[META] Are paid for, closed source projects, being advertised on this community, appropriate?
from breadsmasher@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 21 Jun 17:47
https://lemmy.world/post/48462124
from breadsmasher@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 21 Jun 17:47
https://lemmy.world/post/48462124
A number of brand new accounts have popped up shilling their paid for applications.
Is this within the rules? Is the community happy with this? Could mods clarify this in the rules?
Either allowing advertising, or banning it entirely.
my point is - there is a difference between an open source homegrown project that might be useful, vs closed source paid for projects from brand new accounts
some replies are misunderstanding, somehow.
I am against
brand new accounts who:
- first post is a brand new project
- project is closed source
- project will cost money
- is asking for free testing
- the post is literally an advertisement
#selfhosted
threaded - newest
I think new accounts that show up to shil their app should be banned. They’re not actively participating in the community, it’s just spam. There’s been a huge uptick recently.
What if the new account user, who is working on a product that integrates with what the vast majority of selfhosters run, just found Lemmy? Lemmy selfhosted doesn’t exactly share the same popularity as say Reddit. It doesn’t just roll off the tongue. I had to vigorously try to find Lemmy before I got here.
If all they have to contribute is self promotion I think they should be banned.
They should hang out a while first and not have only posts promoting their software, and not only have comments in those threads.
The lemmy attitude is very anti commercialization, and they don’t know any better. That doesn’t mean we should allow it.
I tend to agree.
The lemmy attitude is like chaff in the wind.
are they charging? is it open source?
They aren’t charging you. The OP/DEV in question is willing to give their product away. A product that integrates with your opensource *arr stack. All he wanted to know is, 'Would you be interested in beta testing it?"
I mean, there was recently a new user here who intro’d himself as a Windows selfhoster. He was pretty much welcomed with open arms, with a few snarky remarks, but welcomed. How much more closed source could you get than Microsoft Windows? What’s is the actual difference here?
Lmao, the OP you’re talking about literally said that “It’s a paid closed source app”. Why are you not mentioning that little tidbid?
I assumed everyone has a decent reading skills?
that is incredibly misleading.
its not someone asking advice about a closed source app. its someone shilling their own paid for product.
why are you ok with advertising for paid for products being shoved down your throat?
they arent “willing to give it away”. theyre willing to give it to testers for free labour to test their paid for app.
No one, not one living soul that has graced the halls of Lemmy selfhosted since I’ve been here has shoved anything down anyone’s throat. Are you not master of your own domain? Do you not possess self control? Additionally, I chart my own course. I don’t let hive mind tell me what I can and can’t selfhost or use in relation to my server.
So, to recap, they’re going to give their app, which is closed source but integrates with what most selfhosters host, to beta testers, who are interested, and in return, the beta testers get to keep the app for free. I see no free labor.
It was said when rule 3 was being discussed, that there are so few selfhosters out here, why gatekeep?
I dont want to scroll lemmy to find advertisements.
why are you fighting so hard for it? do you want adverts here? do you want every post to be yet another closed source paid for project? Thats sad.
Well, for one, I can actually scroll right by things I’m uninterested in. My mouse wheel goes by three row clicks. It doesn’t take all that much effort, even for this old geezer, to just whiz right on by. Even if it’s something I’m uninterested in, like the *arr stack in general, I can still be positive about it. It’s pretty fascinating to me how it all clicks together. But I have definite, hard coded opinions against piracy in general, no matter what your rationale is. I know some use the *arr stack for their own physical collections, but let’s be real…the vast amount of selfhosters that deploy the *arr stack are pirating.
Because I honestly feel that the OP with the integrated, closed source app he asked if anyone wanted to beta test, acted in good faith.
in summary, youre happy for advertisements on this community. got it
Every comment you make makes me more and more convinced that you’ve created a throwaway account to advertise your own paid products here.
