FOSS project, nor for a personal project. Failing that rule opens any content to be subject to receiving spam flags.

Going forward I would make it explicit that you are affiliated. If you manage to let that organically flow with the text, that would be awesome. But only relying on words like we or our to keep the spam flaggers at bay is asking for mishaps.

You might want to revisit older answers and see if those require a more prominent affiliation signal as well. All to prevent overt self-promotion.

There used to be Community Promotion Ads which would have been perfect to promote any FOSS project. But community ads don't generate revenue so you can guess what happened to that feature.

Thank you for investing time to work on FOSS projects and thank you for sharing your knowledge here on Stack Overflow. I hope this current experience doesn't discourage you.

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To add to Rene's answer, there is also this item in the help centre content:

Don't include links except to support what you've written. Links are not a substitute for including information in your answer itself, and the links you include should always be directly relevant to a part of your answer.

In the example you showed, the link appears to be thrown in as an afterthought. To some, it might seem like an attempt to gain search engine visibility. It certainly doesn't seem like it's "support[ing] what you've written" since the answer looks quite complete to me.


IMO this question is barely programming-related and has almost certainly been asked before. Did it really need an answer after 8 years? Did you consider looking for a duplicate question instead of answering it?

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    I realize this is 12 hours later, but please look at the updated answer first: stackoverflow.com/a/78498819/1718491 Commented May 28 at 16:55
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    Enabling PHP extensions is "barely programming related" are you being serious right now or trying to troll me? Does PHP still use extensions in the year 2024 or was that only relevant 8 years ago? Very eager to hear your explanation. Commented May 28 at 16:57
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    it's a gray area. Enabling plugins isn't programming, for the same reason managing a server isn't programming... even if it's common in some areas of business for the "programmer" to also be performing those roles.
    – Kevin B
    Commented May 28 at 17:00
  • I'm not really that concerned with the example you provided in your question, it is a bit unclear if the discussion that occured elsewhere is relevant at all to the question, but it in theory is maybe where you worked through the problem to come to the solution? in that case i think it's fine and it looks like that's the case. There are just other answers you haven't linked to with links that are quite a bit less relevant.
    – Kevin B
    Commented May 28 at 17:03
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    On meta specifically the consensus seems to be shifting of late into being far more strict about what is a programming problem, I don't think in 2012 anyone would have batted an eye at a question about configuring PHP of which plugins are surely a part. Times do change. On the other hand, configuring PHP should be well-covered by existing answers by now, PHP has existed longer than the site I believe so the knowledge base will be well-stocked with questions and answers.
    – Gimby
    Commented May 28 at 17:12

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