A lot of the people we’re talking about are probably like many of us here — they’re makers.
They built something. They care about it.
But - like many of us - they’re not necessarily very good at selling it.
And we folk who aren’t good at selling don’t like it when people try to sell us things.
Especially when they’re bad it.
What can come across as selfish or spammy might sometimes just be… awkward. Or inexperienced. Or someone who doesn’t yet know the social norms of this place.
That doesn’t mean we should tolerate skanky drive-by ads. I don’t want that either.
But I do think there’s a difference between someone trying to extract money from a community and someone clumsily trying to share something they made.
I’d like to think that a forum full of power users and builders and makers can hold a bit of space for other makers — even if their social skills aren’t polished yet.
Protect the culture David and co-hosts have created, yes.
And, also, maybe try to be a little more forgiving and generous. We all tell stories that explain others intentions, and those stories are often halucinations on our part.
That’s all well and good. Like stated before, have a category that they can post in and those who don’t want to see the posts or participate in them can block them.
Actually, TBH, I was hoping for something more than “all well and good”! I put a lot of thought into that comment, and I’d hoped it might be a helpful little reminder that this is a nice generous place to come hang out.
the biggest truth in this post is that people who create things or better say are into coding, SUCK at promoting or marketing. I know this not only from personal experience but from my circle, i know a lot of devs, all of them are about ideas on tools but don’t even want to think about marketing it.
I don’t disagree with what you say, but there’s an approach to take and many of the posts I’ve flagged are the equivalent of Email SPAM
probably written using AI with drop in values for the name of the forum they’re posting in, likely posted almost verbatim in Reddits and other online spaces to try and get traction for what they’ve built.
I know it’s not easy to get attention, but as I’ve got older I have less and less tolerance for people who value my time as less important than their own. I now practice this at work and in my personal life.
SPAM and these sort of posts are minimal effort in a vain attempt to gain attention.
If someone takes the time to become part of the community I love it. But a pure Ad is Bullshit.
Nearly all posts here are interesting to some and uninteresting to others. “Here, buy this thing I built” is no more offensive than “Here, read this thing I read” or “Watch this thing I watched” or “Read this slop I wrote with AI.” Individual users are allowed — rightly — to post an unlimited number of such things.
I read topic titles, skip what doesn’t interest me, and click into what does. Sometimes I click into something and realize it’s not for me. I hit back. That’s how forums work. Over-curating the community is a lot of effort for the reward of excluding things some people actually find interesting.
I don’t think that’s what anyone is suggesting be done.
We are discussing people (or bots) who register, make a single post touting their software (or travel agency or crypto or investment opportunity) and then never reappear.
They do not respond to posts in the thread they started, or even to direct messages.
Often the software (or service) is dodgy.
These kinds of posts are targeted spam. It’s still spam. It’s a burden on the community, and more particularly, on the moderators.
Spam threads attract more spam. This is not just annecdotal evidence; I tracked spam threads on UseNet and later, on forums, as a research project for work.
Spam is a digital weed. In its own environment (not here) spam does no harm. But spam, like the single dandelion in your garden, reproduces. It attracts more weeds in that wind scatters the seeds. Well-meaning users respon in thread to the spam, creating a longer thread and traffic; eyeballs attract spammers.
Spam threads need to be locked and disappeared by time pushing old threads off the current list.
FWIW flagging in Discourse generally means flagging the message to the moderators, who then have to review the flag to judge whether it is a valid flag or not.
So not necessarily less work, and possibly more.
My take: redirecting a river may be less destructive than damming it. Create a category for self-promo posts and let folks mute the category if they don’t want to see the posts.
It’s not a complaint against the post per se, but it’s a complaint about the behavior that led to it.
Let’s take a little journey of imagination here. Sure, a random person might be listening to the MPU podcast. They learn about the site. They hop on to check it out, and what are the odds? One of the top posts is directly related to their software product! So they sign up, and they reply with information about their product. Then, for some reason, they get busy and don’t come back to check replies, see if there are questions, or interact quite literally at all. Ever again. That’s theoretically possible.
But I pretty much guarantee that’s not what happened.
MPU posts rank highly (and quickly) in Google. So somebody with a product they’re promoting can set a Google search alert, see the things that come up, and just pop in to promote their product. That way they get to piggy back on the Google juice of the MPU forum, and people looking for a solution to the problem will see their software. I did a little bit of poking around (because I’m replying to this post - not because I’d do so otherwise ) and there are a number of other “drive by” comments on forums of the same type.
This sort of thing happens all the time. It’s a known marketing tactic. And it doesn’t even need to be the dev doing the posting - it could be an overseas VA being paid a few bucks an hour. It promotes the software, lets the dev accumulate backlinks to boost their site, and is a very budget-friendly way to promote. This is true even if it’s the dev doing it.
I don’t know that it’s possible to deal with it effectively. But it doesn’t seem like it contributes any value to the forum. And in quantity, it becomes a net negative.
If it’s known to be against the rules, the posts would effectively be flagged into oblivion. I’m not a Discourse admin, but my understanding is that if enough community members flag something, it can be completely hidden from view.
From what I can tell here, the OP is asking about whether there is or should be such a rule:
Perhaps a bit OT, but in the software indie/maker community, I’ve noticed there is a tendency to not just be bad at selling or marketing, but to consider marketing and sales efforts as evil or vile.
Granted, I was an engineer by training, schooling, and background, and evolved somewhat organically, not by formal training, into a sales and marketing career, but I still chuckle when these folks write or talk about their disgust for sales and marketing and then bemoan their struggle to eek out a living with their app or product.
So somebody with a product they’re promoting can set a Google search alert, see the things that come up, and just pop in to promote their product. That way they get to piggy back on the Google juice of the MPU forum, and people looking for a solution to the problem will see their software.
What would they set a search alert for? It sounds like their product hadn’t been mentioned before in the thread.
Also, if they actually provide a solution to a problem that people are having, isn’t it a good thing if their product comes up in Google searches about the problem? Won’t future searchers appreciate that, including MPU members? To me, one of the benefits of Discourse forums is that the knowledge in them isn’t locked up, it’s available to anyone using search engine. More specific, reliable knowledge in the forum archive is a public good.
I didn’t see the post you are talking about and I don’t know what the product is, but this doesn’t sound like my definition of spam based on the description here. You were apparently interested enough that you sent them a DM. It’s unfortunate that they didn’t reply, both for you and for them, but there could be all sorts of non-malicious reasons for that. I highly doubt that it was intentional, and they would probably be disappointed to know that they had dropped the ball and lost a customer. I certainly would be. Maybe this software is a part time gig for them, and it simply slipped through the cracks.
It seems to me that you are saying that if a developer notices a thread here that discusses a problem that their product addresses, they should not respond and mention their product unless they are willing to commit to being a full fledged participant in this forum from that time forward. It’s not enough that they wrote some software that addresses an actual problem people have and have asked about. I hope that this isn’t going to become the official policy of this forum.
Your gently comment actually reminds me why this forum means a lot to me. Like many people here I have been around the internet for quite a while. Message boards, IRC, ICQ, old school forums, then the whole Digg, Reddit, Facebook… Places like this are honestly rare now…
Where I gently disagree is about the type of people we are talking about. Many are not really makers in the sense people here usually mean it. Some push out a new app every week, promote it everywhere they can, then move on while the previous one quietly dies.
Often they are not deeply involved with what they built. They barely understand the code because a lot of it comes straight from AI tools. Then the focus becomes distribution and visibility rather than building something they truly care about.
I am not saying they are bad people. It just creates a different dynamic from someone who builds something, sticks around, talks about it, improves it, and is part of the community.
Big platforms naturally attract more of this. Reddit is a good example. But it is not impossible for the same shift to happen here over time, which is why I think it is worth at least paying attention to it.
Communities do not stay special automatically. People keep them that way. Tone, signal to noise, actual participation, all of that needs a bit of care.
And honestly, I like seeing what people build. Just ideally from people who also hang around, join discussions, and become part of the place instead of only passing through to drop a link.
You set the search alert for a couple of keywords related to the problem you believe you are solving, or what you’re looking for. Since the search only gives you new content, you will get current discussions and/or blog posts about the topic. You then do whatever you can to get your link into those discussions.
This is pretty standard SEO link-building stuff. I have worked with companies that have done it, and there are subscription tools to help people do it.
The key though is that it is never about participating in the forum. It is never actually about providing value as a part of a community. It is about finding places to spam your product.
It’s also not about whether the people in the forum are going to go look at the product. It is about giving Google search signals that your product is significant, so it will potentially help in other search results.
I love when developers participate here. And by that, I mean when they actually participate. Show up, give valuable insight, answer questions, etc. in other words, I love having developers as part of a functioning community.
You set the search alert for a couple of keywords related to the problem you believe you are solving, or what you’re looking for. Since the search only gives you new content, you will get current discussions and/or blog posts about the topic.
Well more power to them if that works. I have a search alert set up for my product name, and 99% of what I get is unrelated garbage. I can only imagine what I would get if I used more general keywords for the search alert. Even though my product has been mentioned in forums here, I definitely didn’t find out about that from the search alert I set up. In fact, I think the only time in the last decade when the search alert gave anything but a false positive was when we got a mention in Daring Fireball. Of course I already knew about that long before I got the search alert notice.
I’m confused, genuinely confused (and probably oblivious). Where are these frequent “SPAM” posts folks are referring to here located?
Maybe my MPU Talk reading pattern is unique. I normally just peruse and pick from the “latest” feed. In that view, I rarely see objectionable or SPAM posts.
) and there are a number of other “drive by” comments on forums of the same type.