Should we have higher standards for what consitutes appropriate disclosure than the rest of the network?

Question

In response to this answer question I commented that:

When you work for the company that makes the product, it is normal practice to explicitly include a disclosure at the beginning or the end of the post (even though it is in your profile and you imply it by the use of "we")

Ira Baxter (the answerer), replied

It is official Stack Overflow policy that the phrase "Our" ... is adequate disclosure. That was resolved many years ago.

They are correct, in that the use of Our was established in a Meta-post many years ago.

I would assert that this define the default stance for all sites on the stack exchange network, but that we are fine to establish higher and more stringent requirements for this site.

I think we should do so. Given that Recommendations are off-topic for most sites in the network (and I think were off-topic on all sites when that policy was created.), but are on-topic here, the scope for the amount of promotions is much higher. Thus to match, that our requirement for disclosure should be much higher.

I suggest that implicit disclosure, via the use of world like "we" and "our", should not be considered sufficient. And that instead a sentence stating with the bolded word "Disclosure:" and going on to say the appropriate detail, at the beginning or end of the post, be required.

Don't get me wrong, answers from people who made the tools are not bad answers. They are probably some of the best people we can have answering: they know there tools better than anyone. And yes, biases exist that are not from employment (just think of any tech where somone can be described as an X-Fanboy)

But I think the reader would really like to know at a glance, if a post comes from someone who was involved (financially and/or developmentally) with the product in the answer. And I think the best way to do that, is to have very clear and very explict disclosures in such answers.

Answer 1

I basically agree – though I wouldn't close/delete an answer based on that. Stating "my"/"our" etc. the poster already gives a certain disclosure (if OTOH the poster tries to hide the fact, posing as "happy user" or the like, those fakes of course should be banned and definitely counted as spam if proven).

Rather than close/delete, I'd place a comment and strongly recommend to make the disclosure more explicit – the way described in the question here. This "very explicit disclosure" should be the standard here indeed – but give "newcomers" a decent chance to learn that :)

Answer 2

As the guy that at the center of the discussion resolved many years ago, I'm happy with any policy that is defined, used, and not re-litigated by anybody that disagrees with the policy after the fact. Why change it?

That discussion was pretty painful for all involved; there a people that are virulently against anybody with any kind of interest in a software answer.

Software Recommendations is especially about getting good answers to questions about tools: that's what software is. To the extent that the answer is neutral and addresses the OP requirements, one shouldn't prevent responses of "this tool usefully addresses the problem", regardless of the source of the facts, unless you believe the source is deliberately inflating the answer (vendor saying he's a "happy user") or spamming ("irrelevant").

[I do respond to such questions. I try to be neutral. I cause controversy because my company makes a lot of tools, so I have a lot of answers.]

I agree that bad answers should be downvoted and/or deleted, mine included. I don't agree with downvotes because the reader doesn't like commercial tools, doesn't like the author (especially because he represents an evil [boo, hiss] commercial vendor), or doesn't like the disclosure policy.

Answer 3

I don't think that more visible disclosure is useful on this site. You must disclose your affiliation, that's a general policy, but our answer guidelines¹ are designed to keep spammy answers away even if they're undisclosed.

An answer must explain how the recommended product meets the requirements of the question. If an answer recommends a product that isn't actually suitable, then:

• either the answer doesn't actually match the product's features to the requirements, and in that case it does not answer the question and therefore can and should be deleted;
• or the answer matches features to requirements, but lies about the features, in which case it's a wrong answer and should be downvoted.

Additionally answers must mention applicable limitations. Once again, failure to mention downsides can be grounds for deletion as low quality. For example, if it's reasonable to expect free tools to solve a problem, and an answer recommends an expensive tool without mentioning the price, that would be against the guidelines and could warrant deleting the answer.

Potential spammers should also remember that anyone can edit posts here. It's perfectly fine to edit a post to mention important, relevant facts about a product, including up-to-date price information and applicable limitations.

¹ _{Note: I largely wrote the current formulation of these guidelines. This answer here represents something I had in mind when writing them. If what I wrote here is not clear enough from the guidelines, then please contribute to improving their wording.}