Edit 3 - further refining.
There are some rather… unique interpretations of what a promo post is, along with an important note that some people lurk. Its important though that they participate somewhere to make sure its not a drive-by ad, but its fair to say that there are users in programming, linux, and other communities whose posts would be welcomed by users here.
Its also important to users here that its not just post and disappear.
So I’m adjusting to:
Promotion posts require your active participation in selfhosting or related communities, or the post will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & can be self-hosted in full without payment, your post is exempt from this rule as long as you continue to engage in comments.
EDIT 2 AT THE TOP AGAIN:
It seems there is some confusion around the term “promo posts”, so I’m making another adjustment for clarity. If this is muddying the waters instead, please point that out!
Self-promotion posts advertising their product requires community participation, or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & can be self-hosted in full without payment, your post is exempt from this rule.
I worry a bit that its getting unwieldy, so feel free to suggest options to clean up the language a bit.
EDIT AT THE TOP:
Promotional posts require community participation or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & can be used in full without payment, it will be exempt from this rule.
Intended to clarify on “paywall” - it has to be open source and run in full locally, no one-time or subscription-locked payment for features, to qualify. Donations don’t count as that doesn’t limit use, while something like Kavita (which has non-free features behind a subscription, despite the base being open source) would not have the benefit of exemption. The rule intent hasn’t changed here, just the wording on the exemption limitations.
I’ve gotten through (I believe) all the comments in the meta thread. So I want to establish a few things, first being a better definition on spam.
Spam is not “I don’t like this and its a paid product” or “I don’t like this and they used AI/LLMs”.
Spam would generally be considered:
- Mass-posting - Posting the exact same post across a bunch of of different communities, rapidly.
- Repetitive Content (aka karma farming) - repeatedly submitting old popular content. I’ll note that this is completely irrelevant on lemmy, this was more of a reddit issue due to karma.
- Bot Activity / AI Abuse - Using scripts/bots/gen AI to automate posts and comments.
- Unsolicited DMs - Mass private messages or chats to users, completely unsolicited
I’d say anything other than that deserves a followup rule, and this definition should go in the sidebar.
Regarding the promotional posts themselves, I think something like the 10% rule makes sense - no more than 10% of the account should be self-promotional material or comments within the community.
I do think it makes sense to include an exception for 100% free/libre open source projects. Partially open projects with a closed (paid) component should be subject to the 10% rule. So what I propose as the rule would be:
Promotional posts require community participation or they will be removed. No more than 10% of your posts or comments may be self-promotional, or your post will be removed. F/LOSS Exception: If your post is about a project that is completely open source & without any paywalls, it will be exempt from this rule.
Questions, comments, clarifications, and harsh criticisms are welcomed in the comments. As a reminder from my intro post, and because of some comments in the other thread, I will mention:
There are people on both sides of the keyboards, so please be respectful of others.
On the 30 day rule: I come back to the “what is this space” question.
Is it a men’s shed? Is it free to air TV? Is it Avon knocking on my door?
What frame of reference are we operating from here?
If it’s a communal space where journeymen share tips and tricks, then “pay your fees” (with 30 days of good faith participation first) seems to guard (historically) against aggressive advertising.
ICBW and YMMV.
All that does (IMO) is make you wait, not participate.
The point of the rule is just a way to weed out commercial marketing posts when there is no involvement / visibility on the fedi, so it isnt just being used as an avenue to advertise.
So I don’t see what the 30 day rule is adding for everyone that isn’t covered by the 10% rule, so not sure others will either. What’s it adding for the community?
Waiting is the point. People who are here to post and run will neither have the patience, nor the good will, to wait 30 full days before accumulating the social capital to blab about their project.
I’m not proposing “bot signs up, waits 30 days, then posts”. That’s a known escape velocity. 30 days by itself isn’t the solution because it can be gamed (esp without karma).
OTOH, everything proposed so far can also be gamed.
I’m merely suggesting a human mod reviewable method, that is also transparent and simple to follow for users.
If you can’t automate this, you either need hard rules (which will stifle convos - which was part of the issue with rule 3) OR you need a defensible rubric.
You can choose which, but there’s a constraints based reason why fora keep circling this sort of solution.
What social capital is being built by waiting over an active participation requirement?
How?
Low effort comments would just be considered spam in the first place, so how can it be gamed?
Its all human (me) reviewed, through a posted process that is transparent and simple to follow. Whats the difference?
The issue with rule 3 was a completely subjective interpretation of what was selfhosting as determined by that mod, which then made the community believe there were hit and run posts happening, and the posters believe this to be a hostile community (it was).
Nothing is being automated, I review every report. The tools aren’t there imo to automate much of anything successfully.
I’m not saying no here, to be clear, I’m asking what this actually adds because I’m not seeing it.
Display of patience and good will, as I said.
If you can’t wait 30 days AND engage in actual discussion BEFORE posting your amazing project, that’s a clear breach of the unspoken social contract.
Again - I’m saying these things are cumulative.
30 days + posts + 10%.
Any one or the other can be gamed.
Sign up for 30 days, do nothing, post ad = you technically waited 30 days.
Posts = “sounds great!”, “I love Syncthing!”, “Have you tried Jellyfin?” (or better LLM crafted variants) and THEN hit with ad = you technically engaged with the community.
10% = 9 fillers, 1 ad = you technically met the 10% rule.
See above
“Low effort” is doing some work there. How are you going to define it?
That’s exactly my point. A+B+C = less decision pain for you, less gray area for posters. So long as both sides are clear on what A+B+C constitute.
Correct. And it stifled discussion. We’re not disagreeing here.
Still not disagreeing.
Multiplicity of signals, transparency and clear expectations.
No, you spammed low effort comments that are easily seen.
The way its pretty universally defined…
One-word/overly simplistic replies, unrelated content, vague comments/complaints, etc. Its not something you can automate, but when an account is full of just that its quite obvious. “Low effort” for comments and posts have been in common usage for 15-20 years now. Its not exactly new or poorly misunderstood.
I can only see it having value for paid products though, and even there its questionable of value to me. Waiting a day or a week or a month, what difference would that make if they are actively and positively engaging with the community?
Ah but it’s not 15-20 years ago. Low effort for a bot or llm doesn’t look like “yep”, “agree” etc. And it doesn’t necessarily have to look like slop either.
Creeping someone post history is problematic too.
If there were an easy solution to this, we’d know. At some stage soon, we’re going to need some sort of non PII cryotogenic proof of humanity.
That isn’t here yet, so I’m advocating that multiple signals are better than one.
What do you feel works best and why? You the one with skin in the game, self stated custodial not dictatorial role notwithstanding.
In the common vernacular for 15-20 years does not mean something has gone away in the slightest. Its defined.
Firm disagreement, thats part of the custodial job. Everything is public, suggesting its “creeping” to see who is saying what, imo, is problematic.
Works best? Whats been posted and edited.
My personal preference would be zero paid-for selfhosted content posts, only discussions, which would be drastically easier to manage and (imo) be very easy to moderate. That isn’t what the community apparently wants though, so is what it is
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