Now that is quite hilarious. What paid products am I advertising? I’m not a dev, and frankly I would never be a dev. For one, I’m not that well educated in the area of programming. Two, I wouldn’t be confident enough to release it to the public. Three, I wouldn’t put up with all the bellyaching that goes on, demanding that a dev do this or that with something he wrote. Hard pass.
Did I say you did so on this account?
Your long reply and bullshit about “bellyaching” isn’t helping me think otherwise.
OK you got me. I joined a year ago, made a fistful of accounts, just for this very day. Even though, if you rifle through all of my posts and comments, you’ll pretty much see, I have no programming skills and I have nothing to sell. But again, you are welcome to your own opinion.
I’m— sorry—I—used—too—many—sentences.
Yes, but all of your comments seem to miss the fact that this post is talking about paid software. Which is what the OP you’re talking about and defending did. You also said “they aren’t charging you”, which might be true for now, but they will make money off of beta tester’s free labor.
That’s exactly how beta testing works. I’ve mentioned, I do a lot of beta testing for BetaBound. I’m currently beta testing a rumba floor sweeper knock off. WHen I’m done, the company says ‘thank you’ by letting me keep the rather pricey product. Are they going to make money? Of course they will. That’s why they started business…to make money.
I’m aware, and don’t think that ads to provide free labor for a paid product belong here. That’s been my entire argument the entire time.
I honestly think, that the OP/Dev in question acted in good faith. I do not view his thread as an advertisement to buy his product. IMHO, he solicited beta testers for his product that integrates with the *arr stack, which the vast amount of selfhosters deploy early on in their selfhosting journey. Where else would be a better place than a selfhosting community?
The question isn’t “did OP act in good faith”.
I do consider it an ad to recruit people to do beta testing for a paid product. I don’t want to see ads in my feed. If I wanted that, I’d go to reddit. Maybe they should post there instead, where ads are overwhelming and users don’t give a shit about being advertised to constantly.
Fair. You do, I don’t.
I’m very aware that you don’t consider it an ad, but it’s an ad in my eyes. It’s literally a call to action to recruit people to improve their paid application in order to extract money from users in the future.
I’ve very aware that you do see it as an ad. So, here we are. I’m about to fire up a bowl, do you partake? It’s some gnarly gas for sure. I like to share what I’ve grown with my own two hands. No strings attached. You don’t have to put 5 on it.
I don’t smoke with people who like ads shoved down their throats. It’s a personal thing.
No worries mate.
You can start with timed bans, so they get the point
“Lurk for a while before posting,” has been a standard rule of netiquette for at least the 30 years that I’ve been using the ’net.
I would tend to agree with that. Maybe OP didn’t think of that.
They did think about that, apparently you did not. Did you not see that they specifically said “brand new” accounts? Or are you talking about the most recent OP that posted an ad to beta test closed source software?
That sounds like you’re describing someone who is only making a lemmy account because they see potential customers they want to advertise to.
That’s the exact reason I don’t want someone to make a lemmy account.
This happens on Reddit, and basically my problem is that these users often don’t have enough experience to be able to actually give solutions. Reddit is full of people who think they have a good solution, dealing with comments of people explaining that what they are struggling with is actually a solved problem (or a skill issue). No one cares about your vibecoded slop that implements 1% of the features of an existing open source solution (they used to not be vibecoded but we still didn’t care). It being paid and proprietary is just even more annoying.
My idea of requirement to engage with the community is also about being able to ensure that the users are technically competent. If they are experienced, it will show up in the discussions we can see and review. For their benefit, if they lurk, then they can take a look at what is being used, and what problems actually exist, instead of making assumptions.
If they really believe their product is so good, they can spend a few weeks helping people with Linux questions and sharing their (non product related) insightful thoughts on Lemmy so I don’t dismiss them instantly when they finally advertise it.
This has gotten a ton of votes, and I’m in agreement that new accounts that have only posted about their paid app should be considered spam, and I would say a timed ban (maybe a week?) would be a good start.
Now what about open source vs paid? Devs who made something may just think “oh I should share it on selfhosted!” On their freshly made fediverse account. Does open source get the same treatment? I’d lean toward no, but some of these projects have a paid component as well - paid hosting, or a license upgrade, or whatever.
I think its fine that they want to make some money, and I’m personally more positive toward a hosted option than a paywall, but its a finer point to navigate than just “paid vs open”.
That said, I do see a problem with comments on some posts as well - a reply with “spam” and no report is not helpful. The comment itself isnt helpful. A downvote and report is.
So I think a clear and concise set of rules would be helpful, and maybe with a separate list for fully open source and no paid component, open with a paid component, and a fully closed (paid or not, because we all know where the profit comes from in this scenario).
I’d personally lean toward something like an account xx days old to be able to self-promote, and tags for each type of post.
Personally I’m fine with paid apps here, lots of people use tailscale for example. I think the larger issue is the drive-by spamming without contributing outside of their own promotion thread.
I like the comment elsewhere in this thread referencing a subreddit that requires X comments over Y days in the community first.
I selfhost because I want to be in control of my data and own it. Closed software is the antithesis of that. They’re just bots trying to advertise their software.
So, please do share how your homelab has indexed the entire global internet, so you can use your 100% selfhosted, 100% open source search engine? I’m very interested. I’ve always wanted to run a search engine that is not tied to someone else’s.
That’s a petty troll response to a legitimate statement of what someone wants (which aligns with this group’s stated focus), where they aren’t claiming what they have done
It’s not trolling at all. You stated you got into self hosting because you wanted opensource and you want to retain all of your data. I’m asking you to share your homelab set up. A lot of people would be genuinely interested. The point being, all the gnashing of teeth is a duplicitous argument. If you truly do as you stated, then I’m wondering how you search a global internet from your homelab that indexes it all.
Thanks for letting me and everyone else know you’re childish and stupid enough to be worth blocking.
Kind for kind.
good job friend. very grown up
There’s no respect in that statement and thats not appropriate here. Lets calm it down and keep it a discussion, not aggression and attacks.
That’s fair, thanks for cleaning up the mess and sorry for being part of it.
No worries, everyone gets caught up sometimes even me. Thats why its just a bunch of removals.
*Sigh*… As always, life must be balanced. You can’t go from one extreme to the other. It’s a spectrum. I self-host what I deem important in order to keep it under my control and not on a capitalist platform.
It’s an adventure, each month, you learn more and realize that you can host more services yourself.
And I applaud you for that. However, the fact remains, that not everyone selfhosts for the same reasons. I got into selfhosting because I wanted to be as private, as secure, and as anonymous as I could be. However, I do thoroughly enjoy learning how to do things on my server. At my age, it’s good to keep what’s left of my brain active. I genuinely like to tinker. I do also make concessions.
I looked at the rules, and I can’t find anything about closed source. I did find ‘without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.’ The reason this thread exists is because some people think closed source that integrates with selfhosted, opensource, is 100% out, and I find no evidence of such. It also states ‘Be civil: we’re here to support and learn from one another. Insults won’t be tolerated.’ Civility: Hey is this open source? Was it vibe coded? Ok no thanks bro.’ It sure isn’t the dog pile on the rabbit we see most of the time here when something AI, paid for, or closed source that integrates with opensource threads show up.
I agree that 100% asking selfhosters to outright buy something should be out. We’ve seen a few of these. But, again, the reason this thread was started was because a dev asked a bunch of selfhosters to beta test an app that integrates with what most here run, and in return for your efforts, he will let you keep the app if you so desire. So, you actually do retain control. You can pass. You can beta test. You can uninstall. Your choice.
Self-hosting is a community effort in which the whole community helps each other to self-host their data, including programming the services people use for this purpose. The problem with closed-source software is that we don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes, or if it’s indeed sending telemetry.
Even worse, if that service is ever no longer supported or updated, I’ll be left with data on my server that can’t be used to its full potential, and a service that won’t receive security updates.
Open-source software, on the other hand, is a community effort. If, for example, software is no longer updated or supported, it can easily be forked, and my data can be transferred to the new service.
No. They should not be allowed, especially the closed source, non-FOSS ones. It’d be one thing to have a FOSS application that has a premium option (such as Frigate), but if it’s closed source and you have to pay, they shouldn’t be in the self hosting community.
Even if you change the ROM in your Android phone, guess what? The ROM still relies on closed-source vendor blobs from the manufacturer that come with the stock firmware and most often are required to make your ROM do what it do. I would say that the vast majority of people screaming about closed source and how they own their own data, yadda yadda, yadda, when it gets right down to the brass tacks, somewhere, they rely on something that is not FOSS. It’s a rather duplicitous diatribe.
Huh?
So, if we have the choice of something 90% open and 10% closed, versus 100% closed, you’re saying the first option is invalid to even desire, because it isn’t 100% open.
Wow. Just, wow.
So, let me be exactly clear here: WE ALL MAKE CONCESSIONS.
Apparently, some of us are okay making 100% concessions and not giving a shit at all.
Yeah. Selfhosting is a very large umbrella.
This logic is not great. I’d rather have something mostly open source (where I can check what blobs it’s actually using) rather than something completely closed where I have no idea what’s under the hood. It’s not about concessions, it’s about being able to tell what the hell software is actually doing.
Mee2! However, not everyone here is of a hive mind. Not everyone here got into selfhosting for the same reasons. Like I’ve mentioned, it’s a big umbrella.
That’s not the question that was asked.
The question is if brand new accounts should be able to shill their PAID closed source products without otherwise contributing to the community. They should not be able to do so.
Should not be allowed.
At it's heart, this is what @selfhosted is meant for:
I would say that members talking about paid/closed products they use (ex. "I connect to this via Tailscale" or "I use company ABC for hosted VPS") to accomplish something is fine, but marketing or job boarding (ex. "Looking for QA on my commercial product") is not.
Ban advertising!
Advertising can be obvious sometimes. Other times, it’s more subtle.
While I’m fine with people wanting to self-host stuff with closed software (this includes Windows and Plex, btw), I personally am not interested in having ads of any kind in the community.
To me self hosting is about controlling your data. While I wouldn’t use proprietary software myself for this, I just want to make it clear that I’m fine with people asking for help it advice about it. Just not ads, of any kind.
Where do you draw the line? If a user who is generally a very active poster here wrote a useful program and hosted the source on Codeberg under a FOSS license, should they be allowed to make a post sharing it?
For me personally an ad is when I’m being sold something. I can’t be sold something that is free and open. So someone showcasing their paid (but self hosted) service is an ad. Someone telling me about their (open) project is not.
And when someone wants to use either and asks for help, is also (obviously) not an ad. Unless we see a flood of accounts posting trivial questions about a paid service to draw attention to it, but I kinda doubt it.
There’s lot of paid FOSS stuff.
It shouldn’t be.
Why? Nothing about self-hosted is FOSS-only. There’s a big overlap, to be sure, but this knee-jerk reaction to paid and closed-source apps doesn’t help anyone.
Oh thank you! A reasonable, sane, voice.
In this context: lemmy.world/post/48453617 I think it’s just fine.
OP is not asking anyone to buy their product. OP is not shilling their product. OP is asking those who run the *arr stack, and who are interested, to beta test the product, and in return, the beta tester gets the final product for free. This is how beta testing works. Where else would be a good place to have people beta test a product that integrates with what the majority of selfhosters run (*arr stack in this instance) than in a community of selfhosters?
This OP’s contribution to the community was trying to extract free labor for a soon to be paid product.
Advertised? I’d vote no. Discussed? I’m all for it.
Eh, that may just promote a lot of “What are your opinions about x” posts where the first comment is the ad. Suppose it’s an open call to list alternatives though.
Should be a mod decision, but posters should be community participants/contributors.
Just going to say that to me its a community decision. I’m the janitor here, thats all.
This is actually a post that beat me to the punch, and in glad it did. This is a discussion that needs to be had.
On reddit, there is a community called r/progressionfantasy, which is about a specific type of fantasy fiction. They have a rule that self promotional posts (for paid books) must be preceeded by 10 comments, and actual engagement with the community.
This is a reasonable compromise, in my opinion. Known community member who has been answering questions and contributiting to discussions?
I would be okay if they dropped a paid product of good quality and with a reasonable business model (please no vibecoded slop).
But drive by ProductNameAccount users who have never posted on lemmy before a bunch of self promotional posts? Yeah ban that shit.
With the advent of AI bots trying to flood into Lemmy communities, I don’t really see this as a viable option on the long run.
It is possible to detect and moderate them, as long as your mods haven’t been disappeared and replaced by people who’s job is to accept bribes. And also when we can actually see people’s history, since reddit now has an option to hide your history from others because of course.
My usual method is to focus on content, rather than writing style. The AI bots can write a lot, or be brief, or whatever, but they don’t actually contribute to the discussion. They just kinda paraphrase and restate what has been said, or when trying to sell a product they disagree and go “Are you sure this isn’t an problem?” to everybody in the thread telling them that it’s actually a skill issue.
Sometimes they’ll be a little better, but it’s often surface level stuff that can be found at the top of a google search of keywords.
This also makes it possible to tell the difference between ESL speakers who are using AI to clean up their writing style, and true bots. Since the ESL speakers will actually have something to say, but bots won’t.
And then: xkcd.com/810/
@breadsmasher I wouldnt mind if they were required to include easily filtered keywords such a #ad or #closedsource or #selfpromotion or something like that.
I occasionally come across people who think they have an amazing product and when you engage they realise that its better to just opensource it.
Similarly having the opportunity to discuss their product with others in front of them can help people who might not realise their drawbacks...
There is no rule about advertising in the sidebar. I’m personally fine with it. If it weren’t advertised here, I might never hear about projects to be honest. Almost everything I’m hosting right now came about because I heard about it on a forum.
I don’t mind small developers posting about new releases or whatnot, but I’m concerned about a slippery slope. We don’t want þe community to become an advertising hellscape innundated by ads from þe likes such as Adobe, Microsoft, or Palantir. Not þat it’s likely þey would, but once you allow it, how do you prevent it if it does happen? Even one corporate ad is too much, IMHO.
IMO, if you have some sort of posting/commenting history, and you’re talking about a paid service that you happen to like, then no problem. If you’re brand new and just posting to promote something, nah.
I don’t want this community, or any community on Lemmy for that matter, to become a lucrative platform for advertisers. If someone wants to promote their own product that they made, they should have some credibility as a real person beforehand. Not a brand-new account trying to sell a subscription to an app that’s essentially still in open beta.
If their first interaction with a community is to try to sell their shit, i don’t think they’re gonna be welcome anywhere
It’s obvious spam… I’d assume they’re deleted and banned asap, are they not?
If it’s software that is self hosted and might be useful, I’m okay with it. We have the vote up/down to sort the wheat from the chaff. And worse case the comments can rip it apart and offer alteratives.
If it’s foss or whatever abso-fucking-lutely. I love reading about new things. I first learned of Orca Slicer in a post about Bambu Slicer on 3d printing community. I’m also all for supporting solo devs. I feel that closed source is a cromulent option that has been abused by corporations. But hey, like this is just, like my opinion dude!
The initial post might be spam, but it’s the discussion where the meat and potatoes live. Now, reposts of the same product (unless it’s to show off major new features like once a year) I do draw the line at.
Full transparency, I’m not super active in this community, but I love reading the stuff here.
No advertisement is ever appropriate, period. Advertisements should be banned. I don’t mind a ‘look what I made’ post, but when the post designed to convince me to give you money, I see an immediate conflict of interest that suggests advertisement rather than information. It’s hard to draw that line without knowing intention, so I don’t think those posts should be disallowed, but if your post asks me to click a link to a product so I can give you my money, I’m downvoting.
As long as it’s self-hosted I don’t have a problem with it. Plex is maybe a good example for this. I wouldn’t ban Plex questions as long as it isn’t just a weekly advertising post. Up- and down voting can handle the rest.
I think self-hosting has the expectation of the ability to self-host for indefinite period of time. E.g. I can run Jellyfin 10.10 for as long as I have the hardware and willingness to run it. A proprietary piece of software, say Plex, could technically allow that too, but that’s much less likely. Since I can’t see its source code, I can’t know if there’s a time bomb that stops it from working at some future date. Or an update/remote procedure I don’t know about that asks me to pay $750 at some point to continue using it. Which could preclude me from being able to continue self-hosting it. Is the ability to self-host indefinitely an expectation everyone shares? Probably not. Probably worth thinking about in this context though.
If it’s closed source but can be self hosted, what is the business model? I think it would be hard to fight piracy in that case. If it requires connecting to a service periodically for licenses and has no free version that doesn’t require that, then I believe it should be banned. I don’t consider that self-hosted. If the company disappears and the served goes down, its dead. That’s just running on your hardware, but not under your control. If the application is open or can be run locally without connecting to their servers and the paid portion is an add on like working as a proxy or something, then I have no real issue with that.
That said, there definitely should be a higher standard for users who are only marketing here. They should be making posts specifically for this group, not just sharing generic ads. The post should specifically state why it’s useful to self-hosters and thus relevant to the group.
Unraid is an example, that I consider fairly reasonable. Sure, it is a subscription.
But all of the services are docker containers. What unraid brings to the table is a nice management UI, and the ability to mix and match drive of different sizes in a single raid pool. It makes having a fairly resilient self hosting setup easier than trying to do all of this stuff from scratch.
Nice features sure, that many people find worth paying for, even if I don’t. But they are just nice to haves. If the company ever dies, it’s absolutely possible to export the data and move to say, portainer, or docker via the cli, or podman, or anything that can run containers.
I’m here for genuine interactions with other people. So I’m not a fan of ads from brand new accounts that will never engage with the community or enrich it.
This is /c/selfhosted, not /c/opensourceselfhosted so why not?
I don’t think “selfhosting” and “paid for” goes hand in hand because, at the end of the day, the application somehow will still contact some authentication server or some similar bullshit. That’s the contrary of what most people want from selfhosting.
I think this community should stick to actual OSS, free applications, not some semi-corporate bullshit.
if they are obviously bot or dedicated marketing accounts, then no I dont think they should be here.
However, I’m not 100% opposed to closed source/paid software being discussed here, but it should clearly marked as such, with a flair that people can filter out if they so choose.
If someone posts asking about whether there are any alternatives to a paid closed source program, that’s a totally valid conversation, and if it turns out there is no FOSS alternative, then we have to talk about paid closed alternatives, find the one that offers the best value and vet for trustworthiness.
The rules say nothing about selling a paid service, but maybe “no spam” should be updated with some clarity on self promotion, so perhaps you can self promote your FOSS service with the appropriate flair, but if you are selling a paid closed service it shouldn’t be allowed?
discussing a product is not the same as someone literally advertising their paid for product.
are you ok with advertising on this community?
I would like the rules to make clear what is acceptable.
self promotion of a FOSS project is acceptable in my opinion, as long as it is clearly titled as self promotion and isn’t done in a spamming way (such as carpet bombing multiple communities with bot posts). I’d also say that donation-seeking in those posts should be kept to the creators own web pages, not in the posts themselves too.
there is a pretty easy line to draw for what is blatant advertising and what is genuine discussion of a paid service. that’s not that hard to moderate, especially when accounts are new, and carpet bombing the same posts to multiple communities, that is clearly spam.
This is the selfhosted community. Not the Free, Open Source community.
I think you can infer the rules from the name here. The stuff you post must be related to software you can host on your own hardware. It need not be free, nor open source.
Now your point about spam from brand new accounts that are literally just ads on the other hand is valid.
I think its funny that anyone who has closed source software thinks the best place to advertise it is in the federation. I love the fediverse but if it was the fact that it was gnu that I checked it out. I would totally not be here if it was closed source.
That’s kind of the defining feature of spam. Not thinking if it’s appropriate or good, just sending everywhere because some of it will generate clicks.
“Just delete it” or “scroll past” is not a useful response. Spam is infinite unless it’s blocked and/or punishable.
well that gets to the other aspect of here. its not a large population to begin with.
I think they should be allowed. However, I wouldn’t even date to touch them with a stick from afar in VR.
Plex was the last proprietary thing I ever selfhosted and it’s been a perfect reminder.
I don’t really use this community, but I ban a lot of accounts that talk like an AI, use em dashes excessively, and come to this community to promote “their” projects. 🤔
LOVE the discussion folks, and @breadsmasher@lemmy.world you beat me to it, this has been bothering me all week.
I would love to see a consensus come out of this, maybe do a vote on wording/requirements? Idk, still working on figuring out the best approach.
Just a thanks for exactly the meta threads I hoped for.
As I’m doing things right now, closed source, paid, and the only thing posted is getting removed as spam. Unfortunately a common time seems to be about 7am GMT (side note - folks who are on around that time and can help with modding then, please reach out) and I’m not on for a good few hours at a minimum.
That said, I always read and check, sometimes deferring to read again and check the profile when I have more time later.
What I’m looking for at the moment is:
That kind of stuff. Sometimes its super easy to spot (3 posts, same title, price and it being cloud only, etc), sometimes its not and takes more looking.
I think paid products can have a place here, despite them not being my kind of thing, but more as a discussion.
So if there is some degree of consensus on a good rule, I would suggest making a post about it so we can finalize, like I did for the rule 3 updates.
And if anyone has an idea on a useful option for a voting style solution for things like this, I’d love for a DM so I can check it out.
I would like some clarity on general apparent self-promotion of open source projects as well. As in, points 1-4 don’t apply and 5 depends on your definition of “advertisement”.
I’m bringing this up because I (once) previously attempted to share a project^1^ I maintain on here. I did take some effort to include some context and discussion points for selfhosters in order to make it more tailored and stay safe on Rule 3. It was quickly removed by mod. I tried reaching out to one of the mods to try to understand what was wrong. They were friendly and said they weren’t involved and would forward to the relevant people and since then I haven’t heard back. It would be very helpful to be able to get some feedback on why submission was removed so we can learn how future submission attempt could be improved (or abandoned).
^1^: FLOSS, no commercial or otherwise proprietary parts or relations, no slop or clank in the process
I’ve only more recently taken over here as a result of the previous mod being overzealous on Rule 3, I commented on a better approach, they rage quit and made me and another person mod. There were quite a few clearly relevant projects that got removed, and obviously yours fit in that territory. You can see the currently stickied post about rule 3 here in the community for reference.
So I agree that clarification needs to happen. Right now I’m applying the rules in the lightest way possible, trying to remove only spam right now because the rules are extremely generic and subjective.
My only ‘thing’ would be that I don’t consider this my community to hand down rules from on high, which is why I have encouraged people to make posts like this one so there can be community consensus.
How about a clarification to what Rule 1 actually means. If we are going to abide by the downvote system, and if we are to be cival, supportive, and not be insulting, and if we are all indeed adults, then rule 1should kick in somewhere I would assume.
Then exit the thread, and downvote if you must, but do it like a civil adult. What good does it do to denigrate and outright trounce another user if you just so happen to not agree with their product or how they do something? Hive mind leads to gatekeeping, and gatekeeping leads to reddit.
