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.
Ban 'em
[META] Are paid for closer source advertising appropriate?
Submitted 15 hours ago by breadsmasher@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world
Comments
pory@lemmy.world 2 hours ago 
Mordikan@kbin.earth 15 hours ago At it's heart, this is what @selfhosted is meant for:
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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.
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 6 hours ago
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:
- Are people asking questions to see if this is crap being peddled for a profit? Is OP answering? (And thanks again to the folks who do follow up with great questions that dig into this right away)
- Does it read like a post from a person?
- How old is the account?
- How many other posts have they made? Where and what about?
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.
ken@discuss.tchncs.de 5 hours ago
I would like some clarity on general 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.
^1^: FLOSS, no commercial or otherwise proprietary parts or links, 100% human
irmadlad@lemmy.world 3 hours ago 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.
- OP: Here’s my superduper fantasmgorical app. It’s so good it’ll make your dick hard.
- Potential User: Is it opensource? Is it vibe coded? is it a paid for product?
- OP: Yeah or no or explanation
- Potential User: Ok, that’s not my bag really, Thanks anyways.
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.
Does it read like a post from a person?
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.
How old is the account?
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.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
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.
mereo@piefed.ca 15 hours ago
I self-host 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.
- irmadlad@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I want to be in control of my data and own it. Closed software is the antithesis of that
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.
speculate7383@lemmy.today 14 hours ago
That’s a petty 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
mereo@piefed.ca 14 hours ago
*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.
crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
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.
placebo@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
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.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 15 hours ago
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, they shouldn’t be in the self hosting community.
- irmadlad@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
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.
speculate7383@lemmy.today 14 hours ago
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.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 12 hours ago
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.
HubertManne@piefed.social 9 hours ago
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.
homik@slrpnk.net 4 hours ago
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.
chisel@piefed.social 15 hours ago
Advertised? I’d vote no. Discussed? I’m all for it.
Static_Rocket@lemmy.world 14 hours ago 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.
artyom@piefed.social 12 hours ago
Should be a mod decision, but posters should be community participants/contributors.
Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 11 hours ago
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?
breadsmasher@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
discussing a product is not the same as someone literally advertising their paid for product.
are you ok with advertising on this community?
Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 9 hours ago
if they are obviously bot or dedicated marketing accounts, then no I dont think they should be here.
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.
moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 14 hours ago
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.
zutto@lemmy.fedi.zutto.fi 12 hours ago 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.
moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 9 hours ago
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/
rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
Ban advertising!
artyom@piefed.social 11 hours ago
Advertising can be obvious sometimes. Other times, it’s more subtle.
warmaster@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
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.
xyro@morbier.foo 14 hours ago
If their first interaction with a community is to try to sell their shit, i don’t think they’re gonna be welcome anywhere
Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 15 hours ago
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.
SatyrSack@quokk.au 14 hours ago 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?
Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 14 hours ago
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.
realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 12 hours ago
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.
thisisnotausername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
Should not be allowed.
GasMaskedLunatic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
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.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 8 hours ago
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. 🤔
irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone 13 hours ago
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. That’s just running on your hardware, but not under your control. If the application is open or can be run locally without internet access 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.
moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 12 hours ago
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.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago 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.
compostgoblin@piefed.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
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.
- irmadlad@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
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.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 12 hours ago
This OP’s contribution to the community was trying to extract free labor for a soon to be paid product.
ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 12 hours ago
This is /c/selfhosted, not /c/opensourceselfhosted so why not?
KingOfTheCouch@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
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.
Sxan@piefed.zip 14 hours ago
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.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 15 hours ago
It shouldn’t be.
non_burglar@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
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.
- irmadlad@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
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.
30p87@feddit.org 14 hours ago
It’s obvious spam… I’d assume they’re deleted and banned asap, are thes not?
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.
Twinklebreeze@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
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.
eleijeep@piefed.social 12 hours ago
“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.
teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 11 hours ago
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.
moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 6 hours ago
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 in the review. 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.
Natanael@slrpnk.net 13 hours ago
You can start with timed bans, so they get the point
breadsmasher@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
are they charging? is it open source?