15

It seems there are a lot of answers to old questions which I personally consider spam according the definition "only exists to promote a product". Some of them my question, which is why I noticed it. At least they disclose affiliation.

Affected posts:

There are at least 13 LeadTools employees (user accounts) posting on this site. It's not forbidden, of course. Still, the amount of affected users and questions makes me worry.

I am not concerned about valid answers. I have even upvoted some of them, where appropriate.

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
15

Thank you for your meta post, Thomas.

I share your concerns.

I believe it is best, as a community, to openly and thoughtfully determine how to deal with this somewhat unique situation. By doing so, we can set a workable standard for the future.

Overall, I welcome LeadTools employees to recommend their products when their tool(s) meet the requirements of the question.

But when their tools are inappropriate for what the questions requests, I think that crosses the line into spam. Similarly, creating questions just to provide answers would definitely be considered spam.

When community members have flagged answers that recommend LeadTools products that are completely inappropriate for the question, I have deleted the answers. I don't want to spend the time looking through all the detailed history, but I'm guessing our community's other wonderful moderators have done the same.

On most SE sites, wrong answers are not deleted; they are downvoted instead. Due to unique nature of Software Recommendations SE, our wrong answers often fall into the category of spam, which is not welcome anywhere on SE.

I personally value keeping as much quality content in our community as possible, and it is a continual balancing act to edit/delete enough posts to maintain that quality, while simultaneously making sure not to delete valuable content.

Unless instructed otherwise by our community (which is unlikely!), I will continue to delete flagged content that crosses the line into spam.

A note to LeadTools:

You are welcome here. All of you, without exception. But please, do not post answers that do not meet the requirements for questions. It wastes our time (moderators have to spend our time reading and evaluating all flagged posts), as well as yours (all posts take time to write, and LeadTools posts are generally well-written, which means there is lost time for you for all your deleted posts). It also degrades our community, which makes people unhappy. And as everyone likely knows by now, I try to do my best to bring happiness to the world.

StackExchange has commercial advertising opportunities available for your needs, and I recommend contacting the mothership directly to discuss a mutually-beneficial business relationship.

1
  • 2
    I agree with our Lizard here. In addition we should check the account(s) involved with those answers: if all (or the majority of) their answers are just to promote their products (as it seems to be the case with the answerer of the first example), that warrants a mod message, showing the goal of their presence being "promotion" and not "answering questions". So I join you in welcoming LeadTools, if they stick to the rules. ;)
    – Izzy Mod
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 13:24

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .