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by dspillett 3108 days ago
> That would be lousy self promotion.

But still self-promotion if people want to be dogmatic about it. Some people, and some discussion forums, have an absolutely zero tolerance attitude to self-promotion.

I have no issue with it if:

* It isn't almost all that the account is for (caveat: personally I don't care enough in this case to have checked the account's comment history), i.e. the person contributes usefully to discussions noticably beyond what is needed for the self-promotion.

* The posts are at least relevant to the discussion at hand (which it appears to be here)

* The page/post/other is sufficiently honest about the affiliate links, because otherwise they could represent a conflict of interests (recommending what makes most out of affiliate relations rather than what is actually best by a good objective measure). This last part can be quite subjective, and again I've not looked at this particular case myself yet.
2 comments
Xylakant 3108 days ago
> But still self-promotion if people want to be dogmatic about it.

If you want to be dogmatic about it, then no links to your bio, no mention of the good work you do, no link to a company that employs or employed you, no link to your blog, ...

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pbhjpbhj 3108 days ago
Make sure you use a different username, and keep yourself anonymous!
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pbhjpbhj 3108 days ago
I shared a link to my blog the other day, we had a discussion on p2p internet and I recalled Opera Unite and linked a page I wrote about it some time ago.

That page has affiliate links, IIRC, which you probably block with ublock/adaware, should I not have shared it?

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dspillett 3107 days ago
If it was relevant to the discussion, and you actually included some of the content in the discussion (i.e. quoted the relevant parts with a link to the fuller article for people who want to check greater detail, rather than just a link) so people didn't have to jump off-site to read your contribution, then I don't see a problem with that.
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pbhjpbhj 3107 days ago
It was more a mention, then a link to a page I knew had more info for the curious ... seems silly, to me, to try and find some other page with that info just in case someone sees an affiliate link.

In part the page is about my reaction, which is inter alia what was pertinent, that info definitely isn't elsewhere.

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