Definition of shameless self-promotion
It has always been a hot topic here. And one of the reasons which I could understand during my interaction with one of the new members here is that its not understood. While FAQ says that it is not allowed to leave your links on the forum, the same FAQ says that you can post relevant links though. Relevant links can be from someone's own blog and they can actually be relevant.
Now what is it? Is it self-promotion or not? Does it vilolate forum rules? I am not sure about it. I think this particular thing should be clearly defined (that self-promotion means leaving the URL of your blog) that what counts under shameless self-promotion.
What say friends?
People will find relevant topics to post relevant links from their own blogs.
So, does that count as shameless self-promotion?
That's natural human behaviour! I don't think that it is shameless self promotion though it can be called as self promotion. We are all here to prompote our blogs apart from learning new things (which rarely happens)
Suppose people ask a question about SEO and one particular person has a post ( an exzhaustive and unique one ) on his blog which answers the question. What should he do now?
- Copy the entire blog post and paste it as a reply only to end up with SEO related issues
- Direct the thread starter on how to reach that blog post: first go to my profile, then viist this particular post, then this, then this.... Will the person who has answered the question bother to do all that just to get his doubt cleared?
- Rephrase the blog post written by him and post it again as a new one in the thraed thereby losing a potential visitor to his site.
Answer the above question to know if linking to one posts is allowed.
In reality, one need not bother about rules and try to follow each one of them. We may just use our common sense and decide on things based on the current situation. If life was governed by rules, we would be robots and not humans. 
Whatever it is: Promoting your blog in a crowd by creating a thread just for that where people have joined for one of the reasons- to learn how to promote- is a fail. If you're finding every way to spam around and give out an opinion just to point it towards your blog pretty much makes an impression its not your honest POV, rather you are saying it so that people can click on the link.But honestly, some of these guys are rude, girls are no exception. I've deleted few of their threads and they still cannot understand and they keep on creating threads. When I am telling not to promote I get a reply "Who the Hell do you think you are?". I mean- wtf!!! Some people react as if I've kicked them out of their own house. See I don't mind keeping the place clean. I used to be in a tech forum and I used to do all that. But experience teaches me that the general people here are way more rude than they should be and they just don't want to understand because they are selfish. Its not as if I am getting a fun out of this- or I am getting something out of it. People who moderate other forums DO get something- like a hardware for their PC upgrade and trust me it happens in India and it happens big time.
There have been people who create 2 blogs- and register with 1, just to promote another. Some people have been provoking people and saying that one doesn't know english, despite the fact that his blog needs auto-spell check BIG TIME! Posting something in relevant topics? Understandable. We're also humans so I can understand that part. Guys like tech.no.licious spamming on Inditalk, some aunty created hordes of self promotion threads, those stock market farts creating all that stock tips threads- and so on. Rather than promoting to the mass, you're promoting it in a crowd who is looking for ways to promote their blogs. I means- serious does it even make any sense to promote here unless you want to share relevant article? Also, people who share links in such manner should remember 1 thing: People would criticize you- so simply consider it as his opinion- or if you found out that you made a mistake, accept it and move on. Be humble. There will be times that your article might start a shitstorm!! So brace for impact. But bringing out your ego jar and making a scene, dude/dudette- you're proving that you simply blow big time.
Sorc my friend, can't you post smaller replies?
@ Hemal Shah - I disagree that tech savy folks get it better than the others. I would think the other way round. You are ultimately selling your blogs to human beings and not to crawlers and routers. So it is more important to undertand human behavior than to understand technology. Some of the too tech savy guys can just start madly follow theory and go too much into SEO and linking from everywhere without trying to undertand who is the audience they are trying to get to their blog and how they will be getting there.
The question here is what may seem to be OK and not a shameless self-promotion for one of the thread and in one of the scenario, may become a tool for people to use. Relevance is not an objective word and perceptions may differ. If giving links are allowed in one case, you cannot stop it in any other case and that is where the confusion is.
What does this rule mean? Does it mean that no one should be posting any link of his/her blog in any case or does it mean depending on the scenario, it may not always amount to self-promotion always.
I'm worried in the second case, it is bound to be manipulated.
See, dude. Thats why we have human indi-police, who can make judgement calls whether it is shameless self promotion or is it a genuine sharing of link. If it was a simple rule, they can have bots as indipolice
I agree with you buddy but there decisions can be challenged by those whose threads are deleted, isn't it? They are not respected like cricker umpires here whose decisions are final.
Thats always the tradeoffs. Even umpires are not always respected and players challenge them. Intergrity of judges are questioned. Always it is a tradeoff between making rules impersonal and implementation or introduce people and ensure rules are adhered in spirit, but opening up to the risk of human biases.
Hmm, you make sense @The fool.
I believe once a way self promotion is not bad it should not become a habit to the extent it is termed as self promotion.
Animesh for example if a newbie or guy wants to introduce himself to the blogging world or network of Indiblogger, he should be allowed for the first time to load his link and say whatever he wants in the forum. Get some feedbacks from his close network and refine his or her blog.
I think it should be fair enough and he or she should be made known that he has used his one time quota of self promotion and if he or she repeats it, than it will be considered a shameless self promotion and thread is bound to be deleted without information. i hope this point will be well taken.
I feel this forum has a setting of 1 2 3 4 5 links when we reply to the topic that should be removed in the first place by Indi technical team so as to avoid the temptation of posting the link, even i as a beginner committed this mistake.
instead of leaving links on the forum to general audience let the concerned send a Indimail posting the link this would make it targetted if anyone is interested in the link for further clarity. It will in utilising the Indimail and make the network active.
I hope my two cents advise rings a bell in Indipolice and technical teams mind. My request to tech team is make an announcement officially regarding members who are nominated as moderators or Indipolice, with their powers enumerated.
@Umesh, whatever be it, but it should be clear. There should be clear guidelines and ways to protect them.
The problem today is that shameless self promotion is not defined clearly, relevant links is not defined clearly and most important there are no effective way to prevent people who break rules.
I wish one of the IndiPolice members tags Renie here
*smiles* The new member is me *thank you*
I still think that posting relevant links should be alowed, and we have the IndiPolice to check whether it is self-promotion or genuine relevant link to the particular question...
But till the time this problem is solved, I am toh stayin away from posting ANY kind of link
@ Nikhil that is the spirit, pl refrain till an unanimous decision is taken, i am for posting links of the blog once or maximum twice in a life time, but to monitor second time it will hell of a job for the Police team, so first time, they can jump into action. But for people like me with almost 8 blogs of which i have logged in 6 in the Indivine it is a problem i suppose.