If it’s AI, it’s 2026 and AI isn’t going away. It is a safe assumption that at some point in the production chain, AI was used in some form or fashion. But it doesn’t give me clearance to rail on the OP and be downright insulting. Just exit the thread and hit the button. No need for the hatred and anger. Let the mod be the mod if need be. How much more civil and adult can that get? There have been a few outright adverts for paid for services. But again, those should fall under the downvote system and not the bullying system.
I think sometimes we forget that others do not natively speak the English language and use AI to help them communicate coherently much like Americans think that there is only America. Gosh I know I would would if I were addressing say a Korean forum.
If you want to go that route then say so in the sidebar. Something to the effect of new users must participate in threads before unveiling their project. I’ve been to many forum that had that encoded into the forum itself where you had to participate in x number of posts before you could start your own post.
It’s not really that hard to be nice.
Thats not a single item list but a combo, as you know I’ve only recently taken over here, and as I’ve repeatedly said all rules are subject to change based on community input. Its only been about 2 weeks now (and a particularly busy week for me this past one) so I haven’t posted another yet as I couldn’t give it appropriate attention last week.
So let’s clarify the rules then, I’m all for it.
First, sorry to make your job harder. Second, my biggest issue is civility, supporting, and helping. Yes, I can, like everyone else, go low. I don’t like to, I’d much rather be cordial and helpful. I am inclusive, not exclusive, I’m all about agreeing to disagree and call it a day. No need to curb stomp anyone.
I don’t think getting the rules cleaned up makes things harder - if anything I think it makes things easier.
Not sure this actually addresses the issue.
The rules need to be clarified. Again, whats stopping any big corporations shilling their garbage here?
Nothing before I started moderating, and as of now nothing either.
Again, I’m sharing what I’m doing to check and see if its blatant spam and nothing more. Anything else would mean a rule change, which is always open for discussion from the community, as I’ve mentioned.
I’ll point out #2 has also resulted in numerous reports, including for #3.
To be very clear. I am raising brand new accounts who have only ever interacted with this community to post their paid for product.
Not discussing the product in a wider conversation. Literal first post being “I made a product. Pay me for it”.
I dont think that should be allowed.
What if plex started posting here with their new paid for products?
Personally? I have zero interest in that happening. As I’ve said before, I consider myself the janitor not the dictator.
It would be selfhosting related, of primary relevance as a lot of folks use it still despite…. everything plex has done in the past several years, and I would not be able to consider it a rule violation as of now.
There would need to be a new rule or a change to the existing.
Right …
So lets get specific on rules, and break it down and turn your post into one:
Now what about mostly open but with a paywall on features (so partially closed)?
I’m happy to have a rule change here, I just think it needs to be a clear rule and community supported. If you’d like I can make it a pinned post to be voted/commented on.
I think the wording is reasonable. appreciate the effort!
I tweaked things a bit to be more about percentage of comments/posts, which I think may be a better approach, in a newly posted sticky so we can memorialize the change. Its not implemented yet, and we can go back to an age-of-account approach, but I think % participation may make more sense.
participation as a requirement is a good idea, actually providing first before trying to take
Ban 'em
Ban all advertising for proprietary software.
Producing software is not free. Serious projects need to be able to commercialize, it can’t always be for passion and vibes. But it can be done tastefully, there is a difference between shilling slop and monetizing a serious project.
ban them
do not allow for-profit advertising, and do not allow spam
spam is already against rule 2
I think people should have to lurk and contribute a little before just advertising.
I don’t think we should promote closed-source apps on here at all, at least not in it’s own post. For exampke, many people here talk about Symfonium when mentioning their music client that they use to listen to their selfhosted music, and that app is not FOSS at all.
If an app is mostly open with some proprietary bits, then we can discuss. I’m perfectly fine with fully OSS apps that aren’t free, as the devs do deserve to be paid. As gnu.org states, Free means “Freedom” not “Free beer.” While I typically only use “free beer” type FOSS apps, I do occasionally donate to ones I love/use often, but we know that devs struggle to keep their projects afloat.
Offtopic and inappropriate for the discussion.