30

I hit a review audit that I thought was just about on the OK side of borderline spam.

See the original audit review (Only viewable by +10k rep); original text of the deleted answer:

I have a solution for this problem of yours, you can use an open source tool called Jumbune(www.jumbune.org).

Jumbune's debugger provides code level control flow statistics of MapReduce job. User may apply regex validations or its own user defined validation classes. As per validations applied, Flow Debugger checks the flow of data for mapper and reducer respectively and will give a very detailed view of where your MapReduce application is going wrong.

Ignoring the fact that I failed the audit for hitting "edit" (which seems was logged as a "Looks good" action). I was of two minds about the validity of it as an answer.

On one hand - yes it is promoting a tool and the author may have perhaps been posting similar promotional answers elsewhere that I guess I could have checked up on.
On the other hand though - it does explain what the tool does, how it can help in the specific situation the OP was looking for help with. It would be up to them whether or not they opted to use the tool (and I didn't check to see if it was a paid product or not).

I can't do any research into the user or post now, but that's a separate issue


My overall Question here though is when is a spam answer like this not a spam answer? Answers suggesting tools as a possible solution to a problem should not be unwelcome as a rule.

Are there any actual guidelines or rules of thumb to be following or is it all open to interpretation case by case and dependant on how "customised" or "copy paste like" an answer feels?

I would at least suggest that the review in Question be removed from the audit pool if we can agree there's an amount to leeway in how to interpret it.
I'm not asking for the ban to be reversed and I'll happily take the 2 day ban (my very first) if people agree that this is a clear cut case.


Related:

Limits for self-promotion in answers
What is the exact definition of "spam" for Stack Overflow?

More related posts found on meta.SE:

Limits for self-promotion in answers
How can I link to an external resource in a community-friendly way?

11
  • The screenshot doesn't add anything, really; I've only used the original post text now. – Martijn Pieters Jul 14 '14 at 16:06
  • @MartijnPieters (or any 10K user) it obviously downvoted, but what was the score of the answer before it was deleted? – psubsee2003 Jul 14 '14 at 16:17
  • @psubsee2003: -1 (one vote). – Martijn Pieters Jul 14 '14 at 16:21
  • 6
    Audits are picked from a pool of existing posts. With the expectation that you'll choose the same response as other users did on that post. This kind of post tends to be dealt with by a moderator, usually when a user advertizes his personal project by mass-posting about it. Looks kinda innocent when it is just one post, although spammy, clearly not okay when a user posts like this many times in a short time-span. So yes, it surely was spam. That it wasn't quite obvious is par for the course, that's what real posts you review look like as well. And approving spam is never okay. – Hans Passant Jul 14 '14 at 16:39
  • @HansPassant, Yeah, I get that and have had no issues in the past. I think this was my only audit fail in recent times and don't disagree that allowing blatantly unwelcome posts through should trigger an insta-ban (there need to be more review bans handed out IMO). I'll take it as the indication I suppose it is meant to be and make sure to look into the user's posting history before making up my mind in the future. – indivisible Jul 14 '14 at 16:45
  • The worst that can happen if you suggest deletion of a borderline but valid answer is that it stays deleted, or that it gets discussed here, attributed to hasty decisions and then undeleted. The worst that can happen if you approve of a spam that looks legit is that the spam stays. The latter is really problematic. – John Dvorak Jul 14 '14 at 16:45
  • 1
    @indivisible indeed. Do visit the user's history if you see a suspicious answer. Sometimes they'll even link to the same tool from their profile page. Sometimes they'll have zero answers, at which point you know for sure you are supposed to suggest deletion. – John Dvorak Jul 14 '14 at 16:46
  • 1
    @JanDvorak: in this case, you'd find that the user has been deleted.. – Martijn Pieters Jul 14 '14 at 17:19
  • @MartijnPieters still a deletion audit giveaway :-) – John Dvorak Jul 14 '14 at 17:27
  • @JanDvorak: my point exactly! – Martijn Pieters Jul 14 '14 at 17:27
  • 6
    When it's sung by Vikings in a diner? – corsiKa Jul 15 '14 at 18:48
15

I believe the accepted answer to the post you already linked to covers "self-promotion" rules very well.

So, it is not spam when:

  • it's strictly on topic and helpful to OP
  • an answer clearly discloses poster's affiliation with the product
  • it's done sparingly

It also seems that the community at large is more tolerant to open-source product in such cases.

7
  • 1
    It seems the OP's example adheres to those guidelines. Do you believe it was not spam? – Paul Draper Jul 14 '14 at 23:09
  • @PaulDraper - As you can see I'm way below the required 10K to see the example. OP asked for "a rule of thumb" and that I believe what my response provided. – PM 77-1 Jul 15 '14 at 0:30
  • 2
    Martijn Pieters was kind enough to grab the text from the deleted post for us lowly -10k users. It's in the quote box near the top of my post. The user has been deleted so no way to check if the link was used "sparingly" or not but I suppose the deletion may be an indication that it wasn't. – indivisible Jul 15 '14 at 0:46
  • 2
    @PaulDraper: There's no disclosure in the example being discussed here. "I have a solution for this problem of yours, you can use an open source tool" does not express affiliation. – Ben Voigt Jul 15 '14 at 20:26
  • 1
    @BenVoigt - It seems that in the case of a pertinent open source product such omission could be forgiven. Just my own opinion FWIW. – PM 77-1 Jul 15 '14 at 20:33
  • @PM77-1: If the poster has contributed to the project, no, the omission is not okay. It can be self-deprecating as long as it's accurate ("Disclaimer: I did a tiny bugfix to this project once that they accepted."), but it can't be missing. The flipside being I've seen "Disclaimer: I'm the author of the tool." and been perfectly fine with it in nearly all cases I've seen that, because the answer and tool fit the question well. (I can count the number of times I've seen an answer with that kind of disclaimer not be useful on one hand, with leftover fingers.) – T.J. Crowder Jul 15 '14 at 21:01
  • @BenVoigt, yes. I initially read "I have a solution" to express ownership/authorship of the tool, but after a second read, I agree that the answerer failed to disclose affiliation. – Paul Draper Jul 16 '14 at 6:33

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