Shameless Self Promotion hurts You and IndiBlogger
First up: I'm not flaming/trolling. I consider this an important issue.
The indiblogger forum is meant for networking and interacting with bloggers. I don't count post advertisements as fitting into either category. Quality posts will draw readers to your blog without you necessarily having to say, "Did you know this... read my post to know more."
This is a forum to share experiences and insights about the blogging experience. Can we please stop clogging the forums with shameless self promotion. Once you advertise your blog in the Review category, your blog is on everyone's radar. After that, let readers add their blog to your network.
Shameless self promotion does more harm than good. I would stop visiting a blogger who only interaction on the forum is "check out my post."
Renie: You've provided a button to say mark discussion as "shameless self promotion" but how many people have to mark it that before it gets removed?
cheers!
Prashant.
There are people who will look into each thread..and others who can simply ignore. A lot of things come in the news paper each day. Starting from the shiny baldy Advani to the morosed face of Mayavati. Which one do you like? or you like some one like Bips with "no" piece.
I think, being a blogger, every one likes to get some comment about their writting. Atleast I do. When you want to move outside the arena of friends, you have portals like Indibloggers at hand to reach to a global crowd! (I leave being a global crowd, coz three days back my FEEDJIT viewer tracker caught hold of an IP that was from the International Space station, and it mentioned: ISS, NASA arrived from google.com on Canonical Cacophony ).
If you all have some nudges and grudges on this idea, then please, there will be people who will be asking for an opinion from people who they never know and who will comment unbiased (than friends). Overlook those links! Its the best remedy for all my contradictors!!!
(I leave being a global crowd, coz three days back my FEEDJIT viewer tracker caught hold of an IP that was from the International Space station, and it mentioned: ISS, NASA arrived from google.com on Canonical Cacophony ).
Hey... could you clarify the statement because I'm a bit confused as to what you are arguing about.
~Prashant.
I think he means a Martian visited his blog 
That's what I meant... even International Space Station people visit my blog!!! am in TOP of The Atmosphere!!!
that is quite a feat! but no once can confirm that, right
I agree with Prashant and Binayday here . A blogger's forum is just that , a blogger's forum . If I misuse it , and delve into self promo to the heights of suffocating others , I deserve to be banned . That is simple and logical .
That being said , let us also look at helping people out and remember that even the IndiRank is based on Alexa figures too !!
My final rant is that Prashant and BinaryDay are senior bloggers who should not use abrasion but aggression in a thread to convince people .
~Shakthi
Senior blogger? I don't think I agree... although I remember using Windows 3.0 and my first computer was a 386. In terms of experience... my blog started in March and that's when I joined IB. Is anyone really a senior?
"Shameless self promotion does more harm than good"
Does that mean shamefully if I do so it’s ok? Just kidding, no for sure. Though i'm a new user and my only objective of writing this reply is committing the said crime, I totally agree with you, promotion of ones substandard self is almost as bad as politics. Anybody undertaking such activities should be barred from the community IMO. We can employ something like the ‘report spam’ mechanism as suggested by a commenter I think.On a second thought, isn’t blogging itself is kind of shameless self promotion? I’m sure all of you will agree to disagree with me…
The report spam mechanism is already in effect. The arguments were for something stronger since this isn't stopping people from spamming. Personally, blogging is not shameless self promotion - conside it par with a company with a website.
~Prashant.
Since we haven't really hit upon an idea for penalising self-promoters... how about barring them from being nominated for IndiBlogger of the Month?
cheers!
Prashant.
I am a moderator in a couple of web forums and all I will say is that you learn by trial and error. Impulsively reacting to presumed assumptions is self defeating and actually kills the forum - as you will end up with few members with all activity dependent on their involvement.
We have to decide if we wish to be a elite Indian blogger joint with regimented process of enrolling members or do we allow it evolve and grow on its own. Food for thought?
And my liitle bit of self promotion-
Review my Blog / Follow me on Twitter / Websnacker / Ideasonic Studios
Honestly speaking, I dont know about your stats, but all the heavy traffic blogs and web site I have seen, gets more than 70% of their traffic via search engines..
Backlinks refers, only, yeah only single digit percentile figure !!!
So signatures / linking a forum posts, really really dont offer much of traffic !!!
I agree with Choto Cheetah. Almost 80% of my traffic is via search engines and while I am always going to want my GPR etc to improve, traffic is all that matters and SEO wins over link farming.
My two cents. Let us not get into words and semantics. Let the action speak.
Anybody that does this mistake, warn him/her first.
Second time, ban him.
Do this two three time. Things will take care of themselves.
Renie, I agree with your point of view. When I started my blog I had hardly any hits for one full year but I took tips from the wordpress forums which emphasized that writing quality posts is what brings in the traffic. I have never advertised my blog except on forms like Digg and Desipundit which are for that purpose. If you want Indiblogger to be a proper forum then you are absolutely right. Self promotion is to be looked down upon. I think nowadays people want to be popular overnight! I took one whole year and even then I do not have the kind of popularity that many others have. I don't really bother about that. I just keep writing!
that is what we should be doing. but as you said, ppl want to get popular overnight. more so, they look to increase the clicks on ads.
Absolutely spot on. That was my experience with my first blog as well. I guess there are so many stories about internet millionaires and bloggers who became successful that people want a slice of the pie without necessarily putting in the work first. Glad that your effeorts are paying off though.
@Cyril Sam: I know what you mean. Took some time out and am amazed to see the activity.
@Vinay24K: Couldn't agree with you more.
It's very heartening to see that new members are jumping in on this forum. I've actually taken some time off so have no idea whether our little forum discussion made an impact in terms of reducing spammers though. Intend to check that out now...
cheers!
Prashant.
@healthy: I agree self promotion isnt a good thing, the forum already has a section for reviewing blogs
Thanks... It looks like the shameless self promoters are beginning to get the message...
cheers!
Prashant.
In blog catalog all discussions are categorised and there is a category Shameless blog promotion. In that thread one can promote one's blog. Blog promotion is also necessary as it is the age of advertisement. When we tolerate vigorous ads in tv and newspapers, why ads should not be here. But there should be a limit. Hence, there should be a category like Shameless Blog Promotion where in promotions should be allowed and people in want of such thread may click.
what's your say?
Link dropping should not be allowed. What is the use of link dropping when there is the profile which one can explore and click? Links dropping is really iritating.
Thanks
Hey Sudama, that actually why we have a "Review my blog" section, where bloggers can shamelessly self promote - but only once for each blog! 
If one gets irritated by link dropping, you will never come to know all the good links. Why, even a link you saw somewhere might have led you to this website.
Dear fellow bloggers on IndiBlogger,
I dont seem to understand the logic behind our friend 'Healthy Living India'.
He initially says, "Shameless self promotion does more harm than good"
and later adds this in italics and within (brackets) as a stand alone
(I leave being a global crowd, coz three days back my FEEDJIT viewer tracker caught hold of an IP that was from the International Space station, and it mentioned: ISS, NASA arrived from google.com on Canonical Cacophony ).
What should one deduce or infer out it?
Me: one should practice what one preaches!
No harm intended but aren't we making a mountain of a molehill...digging at something that is best ignored.
Regards
Venkata Vinay
Dear Prashant,
Please accept my sincere apologies for the earlier reply to your post. I had missed a portion of the thread on which you commented. I took yours as being contradictory to what you said earlier and posted my reply.
I am sorry for the same. 
However my stand on making a mountain of a molehill remains.
I apologize once again.
Warm Regards
Venkata Vinay
[Moral of the Story: Dont hurry; you might end up being sorry.]
Ha ha .. Hey I like your attitude! who's to say we cant make a mistake .. but when we make one and know its a mistake.. lets take steps to make it right! Aint that what IndiBlogger's are all about?
Kudos to you Vinay :)
As for Healthy Living India : up the good work and Keep us on our toes.. we feel very good when someone is watching our back! :) Right or wrong is never a question and neither can it be a reason :)
@Vinay: No worries - don't think its a mountain though and a lot of people here agree with me on it.
@Anoop: Thank you! Will do my best!
~Prashant.
After reading this thread, what I can make out is that I can't use my blog's link in my signature... right?? Why do not we have a signature where we can add our link...aand may be Moderators here can decide upon the size of the link and the number of links allowed. Also, type of links can be limited, plus they can always put a simple option where clicking on someone's name gives you a dropdown where one can find the blog link of that person...
I am new here... so don't mind much if you do not agree with my suggestions :)
The signature isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about people who post threads that say "Check out my new post" every time they post a new post. That clutters up the timeline on the forum front page. But I do like the active drop down menu on the name... maybe add blog and twitter to it? Renie?
Ohhh... Sorry for my ignorance here... I thought the main trouble was with signature..
I also do not like people starting a thread with some arbit stuff and then leaving a link to their blog...say "Please check further on my blog" ...it seems so much like patheitic advertising...
And yes please have some thought on the dropdown menu thing... It would be really great if that can be incorporated in the user names.. :)
Btw i think i can leave my link in my signature now...
>>Hey Sudama, that actually why we have a "Review my blog" section, where bloggers can shamelessly self promote - but only once for each blog!
Yeah! The only problem is: Unless you are a girl, there is a very faint chance that someone would actually read and review your blog :) :)
LOL!!!
It's the plight of man, my friend.
Hi Venu, being a girl/woman doesn't work always! posted a week ago, 0 replies! (am terribly guilty--does this count as self promotion?!)
I guess this means that putting up naked pictures of myself here will probably be a bad idea....
but seriously, who are we kidding...the whole blogsphere is self marketing...if we wanted to do some serious private writing we wud have kept a diary which only ur dad will ever take a peek in...
even this forum is abt self promotion...so whts the harm...yeah it does look cheap, then think how the politicians must feel each time they have to come a kiss our arse to get voted.,...no wonder they hate us so much..
Sign in to reply to this thread
